This month’s column is a bit brief also. I am really busy these days between school, research, paper proposals, and planning for conferences. I think what I might do in the future is just plan a day to belt out the entire column at once. That might be easier for me to do.

Reviews

Lion Of Judah
Universal Peace CD
Youngblood Records

I have had mixed feelings about all of Lion Of Judah’s previous records. I enjoyed their performance in a live setting, but on record they just haven’t really been able to move me. A lot of people say LOJ sound like Burn, but I don’t hear it at all. I do hear a variety of influences: Early Fugazi, I Against I era Bad Brains, and honestly I keep thinking of the band Heroin while listening to this. This is pretty good I guess. A few songs drift into “too much rock” for me however. I don’t see myself wanting to listen to this record that much.

Ludicra
Fex Urbis Lex Orbis CD
Alternative Tentacles Records

I know very little about black metal, so I am not sure how to review this. Ludicra are on Alternative Tentacles (?!?) and remind me a lot of Cradle Of Filth, I guess. Like I said, I know very little about this stuff. I read online that a lot of this band’s lyrics are inspired by Les Miserables. That is pretty cool I guess. Check with Chris Alpino before buying.

The Good Book
Demo 2006

This band has apparently already broken up, but this demo fucking rages hard. The Jersey Shore pedigree here is impressive: members have spent time in bands as varied as Ensign, Full Speed Ahead, Human Remains, S.O.V., and Tear It Up. In fact 3/5 of Full Speed Ahead were in this band. The five songs on this CD sound a lot like a median between Tear It Up (where vocalist Dave Ackerman spent time in before this band) and Full Speed Ahead. Fast, right to the point, hardcore in the vein of Bl’ast!, Black Flag and other early eighties classics. Back in the days of Full Speed Ahead a song with a mosh part as hard as the one in No Encore would have had kids from the shore killing each other.

Scapegoat
S/T
Painkiller Records

When I first got this record a friend sent me a zip file of mp3s so I could listen to it in the car. While walking across campus down at Stockton one day after meeting with a former professor about graduate school stuff I toggled through my player and queued up Mind Eraser, Rupture, Crossed Out, and this new Scapegoat record. I didn’t really think about it; I just got in my truck and bolted back onto the parkway. On my way back into Manahawkin I looked down at my player because I thought the Crossed Out record was going on for a long time. Turned out the Scapegoat record had been playing for the past five minutes. Scapegoat play really authentic, obviously, sounding hardcore in the vein of Crossed Out, Rupture, DropDead, etc. How good is Painkiller Records? They just keep turning out more and more excellent records. Word on the street is a Dry Rot seven inch is next.

Please send stuff for review to the address at the end of this column. I am happy to review vinyl, CD, DVD, or book/fanzine as long as your band or label is not associated with the RIAA. Please send the “final product”-I will not review advanced versions or promotional material with DRM on it. I have little interest in promo sheets and reserve the right to ridicule them.

Check Out

• There is only a Spanish translation, as far as I know, so far, but if you like Harry Potter you need to check out The Decline Of The High Elves, a series of Harry Potter fanfics that being published by Random House. How cool is that? It is nice to see good fan fiction taken so seriously. I hope there will be a English translation soon.

• One of the great things about the web right now is the ability to watch streaming episodes on network websites. I have classes at night during the week so I miss most of the shows I watch. This morning, on their respective networks websites, I was able to catch up on the latest episodes of Bones, Friday Night Lights (the BEST show on television), and CSI. Sure, some of them are ad based, but if you miss an episode having to sit through a thirty second ad for car insurance sure beats waiting for a torrent to download or the show to air again.

• If any of you are in the Maryland area, I will be down that way in early May for the Electronic Literature Organization symposium at the University of Maryland. I will most likely be in town for only a day or two, but if anyone else is going please get in touch.

• Speaking of electronic literature, next month I should have a big announcement about a hypertext project I am working on. Stay tuned.

Finally, Top 10 For April

• Miles Davis-On The Corner
• The Avengers-We Are The One
• Cleanse The Bacteria Compilation + Bonuses
• John Coltrane-Ole
• Sleater Kinney-Call The Doctor
• Youth Of Today-We’re Not In This Alone
• The Mahavishnu Orchestra-Birds Of Fire
• Tragedy-Vengeance + 3
• Mountain-Climbing!
• Curtis Mayfield-Superfly Soundtrack

Contact Info
William P. Wend
289 Bulkhead Ave.
Manahawkin NJ 08050
william at wpwend dot com
www.wpwend.com

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Consider this column a rough draft of what I will be doing each month here. At the bottom of this column is my contact information.

