tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66881295442953324882024-03-14T14:40:04.590+00:00Young Souls Break Moulds<br>
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The purpose of this is to share my thoughts on music and other sectors of the Art / Culture spectrum, adding a splash of colour from my own adventures along the way.Josh Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14685263151491816208noreply@blogger.comBlogger124125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6688129544295332488.post-85231286589695416712011-09-26T19:54:00.003+01:002011-09-26T19:56:35.136+01:00PAGAN PUNX<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7DSx0cDHLvhxgScQ4BcsOuPfLvlUZuExjtViC05qMCe0Jv7FjF8mZOgt89FWPeDyMOTlW72UHFl9zsaocforL44NrnYi2kX171MVXR88_bhWPEefY82usg-oPaz5GaYvSt16d0MRFp_o/s1600/paganpunxheader.JPG"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 658px; height: 139px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7DSx0cDHLvhxgScQ4BcsOuPfLvlUZuExjtViC05qMCe0Jv7FjF8mZOgt89FWPeDyMOTlW72UHFl9zsaocforL44NrnYi2kX171MVXR88_bhWPEefY82usg-oPaz5GaYvSt16d0MRFp_o/s400/paganpunxheader.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5656744048131852146" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />THIS BLOG IS DEAD! NEW, BETTER, EXCLUSIVE STUFF UP AT www.pagan-punx.blogspot.comJosh Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14685263151491816208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6688129544295332488.post-39790632396732077802011-06-08T18:16:00.002+01:002011-06-08T18:22:38.085+01:00TWIN INFINITIES<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmQ0C5AX7tC3AvpC3fTvNSMfADq4xA6bfBytTKinlyaKTAuhID48jXUF-ByBDh_znO0I4yRntnoJdTKaqvyPYkBs9CAbAW-06s-y4NQ8OsrMgno6w3ZFYb30TRuyOENBxPw2pzGIdwkIE/s1600/tumblr_lmdvbjwizB1qgmsqfo1_1280.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 259px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmQ0C5AX7tC3AvpC3fTvNSMfADq4xA6bfBytTKinlyaKTAuhID48jXUF-ByBDh_znO0I4yRntnoJdTKaqvyPYkBs9CAbAW-06s-y4NQ8OsrMgno6w3ZFYb30TRuyOENBxPw2pzGIdwkIE/s400/tumblr_lmdvbjwizB1qgmsqfo1_1280.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5615900469444440114" border="0" /></a><br />Hey, this is happening next month. Just try and absorb how talented that line up of artists is. Hard to comprehend right? One of the proudest moments of my life seeing myself there above Ross from Ceremony and alongside Lee from Trash Talk, my good friend Sam, Mike Sutfin formerly of Charles Bronson, Tim Kerr of Big Boys, Cali Dewitt who shot the cover for SQRM's Rodeo LP amongst other things, MARK FUCKING MCCOY. Pat Graham, Chrissy Piper. The list is too great to fully comprehend.Josh Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14685263151491816208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6688129544295332488.post-46449020353061782612011-05-24T13:46:00.003+01:002011-05-24T14:04:06.842+01:00Pagan Punx<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS6Lp9dDmBefxjMv1EFpxv95UzDrg-d39sCKqks1PUT716XV6Qo7G_XcCJ3DkTf460paFx5Vsc7vvord8Tkr2QrE_uCIanFlcYzWbZe5se5ijaOkjc8v54cEixOsSrAcBLsbsN6syLABE/s400/paganpunxheader.JPG" style="text-align: center;float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 85px; " border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5610267080535422066" /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>A few weeks I started a project with Sam James Velde of LA's Night Horse / Bluebird / Cold Sweat Records. We wanted to start a project which would allow us to write predominantly about records, whilst also gifting us the platform to interview bands, post photos almost in a half-photoblog style, upload footage and generally create a cauldron for all our writing and enthusiasm to bubble away in.<br /><br />So, we started <a href="www.pagan-punx.blogspot.com">pagan-punx.blogspot.com</a> - already having spoken to Chris Eck of Shaved Women and IceAge. Sam is currently talking to Sam Bosson of Trash Talk, Scuba of Trap Them, Ryan from Coliseum, the guys from Deafheaven and plenty more with the intention of compiling a list of what everyone's favourite records are right now. Pretty excited myself to read that one. I had an interview yesterday with Pennsylvania Hardcore buzzmakers Slices, and that interview should be posted soon.<br /><br />The purpose of this post is just to let my lovely fellowship of readers know that despite the posts on youngsouls being few and far between, there is a hive of activity going on over at <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.pagan-punx.blogspot.com">Pagan Punx</a>. Sam and I will be working frantically to expand this as much as we can, as it's already - in it's infancy - beginning to take the form of a webzine. It'd be great if you could check out whats going with my new venture, and perhaps drop us a comment or follow us. Thanks,</div><div><br /></div><div>Josh</div>Josh Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14685263151491816208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6688129544295332488.post-62496590197343265832011-05-07T17:01:00.003+01:002011-05-24T14:08:02.934+01:00Cult of Youth - Cult of Youth<center><a href="http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/?action=view&current=001a166d_medium.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/001a166d_medium.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" /></a></center><br /><br />I’ve been listening to the self titled record by a band called Cult of Youth for the past hour. I’m having such difficulty in pigeon-holing them. They come from New York City and play a palette of folk, post punk, dirge and pop. They sound like an angry Robert Smith playing funeral music, with a delicate spoonful of thoughtful, folk arrangement fed into the mix. I’m struggling here, perhaps Cult of Youth’s derangement is too potent for me to pick apart in just one paragraph.<br /><br />Track three, 'Monsters' bolts out of the gate in rampant style, stitching together up-beat guitar twanging with uncompressed vocals that seem to reach eternally skywards. Perhaps only by my own ear, but, I can hear jabs of Irish influence, native folk beat, and european Pagan influence. The slow march of 'Casting Thorn's' mourning song props up the spine of this record with it's plaintive utterings of 'When mercys our passion, we fall to our knees,' delivering peak after peak of poignancy and unblemished emotion.<br /><br />Listen to this record and fall unregrettably in love with noise all over again. Download it <a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?8loo82luvyay5zm">here</a>Josh Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14685263151491816208noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6688129544295332488.post-26686949746997013772011-03-30T20:09:00.002+01:002011-03-30T20:10:19.373+01:00The Feelies - Crazy Rythms<center><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://blog.narcsville.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/the-feelies-crazy-rhythms.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 299px;" src="http://blog.narcsville.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/the-feelies-crazy-rhythms.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a></center><br /><br />I’m listening to this album for the first time ever right now. The Feelies - Crazy Rhythms. First port of call: I am a fucking idiot for not zeroing in on this band sooner. From my 2011 vantage I can hear pastels of The Velvet Underground, Wire-esque intonations, Gang of Four subtleties and REM pop splashes. Everything i’m hearing is relevant to the order in which I discovered those bands just mentioned - because The Feelies notably influenced REM & Gang of Four and not the other way round. The Feelies came first. <br /><br />I don’t think it would be too far off the mark to say that they must have influenced Beat Happening and that whole K Records twee-pop-picnic-in-the-sunshine sound. Probably gave Death Cab For Cutie a push too, in a more indirect sense. To cut a boring story short, It’s eight o’clock where I am and quite frankly I can see myself not giving a fuck about listening to any other band for the next week. Anyone who has heard this / plans to hear this, let me know what you think because I am drifting off into a lull of love.Josh Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14685263151491816208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6688129544295332488.post-78359921450258939482011-03-23T19:57:00.004+00:002011-03-23T20:10:07.817+00:00Laura Lynn PetrickBesides being a total babe Laura Lynn Petrick is also one of the most exciting young photographers I know of. Her work is consistently strong, edgy, emotive and striking. I hope this post boosts the amount of traffic to her blog, this girl deserves more attention. Check out her image diary:<br /><br /><strong><a href="www.lauralynnpetrick.blogspot.com">www.lauralynnpetrick.blogspot.com</a></strong><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkpZTm8bUR7X-Jvfld3q2Cc_WsaIq54C4yJAy2jlPFIpeMa_p8S_d8Uf-9Qk4KUwWKa_ZUL3t247Dg_slaOIFq09RSxkZpkcUK7-a0rcZHhvbbbaYiAuq79E8O-PBRX9UuR2NZBxQ4UqM/s1600/lauralynn.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 265px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkpZTm8bUR7X-Jvfld3q2Cc_WsaIq54C4yJAy2jlPFIpeMa_p8S_d8Uf-9Qk4KUwWKa_ZUL3t247Dg_slaOIFq09RSxkZpkcUK7-a0rcZHhvbbbaYiAuq79E8O-PBRX9UuR2NZBxQ4UqM/s400/lauralynn.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5587369965539767314" /></a>Josh Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14685263151491816208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6688129544295332488.post-39215038592439294862011-03-22T19:40:00.004+00:002011-03-22T20:55:24.739+00:00An interview with Chad Moore<span style="font-style:italic;">Let me start with a thunderous statement of bombast and surefooted-ness; Chad Moore is my out and out favourite young photographer. A week or two ago he kindly agreed to do an interview with me. Quite frankly I couldn't believe my luck. I've poured through his site, through each series of photos time after time. Looking, admiring, absorbing, worshipping, repeat. The following is a total transcript of our discussions, Chad was fantastic, he answered my questions in such exquisite detail. I hope you all enjoy this, and if you havn't already checked out Chad's work I implore you to do so.</span><br /><br /><center><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://chad-moore.com/blog/images/Bloody%20Knuckles%20and%20a%20Broken%20Nose/384057-R1-048-22A_023.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 675px; height: 1000px;" src="http://chad-moore.com/blog/images/Bloody%20Knuckles%20and%20a%20Broken%20Nose/384057-R1-048-22A_023.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a></center><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Can you tell me much about how you initially got into photography; was your appreciation for art instilled within you from an early age?</span><br /><br />My mom was never really a working "artist" or anything, but she was always such a creative person and a great painter. She never pushed art on me, but completely nurtured my interest in all creative things, and still supports it all to this day. Many parents would be super terrified about their kid wanting to live as a an artist, but she has so much faith in which is amazing. I think I really got into photographs through riding BMX though. I started riding BMX bikes When I was about 11 or 12 and I always just wanted to have someone take a picture of a truck I was trying to do or something, just so I could see what it looked like. Then a few of my good friends started seriously shooting BMX photographs and I was getting more into professional riding, but I still wanted to make photographs. I Just got to a point though where it was like, I don't like the idea of setting up all of these flashes and waiting to create a moment, I just wanted to capture a moment that was happening, and I suppose that's how my obsession with photographs began. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">So many of your photos look like snapshots of a fleeting moment in time, do you rely on events happening around you or do you ever find yourself being inclined to set opportunities up?