Much love to Richie over at Termbro who for some reason thought it would be a good idea to get me to write this bullshit. I even bought this very computer I sit at now to turn out this turd. Extra love sauce to Ryan Richardson for further correcting and making this thing semi readable......................
Garbage Can...in which one lucky staffer get to sift through the dregs of the TB head office and see what comes up. Will it be their lunch? Or a hot new band that has slipped through the cracks? Every update, one random TBer will be assigned the task of reviewing as much crap as I can stuff into a box. This issue's victim...Austin legend-in-his-own-mind, the "genius" behind Fully Coherant and current Criatura, Black Mike! Stay tuned to see who gets ten pounds of crap in a five pound LP mailer next...
El Garbage Canned: A Test of One American’s Patience
The mess at hand is my volunteering to review some bullshit Richie sent me. You, the reader, are probably more familiar with how these columns go since (a) I hardly read anything on Termbro proper and (b) I attempted to read some past ones to see what I was getting into but decided that I usually just wing things anyway and figure out repercussions later and (3)...uh man, I don’t have a third. I am just dreading what’s in this here package (a feeling that I have not felt since that time I made my community contribution to some cumdumpster’s box, and I thought I surely had Hepatitis Hey/digital AIDS or some dick-exploding disease that would surely end my time on this sweet earth) and man, I am listening to NWA trying to get into the mood. Fuck it. Like most things I don’t care how this turns out.(No shit. - ed.)
First I know this isn’t 5lbs of shit. What the hell Richie, going light on me first time round? I’d say more like 3 lbs. Nice packaging, which no doubt years of collecting and common sense will lend you. Bubble wrap doesn’t need to be reviewed…..What’s this? Hustler trading cards? From 1992. Aww man, nothing but furry crotched monsters, this one chick’s “junk” looks like gristle off of bacon and this other one looks like old chewed up bubble gum rolled around on a gym floor. Fuck maybe there is some hidden agenda, or maybe he thinks I am into such things from some useless, porn-covered vinyl I had a hand in years ago. Whatever.
Ahh a handwritten letter to yours truly on the back of...a porno picture flyer for some shit show. I am getting creeped out. What do we have here...pictures of a hot Aryan Princess with a six-stringed bass by the name of Karen, with a proudly displayed American Flag in the background. I’m down with this and the whole soccer-mom-in-a-punk-band thing is kind of neat. Oh, and look, Richie is not sporting my Total Chaos shirt I gave him in this other Kodak picture...must be old photos of Clockcleaner then, oh yeah. What appears to be Sharkey’s arm is also in the one with Richie. I think the porn plus these are some sort of attempt to connect me with “sucking John Sharkey’s dick” like that balding guy during SXSW said. Good thing I put on my Fedora before I started this writing. Too bad I have a full head of hair.
Vinyl first.
Sprawl Out, a 7-inch. At first glance I notice some hard-earned time and effort went into the cover of this record. It is a silkscreened cover of an octopus hugging a sign that says (take a guess) "Sprawl Out" with a palm tree for added effect. I am guessing these people are from the West Coast from their obvious love of local flora and arthropods. It is confirmed right here in the letter that was included. These are the things they want me to know and I quote “Dear Term Bo dudes…this is (gives all three Christian names)…we have finally finished our record after being a band two years...we recorded this on all analog equipment…in Costa Mesa...300 pressed...we silk screened these in our garage...if you would be kind enough to give us a review”. Why, I like to help people. I will review your record, yes. Let me listen Dear Reader… My immediate reaction is one of confusion. This is some garagey sort of shit with a Fender Rhodes that blippity, squeaks and farts along, then in rolls the double bass pedal action to show me that this drummer has “skills” beyond your normal punk drummer. Fuck, then there is some breakdown part, you know like “Hey bro lets break the mold a little” when in reality the “mold” is the “mold” because it fucking works. You’re on the wrong coast for this kind of shit. Basically I feel this could be on Life Is Abuse if they ditched the striped t-shirts and Crate amps for dreadlocks and Mesa Boogie amps. And actually I am more annoyed by the letter than the record. I feel they imagine they were being “weird and