Jawshrine or Crimpbreaker?

Blake Schwarzenbach and Aaron Cometbus have a new band? And they played in Brooklyn this week? This should be interesting...

After the Jawbreaker and Crimpshrine break-ups, I've been more compelled by the other projects that have sprung up, as opposed to the respective principals' efforts. But with the supporting cast from each of those bands temporarily out of the game for now, I have to wonder if the team-up will be as wonderful as everyone wants it to be...or if it's just going to be two old guys singing about their feelings. Do superpowers still have superpowers?

The clip isn't enough to really judge anything, but it's got me optimistic that yes they can.

More details? From the 'breaker himself:

“I can say only that it’s loud and tender and we’re called the Thorns Of Life. whether it’s more Jetsesque or Breaker-like I honestly don’t know; It sounds like a storehouse of fond hatred from the last few years and in the now.”

Like a mountain rolling downhill...

This space should be filled with me talking about the first Blank Dogs show, but instead I ended up staying in listening to the recordings and trying to get the train back on the tracks.  Regardless, you should listen to them, and find their records.  It took me a little while to realize how good they are.  Don't make that same mistake.  Or the mistake I made of missing the show.

Primitive music will one day require primitive reactions.

Side rant:  Shows are social events and everyone wants a good story and maybe even a good lay out of one, but what the fuck is up with the total lack of class and respect in so many Ritalin-addled, reject, cool kid crowds lately?  I mean, I'm happy to see my friends and catch up, but it's a show.  A show that musicians are playing.  Musicians that you allegedly like.  So why not pay attention?  You can hear where the noise wall is erected, the amorphous line where the audience has tuned out and become completely engrossed in themselves.  Punk rock shows, whatever, throw people through a wall, for all I care.  But at an obviously quiet, intimate performance, shut the fuck up or go outside.  Julie Doiron was all but inaudible last night, which is a goddamn shame, because all the kids who were "there for the music" totally should have been into her, especially considering she's part of the Mt. Eerie line-up on "Lost Wisdom."  Todd P actually had to get up on stage and tell people to quiet down because Julie was way too polite, and once it was quiet enough to hear a pin drop, she launched into one of the most moving and beautiful songs of the whole night.

It doesn't make sense, because this music isn't that "hip," so why are people showing up just to be seen and heard?  It's Williamsburg, there's plenty of other street corners you can stand on with your incandescent retro threads and purposefully poorly groomed hair growth.  Don't turn the venue into the ball pit, because there's actual value lost from the bullshit antics.  The void incarnate that is nearly every individual painting their pants on and "being" for a living should remain in the quarantine and stop the blight before it gets too serious.

Because it's not cool when these kids are either willfully destructive or retardedly unaware with their actions.  Todd P is the backbone of cheap, quality shows, and if he wasn't doing what he's doing (for the love of it, mind you) there wouldn't be any scene.  So when he asks people to respect the neighborhood and be mindful of the neighbors, it's infuriating when two All-American Rejects rejects more or less spit in the face of the request and do something stupid, like burn a showpaper.  Not only are you destroying a labor of love that keeps your dumb asses informed, you're also destroying any goodwill that was formed.  You really have to wait for Todd to come over and tell you that that shit doesn't fly?  You, with the atrocious thrift gold leather jacket and the horrendous mustache that screams "I have no personality to speak of and I'd give my right hand to get laid if it didn't fuck me over for good?"  Or you, the chubby sidekick unaware that your bushy facial weeds are anything but appealing and that American Apparel makes XL purple hoodies with the intent of selling to the not-small masses like yourself, the perennial not-a-fan music fan who works at a record store because it's easier than dieting and just as mindless?

I'm usually pretty good at tuning out, but sometimes, when I spend a little too much time as a stranger among us, I can't wait to get back to Prospect Heights and wait for the fences to go up around that wasteland.  Hope I don't see you at Academy anytime soon, asshole.

"Can we turn the other two down?"