</span><br /><br />This goes back to the end of the first question. A friend of mine owed me a $100 or something and in exchange gave me a super sharp point and shoot camera and that was probably like 2005, and I was never was without that camera again. I just took photographs of my friends and I loved it, because I knew everyone so well, that they never questioned why I was taking these photos. The most beautiful thing to me is uninhibited youth. I mean to a point, its almost documentary work….but I feel like that's a weird title to give it, just because so much documentary work is a photographer shooting photographs of something that he or she doesn't know or isn't closely involved with. I've known my the people in my photographs for years and im close with them, intimate with them, I'm doing the same things as them, I'm just making photographs at the same time. Here and there, as I've been getting more photo jobs, I have to think about ways to set things up or re-create certain situations, but at this point I really still enjoy those photographing reality, even though to many my reality is kind of a fantasy. <br /><br /><center><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://chad-moore.com/blog/images/Long%20Nights,%20Hard%20Times/393998-R1-051-24_023.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 1000px; height: 675px;" src="http://chad-moore.com/blog/images/Long%20Nights,%20Hard%20Times/393998-R1-051-24_023.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a></center><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />What has it been like working with the man Ryan McGinley? Has he influenced your aesthetic or nurtured your technical abilities? </span><br /><br />Ryan is one of the dearest people in my life and I have learned so much from him and have so much love for him. I wouldn't say that Ryan influenced my aesthetic as much as he has just inspired me to do what I want…not really conform to anything. When Ryan does something, whether it be a show or a commercial job, he really cares about it, he really nurtures it, he really wants to make the best that it can, and I think everyone can appreciate that. It's hard for me to even talk about Ryan in words he means so much to me, his work and his love for people cannot be described in an email ya know?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Besides working with Ryan, which artists, either past or present would you enjoy working with?</span><br /><br />Thats a tough one, so many people! My favorite thing ever is seeing other artist's processes and how they think and how they work. If there was one person I could have ever worked for or with though, it would have been Richard Avedon. Although his aesthetic hardly relates to mine, I love the emotion in his photographs, theres so much of you can read from a simple portrait of his against a white seamless. He was kind of insane about making photos and I feel like I'm starting to relate. If I don't take at least a few photos a day, I have so much anxiety it's crazy.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Do you have a favourite person to photograph, or a favourite camera to use?</span><br /><br />I love photographing my friends really, I mean, for me at least, you can tell when someone is photographing someone that they have a real connection with. You can feel it in the image, there's a connection. As for one particular person, my friend Meghan Collison. I love her to death because she never stops me from taking her picture and she's just really gorgeous and unique from the inside out and he personality is super intriguing. It's so hard for me to take a photo of someone I don't truly care about. As for cameras, I don't really have a special camera set up, just a few point and shoots and a Leica SLR.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />How would you describe your current collection of work to someone who has never witnessed it before? I guess what i'm trying to ask is, how would describe what you're trying to do with your photography in general?</span><br /><br /> I always find it tough to describe my work to someone that has never seen it, because all in all, it's so personal. It's my collection of memories. It's my documentation of fleeting youth I suppose. I think youth is so important, so delicate and that what I capture in my photographs. <br /><br /><center><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://chad-moore.com/blog/images/As%204%20in%20the%20morning%20ca/DAVID_BEER.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 1000px; height: 661px;" src="http://chad-moore.com/blog/images/As%204%20in%20the%20morning%20ca/DAVID_BEER.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a></center><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">And finally,<br />What would be typical day in NYC for you?</span><br /><br />I usually wake up pretty early, like 9am or something close to that. Make some coffee or tea and check some emails and look around the internet for a bit and try to see what's up with my friends. Basically everyone I hang out with works crazy hours or parties super late so I'm usually on my own till around 4pm when my friends start waking up. I try to work on at least one project a day, lately it's been a new book. I might run some errands and then meet up and go out to eat with some my friends, after that, usually one of our friends is working at a bar where we can go and get some drinks for free and end up hanging out there for a few hours. Since it's been so cold in NYC, I always get stuck hanging out in a bar all night, but during summer we go out to a bar and then go on some serious adventures, whether it be a secret chinatown karaoke bar or a sketchy rooftop…a lot of nights we end up watching the sunrise on this billboard which is one my favorite places on earth, its so ironically romantic because it's this beautiful view of NYC but placed on a dirty roof in chinatown…I'm in love with it! After that everyone kinda disperses and heads home….always the saddest part of the day. Usually I'll get home with a few shot rolls of film in my pocket from the day and night!Josh Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14685263151491816208noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6688129544295332488.post-19842915696778364252011-02-27T17:15:00.004+00:002011-02-27T17:37:16.102+00:00Never Eat Your GreensCool little 'oh's' floating safely<br />To the shore.<br />Timber and sawteeth lilting always<br />on the sound.<br />Batteries in the car burning quickly<br />Down to dull.<br />Rocks in the can find their way<br />Onto the roof.<br /><br />Steak sauce and froth on their journey<br />To his mouth.<br />Spray paint and insults prop themselves<br />Upon the wall.<br />Cool little 'oh's' post him up<br />Under the bridge.<br />Viral strain of sweetness that<br />Sicks back up his milk.<br /><br />String limbed men in a book<br />Of noodled thoughts.<br />Bathtub of creatures that lick<br />the leaking wounds.<br />Velour is the pillow in the<br />Backseat of the car.<br />Grease sheethed is the hair as <br />He's waiting to go home.<br /><br />Soft is the cardboard, is the use<br />Of that old chair.<br />Let him call a friend while<br />He's waiting to go home.<br />Cool little 'oh's' follow sleds<br />Right off the hill.<br />Snow peppers blonde and white knuckles<br />Grip the ride.<br /><br />Warm plastic meals tickle sharply<br />Down the throat.<br />Up above the shop bending copper<br />Nodding out.<br />Buying all the nothing fills the room with<br />Too much droll.<br />His beard smoothes over manhood<br />While his speak discovers thrill.<br /><br />No cool little 'oh's' chiming fruitful<br />On the cross.<br />Papered bedroom walls peeling faces<br />From the glue.<br />No cool little 'oh's' for my favourite<br />One we lost<br />Just low drawn out growls from those<br />Who tore him up.Josh Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14685263151491816208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6688129544295332488.post-33088684876243620972011-02-07T14:40:00.001+00:002011-02-07T15:25:26.409+00:00Video Blog: IceAge, Merchandise, Son Skull, Japanese Women<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/tIMlwS95ixA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Josh Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14685263151491816208noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6688129544295332488.post-89100033774650686932011-01-26T22:12:00.003+00:002011-01-26T22:29:26.147+00:00The Get Up Kids - There Are Rules<center><a href="http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/?action=view&current=The-Get-Up-Kids--There-Are-Rules_event_main.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/The-Get-Up-Kids--There-Are-Rules_event_main.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />2011<br />Quality Hill Records</span></center><br /><br />Pete Wentz once said that if it weren't for the band The Get Up Kids, then Fall Out Boy would never have even formed. Mark Hoppus went as far as to have Kansas City's finest popular punk export soundtrack the moment of his proposal to his wife. The slew of bands willing to continue this vein of Get Up Kids worship could pack out the fabled Outhouse in their native state three times over.<br /><br />The Get Up Kids' break up in 2005 heralded a new age for 'emotive' punk-cum-indie rock. Their coveted throne came to be squabbled over by a commotion of young blooded bands; Chicago's Fall Out Boy, the Joshua Cain led Motion City Soundtrack and perhaps even the ever enduring Saves The Day - who have weathered an overabundance of lineup changes - remain close to the front of the pack. Their hiatus proved merely to be a four year stop gap, with the fully reunited 'Kids announcing batches of shows in 2008 and 2009. This year sees the release of 'There Are Rules' - their first studio album in almost seven years.<br /><br />'There Are Rules' needed to sound like a surefooted boot-stamp crashing the band back down onto the map of rock and roll. It needed to expel all of the most resilient cobwebs and kick up a spray of spit & sawdust into the faces of the contemporaries that The Get Up Kids, however inadvertently, may have spawned themselves. Track one, 'Tithe' rings in with a ballast of distortion and a mutated sample which rather disbelievingly wouldn't sound out of place on a 625 Thrashcore release. Pseudo-powerviolence blip behind us, this opening track snaps into a life of frenetic drumming and colourful riffing. Matt Pryor treats us all to pinch after pinch of his rousing vocals, carouselling between temperate tones and the iconic, desperately strained textures that could be found on 1997's 'Four Minute Mile.'<br /><br />James Dewess makes himself known on 'Shatter Your Lungs' - tapping down on those keys of sunshine to give this track a rather dated, dare I say it, 80's vibe? Injected with convulsive percussive jibes, the repetitive, annoyingly discotheque-esque palpitations fail to conjure up anything quite like the hooks of their past records. This entire release feels somewhat sparse, lacking the fibers of electric melody that all the Jimmy Eat World fans latched onto in the first place. It feels smoother, more compressed, and ultimately less like a whistle-stop jaunt through the mind of a post-adolescent awkward kid nextdoor. An angle the Get Up Kids have celebrated playing from ever since Jim Suptic learned how to string together a Descendents cover.<br /><br />'Better Lie' amuses itself on a treadmill of throbbing synth, the enate problem with running on the spot like that is that you're bound to go nowhere. There are peaks to 'There Are Rules,' which prod tentatively at total fruition, yet while an out-stretched palm clambers for such a goal, a pair of dead weights drag behind, limited by repetition and under-impressive hooks. The shrouded vocals and the cross cutting guitar pepperings, once added to the bass-heavy gristle, make the next track 'Keith Case' something that Motion City Soundtrack will have wished they'd written. It would not be fair to say that this release fails to provide anything of substantial worth, however the nagging realisation in the back of many people's minds will be that the four year wasteland of Get Up Kids absenteeism was not really a wasteland at all. The emptiness was farmed and cultivated by an uprising of satellite bands such as the aforementioned Motion City Soundtrack; bands who have gone a long way to blur the line between The Get Up Kids and their chasers. A line which a decade ago was an unsurpassable chasm within the emo world.<br /><br />The important question that needs to be addressed is whether or not The Get Up Kids made the right choice in altering their palette of indie rock licks and hot sap vocals, bypassing any and all cries of 'no progression' from scene bulbheads - or whether a riotous return to the soundscapes of 'Something To Write Home About' would have been more warmly received. 