This actually hurts to read...

Not to be outdone by Brian Williams, CNN stoops to a new low and delivers a fluffy-serious interview with signs-of-the-end-times hypeballs Chester French. Now, there's a lot of reasons to dislike, most rational, some largely irrational. There's the hokey image, the dilletantism, and the excruciatingly painful music. And yet, they're here to show that "If you have whack taste and you work hard, your shit will suck, unavoidably probably" doesn't hold any water when you've got the less-talented half of the Neptunes giving you a piggy back ride.

I don't want to seem bitter, though. I'll let the self-clowning stand for itself:

CNN: What has been the most surprising aspect of the music business so far?

Wallach: I think the biggest surprise has been that people don't really know a hundred percent what they're doing. Everyone is trying to figure out how the music business is going to look in 10 years.

And as a new artist there's not a blueprint. I figured you'd get signed and you're instantly on billboards. And the reality of it is that we find ourselves in a situation where all we can focus on is building our audience one person at a time. And it's just a brick-and-mortar, nose-to-the-grindstone process.

Acumen, insight, and a whole lot of black cookware.

CNN: Why do you think there's been all this interest from hip-hop producers?

Drummey: We're the hottest rappers out.

Wallach: I'm from Milwaukee, he's from Boston. They're both very diverse cities and we grew up with friends and all different kinds of music around us. So the records we make are inspired by a lot of different places.

Failed that joke like he failed at wedlock. At least we've got Milwaukee-Boston corridor o' eclecticism keepin' it real.

CNN: How does it feel to be called the next big thing?

D.A. Wallach: You know what, we actually haven't been called that in those words too often. But if we did, that would be very flattering.

Well, we can at least agree on that.

A lesson in perspective, or, "Dance of Days" reconsidered

This is not okay because major corporations shouldn't be cashing in on the fame and notoriety of underground icons.


This is okay because a man who fought The Man through suburban hardcore music warfare is cashing in on his own fame and notoriety as an underground icon.

This is okay because an original band member and Dischord worker is selling it. From his personal punk archive. "Good luck finding another copy in such pristine condition." Thanks, Jeff Nelson!

Does the first press Minor Threat EP come with a "Pay no more than" stamp? I'm just wondering if the tragic irony of cashing in on the supposedly not-for-sale is as blatantly obvious as it seems.

Bonus points for the nonchalant doublespeak to remind everyone just who the seller was. Punk profiteering while riding the nostalgia wave produced a nice boost to the ol' self-esteem. Not to mention a significant overage on what that record normally fetches.

I guess this is growing up, right?