Got stuck at work talking about everything and watching a mild amount of crunk gettin' got, so I ended up getting to the Mt. Eerie show a little bit late.  Thank God I wasn't any later than I was, though, or I would've been shut out of the candlelit, hauntingly appropriate Lutheran Church of the Messiah in Greenpoint.  A big space, and a lot of people, and a glowing light of our saviours coming from the stage had me confused as to why so many people were leaving.  I missed Woods, which is a bummer, but I've also seen them a million times.  The exodus still made no sense to me, but such is life.  Eight bucks later, I was in, when I saw some familiar faces including one who's been in Tibet for a year.  Ten minutes later, and another twenty-three bucks out of my pocket and into P.W. Elverum's, I was working my way towards the front for the rest of the show.

Julie Doiron came on with shadows being thrown all over and Fred Squire on drums.  Now, Eric's Trip I'm no stranger to, but Julie's solo stuff I never had heard, really.  And I had definitely never heard her like I did on Mt. Eerie's "Lost Wisdom," where her duets with Phil took the usual Eerie sound somewhere I didn't think it could go.  So needless to say, I was excited, and summarily enchanted and dragged around by my heart strings for the next hour.

I've got a soft spot for female singer-songwriters, but I guess I didn't really expect material as good as Julie's.  Feist, et al. comparisons don't really do justice, as she's really combing the depths of both the personal and collective American psyche.  Mournful melodies housed in her voice have seemingly infinite depth to them, and it comes effortless and hitherto as she moves back and forth from the microphone.  Her songs are less compositions and more journal entries; the twang she wrenches from bent chords is voluminous and speaks to a greater emotion than the standard singer-songwriter fare.  I understand why she's one of Phil's favorite singers; it's the same reason that Jason Molina as Songs: Ohia is so important.  The stripped down guitar and drums versions of things carry a little extra something that isn't there on the full fledged recordings.  It's like the skeleton being on display.

And, on top of that, Fred and Julie switched instruments and gave a brief preview of their new band "Calm Down It's Monday."  Unsurprisingly, it was great, a strange blend of western rollick with the bared emotive force of their other collaborations.  Only a couple live recorded demos, but apparently an album by Christmas?  Swoon.

So then it was Mt. Eerie's turn, which basically meant setting up a couple chairs for the on-stage duo and getting Phil to abandon the "souvenir table" as he called it and tell the young fools in the front to sit down so the rest of the seated assembly could see what was about to happen.

I was never a huge fan of the Microphones, but the transformation into Mt. Eerie, along with the establishment of P.W. Elverum & Sun Co., had me hooked pretty much instantaneously.  Phil seemed to move into a mythic frontier, where American history is still being composed and reconstituted, sometimes even destroyed.  A timelessness emanates from all of his projects.  Historicity provides weight.  You want to care about these songs, these artifacts, and the quality fulfills that wish.

Mt. Eerie on the new "Lost Wisdom" record, my favorite so far, consists of Phil and Julie and Fred, so it's something of a treat to see the first show of all three together.  They played the entirety of the album in a tender and heartwarming fashion.  It wasn't perfect, which made it that much more real, that much more identifiable.  To err certainly is human, the performers seemed to say, and there was a lot of humanity on display, both on stage and in the crowd and in the ether passing back and forth.  Even a well-crafted spell can be brittle and transient despite the power behind it, so the little lyrical slip-ups and false starts made the energy on display that much more genuine.

When Phil kept going after the trio stopped, it was fitting that he wound down the night by playing "Human."  The crowd recited the personal incantation with Phil, and I was happy to watch the bootlegger sitting next to me recording the show on a Zune.  A record of something like that seems most needed.

"The name of the band is Failures."

Sean said it best: "They call themselves Failures when any one of their many projects is more than enough to retire on and look back on." Charles Bronson, Orchid, Ampere, Das Oath, Cut the Shit, Cancer Kids...and that's just the short list. Could we go on? Sure, but what's the point? You know the deal. Failures has a pedigree.

