DISTORT
HACKNEY
Limited edition lowbudget print version of the three issues of Distort Hackney Fanzine, previously published online. This Ltd Ed version published August 2009.
Note: This fanzine was intended to be on paper but because it is expensive, because distros claim that people don't buy zines any more, because I am too old to be haggling people at shows to buy zines, and because I have less time now when I am a father the zine and all its contents is now online instead. It sucks for sure but hopefully the content / information will reach some of people anyhow. If anyone would like to contact me, Tony, editor in charge and responsible for the zine, kindly consider using the following email: slobodanburgher(a)gmail.com. Feel free to copy, spread or distribute any material, texts or other content -but be kind and cite your source.
EDITORIAL DISTORT HACKNEY ONE My editor friend said with brutal honesty when I approached him about yet another old punk interview/article/expose pitch: “The kids don’t care about your old punk bands, dude”. Having already done much research and/or interviews I decided to this piece of shit fanzine. At the same time my friend and old partner-in-crime from the old 1990s fanzine days and me had been talking about doing a new issue of our old zine Jävel Mag again (the last issue came out in 1994, to do the third as if nothing had happened would be a great joke), but that kind of ran out in the sand (I guess?). But in the event, more interviews were sent out and correspondences started with all sort of bands, labels and distros. In the spring of 2008 I finally decided that I had plenty of material and did layout for the first issue of Distort Hackney. I printed a test run of 10 copies to bring to the Systematic Death show in London in April (all of which were forced upon people without any shame or concern for profits). Then came a period of inactivity as I failed to get the zine printed, partly due to how damn expensive it is and partly due to the fact that I wasn’t too happy with how the zine came out in the first place (too many interviews, too little consistency and some minor layout fuckups). So here we are and its way past the dead line for the final dead line and excuses seem to be the only thing I can offer people who write me wondering what the hell happened to this great zine of mine. What is new? Well, what was the first issue has been split into two issues instead, with added introduction notes and some other shit. Hopefully this is for the good. It is to you to decide. Hopefully I won’t have to do this with future issues (at the time of writing I have enough for another two issues already). The lack of reviews in this issue is partly due to necessity (few bands sent me stuff) and partly due to the fact that I just want to get this out as quick as possible considering so much delays etc. Reviews is something I am working on so please do not hesitate to send me stuff for review (if you do, naturally I will make sure to write review and such). Either way from the third issue of Distort Hackney reviews will be a regular feature. A note on the consistency of interviews. Some people seem to be of the opinion that interviews should all be both extremely well researched and with consequent though provoking insightful questions and all the rest of it. Well, that’s all great and fine and I agree. But frankly, sometimes less is more. I am not going to excuse for making what some people may consider as shit interviews with some of the bands. The point about reviews is relevant here as well. I mean, I could write some crappy 50 word review on the latest 7” EP by some Japanese crasher noise punk band, or I could send the kids some questions; the result of which will effectually work as something between a review and an interview. This is after all a fanzine and that means that I am a fan of the bands interviewed, reviewed or otherwise mentioned in these pages. In short, this is my way to tell you who read this zine that these bands are fucking great (as opposed to offering you 20 questions worthy of a research thesis on each and every band interviewed). Also, I hope the bands themselves will appreciate that this is my homage to them as well as my (insignificant perhaps) way of supporting the scene. Do check out my fanzine archive website at www.PunksIsHippies.com for scans of shitloads of old and new DIY fanzines, I guarantee that there will be something for everyone there. Also please consider helping out by either scanning zines or sending me zines to scan, the archive depends in a great way on contributors. Anyway all you need to know will be found at that link. Thank-you’s to all bands obviously, hopefully I managed to get you all a free copy, also thanks to all contributors, advertisers, distros who carry the zine, as well as the poor fuckers who ended up buying this piece of shit. Ok all else should be self-explanatory. AMEBIX
Since this Amebix interview was done way on the 22nd of April 2007, a lot of things have happened that radically changes some of your assumptions of Amebix. As you all may know by now, during the filming of the Amebix Fallen DVD Rob and his brother Stig had a little jamming session, with ex-Nausea (etc) Roy Mayorga on drums, and this resulted in the re-recording of 3 old tracks which will be released on an bonus-CD to be sold with the DVD (these re-recorded tracks sound fucking prestine too). It is also said that the brothers are currently working on some sort of new material to be announced later. In a email I got from Rob there was a hint that Amebix may play live soon…even go on a US-tour. But some people have claimed this is bollocks. This has now been confirmed, in fact the US shows are scheduled for January 2009. More information about the current goings-on of Amebix, visit this official website - Amebix.Net- where you can amongst other things also purchase legit copies of all Amebix albums. For the first time in a long while, all of Amebix’s material is as of now back in print on Alternative Tentacles (plus see the advert for Monolith LP at the bottom of this page). The initial idea for this interview was to make it into a narrative article where I discuss the bands past etc, but I assume you all know about that already and is therefore just presenting the Qs and As as they are. DISTORT HACKNEY: How is the new
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Amebix DVD coming along? I read it will include 2 full live concerts - From where and when? When will it be out? ROB “BARON” MILLER: So far we have the two original Newcastle gigs and some of the Yugoslavian novi rock concert,which i am chasing up more material from at the moment,there is a guy in Ljublana who is gradually uncovering stuff,we should be able to mix that footage in with the live CD from the same show. although i am not sure when it will come out yet,the Engineer/producer is going to the States to Interview Jello and Pushaed possibly amogst others,for some other perspective. DH: Elsewhere you mentioned that you wanted to track down the original recordings for potential re-release, any luck with this? Who owns the Amebix stuff anyway? I mean obviously Alternative Tentacles is licensed to sell Arise! + Two I suppose but what about the rest? ROB: I have been in talks with southern studios about the first three releases,John Loder would not let us have any access to them when he was alive,despite the fact that we own all the recordings and artwork,so effectively he was holding our property against our wishes. i am asking for our stuff back with a view to re releasing at some point,i think the attitude of some people from that time was entirely contrary to what we were about,a few made a lot of money out of our hard work. DH: The much bootlegged Monolith demos, 4 tracks which ended up on The Power Remains LP, did you record more stuff during the demos for Monolith? Are there more tracks from the same recordings sessions still not released? ROB: no,not to my knowledge. DH: Are there any other unreleased Amebix material from for e.g. demos for Arise! etc? Are there any demos, rehearsal recordings or good mix board recorded live material out there still not released? ROB: I have scoured the web for material,but withour much success,you never know though,something may turn up.we did a couple of radio sessions in Holland and Yugoslavia which would be interesting to unearth,but i cannot remember where or for whom,apart from the Radio Student one in Ljublana, our friend there is looking into that to see what survived the War there. DH: I recently tried to track down as many Amebix live bootlegs as possible or at least I tried to make a list of recordings and I Mostly found the various cassettes from BBP tapes (London). One curious bootleg is called "1981 Practice" and I have no idea what this could be, do you know? As far as I can tell it could be either a recording from the time spent in Dartmoor or it would be some sort of early Bristol demo with Norman? ROB: if it is from 81 it would probably be britsol,i would be interested to hear it. DH: Talking of which, in The Day the Country Died you mentioned that during the stay in Dartmoor with Martin the band did several homemade recordings. Does any of them survive do you think? During this period I suspect the band inevitably experimented a lot with sound and ideas? I base all this simply on the fact that I have heard the " 79 demo " of course and this was sort of between that demo and the 1981 Who's the enemy 7".... Or, was it only when you had moved to Bristol that the band sort of started to sound like Amebix does on the first single? ROB: I must ask Martin if he kept anything,we would record everything we did and get stoned and listen to it at night,then go back upstairs and record some more,good times. DH: In my search for Amebix bootlegs etc I also inevitably found a bunch of live recordings. The only one I actually managed to get hold of was "Amebix- Live At The Station, Gateshead, 2nd August 1985". The quality of this recording is actually quite alright despite at places all you can hear is the synthesizer or the guitar, while at other places you can't hear the vocals too well. It is a quite interesting recording for several reasons: it is said between the songs that this is the one of the first (if not the first) show with Virus on drums, it has an early version of Fallen From Grace , and the fact that the band sounds less tight (which is blamed on Virus!) which makes this a quite interesting and different live recording of Amebix...Have you heard this bootleg? ROB: No I havent,do you mean spider on drums?that would be the time that he joined. DH: Other live bootlegs or cassettes that I found were these: A Compilation called "BE BAD BE GLAD": DISORDER ROUGH MIXES FOR THE 'MENTAL' LP, CHAOS U.K. UNRELEASED DEMO FROM 1984, LUNATIC FRINGE UNRELEASED DEMO FROM 1984, AMEBIX LIVE IN LEEDS 11/09/85; Amebix & Smart Pills: Live Bath 24/8/86. Amebix: Live Manhatton Club, Bradford 23/4/87; Amebix - 1987.09. - Live in Bath UK; Amebix & Broken Bones: Live Newcastle (Also 1987 I think, and I have a feeling it is the same as is on YouTube and it’s a concert I have an old DVD of by the way) And finally, a bootleg that claims to be from the Zig Zag gig but I haven't seen much of this elsewhere so not too sure about this...Do you remember any of these shows? Have you heard any of the other bootlegs, or were you aware of their existence? (Added to this Erich Keller from Fear of God mentions that he has some private recordings of Amebix live from Basel, Switzerland, June 21 1986 as well as practice session in 1987...and I assume there will be private bootlegs recordings from other parts of Europe where Amebix toured...) ROB: Hmm,i have been trying to get Erich to give me a copy of the stuff he has,but he is a covetous wee bastard,notoriously fond of his collection. I would like to hear the Zig Zag tape,that was a very wierd gig,a once in a lifetime type of event,in fact almost a punk 'Live Aid' DH: By the way, which live show is it on the Power Remains LP by the way? Could not find it mentioned on internet nor could I find my old LP… ROB: I am not sure,but i think that it is from an Iritrea benefit show we did in Bath DH: It seems that every time Amebix is mentioned, three bands are mentioned in the same breath as allegedly influences for Amebix, namely Black Sabbath, Motorhead and Killing Joke (most recently there is an American online radio show called a "Tribute to Amebix", and it makes a lot of these so-called influences - Radio Schizo @ http://www.cultpunk.com/?p=125 ). Now, I would think that the most obvious influences on Amebix would have been Crass and Discharge? Incidentally, I remember reading an old fanzine interview with Cal from Discharge saying that Discharge tried to sound like "Motorhead but with Crass lyrics"...The Crass connection to Amebix is kind of obvious, but did you ever meet the guys from Discharge? Did you ever played with Discharge? ROB: we never crossed paths with Discharge,although i liked their sound,and collected their singles when they first appeared on the scene.The radio Schizo programme is interesting,although i dont know why there is so much emphasis on Venom,i didnt feel they were much of an influence, we saw them as being thick as shit at the time. DH: I have also seen Amebix described a few times as "pagan", and the band's adoption of Austin Osman Spare's face and the fascination with the Atavism, and listening to the lyrics.... what other influences did you have for the writing the lyrics / what other "esoteric" influences or interest did you have at the time? The obvious to me would be for e.g. Blake, Dante, Nietzsche, Alistair Crowley, alchemy, Egypt, H.P. Lovecraft, the Illuminati trilogy etc. What were you into at the time and how did you get into things like this? What inspired you to write the lyrics? It seems like you had a quite clear rational of sort behind most of the lyrics (comparably speaking to other "punk / anarcho /hardcore etc" bands at the time) ROB: Stig was always interested in Crowley,I had a natural inclination towards the Occult,i think we were creating a Psychological landscape through our music and Lyrics that had some very primeaval and Archetypal forces running through it,in that respect Amebix were very different to anyone else at the time, or in many respects,since. DH: After being a fan of Amebix for several years, I actually took the time the other day to try and find out a few things in the lyrics (perhaps this is obvious to some people but...) and managed to find out that "Nathrac" from " The Power Remains " is a reference to Merlin's "charm of making to summon the breath of the dragon" in the film 1981 Excalibur as well as a popular name in fantasy / role playing games etc. I mean, knowing what "Nathrac" stands for now, I can interpret that song slightly differently and it kind of makes sense with "the serpent now trodden to dust" etc. But that said, I think most people interpret "Power remains" as meaning roughly "something in nature which is now forgotten in the modern industrial and capitalist world which contains the solution to how to change the world into something better" if you know what I mean; in short, "Power Remains" seems to be to be interpreted by most punks like some sort of "pagan-anarcho" statement. I mean that song is brilliantly ambiguous because of this and that's why I like it so much. What do you think? What did you have in mind as you wrote the lyrics? And by the way, were you into role-playing games and fantasy etc at the time? And another one, which I am sure I was the only person NOT to get until now, was "ICBM" which I discovered means "Intercontinental Ballistic Missile". Now, I always kind of associated "silver express" with an express train (!) in the mountains, bringing death or something!!! That or, I kind of assumed ICBM was some sort of mid-1980s term for International Monetary Fund (IMF) or the World Bank or something. In other words, I thought the song was about capitalism and death... Finally, "Monolith": I assume the album was called that because of its dual connotation with tribalistic rituals and big blocks of stone as well as meaning something similar to "Leviathan" in Hobbes' sense (but negatively). Or liking society or progress of mankind to a monolithic, unchangeable permanent hard ice-cold entity without emotions.... How did you come up with this name for the LP? What did you mean with it, or in what context did you use it? ROB: Nathrac is a reference to the World Serpent in Occult tradition,this was a song about the living Earth and the way that the serpent is always there under the surface,like the Dragon in Chinese Mythology,this was definitely a song about awareness of the Power of the natural World over that of man. Monolith was also a kind of reference,to the message of stone,placed in the Landscape thousands of years ago,and the ambigous messages that are represented through these monuments. DH: On the subject of influences, of course Killing Joke is mentioned a lot and you said in The Day The Country... Killing Joke was kind of close to what Amebix tried to do. Well, Killing Joke has recently centered more on tribalistic simple but heavy music and mythological lyrics etc; most recently on their Hosannas from the Basement of Hell album (2006). The title of the first track I think hints at what I am trying to say: "This tribal-antidote". The point here is that very curiously some reviewers on the internet has likened this album to Amebix...
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Have you heard it? Did you ever meet Jaz and Killing Joke? Incidentally, I interviewed Jaz last year and all the time I had in the back of my mind the idea of asking him if he knew of Amebix, regrettably I never did…ROB: I have heard some of the newer KJ stuff,and it is incredible,very very powerful and intense,something they lost for a while i think.I have been trying to get in touch with Jaz,as he apparently was interested in having a commissioned piece made,but it is hard to get any contact address. KJ were a massive influence on Amebix,when their first album came out it was the most potent musical assualt that i had ever heard. DH: Everywhere I read about the breakup of Amebix there's either just general explanations such as "the band had run its course" and sort of vaguely hinting to problems relating to drugs, that or, that the breakup was due to issues relating to Monolith such as label problems and /or the production of it? Can you clear this up? Also, not sure if it is related in any way, I seem to remember that in the inners to Power Remains it is said that you were not allowed printing the lyrics with the Monolith album. What was all that about? ROB: It was a difficult decision to make,i was in a relationship,had just had a kid and entered into the new World of responsibility,after 4 years of living on the streets.I think the demands of this really dried up any of the inspiration that we needed.It was my call to finish the Band,maybe we would have got back on course,but at that point we were getting very little feedback from what we had created,the press were not ready for our kind of sound,scorned by both Punk and Metal press alike.It is only in the last ten years that i think Amebix have begun to get any recognition.It was a time when i could no longer feel that deep connection to the roots of our music,unable to summon forth any more images,without a muse,compromised and squeezed dry by 'responsibility' DH: And more on this, it is often said that towards the end - meaning the Right To Rise demo - Amebix had lost its edge and somehow negatively turned into its "original influences" such as Motorhead and Black Sabbath. Listening to those 2 songs now, retrospectively, they actually sound like a fitting closure to the band: "I have seen the winter sun...freedom's in chains...we got to fight for the right now " etc. In short, "Right To Ride" feels like a final statement in a way... Besides, I think that the view that the band was mediocre in the end, that it had gone full circle where Amebix turned into a bad Motorhead copy or whatever - this is nonsense! I actually think this later material is a quite dignified end and fitting aesthetically. Did you decide to break up after the demo? Was the demo somehow written consciously with the idea of it representing a closure? ROB: we did not mean to finish after the demo,and i appreciate what you say,the song is not bad at all,just an 8 track recording that could have been worked on and made into a good song,i really wanted us to have a more cohesive song writing edge,i wanted another guitar,we were at the point of deciding to move into a more musical direction,but we could very easily have lost touch with what the band was really about,simplicity and natural power. DH: It is also said that few ideas originally for Amebix later was used for Zygote (obviously Right To Ride / Man in the Crowd), can you elaborate on this? Did you contribute to Zygote in anyway? ROB: no,i had not even heard Zygote until a few years ago. DH: Besides from running Castle Keep and its obvious outlet for creativity etc, do you make any music nowadays, or did you after Amebix broke up? What about writing stuff and / or drawing? ROB: I have done some music on my own,i have a small studio here,but could never find anyone to play with here,like in Devon,musicians all want to play other peoples stuff,i have never had that urge,it has always gort to be about making your own sound.I fancy strapping on a Bass again and playing,but it is impossible here,i need to find a drummer and a guitarist,who knows? DH: How's the housebuilding going by the way? Or perhaps that is already finished by now (saw something on your Myspace / the Amebix site - but I think that may have been from 2006...)? ROB: great,we spent all last year building the house,it is a log building in a brilliant spot,i have learnt a lot in this last year,having had to do a lot of the work ourselves,I love living here on an Island doing what i do,although i have got older i still find that i need to create Art in any way that is available to me. DH: And what are other ex-Amebix people doing today? ROB: Stig has just had his first child,he plays music as Karnyx,he should be coming to visit next week,although i only see him once in every few years. Spider is exactly the same old spider,still building,although not playing anymore due to tinitus,too loud in the practice room back then.Martin has never moved from where he was,until this last year when he moved out of the Glebe to a house at the bottom of the Glebe grounds.Havent heard from Virus since about 1989. [Interview done 22 April 2007.]
DEATHCHARGE
Deathcharge hails from Portland, Seattle, USA, and is the world’s best d-beat band around. Only Japan’s Framtid can be allowed to be even thought of in comparison, but they play Crust; Deathcharge play unadulterated pure d-beat. This is d-beat that stands for Discharge-beat and it is for you and me. Or perhaps Discharge-core is a better word. But whatever. Not surprisingly, this band has all but been ignored by the scene, slandered by labels and haunted by all horrible subsequent Discharge-clones. This is the only band that should be allowed to use the famous Discharge lettering in my opinion (but who’d refuse to do so out of reverence). The band, led by Adam, who answered the interview below, could not care less about a goddamn fucking thing. They are that real, if that is still a word with any meaning. Ok I am talking bullshit here, just wanted to see how far I could pull you by the nose, ha ha ha. Seriously, if I had the money I would put out a compilation LP of all the stuff recorded to date (2 singles and a demo) and then after that a LP with new material, whereupon the band would go on world tour….Believe you me, for all my bollocks, Deathcharge is that good. The demo MUST BE RELEASED ON VINYL! Since this interview was done, as far as I can tell, the bands activity climaxed with opening for Systematic Death in their hometown in late spring / early summer 2008…DISTORT HACKNEY: Right, as far as I can fathom from over here in the opposite side of the world, the band has gone through some changes since you started way back in 1998 (?), can you bring us up to date? Who's in the band now? ADAM: The first 7" was recorded in '97 and released in early '98. We have done two other 7" since then, and been through many guitarists. The line up for the last 2 years or so has been Frank on bass, Dusty and Joe on guitars, Roger drumming, and myself (Adam) singing. DH: It appears that you all do lots of other damn bands as well As Deathcharge. That sound quite annoying. When are you gonna start concentrate on the band that matters, Deathcharge? ADAM: For three of us this is our only band. Frank was already doing LEBENDEN TOTEN when he joined, and Dusty also had HELLSHOCK as his primary band. Anyway the band will always come second to whatever else is happening in our lives. I have no ambitions with the band. DH: I was reading some old interviews earlier and noticed that you have 3 eps and 1 demo out as opposed to what I thought (only the one ep and demo), and what is more, on the latest ep it is said that you have moved away slightly from the classic Deathcharge of strictly Discharge, to something slower and more in the direction of Amebix. Well? ADAM. When we started out their were no other bands in the US doing music with the same influences that we were using. I think it's well represented now so there's no point in us carrying on like that. I don't know how to describe the last record myself. We were not going for any certain sound. Our guitarist during that time was not really too interested in the old UK punk sound. He was an old metalhead. DH: Ok before we take this any further - where can we get your shit over here in Europe? Seeing as you now all of a sudden have new stuff out...How about it, why don't you get a complete discography up-to-now release out? ADAM: I don't know who has our stuff in stock. It's been a few years now since the last single. I think ther may be a cd coming out soon with the three 7"s compiled. Maybe an odd track from the demo as well. DH: When is the LP coming out? Or is it already out perhaps? Damn I don't know do I, what with your Myspace being pretty much the only place to find out and now as I noticed all the info is gone from the site including the blog with old interviews etc...Anyway, with the coming LP, what can we expect? ADAM: We have considered doing an lp but can't really come to any agreement. We seem to rehearse loads of new songs that end up nowhere. I was depressed and drunk after the last gig and attempted to take down the myspace thing. I may get it back up again when I feel inspired to do so. DH: As far as I can tell you haven't been over here to play (yet), any plans? Also read in some old interview that you rarely played outside of Portland; is that still the same? Why? ADAM: We prefer to only do things as needed, and it seems like no one needs it. DH: Now, on the whole talk about "Discharge-clones" (which is obviopusly lots of bullshit so lets not get any deeper on that shit), what's your favorite bands that play in the extremely similar vein as the golden era of Discharge circa 1980-1985? I think it's a tie-break between Cracked Cop Skulls (UK) - first 7" and Times Square Preachers (Swe) - Don't be numb! EP. Your first 7" is also up there in the list, though that is more towards Discharge's HNSNSN LP I think... ADAM: I used to be a bit of a collector nut so for me it was always Crow, Scapegoats, MG15 and other 80's bands that I was into the most. DH: Ok, got to have one more Discharge-question, do you like Grave New World? Have you heard Crow (Jap)'s song "the end"? Have you done any late-period Discharge songs? Can you manage that shit that Cal does in the later albums? ADAM: GRAVE NEW WOLRD is an excellent album and no I can't sing in a high voice unfortunatley. Most of our songs these days are slower rock tempo type stuff, but not metal or anything like that. Yeah, I think I do have that Crow record too. DH: I gather that you (Adam) had/have a zine going? What is up with that? Still going? How can we get copies of issues for "Punks Is Hippies" the zine archive (punksishippies.com)? ADAM: I tried once to get a zine going but didn't really enjoy doing the work. Frank does a great one called WARNING that is usually carried by all the crusty
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punk distros. I'm not familiar with the one you mention. [Added Post script]: ADAM: Sorry i didn't read question 8 thoroughly. You can edit it. Your site is fucking awesome. I can't wait to read throuh all of it. I'll see if I can make you a copy of my old zine next time I'm at the copy shop. I don't have anymore printed up. DH: A(nother) generic question/subject now: I notice that there seems to be a fucking super-trend of these d-beat / crust bands in the States at the moment. Like, not bands that ever get known over here, but like, bands that you see on flyers on the internet. I saw one earlier today that listed some 10-15 Dis/Finn/Japcore/Mob47-type-bands and all of them were listed as from Chicago. Needlesstosay, none of the names rang a bell. A couple of weeks ago this band from the US were here in London and I acted touristguide a little bit, and these kids were like around 20 and the music they play is totally Stooges-cum-Sonic-Youth-via-Dinosaur-Jr and this shy little kid in the band noticed that I had a G.i.s.m. t-shirt and of course it turns out they all just love crust etc. What the hell is going on? Is this some sort of war-time radicalization or what? I don't get it. ADAM: I can't say that I keep up with any of it. I became dis-intersted in punk, when all the new hype around those old bands got out of hand. I think it's just really fashionable right now to like that stuff. It actually disgusts me that people have hi-jacked a genre that was once based on protest and now use the themes of war and violence only to give their art an element of brutality. DH: Ok, now on to something serious. Do you like narcotics? Do you use any? What are your favorite types? ADAM: I drink a fair bit, but don't enjoy much else. The other members practice everything from teetotalism to downright drug abuse. DH: Well ok leading on from that, are you very political? Or active? Or conscious? Or whatever people call it nowadays...(I know these questions are so damn generic for fanzines but I don't care just now, I think it is interesting) ADAM: We believe in responsible living, but don't consider ourselves activists. We just use the music and zines to voice our opinions. DH: Do you have nay plans for the future with the band? Again, when is the damn LP coming-out? I know a least 50 people here in London who will spend all their pocket monies to get hold of it when it comes out (obviously including me)... ADAM: It's all up in the air. I don't have much interest in it really until we sort out some decent songs, get quality gear, transport, etc. DH: The mainstream political and social and cultural agenda here in the UK right now appears to be very much on the broad subject/area of global warming / climate change. The debate is polarized between lefty radicals, moderates and deniers. (The first group spend a lot of time on the internet DENOUNCING (ARGH!!!! CRIES OF PAIN!!!!) people who fly to often (because of the pollution from planes)'; the moderates or mainstreamers spend most of the time doing nothing except congratulate themselves on the future prospect on being able to recycle a plastic bottle used for shampoo (possible by, say, 2015) whilst arguing amongst themselves "no we can't possible buy shampoo in glassbottles!"; whilst in the final group, the deniers, are busy snagging up all the worlds resources and emerging markets etc (they clearly know shit is about to happen but making cash/power is more important). etc.) How is shit over in your country? Do you think the socalled 'punk/peace' movement should take up these issues? I mean, can you forsee a band singing "Poison Poison Poison Your Forrests" to the beat of "Warning"? (Mind you, G-Anx had some environmentally aware lyrics...) ADAM: It's the same here of course. Until it becomes unprofitable for the corporations to carry on like they do, nothing will change. The average person can only change their fuckin light bulbs. DH: What is your most priced possession? Do you read books? ADAM: My sofa. I don't enjoy reading. I only use books to look up information. DH: Right, lets cut this short. Would you care to add anything here? etc etc. ADAM: That'll do it. Cheers!