The rockist's arithmetic; subtraction, to be specific

2 Live Crew – As Clean As They Wanna Be
AC/DC – Back in Black
AC/DC – For Those About To Rock
AC/DC – Highway to Hell
Agnostic Front – Cause for Alarm
Animal Collective – FEELS
Aphrodite’s Child – 666
Arcade Fire – Funeral
Aretha Franklin – Amazing Grace
Arthur Russell – World of Echo
The Beatles – The Beatles
The Bee Gees – Best of the Bee Gees, Volume 1
Ben Folds Five – The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner
Big Country – The Crossing
Bill Fox – Transit Byzantium
Black Uhuru - Showcase
Bob Dylan – Self Portrait
Bob Dylan – Time Out of Mind
Britney Spears – Blackout
Bruce Springsteen – Darkness on the Edge of Town
The Cars – The Cars
The Chills – Submarine Bells
The Cramps – Songs the Lord Taught Us
Crowded House – Together Alone
Cyndi Lauper – She’s So Unusual
Daft Punk – Discovery
D’Angelo – Voodoo
David Bowie – The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
Devo – Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo
Digital Underground – Sex Packets
Dinosaur Jr. – You’re Living All Over Me
Donovan – Gift From a Flower to a Garden
Drive-By Truckers – Southern Rock Opera
The Drones – Gala Mill
Duran Duran – Rio
The Eagles – Greatest Hits
ELO – Out of the Blue
Emmylou Harris – Pieces of the Sky
Erykah Badu – Mama’s Gun
Fairport Convention – Liege and Lief
The Fall – Hex Enduction Hour
Fennesz – Endless Summer
Fugazi – 13 Songs
Fugazi – In On the Kill Taker
Garth Brooks – (in…) The Life of Chris Gaines
Gary Numan and Tubeway Army – Replicas
Gary Wilson – You Think You Really Know Me
Genesis – The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
Gillian Welch – Time (The Revelator)
Girl Talk – Night Ripper
Grateful Dead – Anthem of the Sun
Grateful Dead – The Closing of Winterland
Hall and Oates – Rock ‘n’ Soul Part One
Herb Alpert – Whipped Cream and Other Delights
The Hold Steady – Separation Sunday
Husker Du – Zen Arcade
The Incredible String Band – The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter
The Incredible String Band – Wee Tam and the Big Huge
Iron Maiden – Iron Maiden
J Dilla – Donuts
The Jam – All Mod Cons
Jane’s Addiction – Ritual de lo Habitual
Jawbreaker – 24 Hour Revenge Therapy
Jefferson Airplane – Crown of Creation
Jellyfish – Spilt Milk
Jimmy Eat World – Clarity
John Lennon – Live in New York City
Johnny Cash – American Recordings
Kanye West – 808 & Heartbreak
Karen Dalton – In My Own Time
Kiss – Destroyer
The Knack – Get the Knack
Kraftwerk – Trans-Europe Express
Lauryn Hill – The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Leonard Cohen – Songs of Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen – Various Positions
Lil’ Wayne – Da Drought 3
Little Feat – Sailin’ Shoes
Liz Phair – Exile in Guyville
Lou Reed – Metal Machine Music
Madonna – Ray of Light
Main Source – Breaking Atoms
Manu Chao – Clandestino
Massive Attack – Blue Lines
The Mekons – Fear and Whiskey
The Melvins – Lysol
Metallica – Metallica
Metallica – Master of Puppets
M.I.A. – Kala
The Millennium – Begin
Moby Grape – Moby Grape
Modest Mouse – The Lonesome Crowded West
The Monkees – Head
Mothers of Invention – Freak Out!
The Mountain Goats – All Hail West Texas
Namco – Katamari Fortissimo Damacy
Neil Young – Tonight’s the Night
New Order – Power, Corruption and Lies
New York Dolls – New York Dolls
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Tender Prey
NWA – Straight Outta Compton
The O’Jays – Back Stabbers
Operation Ivy – Energy
Paul Simon – Graceland
Pearl Jam – Vitalogy
Pere Ubu – Dub Housing
Pharcyde – Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde
Phil Ochs – Rehearsals for Retirement
Phish – Junta
Phish – Rift
Pink Floyd – The Wall
The Police - Synchronicity
Portishead – Dummy
Public Image Limited – Metal Box
Pussy Galore – Exile on Main Street
Radiohead – Kid A
Rage Against the Macine – Evil Empire
Randy Newman – Good Old Boys
Red Hot Chili Peppers – Blood Sugar Sex Magik
REM – Automatic for the People
The Residents – Commercial Album
Richard Hell and the Voidoids – Blank Generation
The Rolling Stones – Some Girls
Rush – Moving Pictures
Sandy Denny – Sandy
Scott Walker – The Drift
Sleater-Kinney – One Beat
Slint – Spiderland
Smashing Pumpkins – Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
Steve Reich – Music for 18 Musicians
The Strokes – Is This It
Suicide – Suicide
Talk Talk – Spirit of Eden
Talking Heads – Remain in Light
Television – Marquee Moon
They Might Be Giants – Flood
They Might Be Giants - Lincoln
Townes Van Zandt – Townes Van Zandt
USA for Africa – We Are the World
Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend
Van Halen – MCMLXXXIV
Various Artists – Dave Godin’s Deep Soul Treasures Vol 1
Various Artists – O Brother, Where Art Thou? Soundtrack
Various Artists – Reservoir Dogs soundtrack
The Violent Femmes – Violent Femmes
Warren Zevon – Warren Zevon
Ween – Chocolate and Cheese
The White Stripes – White Blood Cells
Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Woody Guthrie – Dust Bowl Ballads
X-Ray Spex – Germ Free Adolescents
X – Los Angeles
X – More Fun in the New World
XTC – Wasp Star (Apple Venus Vol 2)
Yoko Ono – Plastic Ono Band
Young Jeezy – Let’s Get It
Young Marble Giants – Colossal Youth
The Zombies – Odessey and Oracle