'There Are Rules' is more hum than rattle, more roll than shake, and unfortunately it may well lead this once championed band to rest on a shelf of nostalgia rather than elevating them to greater heights.Josh Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14685263151491816208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6688129544295332488.post-29255769407284965172011-01-21T09:34:00.004+00:002011-01-21T13:11:52.128+00:00SacerDash Snow, was to me, an inspiration of true magnificence. For a great deal of time now I have waxed ecstatic over his life’s work, pouring through scanned Polaroid versions of his intriguing, often sardonic street photography. I am so genuinely immersed in the detailing of his brief yet incandescent life of trauma and visual expression that I intend on having his portrait adorned on my body for all time, paying homage to a memory which has taught me more about the way life can or cannot be lived than perhaps any other one source of artistic stimulus. <br /><br />Born Dashiel A. Snow, to parents Taya Thurman and Christopher Snow, he lived a course upbringing of private education and boarding schools, a childhood of tacit obedience which afforded him little room to flex the artistic intensions that began to brim over his consciousness. He was, in effect, booted by his mother into an institution which has been described by some to be ‘a last-chance boarding academy that offers objectively defined teenagers an alternative to prison.’ The experience or rather series of experiences Dash encountered at Hidden Lake Academy in Georgia further embellished his dramatic personality and want, nay, longing to be out of the reach of his family’s unblemished pedigree of French aristocracy and clean cut living. He held the decision undertaken by his mother to attempt a reformation of his ways against her even until death. I suppose by default, Dash’s passing broke the chain of resentment, maybe finally he was able to give up that ghost.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.dustproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Dash_Snow_2009_058-870x652.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 870px; height: 652px;" src="http://www.dustproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Dash_Snow_2009_058-870x652.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /></center><br><br /><br />He was a photographer, a graffiti artist, a father, a street urchin, a drug user, an installation artist, a muse, ‘Warhol's child’, but overall he was just a really fucked up kid running along train tracks with confusion for company, breaking through the night veils and holding the city rapt with a can of raspberry spray paint. The jump from yobbish graffiti writer to downtown Baudelaire art world obsession was a transition more stumbled upon by Snow, very little of it had to do with premeditation or a blood-thirst to satiate ambition. The thing about Snow’s artwork, the whole crux of this fantasy of hotel room hookers and Jack Daniels, is that the illusion is only an illusion if you see it that way, by that I mean the fantasy was forever a reality for the young blonde haired toxic artist. His Polaroids pressed upon everyone who saw them, a keenness to exact out of life the main entities of sheer illumination, sex, friendship, love, struggle and death characterised all of his forages into self expression and cultural reaction. <br /><br />Snow was fortunate enough to have the support of Ryan McGinley and Dan Colen, burgeoning downtown artists in their own right – a pair almost equally enamoured by the laissez faire approach to ejaculating on the New York Post and calling it collage. Headline after headline concerning corrupt cops and Saddam Hussein would be awash with seed and glitter. Colen and McGinley confess to being driven by ambition, to having had to work their way out of their backgrounds by peddling the only thing either of them admits to being able to do well, creating art. <br /><br />Snow put together a crew of graffiti writers, and pooled them all together under the name ‘Irak’ – to ‘rak’ is a term popular within graffiti circles meaning to steal, this seemed somewhat appropriate for an ungoverned clandestine bunch of wild children, accustomed to breaking the law 10, 20 times a day. It was nevertheless an artistic venture, although Dash himself may not have readily admitted that. Instead he saw himself notching up tags on building after building for the purpose of enrolling himself on the page of infamy. His weapon of choice was just a pressure controlled can of noxious fluid instead of a whole host of instruments of sculpture or an SLR camera packed with a roll of colour film – the medium of choice for best friends Colen and McGinley respectively.<br /><br />Much of Dash’s work corresponds to this notion of ‘banality’ - of resisting emotion and for the larger part, originality. The aesthetic of banal photography relies heavily on irony, on a deep sense of perceptual boredom. Artists associate themselves with the ordinary and vernacular instead of the extraordinary and remarkable. Therein lies the strength of Snow’s snapshots and collage, to find such quality in something so un-stirring is to make it remarkable by very definition.<br /><br />One of my favourite Snow photos is perhaps one of the most archetypal Dash Snow images in general. It portrays the fringes of society and documents the debauchery and filth of a New York City twilight, whilst a man readily projects his alcohol laced stomach contents across the Manhattan pavement a basketball jersey clad observer appears almost in awe of his mean feat. This is street photography at its most abrasive, pulling no punches in its quest to depict the reality that Snow saw from behind his camera. Whether it’s valued for artistic qualities or whether it’s just interesting as a visual history of Dash Snow’s wanderings, there is no denial that this image holds your attention and no doubt evokes a strong reaction.<br /><br />Dash Snow, gone but certainly not forgotten. Kept alive by two packs of Marlboro Reds, four big bottles of water a day and music.Josh Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14685263151491816208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6688129544295332488.post-38894923279967832632011-01-20T16:55:00.002+00:002011-01-20T17:07:56.412+00:00Merchandise - Strange Songs (In The Dark)<center><a href="http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/?action=view&current=Merchandise_LP.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/Merchandise_LP.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a></center><br /><br />Merchandise are perhaps my favourite band of the moment, I have thrown myself into their soup-mix of frothy driven rhythms and quite frankly I do not care whether I resurface or not. They hail from Florida and play a writhing pastiche of noisy, at times melody-centred, jangling post-punk. Each track from their 'Strange Songs (In The Dark) release manages to present itself as a completely individual string to Merchandise's bow. <br /><br />They don’t overplay the Joy Division influence like many bands, they offer something fresh and exciting. 'I Locked The Door' salutes you with the dull and blunt sounds of a scuffle between guitar and percussion, leaving it up to the rather sweet vocals to shepherd the entire song into cohesive shape. The last track on Strange Songs (In The Dark, 'In The Dark' is astoundlingly good; equally predisposed with attaching weight to melody as it is with sounding quirky and experimental. In hindsight I should have included this band and this record in my favourite releases of the year post.<br /><br />You can pick up Merchandise - Strange Songs (In The Dark) from <a href="http://www.druggedconscience.com/">Drugged Conscience</a>. This band features ex-members of THE ALMIGHTY CULT RITUAL, Nazi Dust and even Divisions so if you’re interested to see what those dirty Punks are up to now then grasp hold of Merchandise and worship them for all the gratuitous post-punk-cum-indie-experimentalism they can offer you. Great band.Josh Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14685263151491816208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6688129544295332488.post-15002243329076764192011-01-16T17:11:00.035+00:002011-01-21T10:17:58.048+00:00Records of the year 2010<span style="font-style:italic;">Two weeks into January, after collecting together the many post-it notes adorned with record titles that I have lying around, I have finally birthed a list of what I think were the best releases of last year. This list lends itself generously to Hardcore Punk but within the squall of Youth Attack! bands and Perennial Records representatives lies a pocket of more accessible bands. A lot of these records are full length albums, some are 7"s.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">30. Fences - Fences</span><br /><br />First full length outing from Chris Mansfield and company. A record preoccupied in a good way by the trials and tribulations of romance and heartquake. Enjoyable, weighted Dallas Green-esque popular folk musings that manage to 'bleed the emotions out one by one.' <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">29. Dangers - Messy, Isn't it?</span><br /><br />This band have been having a lot of fun with genres of varying texture and tone. They have this poetic aura to them, in the same way that contemporary act Touché Amoré do. Dangers are the more chaotic of the two, hammering the odd thrash metal riff into place along side tracks like 'Goliath' which hit you so hard with their urgency that you're forced to sit up and appreciate their bravery to cross genres.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">28. Beach Fossils - Beach Fossils</span><br /><br />The collective of bands that have pushed the delicately fuzzed out lo-fi beach trend as of late have managed to remain both relatively original and rather unspoilt. Beach Fossils are one of my favourite exactors of this hazy, pop-beat wave of surf-garage-beach-whatever-you-want-to-call-it-rock.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">27. No Talk - Leather Discipline</span><br /><br />I heard No Talk's 'Invade Iran' release before I heard Leather Discipline and it most definitely whetted my appetite for their full length. They hail from Texas and play a viral strain of percussive heavy, grizzly Hardcore Punk Rock 'n Roll. Fans of Kansas City's No Class will like this band.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">26. Vile Gash - Vile Gash</span><br /><br />First of the Youth Attack! bands to make the list. Drenched in nihilism and 'devoid of thought' Vile Gash's self titled EP is just about as feral as Hardcore Punk got in 2010. They recorded ten tracks for this release, with each one being a somatic stab of unwashed punk. Only one track peaks above the one minute mark, an observation which is telling in itself, evidence of just how furious and indecent this record is. Vile Gash have a lot to say and are worthy of you as a listener.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">25. Brandon Boyd - The Wild Trapeze</span><br /><br />Brandon Boyd stands out like a So-Cal funk rock thumb when surrounded by choices such as Vile Gash and No Talk, however I've been listening to his Wild Trapeze record for months as a combatant against the English winter and it's wonderful ability to pollute your soul with dread. To encapsulate, this is a wonderful first solo outing, giving Brandon further credibility as a song writer.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />24. Whirl - Distressor</span><br /><br />Fans of My Bloody Valentine and drinking alone in the dark should sit up and take note of this band from Northern California. I thought their demo was fantastic, in fact I posted about it earlier on last year, but the Distressor record is twice as confident and ten times as compelling. Their sound is indubitably double edged as empyreal tracks such as 'Sandy' fly in the face of the thundering opening to 'Leave' and the vastness of 'Blue''s middle section. Much more than just worthy of being pigeon-holed as a great contemporary Shoegaze band, they need to be celebrated by more than just the Slowdive kids.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">23. Throats - Throats</span><br /><br />I'm not going to let the recent break up of Britain's most exciting new band detract anything from the ongoing fanfare surrounding this record. Opening with 'Wake' - one minute and sixteen seconds of unornamented Hardcore and finishing with 'Oaken/Wait' - Throats' self titled record wouldn't halt at any point inbetween for even Jacob Bannon himself. Their last ever show has been announced and believe me, Alex Wealands death rattle will be unmatched, leaving London reeling. The best of Britain.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">22. SQRM - Rodeo</span><br /><br />'Fuck To Survive' let everybody know what it meant to worship Siege in 2010, but the recently released 'Rodeo' pissed on the church of Drop Dead and sang from it's altar. SQRM are perhaps the most exciting band playing out of Massachusetts right now. The title track audibly thumps it's way along with lead singer Tony delivering a sermon of blatant hatred. SQRM cut everyone else down to size.