KURO Kuro is part of the original scene that remains one of the reasons why we all stand and shout today. When the news broke on the net that they had reformed I jumped the gun and sent some questions through the official website (a very bad HTML job, as most Japanese band websites tend to be). As you will read, it seems the rumours on the internet were wide off the mark indeed and I did not check facts before sending the questions (though with language barrier, even if I’d tried I am not confident I’d asked different questions). Nevermind, lesser fanzine makers would perhaps have hushed-up this interview and left it unprinted, but not me. The comic value of a simple misunderstanding (see below) is only mirrored by the sense of how precious life can be when it turns out that no less than 2 members of Kuro are in fact dead. “I'm SUGI. I'm the original member of KURO. I regard as honorable that your fanzin can carry.” Distort Hackney: When is the new album out? What can your fans expect? Will it be the old school Kuro sound? SUGI: New album will be release 24/3/2008. Although "WHO THE HELPLESS" and the music which released the contents of the album in 1984 are the same, it completely records in another studio at that time. Although it will stand in about 25 years, it is an unpublished sound source. And an unpublished live sound source of those days. DH: Who is in Kuro now? Same members as before? SUGI: New album is a thing in an original member by the thing of the 1984 recording.DH: Have Kuro been playing all the time? Did you break up? Is this a comeback / re-union album? SUGI: KURO was formed in 1980. Sugi and a Manji seceded in 1985, the member of the help was added after that, and it was working for several years. And the original member Hide and Morikawa passed away recently....Therefore, there will be no activity as white from now on. DH: Are there any plans for touring Europe or USA? SUGI: We don't Re-Union as KURO. Therefore, there is also no tour in USA or Europe. DH: Will Kuro continue to play and relesae more records? SUGI: There is no activity as KURO any longer. It ends with this album release altogether. It is a last album. SUGI: A request: I raise the sound sources of a band covering music of kuro. Please send it by an email in mp3. Please teach a band name, hometown, a member, the activity history. Please teach how long kuro is known in a foreign country. kuro waits for favorite one, an email. The inquiry is an email info@ku-ro.net SUB ALERT Sub Alert is the Swedish hardcore punk band of my childhood friends Masken and Magnus (who are brothers). Masken is a few years older than me and he lived in the same area of town as many of my friends. He’s a gifted drummer and has played in a bunch of punk bands. He’s also a d-beat obsessive like me, and runs a fantastic blog at bloggasfuck.blogg.no (in Swedish but worth visiting anyway). Magnus is one year younger than me and I remember him being something of a ladies man back in school, despite him being an evil looking skinhead at times. Sub Alert is from my home town and I can imagine the guys playing in the middle of night and no one bothering. Since this was done the boys have recorded a new single which I think is superb. Distort Hackney: Ok, introduce the band for those who don't know you: how long have you been around and what are you releases? Masken: Hey there Tony. Sub Alert have played since autumn 2004 if I remember correctly. Me, Magnus & Ted had previously played together in the band Rostov Dirge, and when that band screwed up we had to continue play somehow. Per we knew from many years before and even if he had not played in any bands for quite some time it was clear that we had to him as singer / guitarist because we knew already that he had fucking great pipes. From there it was all go. Everyone has been playing punk since the late 1980s / early 1990s, so we quickly got going with making lots of songs. To date we have released the full-length CD Take Part, and a mini-CD called Create your own fate. Both of which are released on our own "label" Fight Back. Distort Hackney: What's new in 2008 for Sub Alert? You are a three piece now I hear...Masken: Yeah, we're a trio since summer 2007. Both for good and bad … Ted was a damn chord-factory and lyrics simply sprayed out of him, but it has worked pretty damn good without him. Now we have tried being a three piece both live and in the studio and it just feels fucking great. Ted got bored of playing punk basically. To begin with it was so damn weird to play without him I thought, because we had been playing in various bands together since 1999. But as I say we're a three piece now and it is working properly in every way. Distort Hackney: You also have new material recorded, which is pretty damn good sounding too. What kind of good stuff will come of this? A new album perhaps? Masken: Yeah, we have recorded 7 new songs to date out of which 5 will be released on a 7'' later this spring or during the summer. What Makes You Go On? is the title, and yet once more it will be released on Fight Back. A new album there will not be this year, but we have a split in the works with another Swedish band, but I don't want to say too much if that runs into the sand. Distort Hackney: On your website you may download your complete discography, which is some ways is kind of radical when you consider that many bands both new and old appear to be trying to stop their music from spreading in way that is not commercial. Has this worked for you? Masken: Eh, what the hell … It is just to buy into and realise that the internet is a superb way to spread music for "smaller" bands like us. If we don't do it ourselves someone else will, sop we thought why not? Perhaps we aren't the right people to talk to when it comes to commercial or not commercial since we play the type of music that we do. We lose money like hell anyway… This may be our own fault to some extent since we give away for free shit loads of records + that we consciously keep very low prices on our own records. 50-60 kr for the CD [£4.50 / $9 / € 5] and 20 kr for the mini CD [£2 / $4 / €2]… But it should never have to cost more than that in order to go around. But then again we're perhaps pretty naïve and think that the people that really like our music will want to buy the physical record as well… In any event the Internet is an excellent place to find out about new bands, even if perhaps it was more fun before with writing letters and making fanzines. The only thing that I react to sometimes is when some bands think it is more important to have a "cool" website than the actually
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playing of music. Today you can pretty damn well get a record contract on the basis of having the "right" friends on MySpace, or because of solid marketing on the net. Distort Hackney: Here comes surely the most important question: what are the members of Sub Alert listening to at the moment? Masken: Magnus and Per are I suppose more into the American HC and those bands… Minor Threat, Sick Of It All, Battery etc. In addition they listen to a lot of reggae. As you know well I am personally totally into käng/crust. I can't be arsed to list the favourites but it is mostly Swedish/English/Japanese mangel. But instead I will take this opportunity to recommend a couple of really fucking great Swedish bands for you foreigners. Check out Anatomi 71, Illdåd, Mardröm, Dödsdömd, Project Hopeless, Motörbreath, and Tortyr. Also check out www.punkasfuck.tk and browse around. Distort Hackney: What's more important: melody or speed in music? Noise or harmony? Masken: Haven't got a clue. We fall into a special place because the HC crew think that we are too much crust, and the crust people think we are too HC -at least that is what it seems like. Open-mindedness is notoriously not the brightest element of punk… D-beat is what's most important ;-) Distort Hackney: Being a total music-idiot myself I am of the opinion that it would be very fucking hard for me to ever start a band because I think that I have become a perfectionist what with all my interest in obscure bands and that this makes me trap somewhere along getting the absolute best name and the best image for the band. You too, Masken, is something of a music maniac – is this something you can relate to? Masken: Yes sure as hell I am damaged from too much music, which I can't deny. But I actually haven't thought about Sub Alert in this way. Already at the start we had pretty much decided to play fast punk, and after that we'd just have to see what happens. However when me and Magnus were doing Antabus it was certainly more important that it sounded in a certain way. Now it is more as if a good song sounds good regardless of its speed and tempo and regardless of style. We have also become that well played and coordinated that everything just ends up sounding like Sub Alert anyhow. Distort Hackney: Well then, when are you going out on a European tour then? It seems like there is nowadays a pretty good "circuit" for bands such as you...? Masken: Yeah it does appear to be quite easy to play out in Europe nowadays…We are probably Sweden's laziest band when it comes to make sure things happen as well as spreading our name. But we have a couple of concerts happening this spring here in Sweden. But of course it would fun to get out….Distort Hackney: Is there a punk / HC scene nowadays in the old Skaraborg region of Sweden? What bands should we know about? Masken: A scene in the right meaning of the word I damn well darenotsay that there is… 2 really damn good promoters exist. Slaskrock and Räka Produktion, there's probably more, but these two are two that we know very well. There's a bunch of bands too I am sure, but we're starting to get old now so it's a bit hard to keep up with all "youth" ;-). Snutjävel from Falkoping is quite alright… Deny I am not sure if they are around any longer. But know of course we know most of the older people who have been around for a bit longer making music around here. Jönköping is just 60 km from us, and there are of course some good gigs there and some nice people. We will for example be going out to play some concerts with Krimtänk from Jönköping. Distort Hackney: "In addition"? Masken: It will have to be the usual … Thanks Tony for the interview and best wishes for everything. The zine, and most of all the kid I suppose. If anyone is curious about Swedish punk then they should check out my website at www.punkasfuck.tk where there are a lot of Swedish bands with lots of mp3s to download. With the bands' permission! Also check out Sub Alerts records, as said above they can be downloaded by economical people at our website (www.subalert.net).
THE SHIT LICKERS When I saw the contact details of Lasse, legendary singer of the legendary Swedish d-beat genre formers Shit Lickers / Skitslickers, my mind and imagination almost went ballistic thinking about the possibilities. However Lasse, still living in Goteborg, Sweden, politely declined to do interview saying that the band NEVER does interviews, adding politely that they have done one interview ever (idiosyncratically, “the last one”). The interview is on the band’s official Myspace blog which requires you to be a “friend” in order to access the text (which some people finds annoying), I therefore had to ask if it had been published anywhere. Turns out it hasn’t and permission to reprint was granted. The photos below are nicked off the official website plus from around the internet, but most of these you will never have seen before. Inadvertedly hilarious as hell, the interview appears to have been an assignment for Christ of Fear from Driller Killer for his English class. The historic value of this interview is immense: read what Lasse says about their discography, then read it again, yes, there is only ONE OFFICIAL VERSION of their legendary single and all others are bootlegs. Thanks Lasse for this. INTERVIEW WITH THE SHITLICKERS Lasse, THE SHITLICKERS, is interviewed by Christ, Driller Killer. OK, let's take it from the beginning. When and where did The Shitlickers start? Did you sound much different then? What other bands did you play in? - Me (bass) and Jimmy (guitar) started The Shitlickers/Skitslickers in Gothenburg, Sweden, in the beginning of 1981. Gutte played drums and on vocals Jimmys girlfriend. At this time I worked as a roadie for UK punkbands, and made us a support band to The Exploited. We played some kind of rock 'n' roll-punk and it sounded terrible. This was the only gig we did with this line-up. We started a new band with me on vocals, Jimmy on guitar, Gutte on drums and Sixten (GBG-Punx, Anticimex...) on bass, and with another musical direction. In lack of another band name, we kept The Shitlickers. We wrote new, fast, short songs with heavy riffs and lyrics with violent content. We did one gig with this line-up before Jonsson took over the bass (at this time Jonsson also played bass with Anticimex), and Bob Stacy, a security guard at the nightclub Roxy, took over the drums, and the real Shitlickers was born. Other bands? I played bass with GBG-Punx (-82) and drums with Troublemakers (-83). When did you first hear raw punk? Did you ever called your music raw punk? Did you talk about "D-Beat" at this time? Shitlickers were very early with that kind of brutal music, where did that inspiration come from? If there is any other swedish band around this time that could compare to your brutality it is Anticimex. Jonsson played in both bands, do you think that this had any affect? - In the winter of 1981, we and a couple of other bands (Anticimex, Asta Kask...) played at Rockers Club. That gig became the start of Swedish hardcore punk. We called the music hardcore punk, raw punk, trash punk etc. Discharge inspired, but we wanted to find our own style. Me and Jimmy wrote the songs, but Jonsson always delivers, both as a person and as a musician. We had no Swedish references at all. Our influences came from the UK, which was easy to get to by ferry from Gothenburg. I listened, and still do, to 4-Skins and Cockney Rejects, even if they played another kind of music than we did. If I understand it correctly, you recorded the first album during the spring of 1982. In which studio? The sound is incredibly brutal, and few band has managed to surpass it. Tell me some anectodes from the recording. You recorded the second album during the summer of 1982. Where? Was this unreleased until Distortion released it? - Yes, we recorded the first album THE SHITLICKERS in the spring of 1982 at Studio Lane, Gothenburg. People think that we broke into the studio in the middle of the night, recorded on stolen instruments and skipped as fast as we came. It's a myth. We took the recording most seriously. We knew that we had to find a sound that would differ us from other bands. E.g we put the guitar amplifier in a closet and made a hole in the membrane with a syringe needle which gave us our specific guitar sound, and we added 4-5 identical guitars on each song to get a fat sound (as Pistols did). The same thinking applied on the other instruments; a lot of reverb on the drums, high middle register on the bass for distinctive sound etc. We experimented. The mistake many bands do, who play in genres where there are few opportunities to separate one band from another, is that they don't spend time on their wall of sound, which makes everyone sound the same and very few sound unique. The second album THE SHITLICKERS II was recorded during the fall of 1982 (in the same studio). We wanted the music to take a new direction with a darker sound and longer songs, but the compositions were too poor and we where in a lousy condition. The thrill was gone and we knew that this was the beginning of the end. The dissatisfaction with the album made us unwilling to release it until 15 years later. The first album was released with two different covers; 1. GBG 1982 with the knife in the stomach and 2. the sketched Cracked Cop Skulls for the foreign market. Did Malign Massacre print both with a total edition of 300 copies? Why two different covers? Do you know how many different prints there are? The split EP with Anticimex is a bootleg, isn't it? Do you know who released it? Have you given approval of more prints of the first album, besides the original (and by that I don´t mean the Distortion-print with Silence, I presume that was approved by you)? - There is only one vinyl version of the first album; knife in the stomach on the front and a photo of the band on the back, white label, 300 copies, own release. All other releases (Bullshit Records, Malign Massacre, sketched cover, split with Anticimex etc) are bootlegs, not approved by us. The interest for the album was immediately big in Sweden and abroad. Record companies in UK wanted to sign us. So the information spread fast world wide, even back then. Jimmy has a couple of the original album left, I lost my only copy in a separation. I do have a live recording that will not be released due to bad quality, that embodies some other songs not released on the first two albums. The Shitlickers is one of the most mythical bands from this era. Why is it so, do you think? I have never seen any interviews with the band, and the rumour says that your live performances were extraordinary, with a brutal singer in front. Could this have something to do with the fact that you were around for such a short period, released an album, did a couple of gigs and then disappeared? - Many reasons; we were one of the
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first bands in the world in that genre, we did a record with a personal, specific and identifiable sound, and with strong songs people remembered, our violent gigs, that we existed during a short period (1981-1982), that we left the punk community (at least me and Jimmy, who disappeared into the biker world). We haven't given any interviews, protected the trademark and don't participate on any compilations with other artists. The band members were also colourful characters. The fact that we in the Shitlickers-sphere were oldest among the hardcore punks also mattered. The young ones looked up to us and we didn't have to care about what other people think and thought. E.g. Jonsson and I often listened to 50's rock like Elvis, Dion and Sedaka, so the young punks must have been quite confused. Sure, we could be a mean bunch, but we took the band, the music, the rehersals, gigs, the recordings, the covers etc in real earnest. The music came first, everything else was of secondary importance. And we knew what we were doing. We knew that a band, no matter which genre, must have a) good songs, b) a personal sound and c) an aggressive marketing. Your lyrics stands in a class for themself. Who wrote them and from where came the inspiration? Did you ever see yourself as a political band? War lyrics amongst raw punkbands are not unusual, and I suppose you've got some inspiration from Discharge?! - Discharge wrote lyrics against war, we wrote lyrics that advocated change through violence. To repeat the lyrics in every verse was a deliberate choice. If you could say what you want in one sentence, there's no point adding more lyrics. We weren't a political or a non-political band, we were The Shitlickers, and we had a whole lot of different opinions depending on who you spoke to. We saw ourself as an original punkband, which means that we were against whatever you were for, and we were for whatever you were against. As long as there was a conflict, I was happy. This also applied against other punkrockers. I despised the predictable. The politically correct. Some punkrockers wanted to change the world by throwing stones against porno theaters. Bob and I, who hanged at Roxy with strippers and people in the porno business, didn't understand what they were doing. Was there a lot of violence in the hardcore scene? If so, who were the enemies? Rockers? Nazi-skins? Was there a lot of drugs circulating? - Unfortunately, there were a lot of drugs in the scene. Like in the society today. We had some problems in the band, but the majority landed on their feet. When it comes to violence, there wasn't much difference on stage or off stage. I was always in a fight, due to my short temper and partly because no one stopped me. It was like in A Clockwork Orange. When you're a teenager, you want to test limits, and you do so until somebody you respect says stop. You looked up to bikers, and there was never any trouble, on the contrary, they stood up for the punks, and they often visited the gigs, and some of the older punk bands played at biker and rocker places. It was a big difference between Gothenburg and the rest of Sweden. When we started, Jimmy shared an apartment with one of the skins, and we had some parties with them. We had different values, so it was natural that we started to hang with the, at the time, small crowd of hardcore punks instead, which just a half year later had become a whole movement. Can you tell me about the punk scene in the beginning of the 80's? It seems like it wasn't the same dividing of genres then? How much did Haga (district in Gothenburg) mean for the punk scene? Why do you think Gothenburg was so early with so brutal bands? What bands do you think meant most for the new raw punk scene in Sweden? - We, who were involved in the punk scene in the beginning of the 80's, experienced presumably what the punks experienced in -77; something is happening here that no one has experienced before. Something new. Haga became the centre of the new music, so it had an enourmous importance. And almost everything was in the same block; our rehearsal room, Sprangkullen, Roxy... Haga was just like Christiania in Copenhagen, Denmark, a sanctuary with its own rules. And there were a lot of opportunities for live performances in and around Gothenburg. You started a coverband just for one night, and played songs of old punkbands from Gothenburg, like Goteborg Sound, Perverts and The Leather Nun. Let us not forget that it was people from these bands - like Lob, Blomgren, Freddie Wadling and Jonas A - who supported the raw punks, so they meant a great deal, not in a musical sense, but in other ways, also for the new scene. I believe that Shitlickers was the most important band for the genre in the beginning. We set the bar for recordings, live performances and organization. It was e.g. Sixten and I who arranged the first raw punk festivals at Sprangkullen. Anticimex became the most important band for the survival of the growing genre. If you want to document the beginning of the Swedish raw punk scene, what bands do you not wanna forget? Do you think that Egg Tapes and Really Fast meant much? - Egg Tapes didn't exist during our time, I don't know what Really Fast is. Anticimex was our friends, but our musical competitors. We were older and had bigger jaws, and we made sure always to play before them in the playing list, 'cause when we were finished, the audience had got so much beatings that they had gone home. Have you ever after you quit in 1982 talked about a reunion? Opinions about bands that reunite? Why did you quit? How does it feel to get responses from all over the world because of something you did so many years ago? 25 years too late, or what? :-) - Sure, it's great when kids of today credit what you did. But it's a long time ago now. We quit because we didn't have much more to give, and we have never discussed a reunion live. But I don't have problems with bands that reunite. If the money is right.
TERVEET KÄDET Terveet Kädet is one of the best bands ever. Fucking period. Only Discharge and Anti-Cimex can be mentioned as equals. In fact, the staying power and consistency of Terveet Kädet effectively outpaces both Anti-Cimex and Discharge. Perhaps Discharge will forever be the ultimate unbeatable band, and Anti-Cimex the unbelievably fundamental band of the genre, but Terveet Kädet continues to prove that they not only managed to survive all the tough times and still stay together but that it is possible to stay true to its core ideas while allowing for a slight change in musical direction towards something more metal –which is more than you can say of Discharge who obviously fell flat on its face, and where Anti-Cimex managed to bridge the genres somewhat with the last LP, substance abuse and mental disasters did more than its share to break up the band and put them half in the doghouse for the rest of the 1990s. But Terveet Kädet still managed to stand tall. All recent Terveet Kädet records, metal or not, are essential. "What do you need a woman for? You got healthy hands." DISTORT HACKNEY: Ok, so 'Terveet Kädet still continue' - what is new with the band? LAJA: well,,,we..re now active and still continue, with this last line-up, peedro on drums, lene on bass and ilari on guitars, with laja/voices...peedro come back, and ilari are the new one...we..re played togethet about 3-yers now...mostly played these fast old ones....DH: I haven't seen any new stuff recorded since your last LP in 2002, what is up on that front? Anything new in the works? Can you give some preview sample on what we have to expect from the next release -like musical and lyrically? LAJA: ,,,yes..nothing new ones,,,we have about ten-tracks to record,,sooner,it takes a time because peedro still lives in tornio town(north of finland)and rest of the band in oulu(middle of finland),,these new ones are good hardcore in style,,,fast and short.Lyrically ?well its tk songs. DH: Talking of which, how was the response to the album in 2002? I think Terveet Kädet (and with the addition of possibly Anti-Cimex only) is one of the few bands that succeeded in going from hardcore punk to more metal sound. Discharge sure did not manage to stay on the top after Grave New world for example... LAJA: yes we mixed music with hc additude,,,and metal sound,we..re crossover band and we liked that the people who liked our style understand it,ok DH: Any plans of coming out closer in the world to play live? Like coming to London, England??? Or any major shows in Finland so we mortals out here can plan ahead and fly to Helsinki on cheap Ryanair tickets??? LAJA: well we do another euro-tour 2007 (last spring)gig..s in finland,sweden,norway,denmark,germany(4-ones) and czech, well the tour was ok to us, so maybe something sooner,,,in brazil or us(they liked there mostly...)in england? who knows ...in january 2008 here in finland we play some gigs with the partisans(uk old ones...) DH: Terveet Kädet obviously likes Stooges a lot since you have many covers by them (which is actually remarkable for a hardcore punk band, you would not get Disorder or Conflict play raw power exactly!!!) Did you manage to see any of the Stooges shows in the recnet years? What'd you think of the new Iggy & Stooges album? LAJA: welll, like mostly of our older friends we grown up with the stooges...yes we..re do silly stooges and another discharge cover too,,,well our lajas english are so brutal thats the problem....well not seen the stooges, yet and the album was a boring stuff.... DH: On some Terveet Kädet albums you have what I saw you call (in some other interview) the perversion lyrics and motiffs - were you ever or are you into that scene, the S&M and domination? If so are you doms or subs? Ha ha ha... LAJA:,,,well about these songs (pissaa ja paskaa etc)yes some s/m,fetish,,,ok when your younger and active your..re interested about these sexual feelings eh-eh in these days its more normal in early 80..s in finland...and about the songs its more music brutal stuff...like the smell of rubber DH: One of my favorite Terveet Kädet albums is called Horse and has a horse on the cover - why? LAJA:..you..re the first one who likes it...we think it..s our shit,,,anyway these songs are ok,,but the sound and mostly mr lajas english and voice are so bad...about the cover...why not...the horse(another old trojan stuff)the history of humans in old greece. DH: Do you still work in the library in Toolo, Helsinki (as it is said on the Terveet Kadet page on KFTH)? Do you get people from all over the world come in to see you? You know like muslims travel to Mecca, or anarchists traveling to CRASS' Dial House outside London, or crusties who travel out to the island where Rob the Baron from Amebix currently lives to see him etc....I can vaguely see Japanse punx in studs walk into a local Finnish typical scandinavian library and sacring the
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hell out of the old ladies etc... LAJA:well its a history,,,lived in oulu about 6 years now,in helsinki days, some punks meet mr laja in the library,,and they ,,sacring the shit off,,,like mr laja too eh-eh anyway its very funny... DH: Hold on, librarian? I have to ask then if you are into literature, and if so, what are you favorite authors and books? LAJA:...well too many books to read,,,the music business is more easier, we read on our ears... DH: Who was 'really' the first Finnish hardcore band, KAAOS or Terveet Kädet? LAJA:well...we liked its the LAMA....then comes we,rattus and the rest ones.... DH: Thanks! Ok, I guess I'll cut this short here, for now. If you'd like to add something go ahead! LAJA:ok....its so busy in these days,,,,like these machines with only one finger to write,,,,ok...and keep in touch,,,tk rules
LEWDSNOT FEATURE. Part 1. Introduction First published at www.kbdrecords.com, republished with permission. Real Name: Guy Robert Archambue. Born: 1969 on the 29th of October. Lives: Huntington Beach California, USA. Passport says: New Orleans. eBay IDs: old: lewdsnot, zoloft_anaconda. New: thingsdogsdo, amateur_gynecologist. On the 24th of July 2005 I got a phone call from an American named Kevin. Said he got my phone number through zoloft_anaconda(amateur_gynecologist) on eBay. A well known seller and buyer who seemed nice though a bit slow. Strange that he got my phone number from zoloft_anaconda(amateur_gynecologist) since I rarely gives out my phone number if someone specifically asks for it. Anyway, I'm not the suspicious guy and since I've been in bands, arranged gigs, toured etc I'm used to contacts from abroad. I was packing my stuff since I was about to move but had all my records that I traded still at home. I picked him up at the train station in Linkoping/Sweden. He seemed nice though a bit strange and VERY smelly. The strange part showed when I invited him to a practice with my band. He didn't seemed too eager which I found odd since most people into music that I've meet enjoy a rehearsal little now and then, right. When he jumped out of my car he looked very uncomfortable and I asked him why:"People sometimes find me strange.". I said him not to worry since the guys in the band are very nice. And I didn't thought about that much since I've just meet him and didn't knew what he went through in his life. We stayed up all night and listened to the massive amounts of records that he brought with him. We did some trades and agreed to go to The TV Eye // Drummers home the day after. Went there but I forgotten my money so I asked him if he could pay for the pizza we bought as a favor for me buying him some burgers. This incident made deep scars into his mind since he had to say how funny it was that he had to pay for a pizza since he was the guest. This was the first time I thought he was a bit odd. At the TV Eye // Drummers house they started to trade and I was there to help the Drummer so he got somewhat good trades. Rob flipped totally when I said that I could help the Drummer sell 2 7inches that he wanted on eBay instead of doing a trade that I thought wasn't that good. "Yeah, maybe ONE rich American or ONE rich Japanese would buy them for the prices you think you might get." I told him he didn't had to agree and that it was just my opinion. He was still mad as hell and totally changed from the rather severe manners he showed before. Later that night we had another "fight" over some records over at my house and I had to tell him that YOU DON'T HAVE TO AGREE about what I think that I might get for this record on eBay. Next day I took him to the train station so he could go to Stockholm. I went home and started doing a search for the 30 7inches that I traded with Rob. Ouch! I found out that he lied a lot(concerning his incredible knowledge about obscure records. He even mentioned a lot of Swedish stuff I never heard of.) about the price of records and that they came without sleeves etc etc. A quick calculation showed that I've lost about $1000.00. I started to search my PC for traces from him. Alright, he logged in from my PC as "lewdsnot"(thingsdogsdo) and "zoloft_anaconda"(amateur_gynecologist) on eBay. I did a search on "lewdsnot" (thingsdogsdo) on Google and found Henry Yu's article from 2002 about this guy. What the fuck! The biggest scam artist in the history of punk collecting had visited me. I just had to find him and stop the little sucker. I also found all the different emails he used when using my PC. I started doing loads of search on the net and found some pieces here and there. Then I started to correspond with "Fahad" through the "zoloft_anaconda"(amateur_gynecologist) mail address. Fahad Nabhan is a real person. Into Estrus rock and a bit slow I've been told by solid sources. This makes it even more disgusting. "lewdsnot"(thingsdogsdo) had always payed with cash but through Fahad, Rob had gotten the ability to use Paypal through Fahads credit card. I made a trap to get him back by saying I've gotten hold of some gems he wanted like the Dirty Rust 7inch. He fell for it and after three days he was back at my house. Since it seemed very clear that this person couldn't be trusted and had slipped through the net numerous times before, I had to stop him no matter the cost. I shipped him to a suburb believing he would see one of my friends who had some rare records. I told him to wait at the parking lot while I drove to get my friend so they could meet before he let him into his house. Went home instead and went through his luggage:100s of telephone cards, his sketch book with all his anal notes about exactly the time he went up, what he ate, how much he payed for a record and how much he earned when he traded it away, addresses to 100s of people and places. On one of the pages he had written:"Meet Peter(Kevin)–Meet his friend Ola–Get Dirty Rust." He had written "Kevin" so he should remember what name he used when he was at my house. I sent out an email to all his email aliases telling him I knew who he is and that it had to stop. 30 minutes later the police showed up and I was taken into custody for stealing his stuff. I hoped he would've gotten back to me but as a result I got hold of his real identity when I was at the police for interrogation. He escaped and gotten his stuff back. I reported him for fraud. Some weeks later on in the UK he called himself Harry. LEWDSNOT FEATURE. Part 2. Interview Distort Hackney: Now as far as any so-called legends of record collecting goes, from the top of my mind I remember the story I was told about Pig Champion from Poison Idea having his legendary "moment of clarity" when he "found himself" having broken into a friends house and was going through his record collection to pick out what rarities to steal. There's also all the stories about the rabid Misfits collectors who pay $14,000 for Misfits 7"s, as well as the intriguing story about the collector by the name "Venuti" (see Misfits Central forum, under "Collect") who allegedly screwed a lot of people off and then sort of making up all these stories about losing all the sold records in a burglary which also involved the rape of his girlfriend, and so on and on and on…Also, of course there's the legend of the King of KBD Johan Kugelberg, who am told have just been down under in Australia to track down obscurities…And then there's Rob Noxious. Firstly, please could you tell me anything about the attraction for you in record collecting: what drives people to dedicate their lives to tracking down obscure records? RobNoxious/LewdSnot: Hello and best wishes to everyone. Record collecting has certainly been a roller coaster ride with highs and lows and many crazy turns. I want to say that I have met Johan K. and he is one of the coolest and most entertaining collectors I have met ever with an amazing sense of humor! Distort Hackney: Now, obviously I don't really know you personally nor have we made any record deals together or anything, but I have heard about you from various record collecting forums on the internet and also obviously from what Peter from www.kbdrecords.com have written about you. Now, how would you describe yourself? Tell us something about yourself. How did you get into punk, KBD and record collecting? Rob: When I was in elementary school, I became interested in recording on a little casette deck Rolling Stones and Animals and Kinks and other similar bands. In sixth or seventh grade, some much older dudes I met asked me if I heard the Damned and Buzzcocks and a few other bands. When I heard these bands, I was seriously blown away and it was actually life changing! The energy of punk was light love at first "hear". As a collector of silly baseball cards in third and fourth grade, likely the notion of collecting was somehow in my blood or part of my genetics? I quickly made the transformation from casettes to vinyl. I think some people are collectors and others have no interest in collecting. Of course, it started with my interest in getting every punk record a thirteen year old kid could get his hands on every day. The obscure records came a year or so later after I started running out of things I would see at the ten to fourteen local vinyl shops. I think the desire to track down the harder to locate vinyls absolutely stems from a love for the music. Perhaps it is a natural progression after the great, of course, more common records are already acquired. The upper classmen at school and other schools would laugh at me on any given Monday when i would ask if they wanted to sell their Funeral mini album, but then by Friday, they would sell me these type of more obscure records to have money for substances on the weekends. Some of the older pals I made introduced me to some other older collectors with thousands of extra vinyls I was welcome to purchase around the time I started high school. It got to the point where every penny I had saved went to my next isits to some of these cool collectors with massive collections. Many of these guys were very confident that could replace the hundreds records I purchased from them; sometimes they were correct. At fifteen years old, older collectors would pick me up and bring me to them as they realised a big purchase was inevitable. In early high school days, I realised that in order to increase my collection and get in new items that it was a good idea to pick up extras of vinyls I personally liked alot. This way, of course, I could keep what i have and get in new items trading with the