So it's not hard to figure out that the music rips. Loud, brash, and much more than just the sum of its parts. What is more intriguing, though, is what the sound means, where the aesthetic comes from, and what it means for the future of hardcore punk. Mark McCoy and Will Killingsworth are salty pillars of the community; the two of them responsible for Youth Attack! and Clean Plate, respectively, more or less the standard-bearers for the bright bleak future. It's a wedding of strict concern for punk ethics but more importantly punk art, and I think it all comes out in the music.

And the performance. The recorded material, complete with all its well-designed trappings, are more than enough, but this ain't no studio project; these motherfuckers mess shit up for real. At the live show, the electricity actually boils over. The noise is actually assaulting; none of that full wall overload nonsense, but razor sharp, brutally nihilistic jabs at your very core. If the buzzsaw riffage doesn't cut you up entirely, Mark can take care of that. He's the consummate frontman, all arms and legs attached to a flailing torso and equipped by an angry but brilliant head. More than anything, though, it's his snarl and grimace that never leave his face that really leaves the impression. It's the face of a generation, and it's all his movement.

All of this came out in the Cake Shop show today, and more. No pictures, because a camera can't survive that. Not when beer bottles are flying, Mark is assaulting the crowd, tearing at lights, and even running over Andrew. Even on stage, it's a kill or be killed game; protect yourself, even if it's from your own frontman. More than failure, it's about survival.

No Bunny? No Problem.

No Bunny's "Love Visions" is an album you're going to say up front that you don't like and that you don't want to hear. But you're going to listen to it, and then you're going to listen to it again, and...well, it'll be a routine before long. I mean, look at this dude; clearly knows how to party, and that's all I need.

Further evidence of partying. Seriously, what more do you need? Image source says that costumed back-up band support is provided here by the Wax Museums, who sing songs about real problematic teen shit like getting locked in the mall.

I still want a sticker that turns my ride into a national security threat.

So I mean, really, what's better on a Friday night than a bunch of earnest beard punk? Is that a proper term for this? Planet Plan-It-X, maybe. What is for sure is that a summer evening can certainly bring out the party and the olfactory in an otherwise dull side of town.

It was the first time I had been to The Fort, and it took a second to reacquaint myself to the familiar-but-different trappings of the punk house. Photographs and even descriptors don't really do much justice to the subtle and glaring differences between various abodes, but then again, who's really looking that close if you're on the outside? In any case, this particular spot definitely belonged to the Bloomington school; decor and odor both differed wildly from the noisy artists' residences in Providence and the crusty 80's revivalist basements in Boston to which I'm much more accustomed, despite the abundant eclecticism shared by all.

Half the show takes place on the stoop. There's an element that is always outside to serve as signpost, town crier, and skeptic for newcomers. Sometimes even as guard or look-out. I tend to go to shows alone and the approach can sometimes be a bit harrowing; these are all strangers, and since punk houses to tend to support a small army, they're all strangers that collectively don't know you. I ended up missing most of artists-in-residence opener Stupid Party, but having previewed the material, I was alright with missing the enthusiastic if generic set. The Gainesville-Bloomington axis on which the sound is firmly located isn't too hard to find, and that's why This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb was here.

Brief aside: Even beyond decorative and odorific differences was the anarchical crowd behavior. In Boston, where four-on-the-floor punk and hardcore is having a heyday of massive proportions, etiquette is a little more puritan. This is a given for dress (patches, Boston sports, and second skin denim to boot) but also for dancing. Channel that energy into the circle pit and get the two-step going. Here it was just mayhem: D.I.Y. hair cuts, uniquely mangled wardrobes, and alcoholic containers of every shape and form pogoed, thrashed, and generally bounced without any uniting theory except chaos. Even standing on the wall was no good; delineation between crowd and observer wasn't just protean, it was non-existant.