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">21. Raw Nerve - Raw Nerve.</span><br /><br />Raw Nerve are one of the hardest working, most sonically strenuous bands out there. Their recently released self titled record on Youth Attack! confirms their coronation as the distorted kings of the scene. This release will flog you with dissonance for even daring to listen to it.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />20. Sexdrome - Grown Younger</span><br /><br />This band from Denmark impress with a spine of atmospheric Black Metal fattened with brass-tack Punk underpinning. Grown Younger scuffs Hardcore up against Norway's greatest cultural export and delivers something within sight of originality. If Bone Awl are the cause of Black Metal now being Punk popular then look to Sexdrome as the latest incarnation of that same template. Fantastic record.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />19. Crazy Spirit - Crazy Spirit</span><br /><br />This band take the familiar NYC Ramones blueprint and run it through a threshing machine. The discarded components are left for dead and the bare bones structure is then plied with hallucinogens and clothed in leather. The sound we're left with is a bilious concoction to say the least. Less of this rhetoric, this band are absurd, precisely the reason why I enjoy them. The self titled release is more than worthy of the adoration it has received.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">18. White Guilt - White Guilt</span><br /><br />The demos were like a virus which spread through my group of friends leaving the same universal combination of fear and praise behind. The debut self titled record brings to mind the idea of Greg Sage ingesting a cornucopia of opiates and then somehow managing to find the physical fortitude to record a punishing Hardcore record. Laughable, I admit, but a confirmation of how good this band are. Another string to New York's bow.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />17. Twin Stumps - Seedbed</span><br /><br />I wrote about this bands self titled record just before this post and many of those comments can be applied to 'Seedbed.' For a start, this release delivers itself as yet another 'bouquet of barbed wire to the ears' but goes further in general to embellish the presence of Twin Stumps as one of the most unruly mobs playing Punk music out there today. Listen and crumble.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">16. Nomos - Notes From The Acheron</span><br /><br />'Notes From The Acheron' kicks off with a bellyache of a riff, flailing itself forehead first into a disgusting chain of frenetic Punk gyrations. The drums are beaten to within an inch of puncturing, fretboards are abused to the point of strings snapping and the microphone they used to record this release must now lie dead on the floor, more concave than convex in shape. This full length is an empowering example of Hardcore Punk at it's best. New York City.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">15. Bad Banana - Crushfield</span><br /><br />Two endearing young women playing delicious lo-fi garage rock. Prettier in form than much of Kimya Dawson's collective works, but not wholly dissimilar. I see Bad Banana and Best Coast as the two most impressive paradigms of the presently celebrated lo-fi beach-beauty pop, and for that they deserve an avalanche of new listeners.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />14. Male Bonding - Nothing Hurts</span><br /><br />A decisive cut of partially refined, almost 'noisy' rock and roll. Track one - 'Year's Not Long' - sent the heads of anyone with special scene Eminence turning so fast in Male Bonding's direction that their Morrissey quiffs lost all structure and their denim shirts popped open yet another button down. This band are worthy of the adulation, Nothing Hurts is a confident record, imbued with casual pluck and resilience. 'Franklin' opens with a rolling guitar chop so exquisite that LA's Local Natives will be infernally jealous that they didn't write it.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">13. Mauser - The Summer Tour Tape</span><br /><br />I initially picked this up and put it down rather too quickly. After further noisy, raw, scorching reflection I came to terms with my own idiocy. This EP is so unapologetic and harbours conviction alone that could sell narcotics to a nun. It clocks in at just under fifteen minutes, substantial for a ludicrously quick, rough and ready Hardcore Punk band. These guys are a bunch of filthy libertines playing to piss you off.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />12. Men's Interest - More War</span><br /><br />The lead singer for Boston's Men's Interest sounds like a lucid reincarnation of Negative FX's Jack Kelly. His vocal style strangles each one of the seven tracks from More War as if the percussion and guitar noise are obstacles in his path to reach you. In terms of scope, this record is well-nigh on unimprovable - which isn't even a legitimate word, but 'perfect' does not have the same concrete weight to it. I am willing to forget the rules of proper lexis for this band.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">11. The Rival Mob - Hardcore For Hardcore</span><br /><br />Styled by many blogs and scene agents as the 'tightest band in Boston right now' - and if that lofty exultation does nothing to excite you then go back to your Backtrack record. 'Hardcore For Hardcore' picks up where Raw Life left off. Nothing has been subtracted from the explicit formula of weight, intensity and power, instead they've doubled the effort and penned six bricks of the heftiest Hardcore this side of Age Of Quarrell.<br /><br /><Center><a href="http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/?action=view&current=3999-dryrot_philistine-2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/3999-dryrot_philistine-2.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a></center><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />10. DRY-ROT - Philistine</span><br /><br />This LP is a certified breeze block of preposterousness. DRY-ROT sound like a mentally inept Pissed Jeans playing through a damp wall, but this tumult of insanity has managed to congeal together rather organically into one of last year's finest records. Tracks such as 'Maul Test' showcase a forceful ability to write great Punk songs, whereas other efforts like 'Can A Game Kill Time' leave you feeling disturbed as a Neil Young type melody is butchered to within an inch of it's riff by the most inexplicable vocals you'll have heard from last year.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/?action=view&current=homostupidsnight.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/homostupidsnight.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a></center><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">9. Homostupids - Night Deacon</span><br /><br />Without doubt my favourite EP of 2010. I adore the way this band ignores almost all conventions to play a caterwaul of addictive, no frills Hardcore. Night Deacon owes as much of it's sound to the first wave of Hardcore bands as it does to the noisier, more inverted bands of the last couple of decades. In essence they sound like they’re having fun with Punk Rock and just generally flinging semen / other viscous bodily fluids at each other. Their sound is a confusing dish-cloth of all of yesterday’s stains folded into the mildew of today’s Punk bacteria. Despite the high risk of infection you don’t want to miss out on this band.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/?action=view&current=immaculada1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/immaculada1.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a></center><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />8. The Men - Immaculada</span><br /><br />A band of noise merchants that have already received high acclaim for their previous 12" 'We Are The Men' only to widen the groove of appreciation with this latest effort 'Immaculada.' As a record you couldn't realistically call it anything less than impressive. The huge peaks of noise plough headlong into a series of bloody Hardcore fissures, rolling through the seconds with flat-out surefooted Punk. See track two 'Problems/Burning Up' as a blooming example of such Noise Punk / Hardcore kinship.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/?action=view&current=wavves.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/wavves.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a></center><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">7. Wavves - King of The Beach</span><br /><br />Hated by Psychedelic Horseshit and others, loved by many. This latest record from Nathan Williams has gone a long way to bridge the gap between accessibility and counter culture credibility. 'Post Acid' and 'Super Soaker' are sugary highlights from a record which is blatantly just as concerned with stressing melody as it is with stamping a footprint of plausibility just outside the camp of today's glittery MTV 'stars.' I think this could be one of the most important records of last year. It bent the rules to make itself what it is and it alienated a portion of Wavves' fan base to a large extent. To bring together many conflicting ideas I want to say how much I adore this record. Guilty pleasure it may be, it would be one of the first records I would recommend to someone if they asked me to name some of the most polarizing or enjoyable records from 2010.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/?action=view&current=slices-cruising.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/slices-cruising.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a></center><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />6. Slices - Cruising.</span><br /><br />Slices are rampant in their progress towards the throne of all kingdoms Hardcore. I believe them to be one of the freshest, most exciting bands to have made a name for themselves over the past few years. Cruising is an obelisk of disobedience, with sheaths of sharp riffing cutting through an overlay of animalistic vocals. Vocals which sound, to understate it, exponentially antagonistic whenever they get the chance to pierce through Slices' mesh of drone and sawdust.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">5. No Class - Keine Klasse</span><br /><br />I thought it would be impudent of me to rank the No Class demo within this list rather than Keine Klasse, however listening to the demo and then listening to Keine Klasse has it's advantages as the demo offers up a slightly varied flavour than the full length. Less production value politics, more celebration of this record. Without doubt one of the finest releases from last year, Kansas City has produced a band of uncompromising worth and unbridled Hardcore Punk swagger. Vocalist Neil injects an atmosphere of sense amongst senselessness, overlapping the maelstrom of rhythmic Punk with dry-cured, smoked out vocal stylings. Unquestionably brilliant band who deserve every emphatic fan they can churn up.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/?action=view&current=WhiteBoss-122727.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/WhiteBoss-122727.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a></center><br><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">4. White Boss - White Boss</span><br /><br />North of California, sheltered by the Rocky mountains and left to stew in Hardcore's almost forgotten territories lay White Boss, a band which released one of the most refreshing and compelling records of last year. This album challenges many of Hardcore's preconceptions, force feeding the listener vast expanses of instrumental daliance, only to wildly inflame into a torrent of rolling Hardcore Punk. I see White Boss as one of the most forward thinking bands to have made themselves prominent in 2010.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/?action=view&current=Best-Coast-Crazy-For-You.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/Best-Coast-Crazy-For-You.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a></center><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">3. Best Coast - Crazy For You</span><br /><br />I fantasise about Bethany Cosentino writing songs about me, and I see a faint likeness between her song writing and the late great Kurt Cobain's, especially on tracks such as 'Bratty B' and 'Honey' which could sound like any number of Kurt's slower, more pensive tracks with minimal tweaking. Comparisons aside, I absolutely adore this record. I loved the Art Fag 7" but 'Crazy For You' takes those early diagrams of hairline lo-fi pop and nourishes them into fully fledged servings of beach pop / garage rock at it's present day best. I think Beth has so much potential to break into other realms of musical success, and perhaps to rearrange the priorities of mainstream music appreciation.