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numerous spares. I made my first trip overseas with family, while still young, and loved it! When i was asked if I wanted models of the Pisa tower of Eifel Tower, I would pass to save my cash. Once i arrived in London, I began a wild record finding spree. Let's just say that i went overboard at a young age purchasing more in 2 days than one would beleive. When i returned home from this trip, I was blown away by the type of great trades I received from many older pals for the man spares i acquired during my overseas vinyl spree. This incresed my efforts in picking up alot of extras to be prepared for any possible trades at any moment. Not much time passed before people started trying to break in and steal records from me. One party i had at my place when i was fifteen, this other older collector locked himself in my room and snuck several records out the back window without my knowledge. It took me three weeks to recover those and one missing the cover. On six occasions, collectors phoned my from parts of Los Angeles and other locations offerring tempting trades. One dude and his pal who lived near Hawthorne offerred all of these big records for some of my slightly lesser rare records, but then never sent anything. I got a call from a friend and collector that I should beware that these two dudes have ripped off about 48 people already with this scam. Mixed in were times where I mailed something to someone and never got my item in return. The second time I went overseas, I picked up a great many records and met with so many awesome collectors. The trades were great and many friends were made along the way. At this time, the dollar was still worth something and the trades were reasonable and the purchases were also stress free and affordable. Of course mixed in the many great dudes, I met some shady characters and began to become more cautious as well. Distort Hackney: One thing that has been said about you is that you use all these different aliases and build up a persona for each and have the aliases refer to each other etc. It is hard for me to know what is true and what is slander, but I am going to assume that some of the aliases that are said to be you are at least partially true. So, are you then the legendary Rob Noxious, Lewdsnot, Zoloft Anaconda. Thingsdogsdo, Amateur Gynecologist? Rob Chambeau aka Roberto aka Guy Archembeault aka Guy aka Tony From Hawaii aka Surf Dude aka Mike and Ray E aka Mike and Ray Ern aka Mike and Ray Ernst aka Mike and Mary Lewdsnot, the Ernest brothers, Kevin, and so on and on and on the list goes on! What other aliases do you use? Which is your favourite? Can you tell me something of each of them? Alternatively, it's been said that "Lewdsnot is not one person. [But] a group of record collectors who buy and sell. Lewdsnot hardly wins auctions, they're always outbidded. Furthermore, Lewdsnot never jacks up the price, if you would check you would see they don't bid much. Rob was the original avid record collector and then he started a group of people to help him buy and sell records. Again, Lewdsnot is not solo, it is an operation." Any comments? Who is Fahad Nabhan? Some say he is a disabled person that somehow got tricked into letting you use his eBay account…There's also Fahad's brother, a.k.a "Corpus_Delicti" who mysteriously popped up in some forum to defend his brother. Can you tell me something about these people? Who are they, where are they from? Are they real people? Now, apart from the eccentric stuff like the aliases and so on, one of the perhaps toughest accusation thrown on you is that you are "singlehandedly to blame for the outrageous prices we are paying for these records, and to a lesser extent, the supply and demand for the records". Any comments? Rob: Of the majority of great and fair collectors, I also unfortunately started meeting some uptight collectors who were substantially more difficult to trade with. They wanted the trades to be constantly and consistently in their favor and this jaded me absolutely. However, many time I need the record they had and I went ahead and traded a record of mine that I knew was more valueable. As I started getting alot of extras, the trades increased dramatically. One of the European collectors offerred some trades of things they had multiple copies of for things I had usually one spare of each. I was pleased to get new things in, but later received a letter that my record was worth seventy or eighty and that one they gave me was worth eighty five or ninety dollars. Then, i was extensively traveling and met some various collectors on one of the biggest towns in Europe. After i left this large city, I was alphebetizing my singles and noticed two nice singles were missing. When i arrived at the next collectors house the following day, I mentioned I met many collectors and along the way two singles went missing. Due to a definite language barrier, this collector miunderstood and gave the idea to one specific big collector that I was spefically accusing this collector of taking the singles. I absolutely did not accuse any person of taking these singles and unfortunatey with the misunderstanding and language barrier, the damage was done and this big collector was forever pissed off. Because this collector was trading with many collectors in every place, I became concerned that my name would immedaitely prejudice cool potential collectors from working out trades the next time I made some extensive travels. The many great collectors I already knew, all was well and I successfully met with many great pals and acquaintances. However, many pals were out of town and traveling themselves, so I started to realise it was appealing to meet up with additional, new collectors. In these cases, I did not want to be be pre-judged by new collectors who perhaps had a close relationship with the big collector I had this minderstanding with in the years prior. Any name changes were simply to avoid being judged by a ridiculuous misunderstanding I had with one or two collectors in the past. I do apologize if that hurt someone's feelings, but at the time, it seemed like one solid solution to avoid andy prejudism any various silly obstacles. About the prices being increased, any reasonable person can see that a low bid is placed on items to get a feel for what things may go for and if they happen to go for a low price and I happen to win, that's fine, and if I am usually outbid, it is no skin off my back. With usually fifteen to thirty people bidding on most of these bigger items, why would anyone being at all concerned about my one bid that is very rarely in the top ten bidders! Of course, friends have been a great help and I have done as much as I can to help friends find records they want and provide them with numerous recomendations. If people are fascinated with a group of local pals and collectors that help each other find things an maybe bid for someone when they are out of town or at a meeting or asleep or whatever, then I guess it must be marginally interesting. I have never corresponded with someone with any serious disabilities in terms of record collecting. I think there was a reference to someone who simply takes a mild medication for an anger management issue. This is someone I met give or take thirteen years ago and was communicating as friends nearly every day for these numerous years. This in one of the most on the ball and intelligent people I have ever met. Due to some personal issues during youth, this great dude was prescribed some mild medication for the anger management that causes simply a few extra hours of sleep. The thousands of conversations were of the highest intellectual level and after thirteen years, I am perfectly capable of determining if someone has some deficiency, and you can breath easy that this is clearly not the case. Peter – KBD Records: “Didn’t bid much is true for the beginning of the Lewdsnot era. If you’re and avid eBay nerd you can follow his pattern to see how he jacks up the prices. Just one example of many is Inserts-Doctors Wives which he sells himself through “amaterur_gynecologist”. As soon as the Inserts shows up on eBay he starts to bid through “thingsdogsdo”. If you check “thingsdogsdo/lewdsnot” feedback that he left for others he claims to be a group that’s how the rumors started about the group in Huntington Beach. Sorry to say that Rob has used a real disabled person for his own diry cause: Fahad Nabhan. Fahads brother finally caught Rob with not only using his brothers credit card but also scamming Fahad for lots of money. Fahads brother have been in contact with me. Distort Hackney: Any thing else you would like to add to the whole thing about the accusations made about you and your person? Rob: The persona rumour is hilarious, beleive me. One time in Texas, I went to many stores with punk vinyls and everyone was fantastic except one hardcore tool at one shop. Everyone I met on this extensive towns trip I gave my name. However, I arrived at one shop with many things on the wall and the only shop where everything was totally unpriced! This dude was sitting with a cooler and I could not have been friendlier asking about some of the prices of the ones I was interested in buying. This wild dude would not tell me the prices and told me to go research the values of all of the records and then come back and make offers. He was one of the craziest characters I had met up to that point, and so for fun I told him I was from Hawaii. Many people have various handles on gemm or ebay or other internet vices and even more seems to frequently change their handles, so it is funny to me and my friends that it was ever an issue worth crying about. If there is any personality concerns about record collectors, let me mention one example. Erich welcomed me to swap some records and I cut him some awesome deals on rare stuff and we had some nice trades and very friendly, stress free conversations. However, after this psychotic encounter with the craziest by far Scandinavian dude ever , Erich mentions he should have kicked my ass at the train station and taken my records. This was after the friendliest meeting with Erich, problem free and enjoyable. This type of things concerns me about the state of mind of anyone encountered! But yeah, I certainly never had any problems or issues in Scotland, an have only th finest reports for Wales and Ireland and Scotland alike, among many other locations. Many locations are great for collecting from the U.K. to all of Scandinavia to all of Central Europe. Every city has usually great shops and nearly always cool, non-psychotic people to trade and correspond with. Peter – KBD Records: You forgotten to mention that Dizzy from Detour Records contacted me after our encounter and wanted a picture of you to see if it was the same guy that now called himself Harry in the UK summer 1985 and was pestering people. Picture was sent and confirmed it was Rob. Distort Hackney: Now, a lot of the talk seems to be about your travels in Europe. The obvious is Peter's article on you coming to Sweden in 2005 which is actually not long ago. There's also mentions of you having been in Netherlands and Amsterdam, that you met Erich Keller from Fear of God
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& Megawimp Zine (and now Goddbadmusic.com) in Switzerland summer 1997 or 1998, that you were in Germany 1991, that you stayed in someone's squat in Glasgow, Scotland, in the mid-90's, Australia 1995 and so on and on. How many times have you been in Europe? What places did you go to and who did you see that you remember? What Euro country is best for record collecting? Any good stories from the travels? Assumingly your record collecting must also have taken you all over the world. If you could tell me something about the places you have been…Also, where have you not been where you would like to go, are there any legendary places for record collecting which you dream of going one day? Tokyo is said to be one of the cooler places for obscure punk records, though notoriously expensive, what's you verdict? Are there any KBD to be had in Russia? Rob: The trips to Europe and other locations included vast sightseeing, making many new friends, meeting some really nice girls, and adding records to my collection. I would not consider myself as anti-social or judgemental and I feel there is no such thing as having too many male and female friends. The extensive, three month or so trips always involved extensive trips to castles, museums, record shops, boat crossings, photos, nice girls from all over, record trading and mostly great collectors. Even the night trains were a total blast! The main places I have not visited were Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Turkey, Cyprus, Bosnia, Slovenia, and Muldova or any of the other former U.S.S.R. nation states. The rest of Europe on various trips I've had the pleasure to visit many on multiple occasions. It might be difficult to go into detail about all seven European trips because most lasted three months or so and I would not know where to begin. I am often helping people plan their usually shorter trips to Europe and other locations, so my travels have assited me in giving recomendations to potential travel enthusiasts and a future book I plan to complete. One great thing that happened while overseas occurred when I met a former punk collector turned Jehova's Witness and wanted to sell all punk reasonably due to the usual profanity punk features in assorted songs. I guess Japan must be an incredible place to visit and there are no shortage of collectors all over. What I understand is that it is far better to have a guide show you to locations there as getting around there may not be nearly as simple as traveling in the Western hemisphere. But, yes, certainly record collecting has taken me to alot of great locations and then sometimes I have also taken trips that do not focus in collecting , but is always in the back of my mind I suppose! The trip all the way accross Canada from British Columbia to Newfoundland was also amazing and that two month trip was absolutely enjoyable with no regrets or issues. I would love to go to Kenya and maybe Mozambique and to parts of South America and parts of Asia. I would need to save alot of money if I can ever plan a trip to Japan. There is a really great dude in Singapore with an amazing collection and it would be fun to see him again at some point. Russian killed by death likely started much later. Even Spain's first generation punk that others started in the late seventies started in the early eightees. Distort Hackney: On the internet I read that according to KBD-Peter and others you claim to be good friend with the Lewd, Ron Emory from TSOL and that you hung out with Angry Samoans during a rehearsal in 1985 and so on. And this is implied to be lies. Do you want to comment? What cool early 1980s punk/KBD bands did you come in contact with or knew personally? Rob: The bands or members mentioned are just guys I met on brief occasions and I have never claimed that any are close pals that come over for Christmas dinner. That is one of maybe a hundred lies and exxagerations perpetuated by this Peter lunatic. I helped Angry Sams set up one show, but i was not the best man at any of their weddings or godfather to any of their children. I recall being asked by him who I have met, but I never implied they were close, personal blood brothers of mine, those are just insane exxagerations about me. Peter – KBD Records: No Rob didn’t say that he was close pals that “come over for Christmas dinner”. Without me asking he claimed to be friend with The Lewd cause I said I didn’t like The Lewds first 7” and the he would get a bit upset if someone slagged them ha ha. He then claims he was visiting a Angry Samoans rehearsel in 1985. I’ve made up “hundred of lies and exaggerations(sic)”? Well isn’t that a lie ;). Distort Hackney: A band called the Contaminators has made a song about you called "Rob Noxious". Have you heard it? Rob: One of the band members of Contaminators owns a store and i paid for two items four months ago, and fo far they owe me around 95 dollars or those vinyls, so I can not imagine being five hours away how it is taking over 4 months to get to me, so please mail me those soon as possible, many thanks. I have not heard any music by them yet. Distort Hackney: One of the more curious rumours about you on the internet is one which is about "the Dating Game" and where you would have "won an all expense paid trip to New Orleans". And as the story goes where you planned to "ditch the chick and hit all the record stores". This sounds eerily close to the stuffs of a typical urban legend. Any comments? Rob: The girl from the dating show went on the show to try to be discovered and actually lived four hours away from me and had a boyfriend, but sure I would check out any record shops and collectors while there in New Orleans, of course, it was not a honeymoon!! Distort Hackney: With eBay and the internet record collecting is suddenly much easier or perhaps it is more correct to say that it is just "different" now, how do you feel about the internet? Was it better before when it was harder to find stuff and you had to network with the record collectors in the world, send out wishlists and physically travel to see people and all the rest of it? Or do you think that it is better now when you can from your living room surf the internet and keep track of keyword searches on auction sites as well as easier communicate with people from all over the world? Rob: Indeed, and following from that previous question, how did you manage pre-Internet to keep in touch with the people around the world and what records they have?? I ask because I suspect that much people today don't remember or they are too young to know about this…What's a typical pre-internet record correspondence leading to a sale? One thing that bums me out is that the internet and the sites where collectors can buy and sell have unfortunately greatly reduced the amount of cool record trading and also shops who had more great records now list alot of things and leave the shops barren of nice records, and I think that sucks. Also, the fun of trading with hundreds of collectors was seriously reduced due to the buying and selling on the internet in recent past years. Yet, when it comes to finding something obscure from Iceland or South America or maybe Eastern Europe, the internet sites can also be an amazing and helpfull assistant. All in all, it is absolutely different now, for better or worse. I find that it would boring just to sit for twenty years in the living room and simply buy online-that is not really fully living. I think trading and traveling and meeting new pals and experiencing various cultures is truly living. I want to sit in my living room listening to the vomit pigs or eat when i am a senior citizen , so no regrets on any of the travels. However, in addition to all of this, the internet can also be great about providing another way to meet new friends and contacts, of course. Getting a late start on the internet, years of great phone conversations and thousands of letters and wants lists and trades lists were the best of times in record collecting and trading, you bet! Most of the time, the calls and letters and lists led to trades, and selling was rare and secondary for the most part, in fact. Distort Hackney: Now as I wrote to you in an earlier email as much intrigued as I am with all the rumours and so on, I am equally interested in what type of rare and obscure records that you have owned, are on the look out for at the moment and so on. Can you tell me something about your current collection as well as what masterpieces you have own previously? How many records to you actually own – one would assume that you have an extensive collection ranging in the thousands? Is there such a thing as a "holy grail of KBD"? What is the one elusive record that you would like to get your hands on but which proves to be impossible to get? Rob: Surprisingly, i was interested in that killed by death sound before i ever heard or purchased any of the compilations. The comps certainly help one decide the singles most interesting and are a guiding light to know which interesting items to look for! Yeah, i am having trouble considering myself to be an extreme eccentric. I just see myself as someone who loves to get in new music frequently. I am not a completist, and only keep the ones i get in that i truly like and trade away any that are not totally my taste. If there is a stack of records I get in and like half of them, then I trade the other half to people who prefer the music and get in new things that I like musically; the records are not a decoration for me, I listen to them each. When you hear something Peter suggests like my being SINGELHANDEDLY to blame for all giant prices on the net, is it not clear that he is a master of lies and exxagerations and manufactered nonsense?! Supply and demand is nothing new in any free market economy. I have received around 100 emails from different collectors who thanked me for those low bids placed in order to have a reference for what is perhaps great to bid on in the days ahead. If I was winning everything and constantly the high bidder or always second highest even, then perhaps I could understand the hype of my damaging bids, but anyone reasonable can see this is clearly and obviously not the case. So, this one insane Scandinavian in a sea of perfectly lovely, normal and polite citizens has become completely out of hand. The trades were too numerous to count and I am embarassed to say that he had alot of records I was not so familiar with the music or the value. The value was not a huge concern of mine, but beleive me this is a huge concern for him. There was enough trades to fill up three pages of paper and again alot of obscure stuff that is difficult to gage exact prices. After the first time meeting this wild man. The dude was rude, excessively short tempered and abrasive. He has criticized my smelling due to extensive train travel that ultimately provided me with a foot odor, but only a thirteen year old would be so silly as to try to burn me like that. Then, I simply looked at some of the usual bidders to see what records have closed in the past weeks, but then later he made up these ridiculous lies that i was all of these other guys, some that i have met from one to two hours away from where I live. Next, Peter makes up this elaborate lie that his pal an
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hour South of his town will welcome us for dinner and sell us his collection. Although I had other plans, he begged me to return and I wanted to be cordial. By then, i had limited funds and then he asked me at that point to buy his dinner when I barely had enough for mine! When he picked me up from the station, he pretended he was everone's best friend and mentioned nothing about being dissatisfied about a few of the trades from last time. In the car or at his place, this dude could have and should have simply told me he was dissatisfied with a few of the trades and I would have easily thrown in some vinyls here and there to balance out or trade back something or both, no problem. At this point, I have records in my luggage that belong to various friends and some records that are consigned from friends where I would obviously need to reimburse them upon return. Other records in the lot were ones where pals gave me cash in advance to buy items for them and now many of thyose items were in my luggage awaiting return home. He tells me to drop everything off at his place and then we make a long drive to a tiny, one mule town an hour south of his much bigger town. When we arrive and i step out of the car, this nut floors it and takes off all the way back to his town with all of my stuff up there. What i should also mention is that he also had all of his stuff boxed up and was moving that day or the next. Now after stranding me in this non-transportation town, he comes back after an hour or so and in the street throws my suitcase out the door and then as I chase out there to ask what in the world is going on, I am nearly run over. I guess you little group of collectors who hate me will love to hear that I was almost run over and had to take a 95 dollar taxi, kudos to you. When he takes off, I then see that ALL of the 400+ records are all missing from the box and now my luggage (shirts, etc) are all in the street! With no transportation, a taxi had to come from another town to this tiny town an back to the bigger town where he lives. Those of you not so familar with Sweden I should mention is it quite expensive for things like taxis and other amenities. 95 dollars later, i am back at the police station as i have no idea where this psycho lives and who knows what else is in store, a gun, ? The police could not beleive this was a Swedish guy perpetuating this insanity. Not having eaten now for 11 hours, the police have to get an emergency search warrant and finally the boxes come back around 11pm. Now the normally tightly packed boxes are missing 45 singles from each box!! Now at midnight, police have to call back the captain for a second search warrant and finally bring back the other 90 singles, some mine and many my friends! Finally at 4 in the morning the police tell me they will likely need the records for evidence and it may take 2 months!! The polce asked Peter why he did this and he told them he was not happy with a few of the trades. These were trades all proposed by Peter and many I was unclear of the values. All of this chaos could have and clearly should have been completely prevented and cleared up by simply when picking me up expressing a change of heart about several trades or i could easily throw in a few items. From there, Peter cost me more hundreds by calling other collectors who I was going to be staying with and trading with and making up alot of lies and exxagerations causing my inability to trade or stay with some collectors. He was then emailing me while I was still traveling around frantically 3 times of day with threats and other unreasonable sillyness and cost me hundreds at thos expensive internet cafes dealing with his daily, unnecessary nonsense. When home, being hundreds in the poorhouse, missing some vinyls now, having to reimburse pals back home, Peter kept telling me he needed further compensation for his loss on the several trades we has displeased with. Now, we all know that once a trade is over, it is over. But i offered to trade again with him and offer him friendship and ended up mailing him 85 singles EXPRESS mail, many he can sell for ten to fifteen dollars or more, and it MORE thank made up for his loss he was crying about. Next, he emails further crying that he listened and did not like any of the 85 singles very much and so i still owed him big time!!! It was total insanity! I even offered to mail him one more bigger single or a few smaller singles and offered to trade and be friends, and he just continued with lies and exagerations, refused to trade or be friends or have any mature conversations! This guy is just being impossible, rude, lying and exaggerating, and continuing this nonsense! Everone can not beleive the amount of nonsense he is spewing out, like 5 % truth, like, yes, I have a foot odor problem and I do bid on alot of rare stuff to see what they close at, but then just a giant sea of lies and exaggerations that no one can imagine! Peter would not accept the giant batch of records, but he kept them and sold most and would not accept the offer for me to mail him some other rare item and would not accept any apologies or for me to make amends for a few inbalanced trades and has never apologised for anything and has simply taken things out of hand with threats, lies and gross exaggerations. There is no pleasing this dude and the crimes he committed are already enough to punish a few bad trades plus the vinyls i mailed, the costs he racked up for me; it is all totally over the top! Peter – KBD Records: The value is only a big concern for me if there’s records I’ve paid big money for myself. That taken into account I think trades shall be far an equal. If I get a 100 dollar record(I normally use eBay as a reference. It can be tricky but you get a more or less “real” value of the records being sold.) I would give a 100 dollar record back. If a record was released with a sleeve but the copy I’m selling/trading doesn’t have one I would tell so. You Rob didn’t and you lied about the value of far too many of the 30 records traded between us. List can be provided. So why the hassle getting Rob back to my place? Well you read my story. To stop him once and for all. Now he doesn’t dare to take his scams trips around the world which is something accomplished. Still it’s very entertaining to read all his rambling nonsense. “The polce asked Peter why he did this and he told them he was not happy with a few of the trades.” No Rob I told the Police I did it to stop a well know scammer. I showed them my whole research about you. Too bad you didn’t answer the Police calls to your house or their letters when the integoration took place 8 months later. “…90 singles, some mine and many my friends!” No Rob it was 30 singles. Many many friends? Ha ha strange you told me all the records belonged to Fahad. As the human loving person you are you was travelling around to get new punk records for Fahad? That’s sweet of you. Distort Hackney: One thing that I also read relates to various record wants-lists which date from the 1980s and so on, allegedly coming from you, which are legendary in their own right because of mentions of extremely rare and un-heard of records. Do you have any of these old lists still, I would love to see any (perhaps include in the zine); also do you have a current list? You must have a complied a quite extensive index or catalogue over the years… Rob: I could try to eventually email a list of my collection, but that would take more time, so perhaps in the future I am pleased to try for that if possible, sure. I may have some old wants lists somewhere i could possibly dig up eventually below my flyers and such, you bet. When i set up my recording system, I am more than happy to record anything you like, Tony, and make any copies of any flyers or sleeves or anything else you need, just let me know anytime, mate, cheers. Distort Hackney: Ok, I am aware that my questions are starting to take the shape of a full-scale KGB-style interrogation here so I am just going to stop here. Finally question therefore: Someone on the internet called you the James Bond of KBD – any final comments? Peter – KBD Records: James Bond of KBD? I thought James fought the good cause ;).