creative” and that it’s a badge of honor to record on “all analog” while silk screening a fucking palm tree octopus thing while in your garage. Well I am here to tell you that it is not. The recording sucks (who cares what medium you use if you can‘t grasp the simple concept of mic placement), the songs stink like some Atom and His Package nerd fest/garage grackle bullshit. The only badge they are wearing around town is “Punk Planet”. On that P.M.A. they are lyrical geniuses. “You’ve got an absence of satisfaction, so you try and throw money in it, you’ve got no real power of your own, so you try to get it by giving people shit”. Must have peered into the bucket of truth and saw me reviewing their record. Clever.(www.sunfightrecords.com)
Next to feel my love is Sons of Tonatiuh, which is written in Olde English which I can barely read (real metal bands make some logo by hand with drippy spikey letters and shit). At first glance this appears to be some crusty metal shit all those folks in Savannah are all about. You know the whole “I am a Wiccan Voodoo warrior who drinks PBR and my scabies-laced Gaia Woman lets her blood drip back to mother earth because tampons are Man's way of enslaving our face-tattied princesses”. A-side confirms my logical guess. This is some riffless dun-dun-jun chugging-on-the-E-string grooving-metalcore. This is the kind of shit that just sprouts up wherever Neurosis, Antischism, and Kylesa converge upon a rudimentary pagan altar made out of Old English bottles and pages outta Crimethinc. This makes me hate the South. This also reaffirms my idea that you either play Hardcore or Metal, not both, and by the sound of the B-side I doubt they can do either. “Oracle” is the song and it goes with my prophecy foretold sentences ago. Sentences which were etched like runes on mossy stones that wind's breath hath not touched upon since the Moon was young. Maybe I can ghostwrite for this band since the tasty lyrics I am sure they toiled over and over with an ink nib aren’t as good as mine. “My eyes I’ve swallowed, My ears do bleed, My bones are brittle, My flesh is green”. I take it you can’t see because you’re wasted, you have Tinnitus from thinking “Tragedy has full stacks so should we”, eat a burger Tofu fag, and the gangrene is going to thankfully kill you and end your bloodline, thereby cutting down on the Southern Metalcore shit for generations ahead. Please do not procreate if you survive. - Your Pal, Mike(myspace.com/sonsoftonatiuh)
Viva Le Vox/Paper Dolls, a split 7”. A letter included, but nothing too interesting other than he refers to me as “his friend at Terminal Boredom” when addressing, and signs it “guido”. He also spells his name with a lower case "g", so he must not have much confidence or is Italian, in which case we know why he has no self-confidence amongst us giants. I have a nagging feeling this is gonna blow since split records usually do. Mostly that formatting is reserved to one decent band trying to help out their obviously shitty friends' band. Sort of like in high school. That one hot bitch who always had some satellite mega-moo friend you had to pawn off on your own shadow if you wanted to fingerbang her in photography class. Fuck, I have no reference point for bullshit like this. Tony Bones or ScareCrow Jenkins sing like they are constipated (in that shitty Tom Waits way, not a Tokurow from Bastard way) and the music is that upbeat jangly caca shit like (surprise) Tom Waits plays. Acoustic guitars, banjos, and “whoahs and ohs” and there you have it. I am taken away to a memory of eating at Threadgills, where history proclaims Janis Joplin ate, got wasted, and probably tricked some other drunken hobo into letting her blow him. There is some band playing while I eat my chicken fried steak with scalloped potatoes. I’m with a girl. She’s into the band because they are fun. It's fun. Making bands play stupid acoustic music while eating is fun. I cringe and nod because I need to get laid. Fuck Life. Paper Dolls is guido’s band. Is this even a different band? I think guido and Tara are the types of people who, here in Austin, would hang around Love Joys, a bar where Spot from SST works.(Spot likes Reatards and Clockcleaner a lot. Spot hates to talk about his past. Spot likes me, my bands, and hearing about the latest trouble I‘ve caused. Spot does not like Big Black though, but laughs when I drop the “n-bomb“ at work every three minutes) The kind of people who have given up their Southern dreams of Black Sabbath crossed with Neurosis and who now are retracing their hillbilly roots by applying all that finger tapping to a ukelele and washboard now. Fuck, that Sons of Savannah band above should peek into Sauron's eyeball thing and see their future as a Chicken Friend Steak Rock band. Sucks to get stuck with a box of 7”s that only ten of your drunk friends bought you a PBR for while listening to the Pogues. I think guido will take his frustrations out at seeing this review on his wife Tara like any good Italian would.(incestrecords.org)