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/?action=view&current=ppm032.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/ppm032.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a></center><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">2. Total Abuse - Mutt</span><br /><br />I wouldn't have been able to cope after the death of Cult Ritual if it wasn't for this band. Mutt is without argument one of the records of the year, it’s so painfully obvious that this album is deserved of a place within the distinguished top 10. It sounds like Cult Ritual in some respects - if Cult Ritual had smoked one too many snowcaps and then laced their mind with a vicious line of powder to bring them back into a realm of frenzied Hardcore - in other ways it sounds like a version of Drunkdriver less lost in parallel dimensions of obscure Noise Punk. This is sheer sonic repulsion at it’s best. I fear for the mental health of each band member. In my opinion, one of the greatest bands in Hardcore.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/?action=view&current=Ceremony---Rohnert-Park-28201029.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/Ceremony---Rohnert-Park-28201029.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a></center><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">1. Ceremony - Rohnert Park</span><br /><br />To try and concisely categorise this record and to try in earnest to explain it's genius in words would be folly. It would trivialise what I think is one of the most important Punk records of the last 10 years to spend paragraphs detailing the strengths of Rohnert Park. Nevertheless, something has to be written. <br /><br />Rohnert Park envelopes almost all the facets of Punk which I adore. It has weight of meaning, it performs a set of songs that avoid neat classification whilst spewing forth effusions of unabashed anger and yet it adheres in many ways to those channels of song writing already firmly stamped into existence by the extinct champions of Punk Rock. I will still be listening to this record in 10 years time and I think that is perhaps the greatest compliment I could pay this release.<br /><br /><font size="3">Honourable mentions:</font><br /><em>Merchandise - Strange Songs (In The Dark), Trash Talk - Eyes & Nines, Gun Outfit - Possession Sound, Broken Water - Whet, Son Skull - Birth Scene / Rewind, Arts - Vault of Heaven, Walls - Staring At The Walls, Merchandise - Strange Songs In The Dark, Diet Cokeheads - Nasal.</em>Josh Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14685263151491816208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6688129544295332488.post-59081610470764958802011-01-03T00:38:00.001+00:002011-01-03T02:38:30.834+00:00Twin StumpsThis record is a body of bitterness. It juxtaposes your notions of beauty and familiar punk aesthetic with ugliness, demanding you shut the fuck up and take it like the wirey, sinewy human you are. There are no vapid glitter gimmicks to this release, just ‘Grotesque, misanthropic extremism that draws you into its myopic void by force and drags you further and further down.’ It sounds like a bouquet of barbed wire to the ears. Twin Stumps, self titled record.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/?action=view&current=twin20stumps.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/twin20stumps.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a></center>Josh Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14685263151491816208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6688129544295332488.post-80107125429462940812010-12-17T14:24:00.002+00:002010-12-17T14:43:53.744+00:00Records Of The Year - Video BlogRecorded a quick video last night to run through some of my favourite records of the year. I only manage to mention 5 or 6, and this is by no means a definitive list, nevertheless I hope you enjoy it. Might have to crank the volume up significantly!<br /><br /><object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/cX2dLlOR5oc?fs=1&hl=en_GB"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/cX2dLlOR5oc?fs=1&hl=en_GB" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>Josh Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14685263151491816208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6688129544295332488.post-77466718688953489432010-12-15T14:19:00.004+00:002010-12-15T14:30:20.050+00:00Interview with No Class<span style="font-style:italic;">This was done through email about a month ago, since then the new record has been released, so excuse a couple of the questions for sounding dated. This band seem to be doing everything right at the minute, and they're certainly one of my highlights of 2010. Thanks go out to Neal and the guys. Enjoy.</span><br /><br /><br /><center><a href="http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/?action=view&current=noclassMRR.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/noclassMRR.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a></center><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Firstly, you mentioned that your first 12" will be coming out on Deranged Records, you guys must be pysched for that to happen, what can you tell us about the recording process and working with Deranged?</span><br /><br /> When we put the tape out, Deranged got a hold of us and wanted to release the tape as a 7’’. We kinda wanted the tape to be it’s own singular entity, and would rather go forward with new songs/releases. We had a dialogue going and he was very interested in doing some vinyl with us. So Jesse and I threw up a hail mary with bringing a short LP to the table. The tape was done straight up in one day, the LP took actually a lot longer. We recorded all the material we had to date, and then went through and lined up the best fitting and tightest songs which has become the LP. We used a wide range of equipment to record from vintage amps and pedals to newer items. It wasn’t recorded in Pro-tools but Qbase I believe. Much appreciation to Mike/Mark for putting up with our bullshit and our tedious requests.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Secondly, what can you tell us about the new record, can we expect more of the same gut punching hardcore?</span><br /><br />Wear band-aids on your nipples to cut down on chafing. It's more raw sounding than the tape.......its louder and more manic at times.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">I wanted to ask what your opinion is on modern hardcore? Do you see it as a diluted lesser to it's 70's & 80's ancestors, or do you see strength in the new bands and flagbearers of today?</span><br /><br />Sometimes hardcore today is just too hetero for its own good…..scenes /sounds change. But I still think it holds true that for every 10-20 horrid hardcore bands out now, there has to be at least 1 band that does it right. Also, I truly feel mesa boogies & triple rectifier type amps has ruined hardcore guitar.....but that guitar sound is so popular now in modern/popular hardcore, because it's 'heavy'. Fuck.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Can you elaborate on any of the themes and lyrical content behind your 'tape' release?</span><br /><br />Wrap a year and a half ( and still counting ) of being on the verge of a nervous breakdown, the simmering hate for a single person ( B-side of tape for those lucky enough to have one), and sprinkle a little annoyance with the seriousness that the world conveys……..throw it in a pot, you got yourself a lyrical stew.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The tape itself sounds like a powderkeg of hardcore swagger, who would you say influenced your sound?</span><br /><br />Words like swagger, that’s what. Hahaha. I think if you take Jesse’s love of breaking things, my spazzy anxiety, dillon’s retarded-ness, and Dustin’s disapproval with all most everything….you get a pretty good idea of what influences us.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">I'm interested to know what you guys listen to personally, are you all fervent hardcore fans through and through? Could you name us some of your favourite bands, past and present?</span><br /><br />This question makes me anxious. Haha. So much to choose from…..I have sat on this question for like 2 days….and every time I try to answer it I get all nervous. No idea why. I love hardcore. And I love a whole lotta other stuff too. I love music.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Finally, are there any plans for after the record release, anything set in stone regarding tours, both on American soil or perhaps overseas?</span><br /><br />We totally want to at least do a 5-10 day tour….talking with buddies Cardiac Arrest from STL about possibly doing it together. But I don’t think the universe will be able to contain that much hardcore, goofiness, and strip clubs…..the universe may just implode on the sheer amount of idiocy and meat consumption.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/?action=view&current=thumbphp.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/thumbphp.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><Br><br /><br />New record out now, available from a few places - try <a href="http://www.sorrystaterecords.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=2181">Sorry State Records</a></center>Josh Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14685263151491816208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6688129544295332488.post-80053222932643562592010-11-30T15:22:00.002+00:002010-11-30T16:15:41.973+00:00Clockcleaner<center><a href="http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/?action=view&current=clockcleaner.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/clockcleaner.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a></center><br /><br />Clockcleaner steep themselves in controversy. They dine with it. They throw their arms around it as if greeting an old friend. Nirvana were apparently 'dogshit' according to lead singer John Sharkey, so they recorded an album whilst Sharkey was suffering from 'bi-lateral amnesia' and named it Nevermind.<br /><br />Having this pious, <span style="font-style:italic;">Kurt Cobain is holier than thou</span> devotion to Nirvana should, I thought, cause me to react in a spray of venom towards this bullshit merchantry. However, my inner critical opinion has tranquilised any and all war mongering - for Clockcleaner are ridiculously impressive. Listen to their 2007 full length 'Babylon Rules' and let the dark swagger of the opening track 'New In Town' web you in it's physically repulsive sonic air. I don't think I've ever heard a track #1 quite so fucking animalistic. It sounds like a 7 minute stalk through a trip you'd experience after smoking one of Buzz Osbourne's greying ringlets.<br /><br />The rest of this record sounds like it could have come about after the splicing of a thousand or more influences went terribly wrong, but what I feel this soup-pot of noise rock boils down to is an intense love for Melvins interbreeding with a sexual preoccupation towards Pixies, all further hybridized until each member believes he or she is a functioning member of The Jesus Lizard.<br /><br />I see contemporaries in Pissed Jeans, another viscerally bent out of shape punk troupe that has left the rule book at the front door to parade nakedly at the party. Of the records I've heard up to now; 'The Hassler', 'Nevermind' and 'Babylon Rules', I'd have to push 'Babylon Rules' as my opus of choice. It is unrelenting, cocky as all hell and quite frankly nauseating to the point where you need to listen to some Minutemen just to calm yourself down.<br /><br />I thoroughly recommend this band. They've got just about enough old school in them for the 'punker than thee' council to perhaps enjoy them, and the right measure of 21st century clamour to be topical.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?dnkzz3dz4mj">Babylon Rules (mediafire)</a><br /><a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?zdk755xzd4avzf2">Nevermind (mediafire)</a>Josh Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14685263151491816208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6688129544295332488.post-64820856727810469902010-11-28T16:43:00.003+00:002010-11-28T17:01:50.236+00:00The World According To VICE<center><a href="http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/?action=view&current=world-according-to-vice-500x333.