170 albums. Ready to be written up (the story behind, that is). And not too bad a range, either. But this is the long short list. We need a short short list. And that's where the trouble begins.

AC/DC - Highway to Hell
Aretha Franklin - Amazing Grace
The Beatles - The Beatles
Bob Dylan - Time Out of Mind
The Cramps - Songs the Lord Taught Us
David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust
Devo - Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo
Dinosaur Jr: You're Living All Over Me
ELO - Out of the Blue
Grateful Dead - Closing of Winterland
Johnny Cash - American Recordings
Kiss - Destroyer
Leonard Cohen - Songs of Leonard Cohen
Lil' Wayne - Da Drought 3
Liz Phair - Exile in Guyville
Lou Reed - Metal Music Machine
Neil Young - Tonight's the Night
Operation Ivy - Energy
Paul Simon - Graceland
Radiohead - Kid A
Rolling Stones - Some Girls
Slint - Spiderland
Television - Marquee Moon
Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes
Ween - Chocolate and Cheese
White Stripes - White Blood Cells
Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth

An odd statement from David a while back was about how each of the long shortlisted came with pitches that had "something" about them. "Enough to make me think they'd make a book worth reading." Which strikes me funny, because first and foremost I'd think the record should make you think there's a book worth reading first. But that's not not quite right, either. There's some kind of middle ground behind popularity, critical response, and back story that come together

Are we saying that the only album stories worth hearing are the classic ones? Outsized, with big set-pieces and unwieldy personalities? Because that seems to run counter to the kind of work such slight but focused books these can be. Why not more of the Jawbreaker's and the Fennesz's and the Britney Spears's of the world? The short short list takes a sliver of radio-approved albums for rockin' dads and their college radio sons. Occam's Razor makes the cut based on economics, obviously, but it still smacks of rockism. Insidiously reinforcing and even growing the canon while still locking the door behind.

Untold stories aren't the only stories worth telling. And if you go back through the list, it's a lot of bands and artists at the forefront of pop-consciousness that get diced. Kiss and their painted antics get the nod, but what about 2 Live Crew? I can only hope that it's the writers that were deemed of poorer quality and not the stories. But even then, I have a hard time imagining why some records were eliminated barring complete incoherency.

Is this pitch and refine method the best way to tell the stories of these records? What if the albums were decided first, and then the writers? A little A&R to cure the A&R blues? And does this alleviate the issues of selective rockism, or just exacerbate it? The 33 1/3 series will by no means be the Library of Alexandria for albums (unless it really wanted to), but there's the potential the potential to produce insightful historical documents of musical and genearl significance makes it too alluring to let it slip into a Rolling Stone pipe dream.

These books are something of a niche market unto themselves, capitalizing on vinyl references and a lot of smart music. They've even got John Darnielle in on the act. And yet one of his records didn't make the cut.



This idea of a fractured culture of niche has been under fire for a while, and it's becoming hard to ignore. A monoculture seems to have reemerged, but one this time with two channels that co-exist: the frivolous single culture that is instantaneous, bloggable, and completely detachable, and the traditional album culture that still warrants journalism with a capital PhD. The difference is that what lies out of the mainstream, or recent memory, has become the Holy Grail more so than the establishment's steady release. Yeah, Bob Dylan, U2, and even Radiohead still get a pass, but it's the bedroom history that's growing in appeal. Hidden secrets aren't any good as hidden secrets anymore. They have to be classics, too.

