reminder:

oblivion

Looks like this.

Elizabeth Peyton, "Spencer"

cover lovin'

Now that God and the Devil have officially hearkened the beginning of summer with a brutal heat wave, it's time to indulge in some new, jaunty tunes to celebrate the return of Mr. Frosty ice cream cones/combat heatstroke.

Actually, though, forget the *new* part - I'm going retro. Nothing screams ~SuMmEr~ to me quite like classic surf rock, most maddeningly, yet lovably, displayed by the Trashmen's little ditty "Surfin Bird." I apologize in advance - this song will be in your head ALL FUCKING SUMMER.

And, because summer is all about people suddenly becoming really unabashedly happy, here's something that makes me (and probably only me) really happy: cover songs, specifically by screamo bands! If anyone could make the saccharine nostalgia of the Trashmen sound suddenly wicked, it's the rakishly-suited, ear-gaged Computers. Put mathematically, Computers = (Gallows/Jerry Lee Lewis) + The Cramps - (0.5)Ramones. Or something.

P.S: If psychobilly/garagepunk-hybrid cover songs aren't your speed, you may prefer this equally brilliant rendition.
    

whatever

Today's theme: disillusion. Not because this is a sudden feeling, prompting me to pursue the natural Me Generation course of action by spilling my anonymous, twisted, unspecial guts into an open forum. Actually, it's because that temperament is pretty much the norm for me and my fellow phlegmatics. (Which is fine, whatever.) 

And it's also because some of the angstiest (therefore the best) songs are, ironically, those consciously devoid of angst; devoid, in fact, of anything at all. I'm talking about numbness, people! Complacent defeat! The perenially-beloved stylistic motif that is the deathlessness of stunted-adolescent melancholia! Or something.

Andrew Jackson Jihad - "Growing Up"

"Growing up really fucking sucks." 

A hilariously accurate deluge of detached worries, lodged by the folk-punk Champions of Disenchanted Youth. True enough to be dogma.

Belle and Sebastian - "I Don't Love Anyone"

"I don't love anything, not even Christmas. Especially not that." 

Leave it to these twee Scots to make worrying emotional disengagement sound so damn cute.

The Promise Ring - "Nothing Feels Good"

"I don't own any albums, I don't know anything. I don't go to college anymore." 

Who better to pseudo-sympathize with your own deadened soul than the original renderers of the Dead Soul, Musicalized? True '90s emo at its best, heaviest-lidded self.

Fugazi - "I'm So Tired"

"I'm so tired, sheep are counting me." 

If you hadn't felt apathetic already, you will now. But it's never felt so pretty, right? 

Pink Martini - "Je ne veux pas travailler"

"I don't want to work, I don't want to eat. I only want to forget, so I smoke." 

I was seriously bummed when I found out that Pink Martini is from Portland, because this song is so French! Which, actually, should have tipped me off that they're American. French people would never be so trite as to pronounce their own apathy. 

hero worship: joe a briggs

I stumbled upon Joe A Briggs' magnificently smart and funny tumblr, Oi! Is this punk rock?, a few months ago, and I have since become thoroughly obsessed with the man. It also doesn't hurt that he happens to co-write my favorite (though probably the only) punk-based comic strip, Nothing Nice to Say, with Mitch Clem.

Joe's blog is essentially a forum in which intelligent and dumb Internet-rovers alike inquire whether random entities, issues, modes, affairs, situations, phenomena (I just Thesaurus'd the word "thing," btw), etc. could/would be considered "punk." What gives Briggs the right to determine, with absolute verity, what would merit the approval of such a contentious classification? Basically, because he is brilliant. But also, because he clearly fucking loves punk rock. Fact: this is the best combination of traits a human being can possess.

A case in point of his wonderfulness is his answer to a request from an anonymous reader to "Tell me how to punk." This is something everyone should read, punk-lovin' or not: it's a heroically true account, at once stunningly personal and thoroughly universal, that gets at the heart of what it means to love this silly, loud, ugly/beautiful music. If you're a punk fan, you might cry. If you're not, you might wanna become one.

Tell me how to punk.

