Pussy Galore reunites!

So apparently Pussy Galore played a show the other night in New Jersey... WTF??? I never saw this coming. Fucking awesome. I soo wish I was there. So now the question is was this it? Will there be more shows? Does anyone out there know anything about what to expect? Even though there is probably zero chance of Neil Haggerty ever sharing a stage with Jon Spencer again, this is one of most unexpected reunions I thought I'd ever see happen.

Toadliquor - The Hortator's Lament (2003)

I feel like my last few posts have been all over the place. I think we've got the AmRep/T&G 90's noise rock thing pretty well documented here and it's hard for me to come up with anything that Shiny Grey Monotone hasn't covered already. I'm not saying there's going to be any drastic changes here but I'm trying to be less hesitant about venturing outside the box a little. So I thought I'd keep going with that and throw out a classic doom album. Well classic in my eyes anyways considering I'm quite picky about the genre and am hardly a connoisseur when it comes to dread and despair. Ha! That might be a good thing I suppose. That being said... "The Hortator's Lament" was a complete discography CD put out by Southern Lord Records in 2003 featuring their only LP "Feel My Hate, The Power Is Weight" which was released in 1993 along with singles, comp tracks etc. Slow and sludgy with it's drowned vocals buried deep in the mix. Just in time for the holidays. I might have to follow this one up with a pop record just to see if anyone's paying attention.

Download

Party Fowl - STD's 7" (2008)

Party Fowl are a garage punk band featuring Ty Segall, Mikal Cronin (Moonhearts), Seth Densham (Mika Miko) and a bunch of other guys from that scene up there in the Bay area. This band just seemed like a fun one-off side project for these guys and I doubt there was ever any intention on it becoming more than that. Just fast, thrashy party rock to mosh around to. This single was released on a little Italian label called "Goodbye Boozy Records" with a pressing of 300 copies.

Download

King Sound Quartet - The Get-Down Imperative (1997) & Annihilate This Week (1996)

King Sound Quartet was a short-lived Mick Collins (The Gories, Dirtbombs) project that evolved out of the break-up of his second band Blacktop. Members included Blacktop's bass player Alex Cuervo and Tim Kerr (Big Boys, Poison 13). There's a little bit of everything on this record. There's elements of blues, soul, R&B, garage rock, punk, free-jazz etc. "The Get Down Imperative" was a vinyl only pressing and I don't know exactly how many were made but I had a really hard time tracking down a copy so I'm guessing there weren't many. In The Red Records had planned on rereleasing it a while back but it never happened for whatever reason. I've also included their first single "Annihilate This Week."

Download

New Brutalism/Beton Brut/Villabrut/Soldat Brut - Brut Unison (2007)

Brut Unison is a compilation of New Brutalism and all of their off-shoot bands on one album. Now you ask why do they have these other bands that consist of the same members and sound exactly like New Brutalism? I have no idea. It all sounds like the same band to me. In this case it isn't a bad thing because New Brutalism fuckin rock so I could really care less as to why. Musically they sound similar to Shellac and the shouted vocals sound a lot like Alex Dunham (Hoover, Regulator Watts).

Download

Honkeyfinger - Invocation Of The Demon Other (2008)

I thought I'd throw out something a little different today than what's normally featured in this blog. Maybe our readers won't get into this but who knows? I don't venture much into redneck'ish southern rock often on this blog but I must admit to having an affinity for dirty lo-fi delta blues when taken to a heavier level. Honkeyfinger is a one man band who plays lap steel slide guitar and blows a mean harp. For fans of Bob Log III, Scott H. Biram, or Left Lane Cruiser.

Download

David Yow talks Scratch Acid Reunion

Interesting interview with David Yow on exclaim.com. As for the "occasional collaboration" he spoke of I've heard rumors of a noise-rock supergroup in the works consisting of Yow, Chris Spencer (Unsane, Cutthroats 9), Kevin Rutmantis (Cows, Melvins) and Kevin Fitzgerald (400 Blows, Circle Jerks). We'll see if that ever comes to fruition but in the meantime I'm eagerly awaiting Scratch Acid's return to the stage.