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/world-according-to-vice-500x333.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a></center><br /><br />Allow your eyes to trace their way through any one copy of Vice magazine. Half of your brain will start to cloud over as articles concerning counter culture lifestyles and drug trafficking pockmark your psyche, leaving you a demoralised wreck, murmuring "is this really how things are?" whilst drooling an unnoticed goo onto your fervently tapping foot. Meanwhile, the other half of your mind tank has exploded into a vibrant nebula of sexual enlightenment and spiritual meaning. Think Alexander Shulgin on dropping his first tab of acid.<br /><br />Since it's inception way back in 1994, Vice has steered itself through a sea of 90's silt in buoyant fashion. The first ten years of the new millennium has seen them propping up independent art and general cultural deviancy with the same unwavering happy-go-fuck-yourself resolution that made their publication great in the first place. This latest book, 'The World According To Vice' is in essence, a pastiche of celebrated British incongruity from the years gone by. If Vice set out each month with a strict mission objective, they would not be the tower of senseless sensibility that they are now. This book's exquisiteness owes everything to the way that indulgent irony and cultural pervasiveness have been allowed to partner each other organically - delivering more than enough socio-political weight to perhaps beckon a great awakening in the minds of all you finger paintin', tory - votin' nerf herders out there. All the while each delicately written article or chiseled into place, ham fisted front line report serves up enough satire and visual humour to laugh that beer gut into an eight-pack.<br /><br />'The World According To Vice' is a whole notch of fun. Learning about a football hooligan from Southampton having an eye knocked out by one good crack to the skull and finally finding clarity over which sex deals the greatest blowjob are interesting enough, but this book noodles away at your inner apathy in ways you can't imagine. Pretty soon after reading you'll be protesting over tuition fees, smoking 'snowcaps' and wearing a Das Oath shirt. That might however, be a little hasty, at the very least you'll sympathise with the dirty student oiks, come to realise that drugs 'aren't all that bad' and perhaps flirt with the idea of listening to Negative Approach. <br /><br /><center><a href="http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/?action=view&current=vice.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/vice.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a></center><br /><br />Another great value I see in this book, is the way in which it never fails to remind me just how close we all are to reverting back to flinging our own shit at each other and scrapping on the floor for berries and nuts. Sure, we've not really come that far along anyway, instead of heaving excrement at each other, we glass each other to within an inch of looking like Jared Leto's character from Fight Club. And instead of warring for morsels of sustenance like rabid mongrels still reeling from the evolutionary hangover of once being amphibian, we fight, as Vice puts it, 'to claim the rights to finger the slapper around the back of the butchers.' An apt description of bleeding Britain, awash in a sea of our own bodily fluids and nervous dispositions.<br /><br />If you'd allow me to be pensive for a moment, I'm keen to impress on you just how magnificent a document this book is. In a world of all things instantaneous; easy drugs, dirty urban luminescence and cheapened fame - Vice are here to tuck your shirt into your trousers, do up your collar button and kick you out the door. You'll have to wipe the snot from your own nose and make up your own mind on a few things, but at least you'll be halfway to forming your own understanding. The care and pride that has gone into creating this book is awe inspiring. Thousands of man hours, artistic illustration, enthused reporting and all sorts of literary & photographic sleight of hand have congealed together to produce this tablet, this bedrock of thinking. History is written by those who were <span style="font-style:italic;">there</span>, and this release announces that Vice are very much <span style="font-style:italic;">here</span> in 2010.<br /><br />You can purchase a copy from the <a href="http://www.viceland.com/issues_uk/store.php#Anchor-Books-47857">UK Vice Store</a>Josh Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14685263151491816208noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6688129544295332488.post-1433707115742014762010-11-27T00:55:00.008+00:002011-02-15T17:05:24.072+00:00Poems for my Father<span style="font-style:italic;">Forty Years</span><br /><br />When you freeze over,<br />You will be pristine<br />and glacial.<br />A slope of marble purity.<br />A cake of white frost.<br /><br />You will be chops<br />and slivers,<br />Of winsome snow floes.<br />The collective applauding<br />Your regal death throes.<br /><br />Saltless from the tap<br />And safe by the broil.<br />Waxing ecstatic<br />At the thought of<br />No colour.<br /><br />Crisper than iced rose-skin,<br />But fractured the same.<br />Oil for bile and no<br />Blood in your veins.<br /><br />When that solid state<br />Becomes my own form<br />And nature,<br />I'll taste like miasma,<br />Like effluviant splatter.<br /><br />I quake at the thought<br />Of a future sap-self.<br />I will be pockets<br />In a soup pot<br />Of melting ill health.<br /><br />Stretched like Vitruvius<br />'Cross a pan of dense humming,<br />Mouth wide open<br />At the thought of more colour.<br /><br />Rest your silky head<br />On silk, down and grey hue,<br />And watch me cross the river<br />On this tough wooden sinew<br /><br />Covered in pits<br />And pocks on my face<br />(All easily attained)<br />I'll eat whole the bud<br />Of the life I have gained. <br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Dash Snow Complex</span><br /><br />I am a spew of muddied water,<br />Luke-warm from your mouth.<br />Like vicious smokey inhalate,<br />Nipping at your health.<br /><br />I enjoy the slobbery,<br />Of picking up each leg.<br />I slept a sleep in,<br />Hollow logs,<br />As mould bejewelled my head.<br /><br />Thoughts as foul as cooking gas,<br />As bleach, as lice, as me,<br />Ravish my brain and,<br />Stew me up.<br />So swallow me in greed.<br /><br />One day i’ll plant my foot to earth,<br />And let safety vine my toes,<br />‘Til then I am the toxic son of,<br />Mind, of body,<br />And soul.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Clipped. Or Love's Ruminating Eye</span><br /><br />She loves it in the summer time,<br />When the smoke would last forever.<br /><br />Those times when the dull and jaded eyes,<br />Of a normal man’s intent,<br />Would usurp to form her focal point,<br />And minus me from them.<br /><br />She choked upon her princess rule,<br />We blamed my own collapse.<br /><br />She shared a kiss with Artisans,<br />And flew with luminescence,<br />Then bit my hands to bring about,<br />My bloodless,<br />Loveless,<br />Present.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">My Swan Neck.</span><br /><br />My swan neck arcs for the other one,<br />Hunkered down with beaten brow,<br />As a tumult of grey tasting clouds,<br />Shower down,<br />The vibrating matter,<br />Which I can’t evade.<br />And an end of filth reign,<br />Blunts precipitate.<br /><br />So there stands I,<br />Washed through with decay,<br />A little bitch whelp,<br />With no limbs left to stave.<br /><br />Lilted crooked organs,<br />Condensed with me on my cross,<br />My manhood placated,<br />And stripped of all cloth.<br /><br />My swan neck bends towards the other one,<br />Unstitching seams, mourning dreams,<br />A triplicated wealth of means,<br />Follows me.<br /><br />So here Lies I,<br />Cradled by the news,<br />That the best way out,<br />Was only ever through<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Night Growth</span><br /><br />I try to break each day,<br />Against my back,<br />As a latch snaps shut,<br />On my mindful tact.<br /><br />Each morning is romance,<br />And long thought out pleas,<br />Each dusk is like daybreak,<br />Enveloping me.<br /><br />My words are a drool,<br />Of self indulged nothing,<br />They fall under a canopy,<br />Of my own weightless truth.<br /><br />I feel quite as free,<br />As doves tied to Earth,<br />So I’m sewing my eyes shut,<br />For our collective rebirthJosh Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14685263151491816208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6688129544295332488.post-5155721075589753092010-11-03T17:42:00.003+00:002010-11-03T21:29:56.819+00:00'Yo Born Against, you better be extremely fucking cautious about who you talk shit about'<center><a href="http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/?action=view¤t=bhotrw.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/bhotrw.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a></center><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">'Yo Born Against, you better be extremely fucking cautious about who you talk shit about'</span> - voicemail excert from the track 'Born Against Are Fucking Dead'<br /><br />Sam McPheeters once of 'punk' band Born Against, has done just about as much for Hardcore as Richard Dawkins has done for the confused, hopefully agnostic non believers of the world. Except Sam's forceful imprint on punk culture birthed a following who's pregnant minds of violence waxed ecstatic over Born Against's confrontational, take no prisoners, cut all ties approach to carving a path through the scene.<br /><br />My favourite Born Against record is probably 'Battle Hymns of The Race War' - despite it's older brother 'Nine Patriotic Hymns For Children' being the standard against which many future Hardcore records have been measured. Each track is a railroad to concussion, as unabashed leftist pursuits manage to deliver themselves both brutally and thoughtfully at the same time. Oxymoronic no? <br /><br />Perhaps Born Against's greatest gift to the world was the confidence to collide unapologetic idealism with dynamic, ahead of it's time hardcore - without over simplifying age old philosophies for the masses to swallow like snack-sized kid's treats. When you listen to Born Against, you're listening to a band that could quite easily be misconstrued as a group of guys who simply do not give a shit, yet nothing could be further from the truth. They poked fun and aggravated a whole host of bands and scene luminaries, however behind the shroud of impish humour, an intelligent hub of ideology wrote songs in a fervour.<br /><br />Download <a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?ozv0uiljrdf">Battle Hymns of The Race War</a>Josh Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14685263151491816208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6688129544295332488.post-22968659191074431992010-10-18T20:16:00.003+01:002010-10-18T20:37:04.924+01:00An interview with Ross Farrar of Ceremony<span style="font-style:italic;">Last Thursday I had the privilege of sitting down with <span style="font-weight:bold;">Ross Farrar</span>, a photographer, writer and poet perhaps best known to most as the frontman for North Californian Punk band <span style="font-weight:bold;">Ceremony</span>. A group who in my opinion are the absolute leading light in Hardcore today.<br /><br />We spoke predominantly about Ross' photography. Being an amateur myself I was eager to know the ins and outs of his approach to taking photos as well as to learn about what drives him to express himself through such a wide range of mediums. I loved every second of it, Ross is a great guy. Needless to say Ceremony had played a blinding set before we sat down. It was great to finally hear tracks from <span style="font-weight:bold;">Rohnert Park</span> after months of pissing off just about everyone around me by playing it constantly at a less than friendly volume.<br /><br />Anyway, we shot this interview on video camera, which I'll try to upload soon. The following is a complete transcription of the interview. Enjoy.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />The first question I wanted to ask,<br />Was Photography instilled in your mind from an early age?