Anonymous asked

Argue about who would win in a fight between Kathleen Hanna and Wendy O. Williams. Buy a copy of Aaron Cometbus’ Double Duce and love it then lend it to all your friends who don’t get it and think it’s depressing they live in a shithole and destroy themselves rather than energising and inspiring. Feel weird. Feel alone. Do a weird manic shuffle around your room to World/Inferno until the people downstairs think you’re having an epileptic fit. Start a zine, never put out an issue. Wear dumb shitty clothes and pretend it’s a statement. Make statements and pretend you’re just being dumb and shitty. Learn how to play a bunch of pop-punk songs and forget the words even though there’s only four lines. Give yourself a name like Johnny Fucknuts or Joanie Nutfuck and have no-one call you it. Read Cometbus some more, drill Punk Rock Love is… into your head convinced it’s the most perfect piece of writing ever and then actually fall in love and it’s nothing like that at all but it’s still pretty goddamn amazing even if she doesn’t share your appreciation for the finer subtleties of mid-90s chicago punk. Connect with a bunch of sarcastic oddballs on the internet who live hundreds or thousands of miles away. Fuck your throat up when you’re drunk trying to sound like the guy from Dangers. Sound like an idiot when you’re down and trying to sound like Billy Bragg. Know exactly where punk started and where it started for you. Self-mythologise, self-deprecate, get bored and write songs about getting bored. Like Black Flag. Spend money you don’t have on vinyl. Get irked by metalheads. Crush on someone who’s dead now. Learn what anarcho-syndicalism is. Whisper ‘me’ to yourself when Jello Biafra ask “Who’s that kid at the back of the room?” in In-Sight. Be cynical. Get angry. Get wasted at a boring sXe hardcore show. Stand sober at the back of a Beerzone show because you just can’t get into it right now and you take the bus home worried that maybe you’re falling out of love with punk rock and what the fuck are you gonna do now. Hear a BTMI! song 12 hours later and laugh because it still means so so fucking much. Know what BTMI stands for. And CBGBs. And ACAB. And KARP. And you. Get jealous that you’re too broke to go to Fest. Dance in the backrooms of pubs and in house shows and fall over and get picked back up. Misalign your headbanging and crack heads with the guy in front of you by accident so later you’re not sure if the sheer fucking awesomeness of the band blew you away or if you’re just mildly concussed. Start a band. Start another zine. Start a stupid fucking blog. Get annoyed by hippies. Get annoyed by punks. Love them all anyway. Be stupid. Be smart. Be a cunt. Scour blogs for new bands. Throw them at people until a couple stick. Have a favourite Japanese hardcore band. Have a favourite European neocrust band. Have a favourite Jawbreaker album. Have a favourite Clash song. Fetishise duct-tape. Have a favourite Ramone. Have it be Dee Dee. Lament that you were born too late, be happy you were born right when you were. Build something. Burn it down. Stomp through the ashes until they billow up and get caught in your throat like a Cock Sparrer song so you fall to your knees retching and coughing and tears streaming from your face and all your friends laugh at you, drink a glass of water. Feel a little better. Feel a little better. Feel a little better. Do none of this shit apart from maybe the last one every time you play one of those songs, those songs, the ones written by the same sort of twat that you are.

Or you know, just spike your hair and listen to The Casualties and tell your parents and/or guardians to fuck off.

plath

Mad Girl's Love Song
"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

(kent williams)

new in

A massive perk of interning at a record label = free vinyl. Free vinyl!! Yeah!! I mean, a girl's gotta be rewarded after long days of individually bubble-wrapping egg-shaped maraca shakers to promote The Young's new LP. (Buy it here!! You may even get some maracas with it, lovingly wrapped courtesy of me. I actually don't know what those maracas are for. I'm just an intern.) 

So what better way to reclaim my humanity/rediscover that I am not, in fact, a system-serving robot (albeit with some admirable tape gun skillz), put on this earth with the sole purpose of packaging 500 Sigur Ros albums (Listen here!! Then buy it here!!) than FREELY lifting the new Ceremony album? And then, after lovingly unwrapping (these wrapping skills go both ways, you guys) said album, being able to proudly proclaim that, WAIT, PUNK MIGHT NOT BE DEAD! 

Granted, the Bay Area quintet began as a hardcore act - they first called themselves Violent World - but their new release, Zoo, presents a sound streamlined enough to be accessible to non-punks, while maintaining enough of their snarlingly authentic, belly-churning raw power to appease the headbangers.

Nothing makes me feel more human than the sound of hysteria. (Or "Hysteria," the album's first track.)

Like it? Buy it here!!

big nothing

Leon Levinstein

Street Scene: Man in Boots Walking and Adjusting His Collar, New York City 

aright, mate?

Now that the semester is over, I've chosen to spend my newly-freed time very unwisely: by engaging in marathon viewings of the most remarkably inane British reality television show, The Only Way is Essex. Call it Rubbishfest '12.