Here are the remaining dates as of today:

11/7 New York, NY - Webster Hall

11/9 Boston, MA - Paradise

11/10 Montreal, QC - Il Motore

11/11 Toronto, ON - Lee's Palace

11/12 Chicago, IL - Cabaret Metro

11/13 Louisville, KY - Cropped Out Festival

12/8 Dallas, TX - Trees

12/9 Houston, TX - Fitzgerald's

12/10 Austin, TX - Emo's East

12/13 Los Angeles, CA - El Rey Theatre

12/14 San Francisco, CA - The Fillmore

12/16 Portland, OR - Crystal Ballroom

12/17 Seattle, WA - Neuomos

3/9-11 Minehead, UK - All Tomorrow's Parties

Ladder Devils - Forget English (2010)

Ladder Devils are a noise rock band out of Philadelphia that sound a hell of a lot like Young Widows. In particular the Widows' songs that Nick Thieneman sings. In which case maybe an even better comparison would be the Thieneman led Brain Banger. Although the striking similarity may reflect a lack of originality, I can think of worse things than having a few more Young Widows'ish bands out there.

Download

Casus Belli - Tailgunnrangeles (1994)

Casus Belli was a solo project of ex-Bastards bass player Anthony Martin. The Minneapolis band was much more under the radar than Joe Breuer's (the other Bastard) Janitor Joe. If you like Janitor Joe there's no reason you wouldn't like this.

Download

Sunn O))) cover

I just thought this was kind of funny...

Shroud - Suicide Mission (1993)

So this download was given to us by a member of the band on our message board and am listening to it for the first time now as I type this. I like what I hear so far. Thanks, Adel. I'll just paste his message here and you can get the full story from the man himself...

I've been a fan of your blog for some time, and I usually take, so I thought I'd pass something along this time, and see if you were interested.
Here's the full story... In 1992 some friends and I formed a band, SHROUD, for one show. It was to be completely improvised - no rehearsals - and the music turned out to be an art-damaged doom-punk-jazz with a twisted vibe. We played said show, and were asked to open for Unsane a few weeks later, as well as record. We decided to liquidate the band immediately after the studio. The recording produced the limited (500 copies) cassette "Suicide Mission" in 1993. I re-pressed it on CD, limited to 500, a few months ago, and they are almost gone, so I thought I'd pass this along for your blog, and let folks have it for free.
I think those that enjoy a bit of Shiva's bliss may get a kick out of tracks 3, 4, and 6, especially.
I understand that the sound here isn't for everyone, but I though you might get a kick (negative or positive) from this release.
Enjoy,

Adel Souto

Download

Haberdasher - Quarry/Day Two No Sleep 7' (1996)

So I wrote about Haberdasher's only LP quite a while back in a post about Slint inspired bands. This single is their first and only other release. Although the B-side is a bit "slinty" sounding the A-side is heavier in more of a Shellac or Tar vein. I think it's the best song they ever recorded and it has a great David Sims'ish thudding bassline.

Download

Lowercase - "You're A King"

OK... there's a ton of music out there with a ton of screaming. It's not hard to come by of course. But there's something about this song... Just the intense emotional build-up of it. Maybe it's a little too much possibly, I don't know. Whenever I'm having a bad day and I just need a release I crank this song as loud as possible. I'm telling you... the next time you feel like strangling your boss or running the guy off the road who just cut you off in traffic just blast this this song and all of a sudden the tension will be gone.

Grids - Kansas (2010)

Kansas was the final LP for the now defunct band from Charlotte, NC. Just pounding pissed-off noise rock in the vein of Rusted Shut or Drunkdriver. This record was limited to a pressing of 100 copies. For more Grids downloads click here. I'd also highly recommend checking out the White Walls LP.

Download

Wow... has it been that long?

So tomorrow will be a year to the day since my last post. Not sure what to say. Had a rough year due to some personal issues which resulted in a general lack of motivation as far as blogging goes. There are so many music blogs out there these days and it's difficult to have anything new or different to contribute. But I do miss it sometimes even if it's essentially for a handful of readers and myself. If I could even get lets say 5 people to say they actually read this blog I may be motivated to give this another try even if it's only on a sporadic basis. Anyways... here's a video from a great band from Canada called Metz.