Who're the newest kids on the block? And whose block is it?

Kids today. Teenage Cool Kids are just coppin' style from The Cool Kids. That's the legal argument, at least. Who knows how long that document will stick around, but here's the long and short of it: The Cool Kids own coolness. Period. And don't you dare let your name encroach or confuse those poor fans who are looking for authentic inauthentic-eighties rap with your authentic inauthentic-nineties indie rock. (Serious aside: I'm a fan of both).

I don't think this could've come at a more relevant time when you consider Carles' latest post. If you take the thesis statement - Your band is a meme that generates new submemes for people 2 consume on a regular basis [sic] - and start breaking down the sequence of events, you've got some slam dunk evidence to back it up (as if it was needed).




The Cool Kids are coasting along. Teenage Cool Kids do it big at SXSW. The Cool Kids send a C&D. Teenage Cool Kids post to a message board. Media world picks it up. Hilarity and attention-grabbing ensues. By the way, have you heard about our new record? Coming out soon, check us out on myspace! The ecosystem remains balanced.

Reading over that document, you have to wonder who exactly wrote this. It doesn't have the flow of Mikey or Chuck "just tryna let niggas know who I is," and despite the legalese flourishes, it certainly doesn't have the dry, coherent unintelligibility of a real lawyer. From the overdramatics of the unrelenting ascent to the unfortunate band name misspelling (Cook Kids, guys?), this smells of publicist. Or one attention-whoring Loblaw-at-Law. Meanwhile Teenage Cool Kids keeps it D.I.Y. and mobilizes the base. Nods all around.

This whole thing is going to be a non-issue by the time April Fool's rolls around. How can you really "own" that name? What about Black Kids? Cooler Kids? Hell, weren't the Kids pretty fucking cool? It's a good stunt, one that's going to be entertaining for at least another couple of days, but the armchair lawyers are soon going to be out of a job again.

Pro-tip to bands lookin' for an edge: change your name to The Cook Kids and get a piece of the action.

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.”

"Somehow weird or sloppy..."

The idea is that now that we embraced a change agent-in-chief, we have to do the work of supporting the (hopefully evolutionary) transformation of the future. It's being tossed around all over the place, perhaps best by an article about Obamaism in New York magazine; it's our specific brand of what should be called Futurism except for the sneaky artists who stole it.

I always had a hard time imagining this kind of future. There's a fog of war that still shrouds anything past January 20th, but I can't help but hope that the gears really have started turning. Because it's a responsibility that the activist in everyone has to take up. Josie's review of the new Cause Co-Motion! collection of EP's, from 2005 to 2008, is notable not just because she writes with such grace and acumen, but also because her final critique of the oxymoronically named band challenges not just their ho-hum past sound, but the culture as a whole from the malaise of the past near decade:

Yet, the tiredness of this exercise as a whole, the extent to which it fails even when it succeeds, suggests that music, too, needs to stop reliving the psychodrama, fear and inward focus of the Cold War. Clinton’s election seemed to mark the end of isolation – the underground burst forth – but it was merely a respite. Punxatawny Phil saw his shadow, electro got eaten up in yet another wave of incompetent rock. Winter is over, and it’s time to figure out what, aesthetically, our generation is all about. Imagine: someone, a group of people, might come up with an entirely new mode of expression; how freaking exciting is that?! Yes, we can.

She also fit the word spandrel in there. Game, set, match.

Hardcore boys hardcore...

What's it gonna take to get some Jerkoffs recordings? Fuck the rest of the playlist, gimme some of that. Mainstream queercore representation, true that. I believe "pigfuck" has hit closest to the mark (Wonder what Martin thinks of this). Now if only the LES, fictional or otherwise, fell in line with this again, we might be able to avoid the real clusterfuck that is the faux-fey, anemic, indie blah scene. Newsflash: that tussle look only works when you actually sweat to get it.

The best thing for us all may be for the tide to roll back. The danger's gone, I don't think I've ever really felt it, and maybe that's not so swell. Punk rock for the punks. And cheap food, too.