</span><br /><br />Yeah, my dad kind of got me into it, he was going to The Brookes in Santa Barbara, It's like a commercial Photography school now, it used to be different, it was I guess involved with the arts at first and he went there in the early 70's and was really into photography. He is still kind of involved with it a little bit but not as much, and then when I got into high school I was taking a photography program so he gave me all his equipment. He gave me his 35 millimetres, he gave me a 4 x 5 camera, a rolleiflex - 125mm rolleiflex. He kinda taught me what to do, I was like 'OK, I kinda like it', I was getting into it and then I left it for a long time, maybe three years and then I started taking a class in a junior College and I was like, ' Well, I actually really like this.' My whole life i've kind of fell into stuff that my dad was into, It was kind of weird, I guess you can say it was instilled in me somehow. Everything that my dad was doing, I kind of fell into at the time - right around the same time he got into Photography when he was a kid, I started getting into it.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The same age he did, the same age you did?</span><br /><br />Yeah, the same age, and, I don't know.. I've just been doing it ever since, because I'm always on tour, always on the road and there's always interesting things to take pictures of, we're involved with all these great countries, cities, people and everything so there's always a very wide variety of subject material that you can take pictures of. So I've kind of been doing that, I don't take it as seriously as I used to. I went to school because I wanted to take pictures for a living, but then I realised, well, I don't know if I want to make this my living, I don't know if I want to make this as a job, I'd rather maybe keep it as a hobby.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">You shot the Trash Talk - 'Eyes & Nines' back cover, how was that?</span><br /><br />Yeah, they asked me to take their picture, because I'm really good friends with those guys, they live close to me. We're always hanging out and shit so they were like 'Yeah we're gonna be in the city so can you take the picture for the back cover?' I was like, yeah, sure. I did that, and a few other random things, there's a couple of other people who have asked me to do things for publications. It's pretty cool, I've been lucky thus far with that.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />Did you follow these opportunities through with various publications?</span><br /><br />It's cool, I mean I lived in San Francisco for a long time and there's a pretty big photography scene there, and there's the culture, the arts. Of course San Francisco is very involved with all sorts of stuff. When I moved there I met a bunch of people and I was lucky to meet certain people. I knew a guy and he published a bunch of stuff for Upper Playground. Stuff like the International Toy Camera thing, I was taking pictures with Holga just randomly and I knew the lady and she was like 'Oh give me some pictures, we can publish some stuff.' It's been pretty cool, thus far.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">When you go out to shoot, and you're motivated to shoot, is it an artistic motivation or is it a motivation to document friends, family, environment? Is it art or is it documentation, where do you see the line?</span><br /><br />Well, I guess there is a time and a place for everything, sometimes I go out on hunts where I try to find things that are pretty or captivating that I want to take pictures of and at other times I'll just be with my friends, you know, taking pictures of whatever we're doing. Ever since I started taking pictures I was told by my dad or the teacher, whoever, to take pictures of what you're doing at the time - take pictures of what you know. If you're skating, take pictures of that, if you're going to Hardcore shows take pictures of that, if you're smoking crack.. take pictures of that! Take pictures of whatever you're doing because there's going to be a niche somewhere, there's going to be some place where people are going to want to see that you know? There's going to be some kind of window somewhere, where people are going to be like 'Okay, thats interesting, I want to see that.' It doesn't really matter what it is, there's people who take pictures of rolls and cheese and food, because there is an interest in that. You could just be like 'Oh I'm going to take pictures of couches for a month' - and you could do a couch series or something, so there's all different kinds of shit you can do but I would say that the most important thing you can do is just take pictures of what you're doing at the time because you're going to get the most interesting pictures, because you're interested in that.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Do you see the work that you've done so far being intrinsic to your locality, as in Rohnert Park, North California? Or do you think your work would be just as strong somewhere else, say New York or wherever..?</span><br /><br />I think it's probably more intrinsic to me, I grew up in Rohnert Park and I've taken pictures of all my friends and family and the culture, the scene. Whatever is happening around me, I've taken pictures of that. I think it's important to me, I mean now that I'm in Ceremony everything I do is more public and now that it is public it's going to somehow reach out to people in a certain way, people are going to get interested in it, like you, you got interested in the pictures that I've taken so i've been blessed that way. There's people randomly all over the world, I'll meet people in Japan who will be like 'Oh I like what you've done.' It's really because of Ceremony, it is because of who you know and what you're doing. It's hard to make a name for yourself unless you're involved with something certain and something concrete, like a band. It helps, lets just say that. It's really hard to be an art student, or a kid just trying to make it in the art scene. When I moved to San Francisco I was getting involved with Ceremony and I was like oh I'm going to be on tour all over the world, I've got to start taking pictures, thats what I like to do and it worked out, I was really blessed that way. I do feel like it's important to me, to take the pictures that I take, because I'm cataloging all the things that I've seen. I was in Milan, in Italy the other day and I was taking picures of Catholic Priests, walking out of the Chapel, I just happened to be there, but it's really hard to get pictures like that because they don't want you to take pictures of you, they hate it - the whole time he was like 'No, no, don't' as I tried to get a portrait. If you're able to travel and be in that position then you might as well take advantage of it.<br /><br />I would like to do a huge, huge project on Rohnert Park, thats what I want to do because thats where I'm from and I know a lot of people, that would be cool.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Final question, I wanted to know, with your photography, your writing, poetry and short stories .. and then the band - do you see them all as standalone projects or is there a big interweave between the whole thing?</span><br /><br />It's a little bit interweaved, but it's hard to balance everything at once. If I get involved with a photography project then I'll find I want to do that, but at the same time I'm trying to write all the time too, so it's really hard to find a balance between everything. I would say that the photography has been pushed aside more so lately because what I'm trying to do with my life in general is write. Thats what I want to do, I want to write things for people and I want people to be able to connect and feel things, I feel like it's a little harder with Photography. It's harder for me because I don't want to make it my full time job, I do it as a hobby, but writing, I do it everyday - I do it all the time, but writing poetry and then writing short stories and maybe something longer, if I'm involved with that at the time then thats what I want to do.<br /><br />I'll wake up in the morning and some days I'll just be like 'Fuck?!' - I want to go outside and walk around, I want to go to San Francisco and take pictures or skate around and take pictures or whatever. Then there will be days where I just want to be in the house, you know? Not talk to anyone, just write stuff. I think it kind of depends on your emotional level at the time, because if you're out doing street Photography you're going to be out in the public, you're going to be interacting with people, it's a little more social, I mean, you can be voyeuristic about it obviously. Writing is a very very solitary thing. You can go and write around people but it's not going to be the same, you'll feel like you have to go alone somewhere and sit in your room or some other space where you can write. Theyare two very different things, Photography you're out in the world but when you're writing it's solitary art, whether you're in your house or whether you're in a cafe in the corner. Wherever you're writing you're going to need to be alone. Your girlfriend can't be like *raises voice* 'OH HOW WAS YOUR DAY?', when you're trying to write something. It's more of an introverted thing.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/?action=view¤t=4948607329_cc00874cc2_z.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/4948607329_cc00874cc2_z.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a></center><br /><br />Thanks to Anthony of Slowmotion Promotions and my brother Lewis for helping out.Josh Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14685263151491816208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6688129544295332488.post-47115031011660655012010-10-08T13:26:00.008+01:002010-10-08T13:45:07.572+01:00Alexis Gross - Drop Some AcidAlexis Gross confesses that she feels almost too old for her bones, as if by some cosmic imbalance she has somehow been born in the wrong era. Her life so far has been a chaotic disquietude of moments every right wing, flower sniffing, Tory voter would much rather expunge from their conscious drift altogether, let alone document it on colour film for the world to peek at through finger obscured eyesight.<br /><br />She was born some 21 years ago, raised in Westhampton Beach, a speck of a village located in Suffolk County, New York. A village which had its agricultural consuetude levelled to make way for a rainbow of summer homes and the hotel industry. This dramatic shift in disposition could almost be seen as a tidemark of this town’s suicide, nevertheless Gross found herself growing up with two parents ‘still feeling the affects of an acid trip and a sister that really needed to drop some’ – a combination of what sounds like free spiritedness and brusque sorority.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.colormagazine.ca/local/cache/f/fe/fe01c7d6f9b859a73d2fdac7fbf772d5-006f2fd74a1dde8b3cc4ea085aa1b8ad.png"><img style="float:; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 595px; height: 392px;" src="http://www.colormagazine.ca/local/cache/f/fe/fe01c7d6f9b859a73d2fdac7fbf772d5-006f2fd74a1dde8b3cc4ea085aa1b8ad.png" border="0" alt="" /></a></center><br /><br />After several years of regularly exposing her camera to her imbibed underworld of choice; made up of the resentfully beautiful yet fucked up types commonplace when it came to Dash Snow’s Polaroids or Ryan McGinley’s ‘The Kids Are Alright’ series, Alexis made the move to Toronto to further her work. She now resides in Brooklyn, a full two years on from her stint north of the border, where she continues to document the writhing scene of motorcycle oiks and innocuous long haired beer-swillers, as well as taking a closer look at skateboard culture and the associated party overload induced malaise.<br /><br />Alexis grew up around skateboarders and subsequently her photos reflect a very real way of life - a way of life that she herself has lived by both behind the lens as well as dancing in front of it. Alexis Gross triggers a shockwave of fervour in her subjects, capturing the ardent passion to chase exhilaration that exudes so glaringly from the people around her. She takes photos of life’s ongoing party, documenting her local group of skateboarding friends, a scene almost closed off to any outsiders because of its tribal nature. The prints showcased on her website are tremendously gritty, they strike the senses with an assault of abrasion. A lot of them look as if they have been printed, carried around in a bag for a week, left on a coffee table to collect the stale air of blue smoke and dust for a further few days and then finally scanned in and posted to her site. <br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.colormagazine.ca/local/cache/f/fc/fc4d0be95622aebc1e86d79702adeb66-006f2fd74a1dde8b3cc4ea085aa1b8ad.png"><img style="float:; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 595px; height: 391px;" src="http://www.colormagazine.ca/local/cache/f/fc/fc4d0be95622aebc1e86d79702adeb66-006f2fd74a1dde8b3cc4ea085aa1b8ad.png" border="0" alt="" /></a></center><br /><br />I look at Alexis’ work and see striking similarities between her, Laura Lynn Petrick, Nina Hartmann and Ross Farrar. Not only her physical preset to taking photos, and by that I mean shooting with low-grade film, but also kinship by way of the people she is so keen on documenting. Many, if not all of my photographers of choice have an eye for shooting their friends or the contemporaries around them. Quite often these friends are representations of a sub-culture, a counter scene to the capitalist money crunching economy mechanics, a tumult of people more concerned with art, socialising, representation, human nature and enjoyment than anything Ronald Reagan had to say.