The "real people" on the show are basically a British translation of the vacant stares and pancake makeup of those chicks on The Hills; except that these Essex girls and boys audaciously flaunt the stereotypes they endorse, rather than pretending to be smarter and classier than they really are. They're real brain-cell killers, these birds and geezers; they're the recklessly spray-tanned, boob-jobbed foremen of the New World cultural wasteland. And I'm telling you, they're bloody brilliant to watch.

Anyway, this show is rather taking over my life, and I am dangerously close to adopting my very own Estuary English accent. So in celebration of those charming T-glottalizations and Yod-coalescences, here's a very small selection of my favourite full-on English choons.

Blur - "Parklife"

An exquisite, hyper-literate satire from the masters of hooky Britpop. Apparently, Damon Albarn took inspiration from Martin Amis's incredibly dense novel London Fields. So, probably not a TOWIE fan? 

Wiley - "Can I Have A Taxi Please"

A user's guide to London accents. (Thanks to the lovely LILWHY for showing me this gem!)

Sham 69 - "Borstal Breakout"

Obnoxious aggro intensity always sounds better from the mouth of a Cockney boy. Always.

The Streets - "Don't Mug Yourself"

Oi, Mike Skinner in a Fred Perry polo! Right fit, innit?

Ian Dury - "Billericay Dickie"

Mulleted weirdness from Essex's resident court jester. I'm not a huge Ian Dury fan, but Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll is probably something you should see before you die.

happy mother's day!

Lots of love to all the brilliant mamas, mums and Muttis today (Satan-worshipping or otherwise) -- especially to my own, decidedly non-hellish Mom. Love you!

duality

Harsh realms, indeed. Goodbye, Tom, my very first punk crush; you will be missed.

Hello, Laura Jane Grace!

synesthesia

The sound of soul-crushing perfection. When I see something beautiful, reflective, melancholy, hopeful, I sometimes hear this song.

I think it looks like this:

Or this:

(david bellemere)

This, too:

(jacky wong)

(david prince)

But mostly, this:

Listen to it loudly, and often.

RIP adam yauch

So shocking, and so incredibly sad. This video of the 19-year-old Beasties on Joan Rivers is a gem; were we all as guileless and carefree as MCA & co. have so delightfully been, the world would be a much more beautiful place.

Rest in peace, Adam.

on passive delinquency

Playing this game > studying for finals. Up the punx!

darklands

Thank God for Jesus and Mary [Chain].

wanderlust

"The person susceptible to 'wanderlust' is not so much addicted to movement as committed to transformation." - Pico Iyer

(trainspotting)

(agatha a. nitecka)

modern love

My favorite love songs are the ones that don't waste time - simple, unrefined and (most importantly) awkwardly ingenuous. In other words, the ones that don't really sound like love songs. They're the ones that might make you cringe a little not because their quixotic sap will give you a toothache, but because their bumbling honesty will induce some parasympathetic sweaty palms - or at the very least a vicarious coy-bitten-lip kinda thing. They're the ones that make you question whether you're falling in love with the song, the person behind it, or the feelings the person behind it is so bravely sharing. Here's a very small sampling of my favorites; prepare to swoon.

Cheap Girls - "Her and Cigarettes"

"And we took the long way so we could have another."

Pinhead Gunpowder - "Beastly Bit"

What could be more honest than crust-punk-turned-acoustic love? Also, the end features the best appropriation/perversion of a "Brown Eyed Girl" sample ever. (P.S. - if that voice sounds familiar, it's because it is. PHGB is/was one of Billie Joe Armstrong's many, many side projects.)

Built to Spill - "Distopian Dream Girl"

I think I love this song mostly because Doug Martsch's voice sounds like a Midwestern teenager who just woke up from a nap. I'm also not entirely sure whether this is a love song, or rather the random musings of a Midwestern teenager who just woke up from a nap. Either one works for me.

Paul Baribeau - "Blue Eyes"

Definitively, one of the loveliest songs I have ever heard. Maybe the loveliest. Just goes to show that folk punks do it better.

7 Seconds - "Trust"

Proving that hardcore straight-edgers fall in love as hard as they mosh. An unsurprisingly straightforward, unapologetically honest love song that you can nevertheless violently run around in a circle pit to. But also, it's so sweet!

wisdom, pt. 2

exposure

I don't think it's the camera that can steal a soul - it's what the camera creates that does it. It's those eyes that see through the camera, through the rips of the paper or the pixels of the screen, that fear not for their own souls, but for your witless soul; it's those eyes that belie the surreality of the print, that cheat the simulacrum, that vindicate themselves while exposing your own self, your own fears, your own soul. 

But those creations are also, often, supremely beautiful.