Simulacra and the Name

It's a dubious coincidence that keeps happening at work, this butting up against musicians preying on the appellative arraignment of those that came before. First, it was the Better Beatles, a 1980's Omaha degenerative combo that was the Bizarro Four. These dudes didn't even bother with songwriting, going straight for the hatchet job, and recombining hits like "Penny Lane" into a much more visceral, physical hit. Always to the dome, be it bludgeoned or inhaled.

I blame this on Pandora, as I do the next one. The Dutchess & The Duke channel was on full tilt, with perfect picks rolling out of that robot, so when someone piped up to ask what was on, I got really confused when I read Boris Smile. This is some weird nameology here; what kind of commentary is going on when a folked out band takes band name and album title without any further permutation? How does this relate back to Boris at all, a band already fucking with iconography and its own musical ancestry?

I have no idea. But it has to, for some reason, big or small, superficial or endlessly philosophical. The relationship may be forced, but it's still there. We can't help but draw the connection, the way we can't help but read a word on a page. If you put a hat and a shoe next to each other, after all, you'll try to find meaning, even if the whole point is that it's pointless to try. Imitation is flattery, but I don't know what to call assuming the one concrete thing that can identify something as slippery as identity, a name.

And what the hell would we be thinking about The Offspring if they really had jacked "Chinese Democracy (You Snooze you Lose)?" We would've at least finally been able to put that name to a record, and maybe it would've been the right one. Finally.

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.

"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 White Noise Ensemble

Longevity of distinctive sound produces a curious dichotomy in critical opinion. For a darling band, album one is just the start of it, album two separates the real deal from the other sophomores, and albums three through infinity just add to the legend. But it's albums three through infinity where it becomes mirky and contradictory: depending on the ears, it's either progress or stagnation. How exactly does that divide work?

At the root of this is the coverage of two new albums, "Worried Well" by 31 Knots and "You & Me" by The Walkmen. First, the part I'm on board with; nearly everything I've read agrees that these albums, numbers seven and four for each respective band, firmly fit into a signature sound. As Slant Magazine says, this tautological statement remains intact. Readily recognizable and easily fitting into the discography. That's not to say surprises and/or growth can't exist (the worms find the top of the can), but it's safe to say that you get about what you came for.

Now the perplexing; why are the Walkmen getting heaps of love and 31 Knots some serious second-guessing? First listen for both, I was pleased. More specifically, I thought the Walkmen album did the same thing it had done for the previous four albums (which I count as good), and 31 Knots continued to blow my mind. I mean, that band's been golden since the first release. So I wasn't that surprised to see Walkmen praise, but the assault that came at "Worried Well" from more than just a few prominent sources was definitely cause for consternation.

A look back at previous releases and their reception is necessary, and I think I'm starting to get it, as unpopular as it sounds. It's not necessarily each individual release's quality, but the ebb and flow of popular opinion to the general straight line that a consistent band draws through history. There's bumps, sure, and I'd never try to deny that some songs and albums are inevitably better in a distinguished discography, but generally speaking, the Walkmen and 31 Knots have been as strong a unit now as they ever were. So why does "You & Me" get the almost universal green light, while "A Hundred Miles Off" somehow smacks of staleness? With 31 Knots, the randomness and maybe general ignorance is even more pronounced; "Worried Well" gets trashed for overproduction, but the gap between 51-40 or Fight! releases and Polyvinyl releases for the band is all but ignored. Sequencing across albums provides a continuity of idea and sound that shows a sharing of strength and weakness, in different proportions for sure, but nonetheless there.

What I think it all comes down to is that no one wants to say "more of the same, and that's great." There's no such thing as even keel. The boat rocks, and it either crests the wave or it turtles. The onward march of progress demands quantifiable differences. But when no one's certain as to what those gains or losses are, it becomes arbitrary as to the value assigned. It's one confusing divide in the critical voice, and maybe just another reason why the only subjectivity that matters is your own.

"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.