<br /><br />There is a rather intriguing collection of photos on her website grouped together under the word ‘FUCKS’, which depicts a series of men and women in all manner of settings, from laying in bed semi nude to cracking open a bottle of beer, strumming on stage or inspecting a fresh bodily injury. The young Gross is as unapologetic as they come in terms of talking about her portfolio of work and in a recent interview with Foam Magazine she happily answered the interviewer’s inquiry about her collection of ‘FUCKS’, stating that ‘“The fuck section is about dudes I've f**ked, my friends who are f**king each other and dudes who are just f**ked!” Clearly Alexis’ intention of honesty knows no bounds, an observation that attracts me to her work in a very strong way.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://foammagazine.com/system/images/content/articles/0000/4175/alexis_gross_2_span7.jpg?1280435248"><img style="float:; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 432px; height: 644px;" src="http://foammagazine.com/system/images/content/articles/0000/4175/alexis_gross_2_span7.jpg?1280435248" border="0" alt="" /></a></center><br /><br />Gross is progressing further and further along the line of photography infamy. Her fabled shots of situational occurrences have so far led her to a stream of job prospects. Only recently has she successfully completed a printed photozine of her photos, working with Dan Pelissier from Young Healers, further to that she has successfully shot an ad for Glamour Kills which went on to be featured in Nylon Magazine and perhaps most impressively she has taken on a position as contributing photographer for skate magazine Color.<br /><br />Alexis Gross’ plethora of photographic documentation is more like a recounting of activities in photo form, as if Gross herself is the treasurer and we as viewers are lucky enough to be given a ‘through the keyhole’ glance at life on the other side. I’m sure the obsession with Gross will not taper off anytime soon.Josh Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14685263151491816208noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6688129544295332488.post-32925062566161916962010-10-04T21:03:00.002+01:002010-10-04T21:17:28.600+01:00Sump - Taken Dead<center><a href="http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/?action=view¤t=00_cover.png" target="_blank"><img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/00_cover.png" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a></center><br /><br />This is currently pinning my bollocks to the floor and giving me a good lesson in how to create the most satisfactory Black Punk imaginable. These guys are from Leeds, I found them through my good friend Thom who is more than clued up on that entire scene. Don't think of this however as ill deserved bias towards fellow Yorkshiremen, Sump are well worth your time if you're willing to dip a toe into what sounds like a pool of noxious exhalations from once living matter. Their sound - specifically their guitar work - reminds me at times of Saccharine Trust, albeit if Saccharine Trust literally did not give a shit and had distorted themselves out of all known dimensions to a place where up became down and ugly became beautiful.<br /><br />Head on over to <a href="http://funeralstench.blogspot.com/2010/08/sump-taken-dead-new-rip.html">The Funeral Stench</a> to download this death rattle.Josh Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14685263151491816208noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6688129544295332488.post-91410679517766505432010-09-29T18:14:00.003+01:002010-09-29T18:27:58.775+01:00Brutality Will Prevail - Root of All Evil<center><a href="http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/?action=view¤t=HRR049V.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/HRR049V.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"></span>Release Date: October 4th<br />Purchase: <a href="http://holyroarrecords.com/#/bwp">Holy Roar Records</a></center><br /><br />South Wales breeds hardcore. I no longer have to imagine the Welsh punk rock-rooted counter culture scene as a massive glittery concussion of post- hardcore contraventions such as The Blackout or Kids In Glass Houses. When I think of Cardiff City, I don’t think of the Bay or the Millennium Stadium, I think of Crossbreaker, I think of Ironclad. The combined efforts of fellow Welsh bruisers Harbour, Wiretap, and the newly formed Wardogs have incontestably expunged any passing notion of Cardiff being unable to hold it's own against the raging south of England or the coal fired brutishness of the North.<br /><br />Brutality Will Prevail are known, to some, as the cohesive centre of rigidity within that scene. If not fully acknowledged as 'CCHC's' lynchpin of hardcore, then at least as a major supporting pillar - surely the endless touring, the unswayable live performances and steadfast conviction prime them as deserved candidates for such a title? <br /><br />Their previous release 'Forgotten Soul' set the agenda as the group's beat down tendencies - apparent from earlier efforts - somewhat transmutated into an uglier, more carnal sound, with layers of Crowbar-esque density stitched into the fold alongside the band's explicit intention not to turn their backs on hardcore. Fast forward to 2010, fresh from signing to Holy Roar Records and after a recalibration of the line-up, Brutality Will Prevail entered the studio to record their first full length record 'Root of All Evil.' A few weeks ago they posted a two minute promo video on 'rootofallevil.co.uk' - a video that looked like a clandestine meeting of a Sunn O))) brotherhood, yet it bled with mystery and blackened ideas, further stoking widespread interest in Brutality Will Prevail's new seemingly occult direction.<br /><br />The record first broaches the eardrums with 'Trapped Doors Moving Walls', a Machiavellian opener of sorts, carrying the flag into battle with a minutes worth of rolling guitar subtlety before a dramatic howl of 'Look into my eyes!' chain links with a down tuned bass, puncturing the seams of all that came before it. Second track, 'Illusions' is an impressive foray into the art of the instrumental. A plummeting drum rhythm drags with it the sound of a murmuring bass, until with time, two persistently flaring guitars cross streams - swan necking into a tower of groove and an echoed, harrowing din.<br /><br />‘Root of All Evil’ anchors the band’s instruments to a cathartic sound of gravel-pit sludge, yet one of their virtues is how capable they are of retaining a hardcore punk edge. The bass is tuned six feet under, the drumming is consistent - either cripplingly intense or shadowed & well placed - and the guitars are there to embellish the aural anticipation instead of dazzling with all sorts of unnecessary fretboard histrionics. Tracks such as ‘Life’ and ‘Early Grave’ sound like flash floods of bad omens, spilling a gut of Noothgrush style riffing as vocalist Ajay reigns it all in with a noose of His Hero Is Gone style hardcore vocals.<br /><br />Track seven ‘Rot Away’ pitches a curveball I don’t think anyone will have seen coming. Cloistered between ‘Reprisal’ and ‘Secrets of The Truth’, two tracks of chasmic depth that sound like Torche without the amphetamine spiral of flamboyancy and guitar stagecraft, ‘Rot Away’ ushers in an aura of delicacy in a way thats not to be found anywhere else on this record. Many will listen to it’s acoustic meandering and deem it an out of step attempt at meaningfulness, despite eventual subterranean rumblings fleshing out the soundscape around three quarters of the way through. This track will no doubt be a talking point, a grey area of sorts for a lot of listeners.<br /><br />All angles taken into consideration, this is a ruggedly built record of sludgy hardcore hooks and lumbering crush, as swampy and viscous at times as it is egg shell thin at others. The hugely impressive sound of a less riff focused Kylesa – had they grown up worshipping Straight Ahead and not Melvins – is powerful enough in itself. I think the path is still there for Brutality Will Prevail to tread, with more to be experimented with and much more for us as listeners to expect. In short, CCHC has a lot to shout about this year.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/?action=view¤t=bwp_tumblr.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/bwp_tumblr.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a></center>Josh Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14685263151491816208noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6688129544295332488.post-88775827839614547292010-09-26T17:24:00.002+01:002010-09-26T17:41:01.262+01:00Bastions - Island Living EP<Center><a href="http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/?action=view¤t=BastionsCNV00042.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa150/literal_profanity/BastionsCNV00042.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a></center><br /><br />The Isle of Anglesey hides a dark secret in amongst it's torrent of natural history and arable lands. A dark, sonic secret that renders you incapable of doing anything other than beating your chest red as the fragility of everything around you suddenly becomes all the more noticeable. The sound that Bastions produce conjures up all sorts of well-oiled, cognitive, mechanical connotations - yet there is a distinctly unfettered fleshiness to everything they do. Almost as if some great bionic entity found it's passion for hardcore, and in particular Converge, then took it upon itself to write music intended to level mankind.<br /><br />This latest opus 'Island Living' is the band's fourth installment of tectonic hardcore. It opens with the title track, an instantly rewarding mesh of acid and squall, as a shuddering force of bass, which I can only assume has been tuned down to the ground, constructs a framework for Jamie Burne's cauterizing vocals to attach to. Bastions' compound of hardcore liveliness and brazen metallic undertones kicks and screams with all the might you can possibly infer from such a description - meld together if you can, a bastardised portrait of Throats covering early American Nightmare, add a little gravel and you wont be far off the mark. Each track is well thought out, with keen eyes covering the areas that need the attention.<br /><br />Second track 'Soar' staggers on relentless. It progresses with a partnership of consistently rapid drumming and a burning vocal tirade, a continued war of attrition that fells you as a listener, leaving you in submission at this audacious slab of metallic hardcore weightiness. You can hear stabs of Hope Conspiracy peppered throughout this release, the vocals in particular ring true to that comparison. The virulence of Island Living's closer, 'The Great Unwashed, is perhaps not as immediate as one might predict. It takes almost a minute for the slow burning drum whispers and guitar nuance to work themselves up into a fury, only to dip into a trough of distant vocals and timely, effective instrumental clatterings before lumbering eerily to a finale like a dead man searching for his grave.<br /><br />Bastions work with vigour to achieve this sound, and I believe they'll continue to grow multi-dimensionally. Their inclusion of breakdowns could have backfired had they been slapdash attempts at merely bolstering their attack, yet the delivery is pin point, a fact which if anything, leans them more towards metal than hardcore, however enough abrasion and rough sided treatment plants them firmly within the same league as other contemporary British acts such as Throats or Brutality Will Prevail, lines of symmetry could even be drawn with Greece's Ruined Families. Needless to say this is a band doing great things, who deserve more attention.<br /><br />Check out their <a href="http://www.myspace.com/bstns">Myspace</a> or <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Bastions">Last.fm</a>Josh Turnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14685263151491816208noreply@blogger.com2