ORdER
For some reason that I am not entirely sure ORdER happens to be one of my more cherished musical finds. Apart from the earlier stuff, which does sound like Disorder, which is a clue to the understanding the confusion when Taf from Disorder says that Order does not sound like Disorder (see interview in this issue or previous issue), the more recent stuff is actually quite ‘roomsafe’ and approaches almost what I hesitate to call pop punk. You know. For all the posturings of the singer. But I like what ORdER is doing and I’d be the first person to congratulate them on becoming the next mainstream label signed pop punk phenomena (of course that won’t happen though, for ORdER is punk through and through). To be sure, I totally missed all the rave about the band a few years ago when their album came out and when the band came to Europe and even played in Hackney (where I live, duh). So call me an idiot. Either way, somehow they managed not to answer the interview/s/ I sent them, which I think is to their credit. I like them even more now!!! “HOwDy! YeS PrOBLeM !!!!!” ----------------- Original Message ------------: S.B. : 2007 10 30 4:32 Howdy OrdEr! Hope all is well. Since ORDErr is one of my favorite bands I would like to interview you guys for my fanzine which is called DISTORT HACKNEY. Can I send you some questions please? The fanzine will already feature an interview with Taf from Disorder, Rob the Baron from ex-Amebix, lots of other stupid shit bands etc etc etc. It will be a very good good zine indeed. Let me know please! Cheers, Tony from Hackney in London in the UK ----------------- Original Message -------------- From: ORdER Date: Oct 30, 2007 7:40 AM Hi! Thanx for interesting! It consented to the matter of the interview. It holds out and it makes an effort. Sorry...I'm Bad English. H.Miyake/ORdER ---------------- Original Message -------------: S.B. : 2008 1 30 1:51 Howdy I try again with E-A-S-Y English for you.1. What is new for ORdER 2008? 2. OrdEr has a new single? 3. When comes ORdER LP number 2? 4. When will ORdER come to Europe again please?? 5. History? Thank you!!!!!! Please get back to me - OrDER IS THE BEST BAND!!! Arrrggrghrhghhgghghgghg :) Tony / Distort Hackney Magazine, England ---------------- Original Message -------------- From: ORdER Date: Feb 31, 2008 4:69 AM Hi! I'm sorry that the answer is late. We are not the translations at all that have been forgotten as for your interview. The interview is answered during earliness, and give time to us only a little more, please! Take care! Hiromi Miyake/ OrdER
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MICHIRO ENDO Japanese legends The Stalin does not need any introduction. I will however add that the freshly release of STOP JAP NAKED CD is a must-have. The following correspondence was done a few years ago when I wanted to do a story on the singer. That never happened but I am quoting the letters at length because I love Engrish and I love the Stalin. Hi, Tony This is Juri Ito from Michiro office. I can give information English as long as I can. What kind of info. You would like to have? Also do you need some photos too? Please let me know. Best Regards, JuriJ. Hi, Tony. This is Juri Ito from Michiro Endo Office. I send biographical information. Also you can listen some of his new works the site under below… http://apia-net.com/shop/bacteria/index.html When you go to the site, please click linked texts which placed with numbers. All songs in the site you can hear are Michiro’s songs. A new album is “I.My.Me/AMAMI”, I know you can find it! { biographical information } Michiro Endo was born in Fukushima Japan for 1950 years and affected by Doors and Jaccs in high school days. "The Stalin" has been formed in 1980. Their speech and behavior that includes energetic live and lyrics : to one large movement. Music of Stalin seems expressing people whose potential greed and energy are not usually given to the face. In 1981, 1st album "trash" in an independent movie was sold out immediately. The expression was an extreme performance so that it causes a topic. As for 1982 years, appeared in a "explosion city"(Movie). In the same year, they debut a measure in "STOP JAP". They became "The Legend of Japanese Punk Band". They dissolved in 1985 even they're popular top in music scene. After the dissolution, Michiro created a new ground which called "Unplugged Punk" with a musical instrument of only an acoustic guitar and announced many albums with the style and received high needs assessment. The evaluation got hot support from not only music scene but also a literary arts/drama/picture scene and affected a youth in the next era. The 21st century began and he has been continued a national tour with only alone, and also published books(with CD), photo books(with CD), essays (with DVD). Many media've still payed attention to his works. He is over the times and has an effect on so many people. Thanks, Juri. Hi, Tony. Again, I also tell you a site under below,,, http://www.youtube.com/results?search=Stalin&search_type=search_videos You can see The STALIN in videos although these are not official. Thanks, Juri
RECOMMENDED LISTENING Vol. 1 This is probably redundant; most of you will already have mp3s if not original releases of all the albums listed below. But seeing as I have no review section for the first issue...In no particular order... The Wankys - Very Best of Hero LP (La Vida es Un Mus, 2008) -Debut album for the world's number 1 Kyushua noise punk band. Clean sound production noise punk a la the Swankys (noise period), Confuse, Gess, Chaos Channel, Chaotic Dischord etc. One of the best albums of the year if not the decade (not an understatement either!). Includes the classic single. Distort Hackney issue 2 proudly includes interview with the band, stay tuned! V/a Downtown Noise Punker (Distortion Party 8, 2008) - International noise punk sampler curated by Mr Wanky from the Wankys. Includes Chaos Destroy, Dead Noise, Geranum, Merciless Game, Rukkus, Kamikaze Noise as well as two live cuts from Wank Channel (The Wankys and Chaos Channel sideproject, incredibly good - watch out for demo soon! It will no doubt knock us all off our feet!). Health Hazard / Suffer - Discography 93-96 (Prank Rec) Perhaps the odd one out in this list. When the Health Hazard "Not just a nightmare" 7"EP came out it followed somewhat in the footstep of Disrupt et al, only slightly more anarcho-furious and with one of the rawest female crust vocals ever! I actually failed to understand the band at first, 10 years later it became one of my re-occurrently [sic?] favourite bands. Oh, and do try to get hold of the first Health Hazard demo, "Twenty Quid demo", it perhaps even better than the official discography! Gauze [a.k.a. the latest album!] (XXX, 2008) Holy fucking hell! If Gauze had to prove themselves (as if they could give a fuck!) that they are still the best hard core band in the world, this last album does indeed that (and much more). The overall response to the album seems to me to have been largely re-affirming that 'Fuckheads' or 'Core Tic' are among the best hard core albums ever to come out, but that this is lacking somehow. That is a utter falacy! This album has totally innovative lightening-fast yet organic hard core, a landmark album the ripples of will not yet be recognized for years. Trust me. Disorder - We're Still Here (H.G.Fact, 2002) Totally underrated mini-album from Taf/Disorder, recorded in Japan. I will not stop listening to this. Besides a bunch of superb vintage Disorder would-be-hits, this includes a Bus Station Loonies cover, an ORdER cover twice (brilliant! hah), as well as some spacey techno shit. I love this record and keep returning to it. But strangely some people seems to think that Disorder sans 1985 is less good, which is utterly bollocks! ORdER - Taep'o-dong (H.G.Fact, 2002) This is from beginning to end perfect. UK 82 punk meets Japanese (pop) punk. On one level the band is all about posturing, and that is part of the charm. I am lost for words (which is rare for me); just fucking get this now! The Wipers - 3 Cd Box Set (Is This Real?, Youth of America, Over the Edge) (Zeno Records, 2001) I was very late in discovering the Wipers (cheers to Ola Beglert!) but I have made up for it since. I think my family, flatmates, colleagues and neighbors can probably sign along to this shit. This cd box set collects the first 3 albums plus handsome bonus tracks. Greg Sage is a genius and I daydream about going to hang out with him to talk music...oh, this is probably the odd one out... DISORDER
Disorder does not require any comments. You know already Disorder is the greatest punk band ever. They symbolised everything that punk should be, what punk stands for, how punk should sound like, what punks should do etc, as well as the opposite of all those claims. That past members of the band are now spread across the globe, in dungeons, in Spanish prison cells, some are 6 feet under, some in financial straights etc is all the more appropriate. The reason I wanted to do this interview was not only because I love Disorder but because I had heard people treat Disorder as any other damn punk band (who are judge on mortal terms such as on quality of recordings and so forth). You know what I am talking about. But even if judged on that basis, recent records proves that Disorder is still and forever a force to be reckoned with. In fact, the record “We’re still here” is one of the best 20 punk records of the last decade – that speaks volumes I think. That it was subsequently repackaged with some badly recorded live tracks as the Kamikaze LP does not change a bit. In any event, the day Disorder produces its next record will be another milestone of human evolution. I am serious. This interview is obviously old as fuck, from 2007 I think if not 2008, I forgot. From what I gather, Taf and boys went to the former Yugos to tour sometime in the first half of 2008 as well as some scattered shows in the UK… DH: Ok so you mentioned that you have a new drummer called Tony from Wales, or something. So who exactly is in the band at the moment and what do they do etc? TAF / Disorder: TAF;guitar and vocals Nick - Bass & backing vocals Tony-Drums Miki-Backing vocals & drinking. Ben-occasional drums. Alex-Occasional Bass. DH: You also mentioned that you're off on a mini-tour in Italy soon. How did that come about? Can you tell me a bit about it. A session-musician is playing you said? Huh? TAF: Yes, Ben from "SPITROAST" played the drums on that tour because Tony didn't have a passport. Ben is a brilliant drummer and a good pisshead anyway so he fitted in perfectly. "SPITROAST" are a good band from Bournemouth. The tour came about when 2 years ago in Morecame wasted festival where we played, I met 2 Italian girls who are the daughters of my old friends in Italy from the "VIRUS" squat in Milano. They said they can get DISORDER some gigs in Italy with their friends group "NO WHITE RAG" and "CANCER SPREADING", so that is how it happened. DH: And now what obviously everyone in the international punk scene is keenly wondering, when is the next Disorder release coming? What else is going with Disorder nowadays? The last I heard of you or the band was the interview in the book Burning Britain. TAF: We are going to re record some songs which we are working on and have improved on the original messy version, then we are releasing a split c.d with Italian band "VIVERE MERDA" (Live shit). DH: Speaking of which. What did you think of that book? I assume here that you have read it, ha ha. What did you think about the editors of that book correcting (wrongly) the title of Disorder's "We Still here" to "We're Still here"? I thought that was a bit silly really, but I doubt many people noticed... TAF: No I didn't notice. I thought our album was called "we're still here", I think you got bad eyes or something. It was a big ego boost to be included in someones book, a great honour, I was surprised that we were not in the book on ANARCHO punk as we were always the most anarchistic punk band in the U.K. We had a squat venue and a squat cafe and rehearsal space, we lived in squat houses and always got nicked by the pigs all the time, went to antiwar demos, some of those so called "ANARCHO" bands mentioned in that book were all in straight jobs, lived with their parents, went to college and had no criminal records, so how come they were supposed to be "ANARCHO", what a load of bollox. DH: As far as I can tell the Kamazaki LP is one of those old fashioned albums made up of various recordings -for example it includes the stuff in the before mentioned 'we still here' etc. Are you happy with the album? I keep seeing the Kamazaki vinyl single everywhere like on eBay and so on, but I rarely see the LP. What the hell is that about? Did the single get pressed in like 10000 ex and the LP only 100 ex? TAF: "WE STILL HERES" was made in Japan and they made 1000 vinyl cd and then I released the same album on vinyl in France with counteract records, I think 1000 copies are pressed. I then sold the material to ANAGRAM RECORDS to release together with some old unreleased shit to make
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"KAMIKAZE" the album. There were 4 tracks released on "CAMPARI RECORDS" in Germany on 7" vinyl, this was called "KAMIKAZE" E.P. They made 1500 records (so I am told), we sold them on our tour of Germany with "DIE SCWARZEN SCHAFE" (black sheep) a few years ago. DH: When I talk to people about Disorder , people in general seems to be of the opinion that before 1984 the band was great and after that less good as the line up kept changing and you (Taf) ended up being the sole remaining member from one of the earlier classic lineups of the band. However, I always insist that as opposed to many other bands that either went on to make shit records (Massacre divina anyone?) or simply went on to split-up, Disorder has been consistent over the years, musically as well as what you may call the concept of the band (err I mean the concept is in a word - disorder). I suppose you hear that negative shit all the time? What do you tell people? Is this sort of negative response similar, say, in Japan or elsewhere? It feels like a typical British thing -to complain about bands not being like they were in 1982 etc. TAF: I piss in the face of my detractors, I am "DISORDER", me and about 50 other people who can be called up at any time to do service for punk and anarchy. If people slag me off then I say this, "If you don't like our way then fucking go away" as in DISORDER lyrics to "Todays World" DH: Ok, ha ha, on the same topic, do you like Discharge with Rat on vocals? I assume you have heard all the bollocking they get for playing without Calvin etc...A lot of bands are playing again, have you seen any of them? I saw for example Mob 47 recently, it was their first gig outside Sweden and they really did sound just like back in the day. It is kind of strange though -what with all the ideas that people have about punk and DIy and "all that"- with all the old bands doing reunion shows etc. By the way, is Disorder playing the Steve Ignorant gala in London in November? If not, why the fuck not?: It'd be great! TAF: I think discharge don't sound any better with RAT on vocals than with CALV, I must say that I prefer it with RAT though as he is more of a laugh on stage. We did a gig with DISCHARGE 2 years ago, they got paid about £900,000,000 and we only got paid £50, that says enough really. They were not better than us so I don't understand why they have a lot of money and we are skint, it's very selfish and not really punk, we should share things equally and be more down with each other. DISORDER drummer stole the bass guitar from CRASS back in 1984 in Bristol, he was arrested as the crass anarchists went straight away and told the police, so I don't think DISORDER will ever be invited to play at a CRASS gig. I think they are coming out again just to cash in on the new wave of punks today. JUST ANOTHER CHEAP PRODUCT FOR THE CONSUMERS, allthough it is not so cheap this time around. DH: Some of my favorite Disorder material is from the later period - Double Standards, Drop a Bomb and Make a war, Carry On Screaming, Kamikaze etc. How is the response to this material when you play live? Well, I actually haven't seen you play for many years so I have no idea what you are playing live - what's a typical track-listing when you play live? Does it include old stuff such as from Peredition etc? TAF: We play about 14 songs which takes about 40 minutes, we try to include a mixture of old and new songs like, daily life, rampton song, fuck your nationality (we always play this song, most importantly), living dead, kamikaze, suicide children, u got 2 b sum 1, x casualty, 4 little ducks (broken string song), the rhino song, life, DH: The Negative Approach cover on Sliced Punx on Meathooks is a fucking weird choice of a cover – considering Gods Are Made in the USA as well as the difference between N.A and Disorder – I think it is only slightly less weird than Poison Idea's GISM covers. Presumably you like Negative Approach. What other bands do you like? What other covers would you consider? Would you record, say, a Sex Pistols song? How about covering fucking Beatles or some shit like that? TAF: My favorite band at the moment is "VIVERE MERDA" we are covering their song "LA TUTTI PUNX", I hope they will record a disorder song for our split c.d. I like ngative approach but the best bands for me in U.S.A at that time were "THE ADOLESCENTS" and "MINOR THREAT". DH: Someone from Amebix said (something along the lines of) when they broke up that they had played every combination of E and A and saw nowhere to continue the music (well, obviously heroine was also involved in their breakup). Now, how much currency is there in glue, cider, system, bluaararggghh, arrggh etc? TAF: You will have to ask the anarcho chancellor about that one, he will release the details in next years budget. I think the exchange rate is something like 1.78 glue to the gallon of cider, but it fluctuates occasionally depending on how Italy are doing in the European championship qualifying rounds. I expect the price of cider to go down after Englands defeat by Hrvatska. DH: How does it feel to have spawned a whole new genre –Disorder-clones? It is kind of a similar thing as when some call crust bands "Dischargeclones"? I can think of several bands, mostly Japanese bands, that can be tentatively called Disorder-copycat bands. Such as, well, Crazy Fucked up Daily Life or Order for obvious reasons. The bluuarrrghhhh punk band. Which makes me laugh writing this, thinking about the person who said that you don't get the Discharge sound simply by putting a Discharge logo on the back of your leather jacket...Can you get a Disorder sound simply by wearing the logo? Which are your favorite Disorder-esqe bands? TAF: I think you should listen to "ORDER" again as they don't really sound much like "disorder", they are more original, well rehearsed and structured, and are one of my favourite bands in the world so don't say anything bad about "ORDER" or I will send a hitman round to slice you up with a Samurai sword. It is true, you can get the "DISORDER" sound by writing "DISORDER" on your clothes, but it has to be spelt wrong. Nobody can be me except for me. DH: Order's "Trap" which you covered even sound like a Disorder song – and a very good one at that. Not sure of this but did not someone from the Japanese band play on the "We Still Here" album from you Japanese tour? How did you meet those guys? Did you play with Order when they played in the UK a few years ago? What did you think when you first heard that there was a band called "Order" in Japan, playing something not unlike Disorder? TAF: "Kohsuke", the vocalist from "ORDER" played the bass on "TRAP" on the album, I was too drunk to learn it. "ORDER", "DISORDER" and "EXTINCT GOVERNMENT" toured Japan together in 2002, "DISORDER" and "ORDER" and "GREEDY BAMBI" toured England in 2003. I still don't think "ORDER" are like "DISORDER", they are better than us. DH: How was that Japanese tour by the way? Was it the first Japanese tour for Disorder? The view from 'over here' seems to be that Disorder is "gods" there. Well, ha ha, to paraphrase "gods are made in Japan, or so they say"? What's your favourite "Japcore" or Japanese bands? TAF: The Japanes tour was 10 gigs in 2 weeks, but I stayed in Japan for 5 weeks. All the gigs started about 4pm in the afternoon, they were very good clubs with excellent sound systems and great Japanese bands. My favourite Japanese band are "ZONE" then "TRUST", also "EXTINCT GOVERNMENT" are good and of course "ORDER". DH: Have you seen how much people are spending on rare and obscure punkshit on the internet? Do you have any cool Disorder stuff to sell? TAF: I haven't got any, only "we're still here" on vinyl. DH: What's your worst injury from playing in Disorder? TAF: Being electrocuted by 500 volts in Bournemouth "Rock Hotel" in 1984. I had an out of body experience where Joseph and Mary came and had a look at me, Joseph turned to Mary and shook his head as if to say "No", then I woke up in a pool of cider after I crashed back down to earth, it was weird, I could see myself lying on the floor as I was floating up by the ceiling. I had terrible burns on both hands from the electricity, I had to go every day to hospital for 3 months to have the dressings changed. DH: Ok, I have read in some other zine somewhere where you answered something on already but nevermind. It was about when Disorder played with Taturerade Snutkukar in Sweden, and the singer had to go to hospital. Now, is it true that he was offered the frontman job in Disorder on back of this performance? TAF: Yes, but not by me, just the old guitar player Steve said it. DH: How come Disorder don't have any real to speak of online presence? Every damn band has Myspace pages and the like nowadays –there is even a Myspace for Disorder (1980-1984). Talking of which, Disorder do actually have one of those Wikipedia pages, though it is very limited in information, except stating that you now play Dolly Parton covers. Do you? What the hell was that all about anyway? I mean, sure, there's Joleen on the best of album (meaning it is off some other record presumably). Do you or did you play other Dolly songs? How should people contact the band? TAF: I never really got into computers, punk is essentially live music. To contact the band you should e mail me, disordertaf@yahoo.co.uk or ask at the gigs if you can meet us. DH: The mandatory Disorder question: What's your drug and booze situation at the moment? In other words, what are you using? TAF: That is my business and nobody elses, in Italy I drunk a lot of red wine. DH: Do you have a special method or way of writing songs/lyrics? I mean how does a Disorder song go from being just an abstract idea into being recorded? TAF: Usually I try to play somebody elses song but I can't do it properly so I just pretend that it is a new song what I wrote. DH: Thanks for the interview, the questions turned out to be kind of random simply because I don't know what to ask since all I can think of is like questions about the band in 1983 or something and that feels a bit stupid. But, yes, please add something here if you like, if there is anything I failed to ask or something like that. TAF: The band are always aveailable for gigs if the price is right, get in touch. We will not play at right wing rallies or with nazi bands."
CHAOS DESTROY Chaos Destroy is the worst shit I ever heard. I got the demo and put it on and all I heard was a lot of noise a la State Children (though marginally more modern sounding, which I can’t explain). Let me spell it out for you: FzzzzzzzzzhrghghgabhbhbhghghagsFzzzzzz. That’s how they sound. But with the addition of a really badly played bass line, supposed to be catchy, which it is (but you can’t even hear it for all the distortion). The singer can equally barely be
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heard; though rumour confirms that they do have a singer. Anyway, Chaos Destroy made me deaf on one ear and they are fucking so cool. The band needs to be hooked up with a proper recording studio and some proper production and the results should be put out on a bunch of 7”s and an album. In 10 years time people will look back on Chaos Destroy and say things about them as we do today about bands like Confuse, Gai or Gess. Since the interview was done the boys had their demos and stuff collected onto a cassette tape release by Black Konflikt in Malaysia. I also got a sneak preview of a song recorded for their coming 7” EP which sounds with production almost like totally a different band. Do get all their shit though. DISTORT HACKNEY: Right so you're a three piece right. Why don't you present the dramatis personale. MIKE: I (Mike) do vocals for the band and control the fuzz. Bryan is the drummer and he also played guitar in Kamikaze Noise. Jesse is the bassist. Chaos Destroy started as a two piece with fuzz, drums and vocals, but it was too hard to make those elements into “songs” that sounded like anything. There are two recordings from that on the “Nuclear Anarchy” Demo. Neither Bryan nor Jesse are really into this style of “music”, but we’re all friends and since I cannot play any instrument, write “music”, or own any equipment they help me (by doing most of the work). Our practices are our recording sessions and we record everything onto a one track. We try to write and record at least 2 new songs every practice. DH: How do you manage to get that over-the-top distorted radio sound like a guitar? ....Hold-on, that was meant to be a joke. But when I think of it you don't have a guitar player do you? How does that work out? I am confused now... MIKE: We use a squire strat with the volume turned to 0 and run it through 3 distortion pedals. The outcome is the FUZZ you hear. When we need to stop the fuzz we just turn off one distortion pedal. If you watch the videos of our first show you will see me with a pedal in my hand and the guitar was on the other side of the room; I just pressed the pedal when I needed to. I just say that I do guitar instead of “pedal pusher”…because that would just sound dumb. DH: How long have you been around and what have you done so far? I know you have a bunch of demos and cd-r and that you're on a bunch of compilations... MIKE: We have been around for almost a year and we have 4 demos, a split cd-r with kamikaze noise, and tracks on the downtown noise punker omnibus and the RONF net comp vol 3. The 4th demo is comprised of our part of the kamikaze noise split, random tracks from other demos and some new material. We’ve played 2 shows and the audio for the first should be used for an upcoming split cd-r. I try and follow in the Mummies footsteps and make the discography as confusing as possible. DH: There's some footage of you on YouTube, supposedly you first show - have you played any more since then? Hows the scene we're you live? Is there any interest in noisy distorted Gai Confuse fuzz punk there? MIKE: We’ve only played live twice (including the show that was video taped) and we are not playing live again. We were originally only going to do one live show ever, but we wanted to play again at the kamikaze noise tour kick off show. The scene where we live is almost non-existent. We have to drive a half an hour to Baltimore or an hour to DC to see any real punk shows. Other than myself and Dan (singer of kamikaze noise) there aren’t many people who are really into noise punk for at least a half an hour radius. DH: Talking of which you seem to have got some response from the rest of the world including Japan? There's like reviews or something on your myspace blog with funny translations...Also Mark from Wankys of course told me that he like Chaos Destroy etc. MIKE: It seems like some people like us…I haven’t gotten a whole lot of feedback (HA!) from people yet, but it seems like people enjoy our material. From what I hear the demos we sent to Record Shop Base, NAT records, and Punk and Destroy (the ones who wrote the demo reviews) all sold out in 2 days…I guess that’s good. DH: This question was the first I wrote for this interview and I thought it was almost a coup of great imagination: Do you have any songs called "Japanese Title"? MIKE: We don’t have any song named that…yet…DH: Are you more influenced by the likes of Disorder and Chaos UK, or the Japanese bands that copied them, or the western bands that are influenced by the Japanese bands? MIKE: I think we’re more influenced by the Japanese bands that copied Disorder and Chaos UK. I heard Gai and Confuse before I had ever heard Disorder or Chaos UK. I think we also try and be as noisy as the Kyushu bands… DH: Do you play noise-punk? Is that the right terminology do you think? What are the best current/active bands that play in this type of style do you think? MIKE: I would think that “noise punk” is the best term for what we play. I used to call it raw punk, but I don’t think that quite fits it. For me, the best active bands for this style are the wanky’s, geranium, merciless game, exit hippies (I think they’re together still in some form…maybe?), kamikaze noise, dead noise, rukkus, chaos channel, dischord, and the no futures (are they still playing?)…there a lot of noise punk bands that are active that I have not heard yet… DH: Now a serious question: what's your favorite Japanese bands at the moment? MIKE: Favorite bands that are no longer together: Masturbation, The Swanky’s, LSD, Tranquilizer, Gai, Dust Noise, Confuse, Disclose, Gas (especially their “Sweet Emotion” lp), Screaming Noise, Expose, Lip Cream, The Innocents, Gastunk, GISM, Kikeiji, etc…there are a lot of great ones…Favorite bands that are active: Chaos Channel, CFDL, Laughin’ Nose (mostly their first ep though), Aburadako, Nightmare, the No Futures, Geranium, Exit Hippies and of course GAUZE. DH: I was surprised that you (Mike) said you liked the Speakers and also of your interest in hearing the late-period pop of Japan's Cobra - by surprised I mean because Chaos Destroy is like the most FUZZZZZ-iest band I know - do you like music as well as noise? Apropos, in fact the only band I think that is noisier than you is FEROCIOUS X (had to throw off my headphones and run water down my ear for 30 minutes to recover from the shock). MIKE: I like most any sub genre of punk/crust (except melodic crust), as well as harsh noise, noisecore, grind, etc; anything noisy to me is inherently more interesting. Bryan and Jesse mostly just listen to post punk kinda stuff, so they’re really not that interested in listening to noisy kind of stuff... When we started we wanted to be as basic as possible and that kinda carried over into the recording quality. Amidst the drill beats, chatter and fuzz there are some simple, poppy bass lines. DH: Ok I said that I'd keep this short, so last question: Except the usual future plans such as getting on vinyl, tour Japan, have fake merchandise sold on eBay, being bootlegged in Germany etc what do the future hold for Chaos Destroy? MIKE: We’re not really planning anything big; I think we’re just going to continue like this for awhile. We all go to different schools, so it’s hard to get together to play, but when we do it’s a whole lot of fun…although a German bootleg would be nice. Band contact info: myspace: Myspace.com/chaosdestroy email: chaos.destroy@yahoo.com
THE WANKYS Few people like punk, few punks like noise punk, and perhaps this is a reason why people tend to write noise punk bands off as “bands that only exist on Myspace” …anyway, The Wankys is the posterchild of the current noise punk revival. And they are fucking good too. I mean, who are you kidding, the Wankys should be like fucking Sex Pistols to 1000s of kids around the world. But there is more to Wankys than simply some straightup Swankys ripoff. I mean they don’t sound exactly like Swankys but a little like Gess (esp first demo, hey Mark?), Dust Noise and some of the 1980s as well as 1990s bands that carried the violent party tradition after Confuse and Gai. The Wankys on record come with pristine production and sound, which means that the obvious professionalism from these old cunts makes Wankys the rightful owners of a winning concept. Jesus this was the worst writeup I ever done, sorry Mark and band…anyway, to sum up, since this was interview was done the band have visited Finland, France, Scotland, Sweden and Norway, as well as seen their album be soldout several times, a release with Syphalic Vaginas and most likely before this piece of shit zine comes out will be splitting with Japan’s crazy kids Exit Hippies. I am sure there was some more activity but I’d be damned if I remember it all: I was stuck in front of the shit-box weren’t I? Distort Hackney: Ok, to begin with I want to make sure that you went into the studio and recorded a full Swankys album with No.6 on vox. Well? If not why the FUCK not? MARK/WANKYS: We started to make some recordings with No6 and Kohey from Chaos Channel but they never got finished. We need to finish guitar, re-record the bass and record the vocals, these will be done with the assistance of the internet and if we are happy it will be release at some point in the future, certainly not anytime time soon, I think after the Chaos Channel LP is out. Record a Swankys LP? Definitely not, how could we top such classics.DH: I got your new album when you played here last week, and it is obviously getting some serious playtime here in Hackney. I was going to ask somethings about it but then everything is kind of self-explanatory -from the cover so to speak. Can you tell me something about it? MARK: We go studio, make noise, mix fast punk and slow punk. We recorded at Force Fed Studio in Leicester, which is owned my Duane from Hangover Heartattack and Threat of War and it’s the same place that we did the 7”. Other that recording the album ourselves (on 4track portastudio and home P.C.) I really wouldn’t have a clue about another studio that we could use in the U.K.. By that I mean a studio where the engineer would understand the noise that we are trying to create and be into stuff like Confuse and Gai. We certainly don’t want to sound like a crust band and we don’t want an overproduced sound. Duane let us share the control and had some great ideas and input when recording. studio@forcefedrecords.co.uk We threw up several ideas for a title and the one the others in the band liked was “the very best of the hero the wankys”, so it seemed only fitting that we should emulate the design of their (the swankys) cover and lyric sheet. The songs were all taken from our demos, some re-arranged, some speeded up, some slowed down and some changes to lyrics. We all contributed to the songwriting. It is strange because since the album was recorded we haven’t all sat down together to listen to it, critically analyze it, pull it apart and find fault. We are all in agreement that we love the album and personally I feel that it is the best thing that I have ever done in about 23 years of playing in bands. DH: So what else is happening with the Wankys? I gather you are going to Suiomi Finland
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Perkele soon on a mini-tour with Forca Macabre or something... MARK: We got to Finland in 2 weeks play with Kuolema and Forca Macabra, they are good friends of The Wankys members. I like to go on tour with friends. After that we will rest for a while and then write some new songs for our next 7”. DH: What is wrong with Leicester? I went through there last year on a job and it looked kind of, well, like a suburb to London...Nondescript is the word I'd use... MARK: Leicester looks terrible on a superficial level, new building everywhere and no heart. Look further and you’ll see many historic places all of which have free admission including all the museums. DH: Excuse my utter ignorance here, but what links Sarcasm and Wankys beyond having some overlap in terms of "musicians"? I am obviously referring to the Sarcasm CD being entitled 'Noise Bastards Vol. 1' and the Wankys new album "Noise Punk Vol. 2"...(errr, I mean, please make up some conspiracy for future record collectors) MARK: Noise Punk Vol1 was The Wankys Noise Punk ep, Noise Punk Vol 2 is the very best of hero album. Noise bastards Vol1 is the first part of the Sarcasm discography, I will start work in Vol2 in 4 years time. So really no connection, other than they both contain the word Noise. DH: By no means generic fanzine question, this is asked with obvious very genuine interest: Which are your the top 10 favorite Japanese records? MARK: I like Swankys 1st LP and rock and roll history flexi, Gai flexi, Gauze 4th LP, Gism detestation 12”, Zouo ep, Confuse stupid Life 12”, V/A thrash till death LP, Bastard 12”, KURO 8”. Only 10, I could continue. This list will change next week. DH: You claim to be the only band in the UK to "play in this style" (ha ha ha). Now, I have noticed that what Sean (Damaging Noise, Cthuwulf etc) called "Western Noise" (-punk) is starting to become very popular. Is this the No. 1 "trend" in punk right now???? There seems to be a noisepunk scene in Finland as well... MARK: What I actually said was something like “we are the only band in the U.K. that has accurately emulated the style of Gai/Swankys/Confuse”. I never heard of any other band in UK that plays this style, but there are many CRUST and D Beat bands, which is not our style. If there are other bands that play this style then please point them out to me, because I haven’t heard them. I am very keen to find other bands to go on my comp CD-R that I am compiling. We are a Noise Punk band. We don’t have any interest in any trendy scene and have no affinity with “Western Noise” don’t agree with Sean labeling us as such. I’m not aware of any Noise Punk bands in Finland, hopefully I’ll find out soon. There is a wave of bands sweeping across the U.S.A. that seem very inspired by Japanese Punk and early Disorder/Chaos UK, though whether they consider themselves Noise Punk I don’t have a clue. My forthcoming comp will include The Wankys, The Wankys feat No6, Wank Channel, Dischord, Dead Noise, Chaos/Destroy, Kamikaze Noise, Merciless Game and Geranium and more, hopefully some of the U.K. bands that are playing this style that you mentioned earlier. Release date Jan 2008. DH: Have any of the Wankyers been to Japan? Surely a Japan tour can't be far off? MARK: Yes I visited Japan as tourist a few years ago, it was a very cool place and some very special friends looked me after when I was there. We have had some offers to tour Japan; we’ll see what happens. DH: How did that Chaos Channel thing get about anyway? I assume (like every one else who is into Japanese music) that you were/are in contact with him and traded records and that - or whatever... MARK: Thank you Mr Murdock and myspace. Friendship, affinity and understanding of “musical” ideas were the heart of this collaboration. I have never really been into trading records. No 6 said “I will come to U.K. for Holiday”; this led to the WANK CHANNEL experience. I have learnt a lot of positive things from it. He and Kohey are very nice chaps. DH: Are you gonna release all those demos and misc material on a comp or are you gonna let the stuff go around the internet and blogs to produce a sort of whispering campaign for the new album? exactly what is your marketing strategy? MARK: We are not so cynical and have no marketing strategy. We mostly made demos for ourselves so that we remember the songs and work out arrangements etc. I like D.I.Y. sound of 4-track recording and am learning something every time we record. My aim over the near future is to build a recording studio. I never agreed to the blogspot sharing of wankys demos, but I don’t care about it. No current plans to release those demos yet, but who knows about the future. I have all the files saved on a separate hard drive, should there be an opportunity/need at a later date. All but one of our songs have been included on our Noise Punk 7” or the very best of hero album. There were plans to issue the album on CD in North America and South America with demo songs as a bonus; sadly both “deals” fell through. I don’t want to the band to release a lot of records, however I hope that the ones that we have released stay in print for as long as possible. DH: Generic Swedish fanzine question circa 1990-1994 (literally!): Errr, do you like to wank a lot then mate, huh???? Spending wank night? MARK: Yes, I very much like to wank, if I have the time I like to wank everyday. But actually I have been very busy recently and haven’t knocked one out for about 10 days, my testes are really swollen, anyone want to come and lend me a hand? Top tip for wanking no1. Never wank with shampoo as a lubricant; it burns your chin chin. DH: Finally, who and why are the wankers in the band The Wankys? MARK: Hi I’m Mark, I’m Mr Wanky, pleased to meet you Tony thanks for the interview and supporting our band. I’m in this band because the others agreed to do it. If one of us decides not to do it anymore it will probably be the end. I enjoyed your questions. I did forward this interview to the other guys in the band for them to answer but they never responded. Gilb plays the drums and Paul plays the bass. DH: What is this compilation that you are putting out? What is on it, when will it be out and how can people get hold of it? MARK: Well so far the comp does not have a title but it might be something like “we are the Noise Punk” and will be a cd-r release. Hopefully there will be about 8-10 bands each donating 5-7 minutes to the project. Bands that I have stuff by so far include Rukkus, Chaos/Destroy as well as my bands projects like The Wankys, The Wankys feat No6 and Wank Channel. Bands that have recorded and stuff that is on the way are Geranium and Kamikaze Noise. I’m waiting on a few bands like Merciless Game, Dead Noise and Discord and a few bands never bothered responding to my request for a few songs. All bands loosely fit into the Genre that you might know as “Noise Punk” and So far The Wankys are the only European band on the comp. My idea is that each band will make 50 copies of the cd-r to sell at their gigs and it will sell it at a budget price for something like £1, $2 or 200yen. The best way to get a copy would be come to The Wankys gigs (if you live in the UK). I see the comp as the very essence of a DIY punk release, rather like the last comp I released in 1984 which was a C60 cassette tape.