Northern Liberties followed and I can honestly say I wasn't really expecting what ended up happening. The set-up was typical: basic drum kit, overly stickered bass, and marching band drums to be manned by the dress-clad, Stardusted lead singer.

What followed was an extended space jam complete with snake charm bass riffs and a whole lot of vocal reverb mixed the occasional drum solo freakout. I don't know if anyone else saw it coming, but it didn't take long for the crowd to adapt, the battleground being defined by the grey area where exuberance and violence meet. Also, where the unacquainted and unabashed set the stage for night-long faux pas.


Case in point: leather sandals, heat trap jeans, and a sweater shirt disposed of once bad dancer guy decided this weird shit was too much for him not to be a part of. As if the rest of the kids losing their minds wasn't enough, we've got a human pinball causing much consternation by both excessive ground movement and excessive sweating. At least the ultra-aggro drunk kid knocking back the Yuengling in the white Partisans tee was misantrhopic enough to say fuck the world and stay out of the pit after being excised by consensus.


A compatriot on the wall demonstrates the only way to combat the ultimate trump card, a sweaty and naked back.

Here's a punk Statue of Liberty play. In case you couldn't tell, it's time for This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb. I'm waiting for the new album to come out on vinyl, but early listening shows it's more of the same, and in this case status quo is A-OK.



More anthems, more politics, more folk creeping into those oddly melodic bellows. That's what everyone was here for, and that's what everyone got...mostly. The old standards still set everyone in motion (how can you NOT be moving for Star Song), but there's something lacking nowadays in the live-set. The last time I saw them was at Plan-It-X Fest about three years ago with a radically butchered line-up, and I don't know if the supergroup I saw then was just infallible or they're losing it or maybe The Fort just couldn't provide the support necessary, but the band definitely sounded a little milquetoast. Too much liquid courage or maybe not enough, but I wasn't nearly as stoked as I thought I'd be.

Closing up was Shellshag, but by that point in the night I was exhausted and had to ride on home. My bad, at least I think. Checked 'em out later and ran across the record in Academy today, and I don't think I'm done with them. Apparently a two-piece, it seems they specialize in anthems: piano-driven, sludge-powered, even epic riffage, there's more than a few engines going on this thing. Hit or miss, but the LP on Starcleaner (which is also responsible for the Stupid Party 7") looks like it'll be worth it when I'm not so far in the red.

I mean, how dark can the city actually ever get?

Apparently arm-chair anthropologists are creeping further into the darker corners of the scene nowadays. Who would've thought the July 25th Aerosols show would've ended up on Ivygate? Juli says she knows her Orientalist theory, but knowing doesn't prevent making the same trespasses Said should prepare you against. That's what he said.

I'll give her one thing, though: the Stolen Sleeves Collective is one hell of a place to unearth, especially if taking the L is still a novelty. It's rare that a "warehouse" is still a warehouse, or in a neighborhood that mingles the ghost of industry with the still-kicking body. There's a nasty emptiness to it; I spend a good fifteen to twenty minutes figuring out the appropriate bike-lock location before I realize that no matter where I park it I'm not going to be satisfied. The whole vibe is rather fitting for the experience and the racket generated by the resident bands, which are routinely at the front of the doom and gloom game. Lapsed recovering alcoholic skronkers Aerosols are probably the best poster children available, though Cult Ritual blew me away at their August 7th show at SS. The new 7" is en route now from Youth Attack!; no surprise on label choice there, seeing as how YA! is dominating this particular punk niche. Mr. McCoy was even present to see what carnage his children hath wrought.

Still, not even McCoy could've orchestrated the broader atmospherics for that evening. Riding down Flushing Ave., buildings moving out of the way with each block, towering clouds put on the most ominous heat lightning display I ever did see. Nature definitely did its best to fit the mood unto the breach. The stale night kept up the light show even after the show. I peeked backwards occasionally on the way back just to make sure it, or something, wasn't gaining on me. Perhaps the black concern about the approaching endgame isn't so far off.