Records Of The Year - Video Blog

Recorded 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!

Interview with No Class

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.





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?

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.

Secondly, what can you tell us about the new record, can we expect more of the same gut punching hardcore?

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.


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?

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.

Can you elaborate on any of the themes and lyrical content behind your 'tape' release?

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.

The tape itself sounds like a powderkeg of hardcore swagger, who would you say influenced your sound?

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.

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?

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.

Finally, are there any plans for after the record release, anything set in stone regarding tours, both on American soil or perhaps overseas?

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.




New record out now, available from a few places - try Sorry State Records

Clockcleaner

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.

Having this pious, Kurt Cobain is holier than thou 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.

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.

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.

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.

Babylon Rules (mediafire)
Nevermind (mediafire)

The World According To VICE

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.

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.

'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.



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.

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 there, and this release announces that Vice are very much here in 2010.

You can purchase a copy from the UK Vice Store

Poems for my Father

Forty Years

When you freeze over,
You will be pristine
and glacial.
A slope of marble purity.
A cake of white frost.

You will be chops
and slivers,
Of winsome snow floes.
The collective applauding
Your regal death throes.

Saltless from the tap
And safe by the broil.
Waxing ecstatic
At the thought of
No colour.

Crisper than iced rose-skin,
But fractured the same.
Oil for bile and no
Blood in your veins.

When that solid state
Becomes my own form
And nature,
I'll taste like miasma,
Like effluviant splatter.

I quake at the thought
Of a future sap-self.
I will be pockets
In a soup pot
Of melting ill health.

Stretched like Vitruvius
'Cross a pan of dense humming,
Mouth wide open
At the thought of more colour.

Rest your silky head
On silk, down and grey hue,
And watch me cross the river
On this tough wooden sinew

Covered in pits
And pocks on my face
(All easily attained)
I'll eat whole the bud
Of the life I have gained.



Dash Snow Complex

I am a spew of muddied water,
Luke-warm from your mouth.
Like vicious smokey inhalate,
Nipping at your health.

I enjoy the slobbery,
Of picking up each leg.
I slept a sleep in,
Hollow logs,
As mould bejewelled my head.

Thoughts as foul as cooking gas,
As bleach, as lice, as me,
Ravish my brain and,
Stew me up.
So swallow me in greed.

One day i’ll plant my foot to earth,
And let safety vine my toes,
‘Til then I am the toxic son of,
Mind, of body,
And soul.


Clipped. Or Love's Ruminating Eye

She loves it in the summer time,
When the smoke would last forever.

Those times when the dull and jaded eyes,
Of a normal man’s intent,
Would usurp to form her focal point,
And minus me from them.

She choked upon her princess rule,
We blamed my own collapse.

She shared a kiss with Artisans,
And flew with luminescence,
Then bit my hands to bring about,
My bloodless,
Loveless,
Present.


My Swan Neck.

My swan neck arcs for the other one,
Hunkered down with beaten brow,
As a tumult of grey tasting clouds,
Shower down,
The vibrating matter,
Which I can’t evade.
And an end of filth reign,
Blunts precipitate.

So there stands I,
Washed through with decay,
A little bitch whelp,
With no limbs left to stave.

Lilted crooked organs,
Condensed with me on my cross,
My manhood placated,
And stripped of all cloth.

My swan neck bends towards the other one,
Unstitching seams, mourning dreams,
A triplicated wealth of means,
Follows me.

So here Lies I,
Cradled by the news,
That the best way out,
Was only ever through


Night Growth

I try to break each day,
Against my back,
As a latch snaps shut,
On my mindful tact.

Each morning is romance,
And long thought out pleas,
Each dusk is like daybreak,
Enveloping me.

My words are a drool,
Of self indulged nothing,
They fall under a canopy,
Of my own weightless truth.

I feel quite as free,
As doves tied to Earth,
So I’m sewing my eyes shut,
For our collective rebirth

'Yo Born Against, you better be extremely fucking cautious about who you talk shit about'

'Yo Born Against, you better be extremely fucking cautious about who you talk shit about' - voicemail excert from the track 'Born Against Are Fucking Dead'

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.

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?

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.

Download Battle Hymns of The Race War

An interview with Ross Farrar of Ceremony

Last Thursday I had the privilege of sitting down with Ross Farrar, a photographer, writer and poet perhaps best known to most as the frontman for North Californian Punk band Ceremony. A group who in my opinion are the absolute leading light in Hardcore today.

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 Rohnert Park after months of pissing off just about everyone around me by playing it constantly at a less than friendly volume.

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.



The first question I wanted to ask,
Was Photography instilled in your mind from an early age?

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.

The same age he did, the same age you did?

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.

You shot the Trash Talk - 'Eyes & Nines' back cover, how was that?

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.

Did you follow these opportunities through with various publications?

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.

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?

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.

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..?

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.



Thanks to Anthony of Slowmotion Promotions and my brother Lewis for helping out.

Alexis Gross - Drop Some Acid

Alexis 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.

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.



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.

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.



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.

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.



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.

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.

Sump - Taken Dead

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.

Head on over to The Funeral Stench to download this death rattle.