D-CLONE D-Clone has released a single that is so damn good that someone should offer the band a LP straight away. D-Clone quite simply is Disclose for postDisclose world. I shudder to think that the band will break up or something before they manage to get an LP out. Anyway, the name suggests that they will sound like Discharge or Disclose, which pretty much sums it up, I think also that they have a slight noise punk element to their sound (if in not song structure) and it is this mix that makes them one of THE Japanese bands to worship forever. D_CLONE SO FUCKING GOOD SHIT. Get their 7” or die fucker! Distort Hackney: What is the history of D-Clone? D-CLONE Hiroshi: We were formed in 2005. DH: Who are the members of D-Clone? How old are you? H: three-piece. guitar&vocal(24) drum(26) base(21) DH: Does members play in any other bands? H: No,only D-CLONE. DH: Does D-clone stand for "Discharge clone"? H: Discharge is god! We are influenced by Discharge-style bands! so all D-BEAT band clone! DH: D-Clone has 1 demo and 1 7"/EP released have you recorded anything else? H: We released 2 demo and 1 7"EP and 1 V.A . we have some release plan this year. DH: When does D-Clone LP come out? H: There is no schedule with which we release LP for now. If I receive the release offer,I want to make LP. DH: How do you make D-Clone noise so powerful and distorted? H: It is made with many amplifier and effecter. But in 7",our gig sound was not able to be expressed... our gig is very loud.full volume! and wall of noise,noise not music!! DH: Do you know that D-Clone is a very popular band outside of Japan? Many people I talked with say D-Clone noise is very very good and D-Clone has unique sound and noise. H: I don't know reputation outside of Japan,because I can't speak English.. DH: Who is best: Disclose or Discharge? H: Disclose+Discharge is my bast!! DH: When will D-Clone come to London to play? Please come soon!!!! H: I want to play in UK someday.UK is a country I yearns for. CHAOS CHANNEL
No. 6 and Chaos Channel have been interviewed in many fanzines, but so what? I sent him a bunch of stupid questions and he gave a bunch of stupid answers, so what? It’s not like I posted posters all over town advertising in-depth interview with Jello Biafra or something. If you want a refund try selling the zine on eBay, don’t bother me….Anyway, you probably buy everything you can find that bears the trademark of Chaos Channel and the charming Mr. No. 6 anyway so be quiet. From my point of view, No 6 is really onto something with all this attitude and noise, so you must follow him. Since this was done I hear rumours that the new Chaos Channel record is done but somehow trapped in what may be called Mr No 6’s production level hell or twilight zone. But all in all, I am sure it will be out one day, when all of you young turks will be all balls on fire. So with further ado: “ladies and german [sic] Chaos Channel may sound like total nonsense to you…” DH: Is the Chaos Channel LP still in the works? Is the title still to be "How you'd never been so high, (but then, you'd never needed to be?)", or was that a joke? Seriously man, we need some more noise over here - what are you going to do about it? 6: hi tony, glad to met again on myspace. yes, we're still working for our album, and an album title is not change not joke. we don't put out more modern or lately style, but we can
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put out some more splendid dischord in it. DH:Also, there's that DVD that is mentioned somewhere. What is up with that? The trailer/clip on your website looks really cool... 6: i'm sorry...please forget it. ha!! DH: There was some talk about Chaos Channel releasing a split-LP with Chtuwulf, is that still in the pipeline? 6: no, we've a talk about split-ep. if chtuwulf is waiting about it, we'd love to do. DH: Are you punk rock super star in Japan as well as here in Europe and America? 6: why? i don't care. DH: I keep telling Mark/Mr Wanky that Wank Channel deserves a LP/CD - do you have any say in this? Can you tell him that it HAS TO HAPPEN? Ha ha ha... 6: i think it'll be great but...we've a plan to make some more dischord again ( but, i don't know that it'll be wank channel.), but we don't talk about release as wank channel with mr.wanky. DH: Since you are Japanese I am curious: did you ever see any of the legendary bands play live, like for example Gai or Swankys, Confuse etc? Are those people from those bands still around? I mean, like the people from Swankys and Confuse, are they still in the punk scene or whatever? 6: i don't know exactry, but the members of gai/swankys with a member of confuse is still around i think, and maybe in the punk scene. DH: Ok, so that last question was stupid but nevermind. Here is a even more stupid question: Did / Does Japanese people "get it" that Chaotic Dischord was a hoax-band, I mean it was a band that tried to make fun out of Disorder and Chaos UK? I ask because (as me and millions of punks worldwide) many Japanese bands appear to be influenced by Chaotic Dischord... 6: i'm sorry, i couldn't understand your question. DH: Tell me, what do the people who play in Chaos Channel do outside of making a hell of a good noise? Do you work, eat and dance like ordinary people? 6: yes. all the members are working everyday except a base player, and we eat, drink, dance and something like ordinary people. DH: Sid Vicious is dead? 6: i fuckin' hate him. DH: You where first Chaos Ch, then Chaos Channel, if you are to change the name again how about CHA-CHA? It's like the first three letters of each word and it sounds really a band that makes music that is made for dancing...What do you think? 6: yes, we changed our band name. i thought that I liked chaos u.k. at that time, but noticed what I did not like according to these days. CHA-CHA!! it sounds funny. i'm tring to make a logo(CHAO-CHAN) printed t-shirts instead that I din't but i tried make a logo(CHA CHA) printed t-shirts. but, we don't change our band name again!!! ha! DH: Ok, that's it I am afraid. Would you care to outline what the hell is going on with the band today and when we can expect to see your crazy face in London again? 6: london again!? you can see more crazy face as chaos channel at the near future!!!!!!!
GERANIUM Geranium has a few songs on Mr Wanky’s Downtown Noise Punker compilation. Possibly Geranium is the best band of all of the bands on the comp. Or put it this way, Geranium was one of the greatest surprises on that compilation. Total fuzz, think what’s between radio channels, authentically broken-up logic, but mixed with POP! Or pop punk. Well I dunno. The fact that they adore Asta Kask is luckily not something that can be heard in the music – I consider this is straight-up Gai / Swankys with some weird pop chorus shit thrown in that you probably won’t even hear because you will have turned down the volume before the chorus comes on…Sadly the band broke up sometime in the end of spring / early summer 2008 according to a one-line message on their Myspace site. But I have no answers… "Howdy noise bastards" DH: I like Geranium a lot after having heard them on Mr Wankys' compilation Downtown Noise Punker. Your songs have created quite a storm I daresay. How long as the band existed? G: About three years. DH: What is your discography? G: The demonstration and the omnibus are some it. It forgot. DH: What is your favorite noise? G: The SWANKYS.ASTA KASK.BOLLOCKS.MOB47 DH: "Love me tender" is everyone's new favorite song. Tell me what it is about? G: It is a tune that sings about a favorite idol. Her name is Kaela. DH: Who are you? G: TAKEDA KASK(BASS) Thanks!TAKEDA..KASK!!!! COFFEE RAFE Coffee Rage from NZ was interviewed by my friend Mat who is known in the blogosphere as Papst Benedickt; the following is his work: COFFEE RAGE are a Hamilton / NZ based band that I stumbled over in web. Their drummer does the cool MAD BLAST OF CHAOS blog and had their demo there to download. Listening to the downloaded songs blew me away. I really wasn´t expecting this kind of fierce and angry sound. As a matter of fact: I never heard a band before that sounded so much like old JAPCORE and wasn´t from Japan than these guys! As Hr. Burgher told me about his zine I decided to send them a few questions via e-mail. After they answered my first questions I sent them some more questions. Now read for yourself! AM I MEAN? CoFFee R@gE : INTERVIEW By Papst Benedickt XVI a.k.a. Satan a.k.a.Luzifer Question #1 "Who does what & Why?" Rhett : Sean does Vocals, Chris plays guitar + backing Vox, Dane plays Bass & I play the Drums. WHY ARE DRUMMERS ALWAYS CUNTS? Haha, it's because they are all deaf. Question #2 Give us a little insight into the history of C.R: Rhett: The band started out in the beginning of October 2007. 3 of its members have been involved in the N.Z. punk/ Thrash/hardcore music scene for, "LonG TiMe"!!!!! Question #3 How many of you are married with kids? Does it compromise being Punk? Sean: I've been with my partner for 20 Years and we have two kids. Compromise being punk? What the fuck has me having children got to do with me being a punk? My kids love the music and my son was doing some backing vocals for Shortlived and a recent party down the street. My children are educated in what I perceive to be right or wrong so I think that will make a small difference in our they treat other people and animals. Rhett: Kids would be a challenging experience, & probably quite rewarding to watch your own flesh & blood grow through life…I give my respect to any person with punk attitude, or Alternative values, Who have the guts & drive To bring children into the world, especially when they do a fuckin good job of it!!! KIDS AND BEING PUNK RELATE IN SO FAR THAT YOU`VE GOT GREATER RESPONSIBILTY THAT MAY COME INTO PLAY WHEN YOU MAKE CERTAIN DECISIONS CONCERNING YOUR LIFE AND HOW TO LIVE IT! I agree, but it's people who give a fuck about the Earth and it's inhabitants that should be the ones having children. Question #4 When & why did you step into the wonderful world of Punk? What made you stay till now? Rhett:Buggered if I know??? I actually went on a 10 year crusade through alot of Other musical genres,(Dub/Drum 'n Bass/Trip Hop/Acid/House/Cider House/masport mowers etc…) but after ten years I found I had Come full circle!!! Coz I ended up back where I started!!! I guess some of the best things in life were already conveniently @ hand. Question #5 And as I guess You didn't step in just yesterday, so what has Changed the most over the Years? Rhett: The People have changed the most, BY FAR! I suppose the scene keeps on evolving, by Receeding or Resurging!!! I AGREE! BUT DO YOU THINK THAT PEOPLE HAVE CHANGED FOR GOOD OR WORSE? I don't know. The punk scene seems more splintered sometimes and other instances it doesn't. A lot of people drift in and out of punk through the years. I think if it made such an impact on your life you would stick with it. I mean like every sub-genre or community you are are going to get the shit cunts as well as the GC's. Question #6 What do you think about the fact that there are Christian Hardcore bands Nowadays? Dane: It doesn't worry me, they're all full of shit anyway!!! Rhett: Hallelujah!!! YEAH, THEY´RE FULL OF SHIT BUT AS THEY MAKE A JOKE OUT OF SOMETHING THAT I HOLD DEAR...TO BE HONEST I THINK THOSE IDIOTS NEED THEIR HEADS KICKED IN! MAYBE THEN THEY´LL THINK ABOUT THE HOMOPHOBIC SHIT THEY SPREAD! AND SOMEHOW I DON`T UNDERSTAND HOW THEY GET AWAY WITH IT. IF YOU WOULD HAVE HOMOPHOBIC LYRICS THERE WOULD BE AN OUTCRY BUT IF YOU`VE HOMOPHOBIC LYRICS IN THE NAME OF GOD IT SEEMS TO BE COOL WITH EVERYONE! hahaha, you'd fucking hate it here then. Hamilton is home of Christian Hardcore. I don't give a shit really cause I'm fucking right. Question #7 To be Honest : New Zealand isn't really the first country that comes to My mind when I think of great H/C bands, I don't think that there were bands Before C.F, GawJ & Short-lived that grabbed my attention !!! Why is New Zealand such a white spot on the Map??? Dane: There's always been a good underground scene here I guess, Bands like : Heathen Filth/Migraine/Animosity/Gore Story etc... Were all around in the late 80's, but never made an effort to Be heard outside of N.Z. Now bands like Wasteland/Tentacles of destruction/Drug problem etc, Are making up for for it!!! Rhett: Hail "Colin Long" & "the Toxic Avengers"!!!!! Hail "False Existance"!!! Hail "Rich ViLL@iN" & "F.I.C."!!! Hail "Rory Daysh" (6-StrinG DeViL) Hail "Newton City Bombers"!!! Hail "CiNiX" (& Keep on Fighting!) Hail "Sticky Filth" & "Def thru Misadventure" Hail "Heathen Filth" & "Don't go to work! Don't pay your Tax! Put your heads in dirty smelly sax"!!! Hail "Blair Welch" + want a copy of the lyrics from "Bloody Mad House"!!? Hail "Migraine" the ORIGINAL Auckland Potatoe – Core thrash punkers..? # Puking out ya ring is not a good Thing!!!" Our islands are small & boring, but theres always been a music scene here catering for the more Extreme types of musical genres. The punk scene is too fractured for my liking anymore…Punk is an attitude attribute, not a fucking conclusion of what you look like, or what style of clothing you wear!!! I WANT TO HEAR DRUG PROBLEM! WHAT A GREAT NAME! I'll slap their demo cd-r up on the blog. Question #8 Tell us something about N.Z. & your hometown Hamilton, that the Outside world should Know about? How's it like being into H/C & living there?? Dane: N.Z. is the Arsehole of the world, & Hamilton is one of its many "Daggs"! Rhett: Hamilton is full of Skank Hoes and retarded car boys, good sex is almost impossible to Acquire and I never, ever seem to get any sex at all!!! (No wonder I'm a total B'Stard!?) NO - YOUR A DRUMMER OR MAYBE YES
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CAUSE YOU´RE A DRUMMER WOULD BE MORE ON POINT! Haha. being a drummer equals no action!! Question #9 Obvious to see that you're NiPPoN crazed MusicWise – Just Musicwise, or are you in ManGa'S young girls in School uniforms & Their panties, Martial Arts TOO??? Rhett: I am celebrating Japanese Music, but also Swedish stuff too!!! Lipcream/Acid/Swankys/Gism/Clown & Mushizu to name a few... I like to watch "Pride Fighting Championship", Which is a mixed martial arts competition held in Japan. History, myths & legends from the land of the "Rising Sun" are fuckin KooL MaN, besides everyone needs to Know that Japanese vinyl is much cheaper "&" much Better!!! Dane: I like the old jap bands like : Outo/Gauze/Zouo/Gai etc...& also newer shit like : Coloured Ricemen/S41/Ada Max etc... Dont care for martial arts, but like cute Japanese girls (& their panties!) I DIDN`T KNOW THAT JAP VINYL IS MUCH CHEAPER! HERE IT`S EXPENSIVE AS FUCK! It's not so bad if you buy direct from Record Boy or Circledelic. Unless your talking the rare shit then your going to pay a premium no matter where you live. Question #10 Did the (Many times) senseless lyrics that some Japcore bands tend to have Influenced your lyrics? Why are they not included & what are they About ??? Dane: I like fucked up Jap lyrics, but they havn't influenced ours ! They're mostly about coffee & general irritations!!! Rhett: I don't have anything to do with the lyrics so jolly big tongue blown raspberries In your ears!!! Question #11 What are your future plans with C.F. ? Any goals you want to reach ??? Dane: The future is uncertain, but would like to have some vinyl released. Rhett: Yeah vinyl would be good, especially a split with a Japanese band, (if at all Possible!??) Getting our set out toward the 20 song mark, and playing @ "SharkFest" later this Year in our capital city "Wellington" would be KooL...
CTHUWULF
First time I heard Cthutwulf I thought that it was some shit inspired by Siege or Infest, especially the singer, who also sounds a bit like singer of Rovsvett, well occasionally, and this was not what I expected from Sean’s namedropping of Mob 47 and Swankys. On one of the demo’s there’s a great Swankys’ cover, This is My Lifestyle, which took me about ¾ into the song to realise what it is…AND THIS IS A COMPLIMENT! Anyway, the interview kind of covers much of the ground that I could add here so I won’t say another word. Oh, this is probably the only band that I fail to learn how to spell and I always write it differently every time: Ctuhwulf, Cthtuwukh, Ctuhulf, Chthulf whathatefuck…oh, since this was done there’s been some recordings…aimed at album size I guess…if so I’ll let you know next time around..Sean you hook me up yeah kid, huh?DISTORT HACKNEY: How the fuck did you manage to get GAI to agree to come out of retirement and split a seven with you? That is to say, what the hell is that shit all about anyway? By the way, someone was selling this slab for £1 (=$2) on eGay last week... SEAN: They didn't ;) ...around '99/2000 I got that now-easily-available video of them when they played with Kuro (Jun/Overhead tells me it was really a Swankys gig, or at the event horizon of changing names...Dig [yeah] told me he knew the dude who filmed that show and had traded for the footage around the same time ['84ish?] and was consequently told it was Gai...apples and assholes, I mean oranges dude)......Soooooo, being inspired by Patareni's/Godstomper's lack of morals with their own split-boots, we just wanted to have a little fun. That release was a fucking nightmare though, the covers weren't printed on the colored (excuse me, c-o-l-o-u-r-e-d) paper we wanted, the art printed illegibly, it took like 8 months to come out, and Barfo made us look like complete jerkoffs by chopping Gai's side to save money on the pressing (there's supposed to be 3 tracks, instead of the "1.75" that made it on there). Totally fucked up, but that's what we get for "thieving from our own scene". But two-tears-in-a-photobucket, fuck it. Conversely, the Death Sentence split ep was completely Peter/DxSx's idea (you'd jump at that too). Oh, we bear no ill-will toward Barfo, he's a LIVING POOH BEAR...it's IMPOSSIBLE not to love that guy (Gai?). DH: So obviously your "discography" can be downloaded off Sean's blog - but what do you get when you do so except "Unknown Artist - Track 1", "Unknown Artist - Track 2", "Unknown Artist - Track 3" etcera? In other words, what have you released or bootlegged off yourselves already? SEAN: All the trax and related info are included with the covers in the download. Our complete discography is 4 demos, Life's Flame lathe cut ep, the Gai split, Death Sentence split, Besthoven tribute comp track, Godflesh tribute comp track, Clay's never-to-be-released "In The Toilet" comp track, aborted one-sided ep, aborted 8" lathe cut (would have been 4th demo but RICHARD RAMOS is a weirdo), aborted Chaos Channel split (again, weirdos), aborted split 10" with Siviilimurha (master and master art stolen), oh and Acid Tears demo...which we all collectively hate (my fault). DH: Now, what is this all about a fulllength Cthuwulf album being released what? SEAN: "Peace Through Aural Sodomy" is the working title and is going to be comprised of songs that are going on 4 years old now...all new trax I've been hoarding the riffs and refining (older than the trax that ended up becoming the Gaishu Issyoku demo). With us, it's ALWAYS a matter of making the time to jam. I'm making this a personal mission for it to be our tightest and best produced recording...a really high bar since we were all so completely delighted with the Gaishu demo. If we could maintain some semblance of "tightness"/production as the Gaishu demo and some of the "emotion" on the the DxSx split, we'd be pretty stoked. I can stand by these riffs, especially taking so damn long to refine the songs more, fix little problems I didn't want to create for us all again....only time is ever going to tell. DH: Oh, I remember reading some sort of jive on a Myspace bullentin about you being ripped-off by some label or some distro, what was that shit about? Are you doing dodgy deals? Why? How come you haven't been picked up by some Jap label already? SEAN: Some dude in Mexico jacked me like 50 bucks for a couple Genocide Organ shirts and some "brutal" dvdrs of "rare" mp3s...that's all that's coming to mind. I'm pretty fortunate in not getting jacked (often). DH: Acid Tears is some real good shit too. So this will be a 10"? I am going to recycle what I wrote on Sean's blog before : "I sense something very vaguely Rovsvett (Swe) in the voxs, but then again not really, the likeness is very surfacey. The Swankys cover is great too HOWEVER it took me about 30 seconds to get from 'hell yeah, i like the Swankys references on this one' to 'hey man, this is a Swankys song'Comment? SEAN: We hate that demo and I wish I never irreversibly fucked the mix so badly...plus wasting that artwork on it. DH: Another band that is interviewed in this here fanzine-mag is the Wankys from Leicester and I suggested to Mark something along the lines of Western noisecore inspired by Japcore seems to be the latest trend in what is broadly classed termed punk/hardcore - he disagreed. I think maybe he took it to mean something really negative - whereas I meant it simply as a objective thing - you know, there are suddenly many bands that play something akin to Confuse/Gai/Swankys. What do you think? Am I imagining things or what? SEAN: I have no idea where these crazy kids get these ideas from (the internet? GOOD!!!). Here is the states alone (the world?) we have ROTOZAZA (fuckin' top!), CHAOS/DESTROY, RUKKUS, DEAD NOISE, MERCILESS GAME, MEDIC, ROTTEN FUX, KAMIKAZE NOISE, HELLKONTROLL, LEBENDEN TOTEN/ATROCIOUS MADNESS, and hopefully Cthuwulf...though our sound shares more with straight noisy hXc like old Ripcord, old Larm, Mob 47 etc. We don't bother with labels anymore, and truth-be-told, just want to play "punk rock". DH: Ok, lets talk serious here for a second. I totally get the nerdy record collecting and noise fetishism (because, duh, I am like this too) but what the fuck is all this Anime / Manga / Cartoon stuff all about? I mean, Discharge: sure. LARM: sure. Protes Bengt: sure. Cute Japanese anime nurse with an axe up her arse, a butterfly sitting on the handle: huh? SEAN: We're just ourselves...no disclaimers, no apologies, nothing more to say. We're all into it (and many other things) and less/more "fucked up" in equally greater/lesser degrees than others might assume. Gunbuster Part Two is the greatest space opera since Gun Dream. DH: What's up with the Chaos Ch split? Looooollllllllllllllll SEAN: We'd like to know too since Chatter made such a big deal about wanting to do it, and his band re-recording the Donkeys song "Dead Boy" in dedication to Cthu. DH: Ok, I am running out of smartyarse questions here so I'll just ask some generic ones to take it up to around 15-20 questions or so; here the first: If you could only have one of the following bands - meaning only one of them would have existed ion history and thus exclusively shaped the future of music- which would you decide would never exist, and why: A) Discharge versus Disorder SEAN: Climax Blues Band. B) Gai versus Swankys SEAN: I hate jXc. C) Hawkwind versus Napalm Death (this is a very good one I think) SEAN: The real question should be The Toadies vs Fear Of God. DH: When are you coming to the old world (read: EUROLAND) to tour? You know we Krauts and Limeys totally love Yankybands. See what we did to, like, Heartbreakers and them bands. Play residency in Reeperbahn for a few months and Cthuwulf could become the next Siege or something? SEAN: The closest that's gonna happen is when I get a drummer from your country, a bassist from Belgium, and a singer from Pennsylvania to all partake in a little "jam session". Check back with me in 2-3 years. DH: What equipment do you use? SEAN: I play a modified kit-strat, ya know those "jam packs" they sell with the cheesy 1-watt amp as a bonus ("comes with a STRAP!"). The "modifications" come from me taking off all but 2 tuning pegs, 2 saddles, and one pick-up (the other two pick-ups were removed so I'd have more room for stickers...yeah...yeeeaaah). I use brass acoustic strings, a Metal Zone,, pedal I eq the fuck out of, and play out of a 120-watt Crate combo that I also eq the living shit out of. The band has achieved "pure" braindrill on the aborted split 10" with Sivillimurha, but lacking a bassist we're kinda forced into a more "crunchy" sound like NYC Mayhem (I'm fine with that). George has owned like 8 kits since I met him...I'm not a drummer, so you'll have to ask him. He's also the only professional musician in the band...to this day he still studies jazz dummers and other un-punkly "percussionists". We always
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borrow shit for Sam to sing through (poor Sam!). DH: From over here, it seems like there is a special brand of American crust-teenager that is not unlike the sociological monster that the media term the nu-metal (you know, striped longsleeves over too tight BAM-tshirt, makeup, boots AND baggy pants) - and this crust-teen is distinguished by a dresscode that can be described as crystal-black a la Doom-1992 stylee (but clean) with patches of all these new crust bands with names like Mystery, Dilemma, Total Arseburn etc (Discharge-or-Amebix-lettering, but they all sound like current day Metallica covering Disfear's latest) and there's like 50 bands in Chicago that starts with Dis- but not one that you have heard of etc. What is up with that shit? Is it a reaction to the Bush administration? Or is it just another variation of the Christian Right and the pledge virginity rings and the Church-of-Hate-Love-Murder-all-Abortionists movement? SEAN: Lameos who don't seem to understand that a bunch of pear-shaped dorks in flannels bought from a "real" thrift store and huge oversized plastic glasses can...will...and actually already DID deafen ears 20 years ago. I like fashion...it's "fun"...but it's not our lives. George puts NO effort into his look. Everybody needs to take a page from George's pamphlet on metrosexuality. DH: So, like, do you guys skateboard then? SEAN: Sam does, or did. Wish I had the knack. DH: How has the response to the band been thus far? Have you got much requests by the media? Good reviews? SEAN: Mediocre bordering on tepid. DH: Ok, lets stop it here. Enough is enough. Final question: what is your future plans? Where can the readers of this worthwhile publication buy your merchandise? SEAN: Do the 12"/LP...and...that's it. The 12"/LP will be as far as I could push the band while still "sounding" like the band, so it's gonna be nowhere but down from here. The entire discography is up on "that guy Sean's" blog: www.damagingnoise.blogspot.com. Absolute respect for the interview Slobby...I'm gonna go write some more breakbeat right...NOW!