Reviews

V/A
Public Safety Compilation
Maximum Rock N Roll Records

For a substantial period of time this record has been hyped to death. At one point there seemed to be some mystery about who exactly was even going to be on the compilation. The long wait wasn’t really worth it for me. This isn’t a bad compilation necessarily; there are some great bands like Direct Control, Nightmare, and Signal Lost. Most of the bands don’t really seem to bring their A-Game however. Beyond that, even the bands I don’t enjoy are so unpleasant that I find myself jumping around. The best songs on here are easily Career Suicide and Signal Lost’s contributions, but even those songs feel like leftover “b-sides.” The rest of the good band’s (Limp Wrist, Nightmare, Direct Control, etc) efforts I could take or leave honestly. Still, an average Direct Control song is pretty good; but being the worst Direct Control song isn’t exactly the same as being the worst Krakdown song. If you know what I mean. In the future, I am sure these songs will be collected on various bands discographies, so I don’t foresee a desire to listen to this again. That said, Public Safety, for the rager in training, could be a useful introduction to what is going on in the hardcore scene right now. If being used for that very practical purpose however, I think Public Safety could have used a more diverse sampling of bands from outside of North America also. Perhaps when you dub this compilation for Rager Junior you should also include a CDR of the P.E.A.C.E compilation?

Life’s A Rape Fanzine #1 & #2

If you’re scratching your head about the name, so was I until I realized it from an M.D.C. song. Life’s A Rape is a promising new fanzine from the San Diego area. A lot of the things that make a great fanzine are here: cut and paste, DIY styled layouts, a lot of photos, and interesting writing. Between the two issues there are interviews with Hatred Surge, Life Crisis, Fucked Up, Hard Skin and (ugh) P. C. Death Squad. There are also some cool Cleveland hardcore stories and a reprint of an old Integrity promo picture from the mid-nineties that brought back some memories. I see a lot of potential here for a great fanzine. My only compliant is the white backgrounds-more fanzines need to have black backgrounds ala the mighty Hardware.

Colin Tappe
POB 278
Carlsbad CA 92018

Slug & Lettuce Fanzine #86

Slug & Lettuce has been a mainstay in hardcore for years. #86 is no exception to the excellent quality of work this fanzine has done over the years. A lot of interesting commentary (especially about the correlation between women’s and animal rights-I want to read more about that in the future), reviews, and pictures. Tons of pictures! Pick this up and subscribe!

Slug & Lettuce
P.O. Box 26632
Richmond VA 23261-6632

Wait In Vain
Demo 2005

This is a new band for members of Champion and Trial that does not deviate too far from those bands. Energetic, slightly metallic, hardcore with way too much chugga chug and scratchy New Age Records, circa 1994, style vocals. The stop and go parts remind me of, of all bands, Sparkmarker. If you like Trial or Champion you will like this probably. I will pass on this one. This is the kind of stuff I thought bands like Devoid Of Faith and Floorpunch pushed to the side when they came along.

The promo sheet that comes with this is hilarious: among the ridiculous statements made on it include a note about selling one thousand demos “in a market that usually supports 1/10^th of that.” How are they doing in the males 18-49 demograph? Do soccer moms 35-50 enjoy it? I love the proclamation that Wait In Vain are “a return of hardcore that feels dangerous and potentially lethal to the status quo.” Yeah, sure it is. I can just hear the status quo trembling in fear. Maybe you will poll better with the “tween” market.

My favorite though is the comparisons to Burn and the Cro-Mags. Uh, no, not even close. 10/10 bands that are said to sound like either of those bands don’t.

Please send stuff for review to the address at the end of this column. I am happy to review vinyl, CD, DVD, or book/fanzine as long as your band or label is not associated with the RIAA. Please send the “final product”-I will not review advanced versions or promotional material with DRM on it. I have little interest in promo sheets and reserve the right to ridicule them.

Check Out

Zone Of Influence

One of my favorite bloggers, Matthew Kirschenbaum, has a new game studies blog called Zone Of Influence. ZOI specifically deals with board games and even more specifically war games. I am very interested in gaming studies, but don’t really know that much about board games so I am going to read this one daily.

Top Five’s For 2006

2006 was a decent year for records. There were a lot of records that sounded great at the time, but by the end of the year were pretty clunky sounding. Oh well. I didn’t really post my “top five” anywhere online this year, so here they are by format:

LP

• Mind Eraser-Glacial Reign
• Iron Age-Constant Struggle
• Home Movies-Soundtrack
• Disgust-Flashback To Trash Back
• War Cry-Deprogram

EP

• Scapegoat-S/T
• Step Forward-Demo
• Not So Fast-Outta My Face
• Dry Rot-Permission
• Mind Eraser-Teenagers

Things I Am Looking Forward To

• Breathing Fire New Recordings
• Septic Death CD
• Infest CD/Low Profile Threat 7″/Man Pig recording (Yeah, right)
• Talk Is Poison CD
• Stop & Think CD

Finally, Top 10 For January

• Art Ensemble Of Chicago-Americans Swinging In Paris
• Calvary-Outnumbered Is Outflanked
• Youth Of Today-Break Down The Walls
• Blitz-Never Surrender b/w Razors In The Night
• Amebix-No Sanctuary
• Tragedy-Can We Call This Life?
• Discharge-Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing
• Alice Coltrane-World Galaxy
• Chumbawamba-Never Mind The Ballots
• The Good Book-Demo

Contact Info

William P. Wend

289 Bulkhead Ave.

Manahawkin NJ 08050

william at wpwend dot com

www.wpwend.com

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