Finally some shit I have some sort of refrence point to. Cross Stitched Eyes, “Coranach”. A band made up of former members of Zygote, Smartpils, SubHumans, and UK Subs. I like two of these bands and maybe you can guess which. The promo Sheet informs me that "If there were a United Nations of Punk, the trilateral union of nationalites of CSE would make an excellent Security Council…and would scare rogue nations into submission”. I don’t know what country, let alone person, would be scared of a bunch of toothless (taking a guess here, since they are English and all), balding, politically defeated old men? Oh look, they reviewed it for me by making comparisions to Killing Joke, Amebix and Rudimentary Peni. But I will add my own spice. Killing Joke I feel, sorta. Amebix, no, because they can tune a guitar and don’t chug in place, and R.Peni...well, whomever wrote that is a retard even though I swear some riffs in “Mourn for Life” are lifted from some of the later RP LPs. I dunno, this is okay if you’re wondering what’s up with a bunch of old ex-peace punkers. I’d give this to that 13 year old chick I saw bleeding at the Jay Reatard show. Then I would see her future of dating some other 17 year old who likes Subhumans and all that Crass shit. He will probably beat her and she will lose self-confidence and move to Savannah or NOLA and join one of them aforementioned modern primitive hippie cults and start a shitty Neurosis-type band. And I will be in New Orleans to convince her drunken crusty ass to crawl under a locked fence covered in poison ivy, to get back into the show she got thrown out of. Fuck man, I am feeling like this is an epsidoe of Lost now. Richie knows more about me than I think. I think now I won’t give it to her and let her follow her path towards being a pretty garage rock chick who will get a boyfriend who beats her, but be in bands I can tolerate better. Maybe at Gonerfest XII she will do drugs with me at the Artisan on the abandoned third floor. Overall, some tribal drumming and chimey guitar parts to sway around a hobo fire to in your backyard is what this is. (www.alternativetentacles.com)
Mama Rosin on Voodoo Rhythm, a CD. Stupid mock "yellow banana" on the cover. Song titles in French. The French have a horrible sense of aesthetics along with all of their other equally horrible qualities. This CD is representing their home country today. Look at the guy smoking a cigarette to obviously look cool in the blurry band photo. Wow, banjo, triangle, and mandolin lie ahead for me. More goddamn Chicken Fried Steak Rock or Country Fried Steak Rock as us superior Yanks might say, since that makes more fucking sense. You don’t fish-fry fish do you? This stuff is for garage grackles looking to expand beyond the standard combo of guitar, bass and drum by adding some other lesser instruments listed. Basically, France, you fucking lose, assholes. Further inspection of the insert reveals it’s a banana pepper and it looks like Andy Warhol art. Need I say again, France is the armpit of Europe.(www.voodoorhythm.com)
Snowbyrd “Diosdado”. A CD on a label that should be called “I Like to Waste Money”. Starts with some wind chimes. I absolutely hate wind chimes. My neighbor has a wind chime, but he’s my friend so it slides. After the chimes it starts in with some rocking bullshit middle-aged dudes play who like the Stooges and 70s rock. Travelling further upon Iggy's shaft I feel like this is the shit former dude-bro rockers play in their converted garage/studio while the kids are sleeping and the wife is watching True Blood. “Like, dude, we can still rock with our Marshall Plexi’s and technical know-how”. Too bad it does not rock and I am sure these guys are the types who refer to themselves as “musicians” when talking about themselves at the cubicle. Hell, this makes me dread getting old. Like becoming the beer-gutted, beer-swilling garage rockers I hated when I was 17. (I notice my beer gut is getting bigger, I panic and look around my room noticing all my guitars/records/various shit…I got Chuck Berry/Neil Young/Oblivians records out…fuck, I see my future…it's becoming one of them...shit…). Too bad I don’t give a Rat Fink toy's ass about Iggy, The Stooges, Johnny Thunders, planning a future with a 401k or doing anything remotely like these dudes live/lived, so my future as a boring old faux-rocker