DISORDER ITALY TOUR OCTOBER 2007 BY TAF
"I am starting the tour report : in october 2007 disorder were dragged out of bed at 5 am to fly to Italy for a tour......We arrived in Modena to be taken to a crusty squat called "LA SCINTILLA" (the end)....It is an old schoolhouse from Mussolini period architecture, and I could easily imagine the ethnic cleansing that went on here in the old days of Italys fascist regime. Anyway "LA SCINTILLA" is a very old building that is run down and neglected by it's occupants. The roof is leaking and nobody wants to fix it, they have wood burners in there for the heat, but none of them are insulated properly so when you light the fire to keep warm, the room is filled up with smoke so you have to open the window. The wood they burn is old europallets, ehich are painted with preservative and blue gloss paint, so the smoke is highly toxic. After 3 days of staying there we all were inevitably sick. I am the vocalist in disorder and I had a sore throat before the first gig, so it was very difficult. There was only one person who really lived in the squat and we were left there for 3 days to look after it for the Italians. After 3 days we were all tired, sick and pissed off and it was the day of the gig, so we played there with a couple of local bands called "NO WHITE RAG", "CAMPUS STEARMINI" and "CANCER SPREADING",suddenly the house was alive, hundreds of people came to the gig and the bar was open and people came from miles around and brought us gifts of Italian wine and spirits..............DISORDER played a good gig in front of an extatic crowd, there was a good bit of stage diving and crowd surfing going on, after there was a cheesy disco party in the bar room while the concert hall was left to a pack of dogs who were fighting over the beer cans, crusty punk dogs.......it was a great night and people still have fun even if the house is shit and falling down. The next day after a long wait we left to go to BOLOGNA (just down the road from MODENA), it was again an old squatted school house, older than Mussolini period I guess, it looked a bit like a church so I guess it was an old convent school or something, it was the only building standing in the way of the new road, people actually lived there and there were a couple of teepees in the garden where people live as well. In Bologna it was more street punk and skinhead types there, so they had the bar well organised with Guiness and top quality German Pilsner on Tap and proper bottles of Moretti Italian top quality beer (not like the Polish crap 4% shit called "BARLEY" that we had to suffer in Modena). We played the gig together with "DISCORDIA", a young Italian band, they were good but the drummer was totally pissed and they got the old drummer out of "WRETCHED" to play the last few songs, DISORDER got pissed too as it would be rude to refuse offers of every kind of strange Italian alcoholic drink you can think of, I drank "Menthos" which is 40% and tastes of toothpaste, so you don't have to clean your teeth and the vicar can't tell you have been drinking. Also the best wine in Italy thanx to my new best mates in Italy Bastio and Gino.they followed the tour around and came to all the gigs except for ROMA when they got caught sneaking on the train without a ticket. There was again acheesy disco after the gig and the Italian crusties and punks and skins showed us all that at heart they are great fans of Madonna, AHA, ABBA and Bucks Fizz(bless em) The next day we got a lift with "NO WHITE RAG" in a Fiat with all our band gear piled on top of us, we went to Rome, had some nice pizza on the way and we looked at some interesting geological faults on the way which took my mind off being squashed in the back of a Fiat. The place in Rome was an old sqautted slaughter house, the occupants there have been really busy and it is all nice in there. Now instead of being a slaughter house, they have pet chickens, geese and ducks living there and a permaculture garden/allotment. They are growing medicinal herbs there, but I was told that a few weeks earlier the pigs had been there and took their ganja plant (only one!). Bastardos. The squatters in Rome fed us really good vegan food and we could eat as much as we wanted, also the beers and wine was really good. The gig was done in the old cattle/horse stalls, a really big space. Other bands on were "ESCUPE" from Spain, who are political, melodic street punk and WAAR from Croatia, a young band with really hardcore noisy sound and "FCT" from Sardinia, who seemed to be quite old, like disorder. In the morning there were a lot of ducks, chickens and geese in the squat yard, they are pets and free range eggs unless you are a vegan. We got fed breakfast and cofee and alcohol and didn't really want to leave, but we had to go to a gig in Viareggio, where again, WAAR, FCT, and "ESCUPE" were playing as well as "CANCER SPREADINF" from Modena. The gig was in a shed in a disused car park where old freeight containers were dumped, there was no toilets and the whole place stunk of shit and piss, DISORDER didn't get to play, they made us wait until 5a.m to go on last as we were headlining. Then the guitar amplifier broke down when I was tuning the guitar in before the first song, So "DISORDER" did not play in Viareggio by the sea. After the gig was over the organisers fucked off and left us stranded in their squatted car park/open sewer and did not accomodate us or look after us as guests in any way, The "NO WHITE RAG" boys had to try to leep in their tiny little FIATS and then drive us to Firenze(Florence) the next day. Needless to say we had to get totally bolloxed on alcohol to endure all morning in a windy stinky old car park. The locals decided to entertain us by playing 80's cheese disco hits which didn't go down too well with me...aaaagggghhhh. The venue in Florence was an old mental hospital from Mussolini Fascist times, and was a buetifull villa in the middle of a big park with palm trees and nice thing in it. "VILLA PANICO" I had a little nap in the park on the grasss and then went inside and had another nap up in the old mental hospital ward....we got well looked after by the squatters there, they fed us and got us drunk there and showed us good hospitality which was nice as I was really nackered after my ordeal at "SARS GHETTO" (Viareggio) the day before. The gig was good "ORGOGLIO PUNX" played who sound like discharge influenced their music and fashion, then "VIVERE MERDA" played and "DISORDER" played the last gig of 2007 Italian squat tour, the last song was a cover of "VIVERE MERDA" La Tutti Punx. So the next day "ZANNA" from "NO WHITE RAG" kindly drove us to the airport at Milano to see us safely home thanx to Zanna for that and all his help on the tour."
TATUERADE SNUTKUKAR Tatuerade Snutkukar along with Snobbslakt collectively were musically and spiritually Sweden’s answer to Disorder and Chaos U.K. Both bands equalled their UK peers in chaotic craziness, either on record or in life. Tatuerade Snutkukar perhaps even out-Disorder Disorder themselves. I will write more about Snobbslakt in a future issue of the zine, maybe. Anyway, Tatuerade Snutkukar only managed to record one demo tape which has gone down in punk history as “Hardcore Thrash 83”. The interview that follows, was made by Masken of Sub Alert (see previous issue of this zine), and was first published on his Swedish Punk website. It is a recent one that discusses the band in retrospect, well, as you read it will be all self-explanatory. Anyway the translation is mine and I decided to include the interview in the zine not only because the band looks cool on the accompanying photos but because Tatuerade Snutkukar and their story deserves to be heard by people outside of Sweden as well. The following is a translation of an interview made in Swedish by Masken (Sub Alert etc) with Sören from the Swedish answer to Disorder, Tatuerade Snutkukar a.k.a. Ta.S.K a.k.a. Tattooed Cop Cocks. [First elsewhere - reprinted with permission. TG translation] Ok... Where to start. One of my favourite bands is Ta.S.K who were around Gothenburg, Sweden, during the first half of the 1980s. I am not sure what it is that makes me like them that much, but I think that it is due to the attitude and the honesty of the things they did. For musically to be fair they were not much to go by. I like this thing from the past of "never mind how it sounds, we'll play anyway ". Sometimes I miss this today among all the over-produced records that are released. In any event it was Sören who kindly answered the questions..../Masken 1. Some TA.S:K history… Well
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yeah, where to begin? Ta.S.K. was started by Ägget and Gröning some time around 1982. In the beginning they would rehearse in the dust room in their council estate in Björkekärr and they rambled with some various people and line-ups. One curious tidbit is that Ebbot from "Soundtrack of our lives" is said to have played bass for awhile. I moved from the home of my childhood Örebro to Haga, Gothenburg, which was the number one punk hangout city, and rather quickly I became mate with Jens. I can't remember whether he was in Ta.S.K. slightly before me, but we probably joined the band around the same time. Most of the punx in Haga were a few years older so it was kind of natural that me and Ägget would become mates and we would go around on his flat-top moped together. Gröning was something of an outsider in Haga, damn intelligent and totally socially uneven. Inevitably we fell in the category since we will never be the best, we will be the goddamn worst". We rehearsed at a youth club for the disabled and those with learning difficulties and made lots of noise and spent a very good time doing so. Gröning fell out after awhile and members came and went. Among others Jonsson (Anti-Cimex and later Wolfpack) joined for a period of time. In the end the line up finalised with me on vocals, Ägget on bass, Hasse on guitar and Jens on drums and that is how I see the band today. Primarily it was me and Jens how wrote the lyrics and everyone was pretty partial to the music, with Ägget as absolute dictator when it came to our sound. It had to be as much feedback and distortion as possible or else he would get cranky and complained a lot that it was too" conventional" (a word that he had learnt from Gröning), so he had his way. It was probably one of the reasons why Jens quit the band. He had slipped into old Ramones and Slade and perhaps thought finally that it was pretty desert to play together with us others who held the whole Bristol scene in the highest regard, with Disorder, Chaos UK and Extreme Noise Terror in the top. We played with Rudis (a crazy fool from Frölunda) for another year or so, but I do think that Ta.S.K. as a band peaked when we played support to Disorder at Pustervik and the legendary incident with the fight happened. I have heard many rumours about the band during the years. None of which I wish to directly comment on, but this is particular one is completely true. I was actually offered to start singing in Chaos UK solely based on that merit. 2. How do you think the reception would have been like if you had started the band today? That is too impossible to answer. If we had been 14-15 years old as we were then, or if we had been old men around 40 as we are today? (I was thinking more in regard to your "sound", if that had worked today... a bit blurry question /Masken's note) 3. Why do you think you have received such cult status? We were simply one of the worst little obstinate, irritating, fuck-everything-smurfpunks around. We did everything to make a lasting impression and succeeded apparently with just that. Anti-cimex were the toughest, Asta Kask were the most popular and we were just somehow the worst. People did not come to our gigs to listen to our songs, but to witness what the fools would do this time. And then it is simply so that Tatuerade Snutkukar is the hardest band name ever and that has probably helped to make us so memorable...4. Do you think that you will ever return to the stage again? I saw you play at both the reunion gigs at Bollnäs and Gothenburg and it was fucking so fun … especially at Bollnäs, talk about chaos … Thank you thank you. We had ourselves so damn fun at Bollnäs, but it was probably the last chance to see Ta.S.K. live am afraid. We were surprised to see that allegedly would play at some festival at Kode this year and we hoped that it would be some snotty fucking kids that had simply stolen our name, but it seems that the whole festival was made up, unfortunately. Ägget and me were thinking of going and to be up front by the stage and headbang. It is always that constant talk about a reunion, and we would surely get lots of dates, but we are all pretty preoccupied with other things nowadays. Ägget has occasionally been toying with the idea and I told him that if he can get Jens (who is now a youth priest in Stockholm) then I will THINK about it. But on the other hand both me and Ägget are turning 40 next year and we could have some sort of 80-years-jubilee-tour… Who knows, you may never be FULLY sure. 5. Regarding the Bollnäs concert, I read in an interview with Wigren who were responsible for that shit that it was already decided before hand that you would get thrown off stage, any comments? That was probably something he made up in order to not make them appear as bring people. In retrospect perhaps I have to admit that I too would have broken that concert if I was the promoter, but it was not something that was agreed upon beforehand. But it was not for anything as it yet once more allows us to retain that cult status! As Malcolm MacLaren says in The Great RockNRoll Swindle: "Always make sure the band never plays". 6. Did you play out and about a lot back then? Yeah it was quite a lot of travel. We played much in the south of Sweden. Uppsala is I think as north we made it. Otherwise of course we went to the old classic punk venues like Ultrahuset in Handen and STAB in Jönköping. 7. Zynthslakt? Ha ha. I had a feeling you would ask about that. It has kind of grown to become one of those eastside/westside hip hop beef within the world of punk. With the risk of killing something of the mythical about Ta.S.K. I can tell that the boring truth is that it was not that fucking dramatic. It was a friendly play fight mostly between me and Johan Granberg from Zynthslakt that the other members of the band joined in, either with passionately (Ägget) or with moderate disinterest (Jens and Hasse). The facts of the matter is that me and Granberg were quite good mates, but we liked to brawl and argue with each other. Also they did play this rather nice and friendly variation of punk that me and Ägget thought was too pop and too weak to be counted and they thought that we were mostly just falling all over and making noise. Besides the public anti-Zynthslakt statements that we put out on records and elsewhere we did actually socialise a lot. I went to Västerås/Köping a couple of times and Granberg used to hang out in a lot in Gothenburg. Would like to take this very opportunity to send my best greetings to the brothers Granberg and Kimmo and all the old Köpingspunx with a lift of my hat. 8. Do you have any idea of how much you recorded? Many songs exist in more than a couple of versions… Nah, I haven't got a clue. Can't remember that we recorded very much at all. Hardcore Trash -83 we recorded in our rehearsal studio and the songs from Really Fast in a factory that manufactured boats at Öckerö (Hasse was of course an old fisherman's boy) and towards the end we recorded a couple of songs for a French compilation-EP. Then we probably recorded some more rehearsals that may have gone lost. 9. Will there be a TA.S.K CD? I know that Ägget have been looking to put something out for some time … Yes, that is not impossible. We have talked about it sometimes so perhaps some time in the future when we have the time and the energy and the will to do lots of nonsense, and then it may happen that we make a joke recording. (If not something new, how about releasing all your old material on CD.../Masken's note) 10. Do you still listen to punk? Favourites? My oh my, that is a question of conscience I must say. I have been deep down in the folk/poetic singer/songwriter scene for some years and it is strange how many old punx who end up in this scene. Perhaps we get too shored up with the whole lyrical bit and go for this type of music? In other words I am not listening to that much punk nowadays, but it happens quite often that I discover that what I am listening to are old punks if you know what I mean. Probably there is something "there" that you know and spontaneously like. But then there has always been some sort of acoustic poetic-punk that I have liked since my teenage years, with heroes such as Attila The Stockbroker, Hamell on trial and John Cooper Clark holding the flag. I do tend to familiarise myself with the bands that I get friends with on MySpace and perhaps that is a way to stay up to date. But my absolute favourites within punk today aren't precisely bands but Punk Illegal who are holding high the flag for Gothenburg. Partly they promote a lot and many times concerts and that keeps the scene alive and partly they are doing such a damn good work in collecting money for good causes. 11. Damn, there was so many great bands in Gothenburg in that your time … Did you have a real sense of community back then or was punk as divided as it is today? Many of you jumped between the bands it seems. We had a damn good sense of community. Not only in the Gothenburg gang but also with people from other cities. Many times punx from for example Skåne, Småland and Skaraborg were here (but strangely the Stockholm crew was excluded). One important reason was probably that we had the area of Haga here in Gothenburg, and above all the Lawn, as the constant hangout. If you went there was always people there to hangout with and that was something that probably nearly every punk in Sweden knew about. My flat was more or less a hostel for people who came to the city. The area of Haga was a sort of Free State where all sorts of possible people, old proggrockers, junkies and mentally disabled could just be without too much interference from anyone, and in addition there was Sprängkullen where all the concerts were. Because there was a very good venue to go to everyone would hangout there, both the people from the inner-city but also the punx from the suburban areas of the city, and all this surely helped to build the unity of the scene. 12. Favourite band from Gothenburg 1980s? AB Hjärntvätt were of course great funny, Sötlimpa obviously, Anti Cimex could perhaps be counted as one of the Gothenburg bands, GBG Punx was just as good back then as today, Mika and the Kärringjävlers was a collective of happy-go-lucky types. And then it is not possible to speak about Gothenburg punk (1970s, 1980s, 1990s or the 2000s) without mentioning the old working wolf that is Krister Blomgren from the Troublemakers. 13. Do you miss your time with TA.S.K today? Both yes and no. I absolutely don't regret anything from back then. We had a tremendous amount of fun and the attitude of punk will always be something close to my heart, but at the same time it is fucking desert to be young. Old age fits me pretty damn good. Now I am finally punk enough to truly don't give a fuck what yuppies and punk scum think about how one's supposed to be. 14. The word is free…. In that case I would naturally like to encourage everyone who likes both punk and troubadour music to check out my record label's website at www.troglodyt.se, tell all the weird outside-of-society-people that
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they should hold their heads high and that "punk's not dead, it just smells that way". Masken's notes: Well the only thing that remains is for me to thank Sรถren so damn much for his answers and to wish him all the best for the future with the label and the music. I can really recommend people to have a look at his songs. Otherwise I don't think there's anything to add except that for those of you that have missed T.a S.K should check them out. If someone would like their demo "Hardcore Trash 83" + a couple of more songs then send me something cool as a trade and I'll burn you a cd-r... Send me an email and then we'll hook something up. /Masken, masken@subalert.net
RECOMMENDED LISTENING Vol 2
G.A.T.E.S. - Total Death CD -Japanese Motorhead-esqe post-Disclose metal punk, this CD is a sum up of old stuff and will soon be released on picture vinyl by Tardis/Destroy. New album Devastation is not all bad either... Brainbombs - Urge To Kill - Music genres termed "art rock" or "noise rock" or "noise" are 90% pretentious toff. Like Clockcleaner or Henry Fiat's Open Sore and the likes. I don't even know why people would listen to such crap. Anyway, Brainbombs is usually held up to be the ideal for bands like this. Peter Sotos meets the Stooges meets Joseph Fritz. I can't get enough of Brainbombs. G.i.S.M. - M.a.n. LP It is a masterpiece. No more comments needed. Syphilitic Vaginas Complete Studio Recordings CD Probably the record of the year. The irony is that there are others material that is not on this CD, but that was probably intentional. Gism meets Sodom meets Bathory meets Zouo. Priceless, essential and fuck yeah. Like a stale beer in blazing pick-up truck, without petrol, in Norway. And you're wearing a Venom t-shirt...and all you want to do is get high. The Wankys - Live Disorder in Norway CD-R Following Chaotic Dischord's live in NYC album and the Swankys live in NYC album, the Wankys kills Stavanger. Raw sonical and chaotic live recording from 2007, a limited release of 50 ex only on The Wankys International Fanclub Records (GAI001). If you don't have this your a nobody. The Stalin - Stop Jap (Naked) This different mix of the classic goes MILES FURTHER than the original version. I listen to this all the time. No Solution - Demo 2008 Canadian band with members from Germ Attak does 21 covers of classic punk hard core songs. FANTASTIC! Download and hear for yourself!
REALITY CRISIS Distort Hackney: What is the history about REALITY CRISIS? When did you start? Who plays in the band? Did you play in other bands before (like "Code"?) Aichi: reality crisis started from 1995. one vocalist and one guitarist are original member. they started reality crisis after MINDSUCK. and the basist and i joined 5years ago. i used to play in a band in JUUM and ROTARY BEGINNERS. and one other vocalis and guitarist joined 3 years ago. they used to play in EXTERMINATE. Distort Hackney: What records do you have? When is your next record coming? Aichi: last year we released our 2nd lp 'discharge your frastration'. and we were going to do a split ep with DISCLOSE but.... we joined our local omnibus lp in this year. Distort Hackney: I think Reality Crisis "Discharge Your Frustration" LP is a new style for the band compared to first LP. The first LP is more like Doom (UK) I think. What are you musical inspiration? Aichi: every uk and japanese hard core. Distort Hackney: Are you happy with "Discharge Your Frustration" LP? Did you get good response from people to the LP? Aichi: yes. but next release is more great! Distort Hackney: Tell me about your city. How is life as punk there? Do you have many punk / crust concerts? What about record shops? What bands do you have in your town? Aichi: our city is nagoya. it's not so big city compared with tokyo or osaka. but we have many concerts and great bands. c.f.d.l, order, crown, d-clone, demolition, juum and more. we have good record shop called 'answer record'. good record shop. actually speaking,i live in toyota city. motor city. it's nest to nagoya. order is there too. Distort Hackney: Do you have any plans for touring / playing outside of Japan? For example, in Europe? Aichi: we want to tour in europe, america, southeast asia, australia. near feature! Distort Hackney: Tell me something about Reality Crisis that nobody knows about!?? Tell me a Reality Crisis secret!!! Aichi: we all like meat!! Distort Hackney: Why does your guitar player wear a face-mask? I mean, it looks very mysterious... Aichi: it's japanese old punk style. everyone should wear it! and shout 'doyounoyorudaze!' Distort Hackney: What do you do besides play in Reality Crisis? Do you have jobs? Play in other bands? Make fanzines? Aichi: we all have jobs. we don't play in other band and make fanzines. work, play, beer! Distort Hackney: Ok, that was all questions. Please give some information to people on how to contact you and where to buy record and stuff. Aichi: we really want to tour in europe, especially uk. is it good idea or not so good? tell me! http://www.realitycrisis.Com / realitycrisis@hotmail.com / http://www.myspace.com/realitycrisiskonton
ZYANOSE
This interview was sent to Zyanose through their Myspace (link) sometime in the summer of 2008. I received back the answers sometime during the autumn of 2008. As the band claims to be totally unable to understand English, Shin from Punk&Destroy shop (as well as drummer in Framtid) helped out with the translation. Since then, well in 15 December 2008, Zyanose's August 2008 recording came out as their 2nd vinyl 7", entitled Lovele SS on Crust War Records (CWR033). The 'hype' for this 7" EP has been quite extraordinary; for the record (hu-hum), it contains 4 noise hard core punk songs with some metallic feel to them and a rather surprising and no less than 7 minutes long crazed exersise in noise, repetition and madness. DANCE & DISORDER!!!! Zyanose:we are so sorry that our interview was so fukin late!!! we used our time for translation much more than we expected. We were pretty busy lately. In this week [End of August 2008 / Ed. Note], we will start recording our songs. And we will relese CDRs not CDs. last thing we gonna make only 100 CDRs because we want someone who are interested in our band to buy it!! Distort Hackney: What is the history of Zyanose? When did you start and how? What ideas did you have when you started band? Zyanose: we formed in 2002. that time i played guitar for defector, but i wanted to start a band sounds like CONFUSE so i made Zyanose with lazy drunk punk bastards in bar KONTON. DH: Can you tell me who plays in Zyanose? What other bands did or do the members play in? Did some of you play in Defector and in Chaotic Goats Farm? Zyanose: TOYO = VOCAL, SAKANA = BASS, and fall of 2007 guitar player HATANAKA and bass player SHOGUN joined in, our drum player left the band without saying nothing, but now we have help drum player playing by this 5 people. about Chaotic goats farm, sakana/our bass player singing and me playing guitar, not active anymore, i played guitar for Defector and Defuse. DH: What current other bands do Zyanose member play in? I know Zyanose bass player Shogun plays Spiral Collective also... Z: shogun doing band name Spiral collective but since they lost thier singer they stop playing now. he also played bass for Greenmachine before. Right now all band members playing only for Zyanose. the Separations is secret band of Zyanose!! could you recognize that???? DH: What is your discography? I know of your "spirochaeta" demo from 2005 and the "crossing" 7 inch from 2006 and of course Zyanose & The Separations split also from 2006...are there any other releases or recordings? Z: yes!!!!! DH: Zyanose is very very popular in USA and Europe. But it is very hard to get Japanese records because of very limited release. For example one 7" single is pressed in 500 copies only, and then only 50 copies are sold as export outside of Japan. Will Zyanose single get printed again? Z: populer???? i can't believe that, really surprising, in japan no one cares about us hahahaha... in japan, seems like only famous bands can sell 500 copy of their records but almost band looks like unserious about distributing their records to foreign country... maybe?? Guerilla records, the label who released Zynose 1st 7"ep, the label owner work hard & save money for make this release. about reissues, it depends on label, if you want to reissue some of japanese label stuffs, you should contact the band & ask directly, but sometimes label owned the copy right of records & don't want to make reissues... that makes no sence for us, wish label, band, and local scene getting more together. about Zyanose ep reissue, still in thinking, that old things are already finnished thing for us, coz of different band line up, and we don't play songs from that ep anymore these days. DH: You can actually download all Zyanose records on the internet via unauthorised filesharing. What do you think of pirate Zyanose music on internet for free? Z: maybe stuffs from Zyanose are already hard to find, but people can share the music through tape trading, etc... about internet, it's sometimes nice, but sometimes some people upload our music without telling us before, that's problem, i think worst thing about sharing is upload the music which band still try to selling... DH: In Zyanose logo there is Anarchy "A" - is Zyanose an anarchist band? What is Zyanose song text / song lyric about? Z: we have no special opinion about using A sign, there's so many things making me flustrated but i never going to do something pollitical issue like demonstrating etc... japan will never change better i think. there's nervous people more than before, lots of suicide, murder without reason, etc.... massmedia provide us only shit everyday, populer music only singing about how to make cool boy friend/nice girl friend,....we use A sign for recoganize ourselves as we're different. not people like that. our lyrics is an about flustration we feel in our daily life, depression, and uneasiness..... but let's don'T give in stay positive fight back against bullshit!!! that's it. DH: When does Zyanose LP come? It must come soon please please! We want Zyanose LP now! Ha ha ha....Seriously, I know there is talk about the LP so what is happening? How many new songs/noise do you have? Will it be similar sound as old material? Z: yes we got offered to make a LP full album but
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since we got some problems in band so it'll take more time to make LP... we're very carefull to do this. some people says that ZYANOSE has changed but we're not chenged we're just back to feel like when we listened to Gloom's noisecore music & blown ayaw!!! now we're thinking about to make 4 way split LP on Crust war records before the LP, but still in planning, but i thinking about both plans in same time. our next reeases will be more destructive , ear bleeding noiser!!!! i want to show the recent noise core bands from USA about that noise core is not only about to full distortion on your guitar!!!! DH:. Do you think you can get true sound of Zyanose on record? What's the difference in Zyanose sound when you play concert? Z: we have so many ideas to make our releases, sometimes very well produced, sometimes make it poor sounding, etc... either way we'll try our best. show, we only play 15 minutes set... no more concentration & power for do more hahahahaha but we try to play as hard as we can in that 15 minutes, much more than others... DH: What other good Japanese punk noise bands should we know of? D-clone is also very popular here in Europe. And so is Geranium but the band broke up....and of course Isterismo is popular too... Z: Isterismo is Excellent!!!! they're the band who i love most from the bands active today. and Death dust extractor, sound slike DOOM but they're also great!!! DH: How is life in Osaka? Many good bands come from Osaka like SxOxB, Gloom or Framtid and many many more....Is Osaka very different from other cities in Japan? What do Zyanose members do when not making punknoise? Drink too much beer or work? Z: i love osaka city a lot since here's where i born & glowing up till now, osaka 's famous for comedy, rude, and the place where most of homeless living. and poorest city in japan. but osaka people are try to enjoy their lives not only waiting for someone's help, and it's also same for punks in osaka i guess. we all have our job!!! do you think we looks so rude & people like "work sucks!!"??? me and shogun doing some constructing job, sakana is seller, hatanaka running KONTON bar. here's no squat place, and we don'T understand what's life of squatter??? all japanese punks living in normal japanese society. DH: When will Zyanose go on Europe tour? Z: go to europe??? we're very serious to making punk music but very bad for running band hahahaha we have no money like other bands, coz we spent all the money we got for drinking beer hahaha i have no idea how can we fly to/touring euro....?????
DEAD COPS
Dead Cops are legendary for boosting band members that would go on to do great things. The band itself lasted no longer than about a year or so, released a flexi of some charming but rather generic anti-cop angst and band played a few live concerts in or around Tokyo. In recent year a bootleg CD have appeared that includes said flexi plus a live concert. Singer Roger Armstrong (later played in SIC and a bunch of other bands) kindly answered this interview...Thanks! Distort Hackney: Can you tell me something about how the band started? Roger Armstrong: Hell, I don't know. I wasn't there at the beginning. It was the drummer who put the whole thing together and asked me to sing for the band. I wasn't the first singer, but I was the last. DH: Assumingly you did not know of the other Dead Cops band, MDC/Million Dead Cops, when Dead Cops started up? What provoked the rabid militant anti-cop schtick? Roger: You're assuming quite a lot there. Everybody knows and knew of MDC back then. They were awesome! DH: It is said to have been quite a all-star band as all the band members went on to play in other (more) famous bands: You obviously sang in the band but later played in Sic and other bands, on guitar Dead Cops had Tatsu, who were later famous for his work with Gastunk, and the bass player Jha Jha played in no less than Lip Cream, the Comes and Judgement....? Roger: Yeah, but the drummer never surfaced again. His heart wasn't really into it all. Before punk, he was into heavy metal. After punk, he got into hip hop and gangsta rap. Who knows where he is today, probably dead. DH: Dead Cops only released a flexi 7", on ADK, 1984, during its short life though there was obviously a full live concert also recorded from the same year - both of which have just been released on CD. Was there also a demo or something? How come the flexi was released by ADK? How many copies of the flexi were made? Roger: I think Tam realeased 1000 copies of the flexi. Not sure, it's been so long. The recent CD is a bottleg, but since nobody really made any money off of he hole thing, it doesn't matter. DH: Tell me something about the new CD? How did it come about? It's a interesting artifact as the material on the flexi sounds quite different live - live it sounds much more more 'together' and 'in your face' I think, while arguably the flexi is kind of uneven at places (which is part of its charm for sure).... The CD is a bootleg. Beyond that, I have no more information. DH: Did Dead Cops get out much, I mean, did you play many live shows? What other bands did you play with? Do you remember any incidents from playing live? Roger: That whole time in my life is one big drunken blur. We played in and around Tokyo for about a year and broke up. That's about it really. DH: How long did Dead Cops last for and why did you break up? Roger: About year. Everyone got pissed off at everyone else and decided to say fuck it. Mainly the drummer was being a bit of a dickhead. DH: If I am not entirely mistaken you went on to play in a band called No Lip (name from a Sex Pistols lyric?) after Dead Cops, but I really don't know anything about that band. can you tell me a little about that band and the time before you started Sic with Kevin from Corruption of Peace? Roger: No Lip was me trying to get back into drumming, where I started. I played drums in Rag before Dead Cops, and wanted to play drums again. The guys in No Lip were looking for a drummer, so I agreed to give it a shot. Their music was more glam punk than not. Not very hard core at all. So, eventually I ot bored with it and started Sic with Kevin. DH: Speaking of whom, there will of course be an interview with Kevin in this zine as well, and one question I had to ask him relates to the infamous Sakevi Yokoyama from GiSM, and I am going to ask you too since you mentioned somewhere that you first meet him in 1982 at a gig: Can you tell me something about "the legend"? Did you also meet any of the guys from Gai/Swankys, Confuse, Kuro and the whole Violent Party scene? I am sure you haven't failed noticing the resurgence of popularity of new and old Japanese punk/hard core bands recently (thanks to the internet no doubt)..... Roger: Sakevi? Yeah, he has some serious mental issues to deal with. Once he trusts you, it's okay. But he's so paranoid that getting to know him is a task in itself. DH: Can you tell me something also about your label Straight Time Production? Are there any plans to get the releases on a more "accessable" format than cassette tape (i.e. vinyl or CD)? Roger: Lots of plans, just needing some time and capital to launch it all. I'm going to get all the old Nippon Rentogen videos out on DVD which is my first big order of business. opefully before 2009 rolls aound. DH: Ok, that's all I can think of right now, please use this space here to add anything you'd like, perhaps you could give some sort of contact details for those interested in the bands, the label or in you, also you have a website and a bunch of myspaces I gather... Roger: Cool, thanks for the time to sound off!
CORRUPTION OF PEACE I got in contact with Corruption of Peace singer Kevin sometime last year, he ahd read my blog (link above) and had read that I would do
a fanzine. As he had started up his old band and was about to reissue the band's LP Corruption on CD he wrote to ask if I could throw in some adverts for the CD. Sure, better lets do an interview! So this was done via emails back and forth during summer and early autumn 2008. Since then of course I have been lagging but the band hasn't. In last half of 2008 the band played at a Japanese release party show in Japan (see flyers below, and see some live photos here) and as you will read below they've been in the studio as well...Chances that someone will read this and have time to book a ticket to Japan for the 24th of January 2009 show are neither here nor there, but flyer for that show is at bottom of this page. Thanks Kevin for taking time to do interview, sorry for delay on my side! Distort Hackney: Right, Kevin, the first questions are for you since the most obvious and curious thing to come to mind when thinking of Corruption of Peace is that you, the singer, is American singing in a Japanese band. So, tell us a little about yourself and your background, how did you get into punk and hard core, did you skate also? How come you moved to Japan? Do you speak Japanese? Kevin: First off I don't speak much Japanese at all. Just enough to get by, its amazing how people can communicate if they really want to. Language is just a barrier, easy to get around. My stepfather was in the Air Force stationed at Yokota and I was shipped off to boarding school in Yokohama. Sounds like a bummer, but it was a great opportunity to see and explore the Tokyo and Yokohama area. I lived there for three years then moved back to the states. Skating, Oh yes! When I moved there I was already going to shows on the east coast where pretty much everyone was skating. In Japan there was only a handful of people interested in skating and hardcore. This changed dramatically after my three years were up. Skating had really caught on and the spikes and leather were replaced by Vans and flannel. DH: Now, how did the band start? How did the members of the band meet? Who played what and what ideas did you have and so on? Did the members of the band play in other bands before C.O.P.? Some accounts have it the band includes someone who also played in Gas, another legendary Japanese band (but obviously I did not manage to verify that)‌ Kevin: Roger Armstrong and I were at some gig where we met Yamagami's girlfriend at the time. She said some ex-members of GAS were wanting to start something up. I met with them a few days later and we started jamming. All of the members except me were in GAS at some point. Tatsuya the drummer was an original member. Gon the bass player played guitar when the vocals were a guy. And Yamagami played guitar during most of the recordings you can find on vinyl. As for me, I was just a skater kid with alot of angst towards society and what was happening in my own personal life. DH: Corruption of Peace's only LP is called Confusion and came out in 1984.
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How long had the band been around when the recording of the album came about? Can you say something about recording the album and what ideas you had in mind for it and so on? Kevin: Actually the LP came out in 1985. We had not been together very long but had a few tunes we could play pretty tight. We were given an opportunity to put those tunes down on vinyl and we took it. We basically took our entire set list at the time and recorded it adding in a couple new songs as we were recording. A friend of my named James Marshall filled in for me on two songs when I was in a little trouble. There wasn't to much toying with the sound when we recorded the record. Pretty much just went in, played as loud as fuckin possible and drank lots of beer. DH: Who were Tokyo Punks Club Records? I know they also released Masami from Ghoul's solo stuff… Kevin: TPC was label run by JIM. He had a punk shop in Harajuku and two of the members used to work for him. Had a really nasty reputation throughout the scene but treated us fairly well. Jim became good friends with Masami and started recording his solo material. He also collaborated with Sakevi somewhat. Have not heard from him in many years, but I understand he still has the punk shop but has discontiued the label. DH: From what I know of punk & hard core in Japan, I would assume that back when C.O.P. were around live shows was what mattered the most and therefore you must have played your fair share of gigs. Now, can you tell me something about the band's live shows? Did you manage to play many shows during the lifetime of the band? How was a typical crowd? What bands did you play with? Kevin: We didn't play that many shows because we weren't together for that long. We played in the Tokyo/Yokohama area and also did a tour of Hiroshima. All of the shows were fun. The japanese punx typically had a good time at shows. Violence was rare and the booze was plenty. People came to have a good time, cram everything they could do into a couple hours and catch the train back home. The fun thing about a C.O.P show was that it was the first time you had a mix of skaters, spikes and the flannel boys. There were also quite a few Americans at the shows around this time. It was a great mix and everyone got along. Some of the bands we played with most were: Lip Cream, No Lip, GAS, Ghoul, Rose Rose and the Trash etc. DH: Now in our email correspondence you referred to your first meeting with the legend that is Sakevi from GiSM. Tell me more about this! How was your relation? Did you ever play with or see GiSM play? Kevin: No, I never saw GISM play although we did play a gig with Randy's band RUG. (Check out Roger's Straight Time Production page, good video of him at a GISM gig) As for my first meeting with Sakevi, this is funny. Some dumbass had told Sakevi some kind of bullshit about me before we had even met. Saveki decided to show up at the gig tried to strangle me with his umbrella. Luckily he gave up and we talked about what was going on, fortunately the kid with the big mouth was at the show and had nothing to say when confronted-Lights out Fucker!!! Soon after Sakevi and I became friends talk many hours about the Japan/America and its differences. DH: More on the same, assumingly you also met the other so-called "legends" of Japanese punk/HC - like the guys from Violent Party like Gai, Swankys, Confuse, Kuro etc. Tell me something about the scene and the people…obviously these bands are suddenly greatly popular now, to the extent of there being a great revival of Japanese punk music today, much thanks to the internet I think… Kevin: Yeah, its kinda weird. I think the revival stuff is mainly because the lack of communication we had in the '80s. Everyone wrote letters and mailed stuff around the world, but sometimes you lost interest waiting for a response. There was alot of good music made during this period and I'm glad to see that people are getting a chance to hear it, even though its 20 years later. I lot of the "legends" as you call them are gone, some dead and some laying low. I still see Zombie from GAS and Max from Ghoul on a regular basis when I visit. Recently saw Systema, Gauze, Genbaku Onanies and SOB all on the same bill. Now that was great. We're playing with Genbaku on December 6th and I'm really looking forward to it. The scene did seem more underground and stronger back in the day, but maybe that's just nostalgia. They still have a great scene and some damn good bands. The above mentioned show was packed, the pit was big and people were diving left and right. Even inspired the old guys to get in there. DH: Now, back to your LP, it is a very special album I think, because whilst both relatively unknown and forgotten in the larger history of punk and hard core, it is at the same time said to be almost a masterpiece of the genre by the people that know of it. Also, the LP is only made the more interesting as it fits equally well in both the American history of hard core punk as well as the Japanese history of hard core punk. Why do you think the album have remained for so long "a lost album" of the genre? How many were printed by the way? Kevin: I think 1,000 copies were printed, maybe 500. I really don't remember. I've always had a love/hate relationship with the Lp myself. There's great songs, good songs and not so good on there. I think it would have been great if it were all stuffed onto an EP. There's just a couple filler tunes. American/Japanese, we were not thinking styles or borders when we developed. We played what came naturally in a form we liked not really based on any scene from any country. At the time we were all listening to stuff from around the world. Hopefully with good distribution and the internet more people will here us this time. If all goes well well be recording an entirely new set of material early next year. Well see, still got some slackers around. DH: Corruption of Peace was also championed by Pushead and included on the Pusmort compilation. How did that come about? Surely this is how most people outside of Japan, and particularly in the US, heard about the band? Kevin: Pushead and I met in Japan, I think it was his first trip out there. Me and the Lip Cream boys were drinking one night and Pushead asked about us being on the comp. I gave him a single master the next day and that was it. Never really knew him well, but seemed a likeable guy. Seems like things went well for him though, its great to see that. But what about Septic Death, what the fuck man!! DH: Apart from the LP and the Pusmort compilation tracks, I saw a mention of C.O.P. also being on some flexi (though this being same material as on compilation). What is this all about? Kevin: You got me. I found out earlier this year that Pus made a Japan only CD on Toy Factory label. Didn't even know about it and don't have a copy. Gon our bass player does, but I can't get him drunk enough to steal it from him. DH: What was the circumstance of the band's breakup? What actually happened? When did the band breakup? Kevin: Honestly I only recently found out why we broke up. Showed up at a gig one night and was told it was the last. Hey, I was the youngest guy in the band and did not really have anything to say about it. If you don't want to play, you don't want to play. Tatsuya decided he wanted to start a rockabilly band named Cappy's, so that was the end. Soon after Roger and I started SIC and moved on in our own direction. We were all still great friends and we all went to each others shows. Remember, the shows were the party! DH: After Corruption of Peace you and Roger from Dead Cops hooked up to start Sic, can you tell me something about that band? [As I told you already I am going to interview Roger as well] Kevin: I think I got this in the previous questions. Roger stayed with it till the end, its his story to tell. DH: What did the other members of C.O.P. do after the breakup? Did they play in any other bands post-C.O.P.? Kevin: After C.O.P. everyone played in some type of band. I played in SIC and the Puke, then called it a day for the next 20 years. Tatsuya played in Cappy's, Scapegoat and Freak Storm. Scapegreat put out a cool CD a couple of years ago. Gon has played in Barebones for the last 13 years, good stuff in the Motorhead vein and has a couple of CD's out. Yamagami has played in a couple of bands for short stints. DH: On a personal level, Kevin, how come you ended up in Hawaii? When did you leave Japan? And what have you been up to in the past two decades? Kevin: Basically I ended up in Hawaii to be able to skate and surf in warm weather everyday. There was talk of college but that lasted about 2 months. I wanted to stay in Japan but that was just not in the cards. Started working in construction, got married and had a couple kids. Same old shit, just from another punk. Hawaii is home now with hardly any scene, but I keep myself amused. DH: Now, Corruption of Peace has already played live again after two decades. How did that come about? That must have been an immense event…did the band keep in touch over the years? Is it the same line up as way back in the 1980s? You also have a bunch of other dates lined up, sp is this, then, a fully fledged comeback for the band? Kevin: When I left Japan in '87 I played a show with The Puke and SIC the night before getting on a plane. All the guys came out and we let 'er rip one last time. After that night I had not talked to the other members until 2007. I had no contact information and they really didn't know where or what ever happened to me. Through the internet I saw a posting from a kid named Tommy looking for me. He and Yamagami had met during one of his trips to Japan. The rest is history so they say, it was a great day when I got that first email from them. The lineup is the original, we would not have it any other way. There have never been any other members involved. We going to play 2 more shows this year and then plan on doing 4 to 5 shows next year. We would like to do more but its just not feasible unless someone wants to give us a bunch of money. We'll keep it going as long as were having fun. When the fun stops, there's no point in continuing. DH: The Corruption of Peace LP is also going to be re-released on CD now, with some added live material on it. Can you tell us something about that? What can we expect? Kevin: HG FACT made it happen and the cd has already been remastered with the live tracks added from good old 1985. Sound quality is pretty good and I think people who have'nt heard it will dig it. We're pressing (oh, snap-that's for vinyl. What do they call CD making) 2,000 copies and hope to get good distribution in other countries. There's a booklet which wasn't in the vinyl version. We'll see what the feedback is. Let me know what you think. DH: Now, before we wrap this up, sorry for making it so long by the way, you mentioned that you would be going over to Japan for some recordings. Am I right in assuming that you and the band are recording some new material? Tell me more! Is there a new album in the pipeline or what? What is planned for the band now when you are essentially "back"? Kevin: Shows when we can!
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Yeah, were already working on new material. Sounds really close to the original stuff in a style concept, none of this full blown were grown up musician shit. Somewhat fast, hard and the vocals are a little lower since my balls have dropped from 15 to 39. Good shit, grab the skateboard! DH: Right then, I'd like to thank you for the interview. Please use this space to add contact details and such, or add anything you like…. Kevin: Sorry it took me so long to get this back to you. Support all the bands, new and old as well as your local scene. There's great things going on out there and wonderful people to meet. Use the technology of the governmental cock suckers to your advantage, Take CONTROL!!!!! Post script: On my blog, I posted something about Guitar Wolf -who had played in London in 2007 -and Kevin wrote me an email on his thoughs on the band; I found it quite interesting so I am adding it here as a post-script to the interview. Kevin: Never really listened to much Guitar Wolf but followed their pursuits a little through Yamagami our guitar player. In the photo [see below] you posted the guy on the far left, his name is Billy. Billy was the original bass player for the band and a very good friend of all of ours. Way back when in 1984 Billy, Yamagami and Tatsuya all worked for a punk shop called Jimms Inn. I was usually the kid who skipped school and showed up at the store drunk to harass them. Billy was an integral part of C.O.P and always supported us, as we supported him in his endeavors. He was truely one of the first rockabilly/punk types and a downright funny as fuck/happy go lucky character! If you look at the pictures on the C.O.P page you will see an early photo of him and Yamagami prior to forming Guitar Wolf. Sadly Billy passed away a couple of years ago due to the excesses encountered being in a traveling band. He is greatly missed by his friends and family and holds a special place in my heart. There is a bar in Shibuya called Treasure Chest runned by an english guy where they have a nice memorial up on the wall. Thanks for posting this as well as all of your posts, they are truely appreciated. Tonights beer will be in honor of a great friend, FUCKIN CHEERS BILLY!!!
EXIT HIPPIES Exit Hippies. Wow. Where do I start? One of the most exciting bands of the past whatever-years. Crazy shit. Unlistenable shit. Perfect noise punk shit. Rave shit. Or house shit. Japanese Doom and Sore Throat worship. Etc. Interview was sent by email to Jo2 around summer 2008, he got the answers back to me around December 2008. Which is fucking good news for you because it made me so happy and inspired to make this last issue of Distort Hackney, so thank Exit Hippies for making this happen before winter 2010. I have nothing else to add...except I have positively a recent report of a Jo2 spotting at a Lebenden Toten show in Australia, selling Exit Hippies flexis for small pennies...yeah I know, international noise celebrity gossip = punk. Distort Hackney: What is new with Exithippies? Are you still together and playing as a band? Rumour is band broke up when you moved to Australia? Jo2: yes we still do play exithippies,unfortunality we have got new member,buy the way i live in australia just me DH: Please tell me who plays in Exithippies? Jo2: OK takaaki itho(vo,proglame ) Jo2(vo,samepling,gu) endoom(gu) i know nothing about another exithippies member any more, becose i already fucking stone hahaha, DH: Do you play in other bands at the same time? Did you play in other band before Exithippies? Jo2: yes i did some band, it was fuckin shit, when i was stared band alady with oki makota, he is new smell owner besides exithippies drummer!! DH: I know that you (Jo2) also DJ sometimes, tell me something about it, what type of music do you DJ? Jo2: almost i play electro,house,why do i have to play punk in club??? DH: I have tried to write correct list of Exithippies discography. Here it is: Exit Hippies - S/T 7" Exit Hippies - acid rain 4 FLEXI Exit Hippies -record and fantasy 7" Exit Hippies / STAGNATION EP Exit Hippies / TANTRUM EP Exit Hippies - Hard Funk 12" Exit Hippies / AOSTRAPOS 12" Exit Hippies / TANTRUM Split 12" Exit Hoppers / JOY Split 8.5" ("ex-Exithippies" a.k.a posthumus release) V/A - Tokyo Sound System Vol. 2 2xLP with Abraham Cross, Exit Hippies, Tantrum, Deconstruction, Effect, Joy, Stagnation Demo 1,2 & 3 (all cd-r) Split on CD-R (2) Is this list correct? What is missing? Jo2: almost correct,actually i do not know about exithoppers,so sorry, DH: Tell me about The Wankys split 12" record that is due to be released soon. What type of Exithippie music/noise? Jo2: we really respect the wankys,i love wankys stingy noise, What type of Exithippie music/noise??? we always same kind of music you do not boring??? ,soon we going to change music maybe hevy metal hahaha DH: Also, Black Konflikt Record Label in Malaysia is releasing Exithippies "Fuck Here - Discography" cassette. Tell me about this. Is this official release? Can we buy this on CD also? Jo2: yes of course it is official,but just tape, Anyway i hate CD, DH: "War crimes - how to have a number one the easy way"????! Ha ha ha. Please explain!! Jo2: i have no idea DH: What's up with the fanzine Distopia? It is in Japanese so I don't know what text means....but it looks nice ha ha ha! Jo2: mr nakazima is boss now i do not know about that but it was fucking nice japanese zine!! DH: What are your inspiration for Exithippies noise? What music do you listen to? What are your favorite records? Jo2: ok nows top 5 artist(in this tine except dance music for you) ENT,DOOM,chaos UK,PIL, DH: Some people describe Exithippies as raver crust or techno noise punk etc, what do you think? Jo2: It seems that you thought we exactry poser,liar, i think you think so too , DH: Elmo the Monster likes noise? Why Elmo Exithippies mascot? Do you know of cookie monster? He is more brutal I think.. Jo2: i think so too ,every night when i go to sleep elmo call me,do not forget me ..... DH: Ok, tell me about future of Exithippies - any new records on the way? What projects are you working on right now? Jo2: we have some rerease plane ,soon we dorop 4way split 7inchep with aostorapos,stagnation,tantram,it alady finished recoding we waiting artwork maybe it will be fucing nice [post script] Jo2: i have extra news, maybe you can use to no 13s question, we going to rereace ,the wankys&exithippies tape from(Black Konflikt Record Label in Malaysia ) , va cd(earthbeat project from akita japon), [end post script] DH: Thank you for interview, how can people contract you? Add anything you like to say here: Jo2: please believe each other,do not believe struggle thank you very interested question!! DH: On the Exithippy / Stagnation split (PAANK-016) it says on the EH side - " The First Punk Band From North Korea"??? Explain this!!!! Jo2: i did not do that art work , kennpal(PAANK owner) he did maybe just big joke,also he stupid like me MOB 47
Mob 47 is a great Swedish band that perhaps you have heard of before. This interview was done via Mysapce around the mid-2008. It took me about 10 months to get around to translate this from Swedish to English. I am so lazy. Enjoy: DH: What happened with Jugge [ex-singer]? Chrille: He just could not make his time last that was all, it worked well as long as we played near Stockholm but when we had to be away for a few days (for e.g. in Italy) then it was messy. DH: So you’re just three now then, Åke - how is it to sing? I imagine you'll remain a trio from now on? Chrille: Åke is god no one can shout like him,,, damnit that is like a really good chorus for a new song! DH: How has the response been for the new CDEP? All I have heard is positive. Åke: I have also so far only hear postive things about it, it is fun. I think most of people will recognize Mob even if it sounds a bit more 'modern'. DH: I think that the production (or whatever, I don’t know what the correct termonology is) is somehow darker on the new 7", can you tell me something about how it was recorded? I can imagine it was not recorded in the legendary "bowling" studio? Åke: Unfortunatley has the old ”bowlingstudion” broken down so the new one is recorded on a digital porta [correct in English?/DH]. It is perhaps a little bit different when one does it digitally…DH: So, regarding your so-called "back catalogue" everone knows it has been bootlegged like crazy, now it is finally getting a band official re-issue so I suppose you finally have full control of all band material. Damn this question is retarded…fuck… Åke:”Back to attack” diskography 1983-1986 is released by D-Takt & Råpunk Records where me and the label together decided what would be on there and we have had full control over it at least. It is getting released on CD as well. DH: 'Brutal nerladdning' [Title of a song on the new EP]? Åke: When we had had our reunion-show at Debaser in Stockholm May 2006 we uploaded a video of "Dom Ljuger" from the show. But then so many people downloaded this video that our ISP had to remove the video so our server would not crash. "Removed by admin because of continued excessive download” was the message we git and we just had to make a song using that. hahaha DH: How goes it with Protes Bengt? I know that there was some sort of concert a few years ago….what the hell, a Protes Bengt worldtour, oi oi oi, why not? Chrille: We played four songs at Alcazar [a venue] in 2006….don;t know if it is enough to call a concert. We sometimes play three Protes-songs whenever Mob is out playing. Protes Bengt worldtour yes why not, we'll burn off 32 songs in ten minutes hahaha DH: Is Åke conscious of the fact that he is an international fashion icon? By that I am not only talking about his legendary leatherjacket that crowns the Mob 47 7", the same leatherjacket that punk historians use as historical evidence to point out how some bands were known in Sweden at certain times (NEOS for fucks sake, as early as 1984!!) and how this have a bearing on the history of Swedish punk and so on and so forth, but also how Åke's daily choice of band t-shirts seem to be a very important topic of discussion on certain internet-forums…and it is said that Åke is personally responsible for selling out thousands of D.R.I. t-shirts on eBay… Chrille: hahahahahahahahahahahah ……………………… hohohohohohohoho… Åke: Yes yes if someone's got a stock of shirts that is difficult to sell they can get in contact… DH: What do you think of Spanish Karnvapen Attack? Mob 48 (side-project of Australian band Rupture)? Are there any more....? Åke: Karnvapen attack sounds totally OK, Mob 48 I haven't heard. There is a band called Mob 97…they're good. DH: Are there any plans for a full-length album soon? Åke: No a full-length
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album is not planned. We're going to record some new songs this summer that may end up as another EP. DH: There are rumours that Fear of War and Mob 47 where going to release a split-LP some time in the 1980s, was that true or is that just some urban myth? What happened? Åke: Seriously I can't even remember anything about that but you had so many bands and so many plans with various releases and splits back then. DH: What do you give to Chrille so that he can keep on 'mangla' [play drums] the way he does? When you played here in London recently it looked as he really had to struggle at the end to keep the speed (or else risk be eaten alive by rabid Mob 47 fans for not doing "just one more") Chrille: I drink several litres of WATER, towards the end I drink gasoline but only to make sure these rabid fans won’t eat me (it will make me taste bad). "One more" and "Play faster" is rather popular to hear from the audience. DH: What does Chrille thing about the termo C-Beat [Chrille-beat] which is seriously used by people to describe the style of drum beat pioneered by Mob 47? Chrille: hahaha I never heard that before…but it is of course flattering DH: Ok, now you can give some contact details and names of whatever record label responsible for your releases and all that stuff for the people who can't fgure it out by themselves. Åke: The records that are currently able to be buy are ”Back to attack” discpgraphy 1983-1986, it's as I said earlier released by DTakt & Råpunk Records and the new 8-track 7"EP ”Dom ljuger igen” is released by Communichaos Media. DH: Moreover and finally and end comments? C-beat // Mangla på
CONCLUDE This interview was done on the 11 of February 2009 via email. Conclude ei leiki satana! Now! DH: So Conclude is back together in 2009? Keke: Yes,We are starting practice in studio from june 2008. All songs are new songs and new lyrics all in finnish. And I will be sing one song by swedish. That song title is a "En pappersbit"! DH: What is line-up now? Keke: Now line-up are... Keijo Keke : Vocal & Bass Kuma : Guiter & Drum DH: Plans for Conclude? New record? Keke: Maybe We will release new 7 inch in next spring. It will be top secret! tack och skal!! DH: "I want to go home and drink beer" now so this is all questions: thank you for the interview! Keke: Joo,Great "go home and drink beer"! Love olut!Great Iso III(karhu olut)!! Also,I love Orvi(alc 8 percents)! I got it viking line(boat) duty free when I go to hki to stockholm...Also,Love siideri(cider). Golden cup cider is a very great taste. I'm drinking red wine now. Viinaarrgghh!! For the Official History of Conclude please see Features section of Distort Hackney 3.