like this ain’t gonna happen. I am gonna die alone, broke, with tales of glory right up until the end, and I am happy and content with this. Wait. What’s this on the insert? This CD is an homage to a member who died at age 40. He was in some non-relevant punk bands in San Antonio. Blah blah blah. Whatever. This makes me want to go listen to that first 7” again, at least they had a possible future of decent tunes ahead of them rather than decades of shit laid out behind them. "He’s dead", you say, "how can you knock the dead?" My motto is “Kick them when they’re on the ground since they are closer to your feet”, and also, he left me a stinking corpse of a CD to review. Not many die and leave a human body to decay and an artistic corpse that was probably smelling of shit in the first place. Much love, dead wigger, rock out in heaven in the punk rock elevator music section.(www.saustexmedia.com)
Sons of Hercules “A Different Kind of Ugly” CD, apparently on "I Like To Waste Money Records" as well. I should’ve saved all the above for this shit. At least that guy had the good grace to die before dropping more turds. This band has been pigeon shitting on Texas cars for years now. The cover shows some old guy who obviously likes the Rolling Stones a lot and it also states “to be played at maximum volume”. I myself always wonder about such announcments. Are you, the band, claiming your audience is too fucking stupid to know how to enjoy rock music? I can see it now. Legions of fans going “man you just gotta listen to it at maximum volume so you can hear the mummy dust grind away in the singers heart”. I don’t even think people are this fucking stupid. No, I think the whole “play loud” schtick is only employed by bands and people who are so god damn brain dead and deaf from years of rocking New york Dolls riffs into their Marshall stacks they don’t get it. Do you? I do. This makes me want to hate rock'n'roll. Wait...this makes me Want to hate RNR, but then I know there’s old fuckers out there in the world writing awesome songs, young fucked up mutant teenagers bashing away, chicks with clits the size of dicks rocking Flying V's and smashing shit. Sons of Hercules, you are like a coke whore who's done her purpose for the night and your time has passed. Time to hang up your Les Pauls and die, sans a tribute CD. This music is for dudes who leave your house stating “rock on” while throwing up the “horns” and go back to their houses full of Rat Fink toys and wives who look like a fat bloated Betty Page, and whose lower areas look like old weathered baseball gloves or wrinkly seal flippers. Flame tattoos. I bet my second born that one of these guys has a flame tattoo...and a Hawaiian shirt.(www.saustexmedia.com)
Ah, reaching the end my dear follower. Zebras, “an LP” on “a label”. Cover looks like some puke Profane Existence would put out, but somehow better. The back said something about Devo. I am confused again, but I am sure that will change soon. Neat-o Pirate's Press vinyl colors of black and blue, which were my gang colors, homie. I never was in a gang but the GD's in my town liked me a lot because I blew stuff up and trash talked “like a motherfucker”. I think they’re all dead now, so what do they know. Well, this shit reminds me of something that would fit on Life is Abuse (again). Like Tarantula Hawk with all the weird ass keyboards and stuff, but with vocals. I don’t know what the fuck’s going on here. It’s all over the place with some chick vocals now. I’m giving this to my neighbor with the wind chimes made outta keys. Zebras win for least irritating outta this whole mess.(myspace.com/slazebras)
I have two more things to attempt to listen to. The Untamed and J.Tex. Both look like rockabilly bullshit. Untamed probably like the Misfits a lot and have oh-so-clever names like Helle Hellcat, The Ghoul and Marco Burro. Fuck, do people like this really exist? What sort of genetic debris does it take to create children that will grow up and even jokingly call themselves those names? Not just Ghoul but THE Ghoul. Pompadours, stand-up bass, fuck this whole genre. They can all collectively line up and stick their tongues in my ass for all I care. J. Tex is probably some honkytonk bullshit sang into one of them big dumb mics Elvis used. J. Tex most likely thinks Elvis is king, but that’s because he is a stupid white guy. Everyone knows Chuck Berry is king and always shall be. Ever read his book? That’s rock'n'roll. Stupid white trash hillbilly bullshit. I hope they all get moonshine AIDS and die with a banjo shoved up their ass.(www.hepcat.se)
That’s about it. Have a wonderful day!
FUCK YOU
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