"History of SIC" By Roger Armstrong Not really sure how this all began, I guess I was researching for the Corruption of Peace (C.o.P.) interview when I somehow stumbled across a mention that Kevin, the singer of C.o.P, later had another band called SIC that also had Roger Armstrong, vocalist from Dead Cops, playing drums. I knew of SIC because broadly speaking I knew the majority of Japanese punk and hard core bands from the 1980s. I had heard the band on some compilation and possibly also the Fearless Vampire Killers split (from some bootleg, I think). As politely as I can possibly formulate, personally speaking I am probably more interested in the band's contemporaries than in the band's music, but that does not mean that I can't appreciate the stories of the band...after having managed to convince drummer Roger to respond to an interview about his drunken and blurry year with Dead Cops -and having the C.o.P. interview ready for this zine as well - it made perfect sense to ask Roger for his permission to re-publish this text (also on SIC Myspace) in Distort Hackney 3. Moreover, with people presently being busy re-discovering all the great (as well as crap) Japanese bands from past and present or indeed discovering for the first time the bands, stories such as the story about SIC that you are about to read deserves to be heard...All photos are stolen from said Myspace (link at bottom). Thanks! Introduction... All of the former members of SiC... where are they now? Roger: currently residing in Arizona, USA, and still playing drums. Kevin: living in Hawaii... John: whereabouts unknown... anybody got a clue? Let us know... Tachihara: whereabouts unknown, presumed dead... anybody care? Satoshi: after SiC, played in DON DON for a while, current whereabouts unknown... anybody know for sure? Sugichan: still living in Tokyo and doing artwork for Urban Terror... Dan: played in some metal bands after SiC and is (still?) living in Tokyo as a tattoo artist... anybody seen him around? Ken: still living in Kanagawa... rumors of prison convictions and drug abuse... anybody got the straight story? Hatchan: played in a few bands after SiC and still livng in Tokyo... And, well, that's pretty much everybody. The Story... "I was there at the beginning of it all, and I was the last one remaining at the end. So if anyone has a right to tell the story of Sic, it should be me. Trust me, it's a long story, but every word of it is true. "This is a story that takes place in Japan. It's a story about punk rock in the late 1980s. No names have been changed since we're all quite very guilty as charged. "My buddy Kevin was singing in Corruption Of Peace (better known as C.O.P.) when we started talking about getting a new band together. He was still living with his parents at Yokota Air Base, north of Tokyo, and was wanting to play guitar again. For what it's worth, C.O.P. was preparing to play a final show anyhow. So, I think that Kevin was getting tired of singing, and tired of the way C.O.P. was being managed. Either way, that bit of the story is Kevin's to tell. "Meanwhile, I was playing drums for No Lip and wasn't very satisfied with the whole situation. The guys in No Lip weren't very satisfied with me either, and I was eventually fired from the band. I called up Kevin the next day and we arranged to get together to jam. "Now, one drummer and one guitarist can't do very much together. We both fully realized that, but were slightly stuck at that point. Neither of us really knew of any other punk rock musicians from the local military bases, so the next logical step was to find Japanese punks who might be open to our distinctly 'American' brand of punk rock. Naturally, we arranged to have some classified advertisements placed in Doll magazine, the premier punk rock magazine in Japan, and waited for the phone to ring. "The thing is, until C.O.P. arrived on the scene, almost all Japanese punk rock bands had a heavy UK influence in their sound, lyrics, and fashion. Well, to be honest, C.O.P. was managed by the owner of a punk rock fashion boutique. So their 'look' on stage was dictated to them. The end result of course being a very 'UK' appearance. That was part of the reason that they broke up. "Kevin and myself sort of struck out against that conformity whether we wanted to or not. Leather jackets with big, sharp spikes weren't on our agenda. Brit-skunk and crust-core wasn't our brand of music. Liberty spiked hair and mohawks was not what inspired us. All of that wasn't bad as such, it just wasn't us. "No, we were into skateboards, getting drunk, and getting laid. Black Flag, Circle Jerks, and Dead Kennedys were our musical influences. The clothes on our backs became our fashion. Little did we know it, but we were about to start a new trend in the Japanese punk rock scene. "As for the name of our new project, Kevin suggested 'Sick' and I countered with 'Sic' as a response. I guess my counter response stuck. "On a side note, calling the band 'Sic' made for some interesting jokes. For a while, it was 'music' minus the 'mu' part, or 'basic' minus the 'ba' part. Written in brackets such as this: [sic] it also has a new twist on the meaning. "Too many punk rock band back then were into using three initials as their name. DRI stands for Dirty Rotten Imbeciles, FOD stands for Flag Of Democracy, and of course, COP stands for Corruption Of Peace. So we used to say that SIC stood for Sex Is Costly, and precede to counter ourselves with So Is Crack. "Later though, we learned of genuine SIC from Australia that meant Screaming In Churches. After that discovery, we stuck to using Sic as a word. Look it up in the dictionary if you need to, it's there. "Anyway, back to the story . . .. "The first to respond to our ad was a young kid by the name of Tachihara. He played bass. Actually, he was the only person to answer who happened to play bass. So naturally, Tachihara became the bass player by default. He didn't really dress or look like typical (for the time) Japanese punks, so we took him in. "Since Kevin wasn't too good at playing lead guitar, he wanted a second guitarist. Satoshi became that second guitarist simply because he was the only person to respond to the classified ad. It was as simple as that in the end. Satoshi wasn't all that proficient on the guitar, but he seemed to be open minded, and could play leads. "So, we had our band, well, almost. From the start, I suggested to Kevin that all musical members of the band should sing. That is, that no one member be devoted solely as the singer. Get it? No lead singer. As we started to jam though and write songs, it soon became apparent that none of us could actually play and sing at the same time. So, Kevin brought in his buddy John to sing with us one night at rehearsal and asked my permission to allow John to be the singer. "At first, I was against the idea. Hey, I was young, stubborn, and stupid. I couldn't admit that at the time though, since I was young, stubborn, and stupid, yeah? How dare my ideals be compromised! How dare Kevin question my wishes! But, then again, none of us could really play and sing at the same time. So, I compromised and said 'Okay!' to the idea of John becoming our singer. It's a good thing that I did. "John was fucking awesome! What he lacked in vocal ability, he certainly made up for in his stage presence! Let's face it, John fucking rocked! That would be, as it is said, a good thing. "Anyway, we finally had our band together. We sounded like shit, but we didn't care. We were out to have immense amounts of fun and enjoy ourselves. "After a few months of songwriting, it came time to book a gig, so on November 26, 1986, Sic debuted on the world at Playhouse in Machida. Our five song set took us ten minutes to play, and brought some instant fans into our little world. The band actually was paid ¥5000 for the night. Not bad for a ten minute set, eh? "Well, it soon became apparent after a couple more gigs that Tachihara simply had to go. He was a terminally depressed glue sniffer, and the rest of us couldn't have him around anymore. We did though, get some crappy recordings done with him. A couple of these hastily recorded tracks were released on some shitty little cassette compilations.
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Only the most die-hard fan of Sic need even try to seek out these ancient recordings. I still have copies myself, but they're almost embarrassing to listen to now. "Anyway, firing Tachihara left us without a bass player. By chance, a young skater friend of John and Kevin's introduced us to Sugichan, who became the Sic bassist through to the end. That was one of the best introductions that could have happened. It saved us a ton of hassles trying to get a classified ad out. As it turned out, Sugichan became an integral member of the band in more ways than one. His job at Records Boy in Koenji would prove to invaluable in making connections for booking gigs and lining up record deals. His incredible artwork eventually graced many Sic records and flyers. But for the moment, Sugichan was simply the new bass player. "In pretty much the same stroke, Kevin had to leave the band in order to prepare for college in Hawaii. He did, however, form a very short lived band called The Puke and played a few shows. Again, that end of it is his story to tell. "So, that left Sic as a foursome, the number that remained until the end. After a few more months of rehearsing, gigging, and songwriting, the decision came down to properly record a demo tape. Not like the shitty ones done previously, but a real demo tape, done in a studio. "On a side note, all decisions concerning the band were made by the band. There was never any official management company behind Sic. Shit like that simply went against the punk rock DIY ethic. The thought of becoming professional punks never crossed our minds. In fact, I remember once physically attacking someone who suggested that my interest in playing drums was to become a pop star. I felt insulted. Fuck that shit. "On the night of my 25th birthday, we booked a night at Studio UK in Hachioji and recorded a seven song demo tape. I still have that studio master in my possession. Finally, we had a demo worthy enough to present to the world. So that's what we did. Two tracks ended up on the Virus Compilation LP from Jungle Hop International out of France. One song was released on the Ranchiki Omnibus flexi compilation set. One track showed up on the Don't Enforce Your Values On Me compilation flexi from MCR Company, and the rest of the songs were farmed out to cassette compilations. Pretty decent mileage for a demo tape. "After a few more gigs, it soon became clear that Satoshi didn't really have a strong sense of songwriting. It's true that all members of Sic shared equally in the songwriting, both lyrically and musically, but it's usually up to the guitarist to finalize the key and chord progression. In the end though, Satoshi just up and quit. Oh, well. "John asked his buddy Dan to be the next guitarist, and that was that. Dan had previously jammed with Kevin in The Puke, (remember them?) and a couple of bands back in Florida, where he was from. As for Sic, it was a case of getting back to gigging, back to songwriting, business as usual. "It was about this time that the people over at Jungle Hop International asked us to do a split LP with another Japanese band. The guys in Rose Rose were good friends of Sugichan, so we invited them to share an LP with us. Sugichan did the artwork, and the Throbbing Of The Needy LP was born. Three tracks from that recording also appeared on the Enjoy Your Youth compilation LP. Sugichan did the artwork for that one as well. "Now, all this time, both John an Dan were serving their country in the US Military. John in the Air Force, and Dan in the Marines. Well, John's tour of duty was coming to an end, so he had to quit the band. I remember John punching me hard when I suggested that he sign up again in the Air Force simply to keep the band together. That was a scenario that was simply not going to happen, and John made sure I knew it. We gave him a good send off though, down at Jean Genie in Yokohama. Not only was Jean Genie one of my favorite clubs, that night was one of my favorite gigs. You see, Jean Genie was within walking distance of a military housing area in Yokohama. Since half of Sic had always been Americans, lots of kids from that housing area always came out to party. This one final show with John was no exception. "So, John left Sic and everybody thought we were breaking up. I think all of us were having too much fun though, so we began the tedious search for a new singer. At the time, there was a kid named Ken we knew who had come to many of our shows. In fact, I think he came to our first show in Machida at The Playhouse. He was half Japanese since his father was American. Ken was my first choice, but Sugichan suggested that we look around some more. There was a skater kid named Seth who was being considered, but he was to leave for college in a few months time. So we took some time off and mulled over our options. "Ken was singing in Young Frankensteins, so I asked Sugichan to come down and check 'em out. I think the show was at Jean Genie even. One thing I distinctly remember is Sugichan running up to Ken just after his Young Frankensteins performance and asking him to join with Sic. Ken readily agreed. "In honor of our new singer, and as an answer to the rumors of Sic's demise, Dan wrote the song We're Back. Dan was writing a lot of the songs at this point. In fact, Dan started to monopolize the songwriting so that nobody else could get an idea in edgewise. He's one hell of a good guitar player with some awesome musical sense, but without John around, it was getting hard for me to get along with the guy. You see, while John, Dan, and myself shared the lyrics department, the music was always a group effort. It always had been, and I felt that it should be that way again. Add to all that the fact that Dan really wanted to move more in a metal direction, and, well, it just wasn't fun anymore. "While we were considering the idea of finding yet another new guitarist, Aquino was elected president of the Philippines. Since Dan was in the Marines, he was shipped off to help maintain order around the bases there. That just gave us a convenient excuse to hire Hatchan as the new guitar player. "Hatchan came to us by way of FVK, or Fearless Vampire Killers. He once told me that he saw our original classified looking for a guitarist back when we started the whole thing. He said that had considered responding, but had just recently (at the time) joined up with FVK. Ah, but if only he had responded way back then, the hassle of juggling guitar players would have been alleviated. "With this final lineup of Sic, everything really began to take off. The first order of business was to record the Sic/FVK split flexi from MCR Company. The FVK cuts on this disc were ones that Hatchan had played guitar on, so it became the Hatchan flexi for us. "On the Sic side, a finalized version of Peace Punk appeared alongside a new faster version of Be A Man. This disc was a monster! A real fucking monster! The first pressing sold out in a matter of weeks. The second pressing, a matter of months. After that, it became a highly collectable item, still traded on e-bay. All of these recordings were later released on an LP, the Sold Out Flexis compilation LP from MCR Company, of course. "Meanwhile, Sugichan negotiated an EP deal through Dogma records. That's pretty much the story about how the Get Up And Do It EP came about. Half of the lyrics on that record are mine, half are Ken's. Often, we bounced ideas off of each other and came up with lyrics together. That EP wasn't quite the monster that the split flexi was, but it was a big seller nonetheless. "On another side note, it was at about this time that my house became the local punk hangout. Mykel Board had moved into the neighborhood, Mister Roger's neighborhood that is, and we'd go out drinking on a weekly basis, often ending up at my house. Hatchan came over often enough, as did Ken. There were the guys from Urban Terror, Mink Oil, Super Dumb, and Nukey Pikes. There was Sean, Mike, Andrew, Jun, another Jun, Nobuhiko, Norichan, just about fucking everybody. We'd all get drunk, hang out, watch twisted movies such as The Holy Mountain, and listen to punk rock music. Ah, I miss those days, I miss that house in Zama, right across the train tracks from the US Army base of the same name. Yeah, those were the days. "Around this time, we began to seriously tour. There was a buddy of Ken's named Mike who lived on Camp Zama. He suggested that he could rent a vehicle cheaply for us from the US Military. As such, he became our official driver. Hell, he even sang backup on some recordings we did. The last I saw of him, he had moved to California and somehow got his mug on the cover of MAXIMUMROCKNROLL fanzine. "Speaking of which, Sic had always welcomed attention from fanzines. Every month or so, somebody from somewhere was mailing in interviews to be completed and returned with some photos and such. We were always happy to oblige. Punk rock of the 1980s was unknown to the mainstream media, and for damn good reason. But, that's another story to tell in some other forum. "Anyway, we began to tour, and some of our exploits became legendary. A certain hotel in Nagoya ended up banning all touring rock performers after we stayed there for a night and invited some select guests up to our room to party with us. In Nagano, we showed the local groupies a thing or two about the crass nature of punk rock. Then, there was Kyoto and Osaka. Fuck, I hardly remember Kyoto, and barely remember Osaka, but of the stories that filtered back at us, well, we rivaled Godzilla in those towns. "We also got back to recording as well, mainly stuff for compilations. Never again were we to ever see our own EP, LP, CD, or anything like that. At least not until the bootlegs and official releases started to appear, and Sic had since been long gone at that point in time. "In fact, the breakup was kind of planned. You see, I had help to start Sic, I was there at the beginning, I was there at the end. My wife Hiromi and I had been discussing the idea of moving to America for some time, and had finally planned to do so. Our reasons were personal, family related. As it happened, I told Ken, Sugichan, and Hatchan about my family's plans for leaving Japan. I gave them the option of finding a new drummer and plowing on ahead. We all mulled it over, and realized that Sic was becoming a little too popular, right on the brink of becoming a major act. Well, that idea went completely against our ethics, so we decided to break up. In other words, we decided to call it a day, and end Sic. "Then again, if you're going to end something that's been so good for so long, you might as well do it in style. So that's what we did! We played the final gig to end all final gigs. On December 27, 1989, Sic bid farewell to the world. "Even before the show started, the was a total party atmosphere in the air. Fans from Nagoya and beyond came to see us play our final set, and what a set it was! We played damn near all our songs, even those long since abandoned. Sic played well over an hour that night, the longest set in Sic history. We started with We're Back and played damn near every song ever, ending with Peace Punk, twice. It would have been three times if I hadn't have
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smashed up the drum kit after the second time around. Shit, we played Jane & Bill, we played The Reggae Song, we even played Yaki Ningen! For any true Sic fan who wasn't there, you missed out. "With that, we were gone, and true to our DIY punk rock ethic, we even refused payment for the night. When the club offered us X amount of yen, we asked to have our share split up and offered to the other acts of the night. Well, minus of course enough to cover our traditional uchiage expenses, the after show party bill. "All in all, it was a pretty good run for three years, the happiest three years of my life." Roger Armstrong - April 2005 [Post Script... ] “John Dunmire: the original SiC singer. I could write pages and pages about him... but I won't right now. Seriously though, what ever the fuck happened to him? Anybody got a clue?” And of course, speaking of SiC, some of the other past members are still floating around out there. I've heard news of Sugichan and Hatchan, and bits and pieces about Ken Babb and Dan Shaw, but what about Satoshi or Tachihara? What ever happened to them? Sakevi Yokoyama: singer of Gism, violent destroyer of egos, paranoid soldier of anarchy... what the holy fuck ever happened to him? I first met him at a show in Yokohama, 1982. He was always reclusive. Only once did I ever go to his home. Yet, through Gism, he remained an enigmatic legend of violence and hatred. Almost a decade ago, I played drums in Grissle; a shitty little punk rock band that never seemed to go anywhere, despite our efforts... But, then again, well, that's a whole other story in itself... Look, Grissle played fast. Well, I played fast at least... For almost all of my drumming career, I've played drums fast. Just listen to old Sic from the late 1980's and you'll see what I mean... Of course, the guys in Grissle were adept at playing fast as well. Scott played bass, fast, and never had a problem keeping up. We almost seemd to draw energy from each other, and pump it right back into the music. Anyway, it was back in '96 or '97, I might be wrong about the exact year, but we were on tour in San Diego. We had just finished our set when some dude damn near fell onto me outside the club. Oh boy! This dude was very animated and energetic. "Dude!" he blurted out "You're the fastest drum in the west!" And that my friends is the true origin of the phrase... Well, Grissle fizzled within a few years, and I started drumming with Black44. The music of Black44 was downright lethargic by comparison though, it was much slower than what I was used to. However, slower music allowed me to work more on my technique, and less on my speed, so it's not a bad thing at all. The real trick is to combine technique and speed, and pull it off well. I tried with Black44, but all sorts of other issues got in the way as well... Late in 2006, I started drumming with Legions In Exile, and once again, the music demanded some fast drumming. Well, I'm more than ready and up to the task. I am, after all. the "Fastest Drum in the West" right? And now you know, it's not a "self proclaimed" title. So come check out an L.i.E show, and judge for yourself...
The History of Conclude Japanese chaos noise and fun punks Conclude who turned Finnish after awhile managed to get some of their really good and sloppy the Swankys-cum-Terveet Kadet style crazy punk recorded which is really good news. Personally I listen to Conclude all the time. Some time in the second half of 2008 I noticed that the official band (legacy) Myspace was being updated and some half-cryptic one-line words (not even a complete sentence ha ha) suggested that the band was back together again. 1999 !! … [Which sort of translates as "Sleep in 1999, was restarted today. I do not know where to be on their way to relax and take care of The Squid and the noise sound message to the masses All that is dung! Nothing to fundamentally unchanged…"] After reading that I began exchanging some emails with Keijo who also runs RESET NOT NOISE lable/distro (check link). I asked him if I could just rip-off his 'history of Conclude' text and he agreed that I could do so; that is what you get here. Here is the email (I just found it and thought I might as well include it here afterall): "EMAIL: Aug 2, 2008 9:52 AM Subject: From japan! Body: Hi! Here is Keijo from Conclude. I'm playing Vocal and Bass in Conclude now. Maybe you wants put Conclude history on your fanzine? I don't remember that surely. I'm super busy and I forget too many things always...If you wants to put Conclude histroy on your zine,I'm OK. We are re-starting "conclude". We will release something vinyl someday...But,We are very lazy and slow, It is conclude rules from old time. Tottakai,Kaikki on Paskaa!! Joo,We are playing Conclude again. I've written many lyrics by finnish and songs now. Like Mob47 style d-beat song and Full blast suomi 82 song and other old scandinavian style...Maybe we will record new songs in november or december [2008].Then,We will release split 7 inch from somewhere...Ahaha CONCLUDE EI LEIKI SATANA... Mitä vittu saatana!! Kippis!! keijo" Anyway, so there you have it. I hope you'll find the history of Conclude (below) as interesting and funny as I do. Also see the mini-interview with CONCLUDE 2009 freshly done on the 11 February 2009 (Access through DH#3 frontpage, under interviews). Enjoy! /Tony
Kaikki on Rikki Total Noise HC Punk!!! The History of Conclude by Keijo "Maybe Conclude was start since 1994....I don't remember....It was very good idea&situations!! With crazy liberate&save the animals lyrics...Some lyrics for against police,fascism,racism,etc....I'm singing Finnish&english&japanese. Sound influenced from old scandinavian hardcore and japanese noise core. We were not like to play gig in japan.We've played gig in japan only one time. It was a in tokyo december 1996.It was very fast&crazy show.Like Kaaos '82...Also,We have released some demo tape in a early days. Next...Conlucde has gone to european tour from february to march 1997. This tour first gig at bar fatmama in a helsinki. And,Also played in tutku(tvo)&lahti(8sali) in finland. Many people were coming...Kiitoksia!!! Next...We have played in sweden-germany-scotlandengland,too. We gave about 100xgig freebie demo tapes. Everyone coming back to japan in april.1997. They've recorded in a japanese recording studio "SM studio" May.1997. Recording tracks has used for some compilation.(7",lp,cd,tape). Guiterist has left from conclude when recording was end. Another member stopped conclude same time. Conclude was returned......We found new guiterist.Conclude second action happened in a 1998. It was a crazy action again. Sound&lyrics were very different&changed a la old time. More sound influenced finnish punk rock.....Like Terveet Kädet,Cadgers,013,Lama,etc....We were thinking&planning finland tour again. Conclude gone to finland again in october 1999. We played in a turku(tvo)&helsinki(solnas,practice place). Many people&friends coming to our gig again. Very drunk,drunk,drunk&rock 'n' roll show everytime!!!!Viinaaaaaauuuuggghhhh.... Then,Conclude has stopped everythings in 1999. But,Conclude will be come back split 7 inch by the all new songs and lyrics...It will be release in 2009... Kuolkaa vittu pois...kaikki poliisit, poliitikot, fasistit, rasistit, natsit, uskonnot ja muut Kiitos ja Kippis!!!" LINE-UP: 2008 [sometime in the middle of the year?] Line-up: Laulu ja Basso : Keijo (keke alkoholocaust 666) Melu ja Rummut : Kuma (iso karhu 666) 1st European Tour Line up (1997)Vo : Keijo Gt : Masa (R.I.P.) Ba: Kuma Dr : ??? 2nd Finland Tour Line up (1999) Vo : Keijo Gt : Katsumi Ba : Kuma Dr : ??? Conclude Official Discography: ●"Conclude the World" = Demo Tape ●"S/T" = Euro Tour Gig Freebie Demo Tape ●V.A. - "1997 Damn The Control" = 7"EP ●V.A. - "A Scream From Silence Vol.5" = LP (Loony Tunes) ●V.A. - "Decade of Dissidence" = CD (1 in 12) ●"Gig in 8 sali" = Cassette (split w/Kirous) ●"Rehearsal Demo '98" = Promo Tape ●"Pisaa ja Paskaa" = CDR (Not For Sale) ●"Made in Finland" = CDR (Not For Sale) ●"Made in Finland" = 7"EP ●"Kaikki on Paskaa" = CDR ●"Liberate Animals" = CDR ●"S/T" = CDR ●"Kaikki on Paskaa" = boot CDR (LTD 66 , 7 inch slv) ●"Tanssia Rahan Kanssa" = CDR (rehearsal tracks in 2008 , only members copy)
RECOMMENDED LISTENING Vol 3 Giftgasattack - Promo CD-R (Warsong, Dec 2008[?]) -The best Swedish band today may also be one of the best bands in Europe, if not the whole world. This CD-r is (I think) promo stuff of new recordings that will end up on vinyl in the spring of 2009 (a first own 7" plus a split 7" with Besthoven, I think). To date GGA's recorded stuff have not really managed to capture the brutality of the band live, the distortion was certainly there on the first demos but that meant you could almost not hear anything else (hah!), on the split-LP on the other hand the distortion was almost gone. According to Rabin, one of the singers, the band's split-LP is shit because on it they sound "just like any other d-beat band". This promo CD-R presents a matured band that confidently shows-off great song writing and song structures -check out the solos!- while there is no compromise on distortion and fuzz. Production is crystal clear (which I think is correct method for ultra-distorted music like this). Total 100% energy as if the band really -I mean REALLY- cares about the music - and you can hear that. Mark my words: this is the best Swedish record in many years (and the best thing is no one "gets it"). Zyanose - Lovele SS 7"(Crust War 033, Dec 2008) -Noise core/punk band goes new ways. Brainbombs Fucking Mess LP (Lystring, 2008) - Record of the year, or so I thought, still prefer the old albums but this one still kills (literally) most of the competition. People - Fetish 7" (Damaging Noise 001, 2009) - Imagine the Swankys year 2008, pop punk metal free with fuzzy guitars but not as great as the Swankys yet still far better than other bands. R.U.G. - Deathly Fighter 7" - Damn song is perpetually stuck on my mind. I wonder if anyone thought of trying to get hold of the non-Japanese bass player 'Michel Hammer' to get his memories on playing in this legendary band on paper. Lebenden Toten - Near Dark CD - For a long time I guess I did not like that dude's vocals, sounded too fake somehow, then I realised the dude is a
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woman (hah), whether this had anything to do with me falling head over heels I am not sure but this CD's been played everyday since I got my copy. Hell, even bought the damn LP... Lebenden Toten - Contamination 7" (Tour Edition) - See above. I love the alt.take Near Dark vs 2 on here. "Carry on screaming / From dusk to dawn / It's near dark"?? Buggered if I knew, but this is damn good. Thanks Nils for hooking me up with this one. Kuro Who the Helpless 8" (Blue Jug, but I only have the stinky mp3 rip off the internet) - Timeless classic. Confuse- Spending Loud Night 7" (KWR) - I probably listened to this more than any other record during the first two months of 2009. But why-ohwhy did they have to have that only 10 seconds from 'the End' from the Indignation Tape which cuts-off with that dude saying "Spending louder night for you" (soundling like an American fratboy-DJ no less); for the longest time I thought that was only on bootleg/mp3 versions, presumably inserted as a bad joke. Not so. Still love this though, obviously. Might buy another copy just for the hell of it... Conclude - 3 x demos on CD-R (Selfreleased, Reset Not Zero?)- Crazy sloppy shit. I can't get enough of this, though I prefer more the Swankys-like material the later stuff which eyeballs early Terveet Kadet also rules. In fact, this skit regerar fett! And that's about it. Cheers.
Other DOUCHEBAG PUBLISHING COMPANY titles: More Noize # 1 Newsletter Published in July 2009. 250 paper copies and unlimited Pdf version. Interviews Exithippies and Reality Crisis. Reviews of cassette tapes, 7 inch records, CD-Rs, CD, LP, 12", fanzines. Also reading suggestion and author best of record lists. 4 x A4 pages. Sold out, get in touch for free Pdf by email.
More Noize # 2 / Vapaus # 4 Split-Fanzine Published in August 2009. First edition 100 paper copies. More Noize has interviews with Schizophasia and Vorkriegsphase. Also reviews of cassette tapes, 7 inch records, CD-Rs, CD, LP, 12", fanzines as well as live shows. Vapaus # 4 has interviews with Chaos Destroy and Punjena Papiga, article about Recife city punx as well as reviews etc. 12 x A4 pages. Get in touch for your copy!
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