Skull Kontrol was formed in Autumn 1997 in Washington DC, and was originally based around the musical assault trio of Brooks Headly, Kim Thompson (The Delta 72 & Cupid Car Club) and Chris Thomson (Circus Lupus, Los Mordidas and Monorchid, Ignition, and the awesome one 7" only Fury). After the demise of the Monorchid Andy Coronado was added to the Skull Kontrol mix to avoid any lazy power-trio comparisons.
The group played its first few formative gigs as a real live band with Chris sharing both guitar and vocal duties. After deciding that most bands with a singer/guitarist were lame, Chris opted to be an unburdened singer.
Skull Kontrol toured the US graciously infecting locals with the concept that you don't need costumes, public relations, guarantees, or even a record to tour and perform music - just energy, attitude and the desire to rock.
The collective goal of the group was to avoid the prevalent "professional working band" attitude that had recently infected so many underground bands. They felt that something had to be done to strip away the layers of bullshit and corporate standards of performance embraced by so many of today's groups. Substituting instead a stripped down energetic sound and a solid punk dynamic they were more than able to meet this challenge.
Skull Kontrol says in all your forms of daily life please deviate beyond all means of capture. They want you to please think before you buy some contemporary "flavour of the month" thinking-person's music or some major label's idea of the emperor's new clothes, as it is only a matter of time before you discover your mistake and realise how right they were after all.
Deviate Beyond All Means Of Capture (1999)
Zzzzzz... (2000)
Midgets Tape
Ярлыки:
hardcore,
post-punk
Dain Bramage was formed in December 1985 out of the remains of the band Mission Impossible. In 1984 David Smith was playing drums in a band called Freak Baby when the band decided to add a second guitarist - Dave Grohl, who had recently met Freak Baby bassist Brian Samuels at a local gig. Freak Baby had rehearsed with Grohl prior to this. They went into the original Laundry Room Studio and recorded a demo with David Smith on drums, Dave Grohl on guitar, Bryant Mason on guitar, Brian Samuels on bass and Chris Page as vocals.
This lineup lasted 6 months. One time - as rehearsal was wrapping up - Grohl asked if he could play drums, Smith grabbed the bass; Bryant and Chris joined in (Brian wasn't present.) The four guys were happy with the way things went and reformed as the four piece known as Mission Impossible. The new lineup was a vast improvement, and they began playing more shows. Mission Impossible went into Laundry Room studios and re-recorded some of the Freak Baby songs and recorded some new tracks. Soon after they recorded this demo, they duetted with the fellow D.C.-located band, Lunch Meat. They ended up playing some shows together and remained in Washington D.C. Eventually they would go on to release a Lunch Meat/Mission Impossible 7" on Dischord Records.
Mission Impossible continued up until Bryant and Chris graduated from high school and continued education at college. At this point Reuben Radding entered the scene in the infamous first jam in Grohl's living room in Springfield, Virginia. After that first jam they had 6 or 7 songs together (Reuben had improvised vocals).
Dain Bramage ended in March 1987 when Grohl quit without any warning to join Scream. Reuben and Smith tried to form a new band but Reuben later commented, "After you've spent a couple years with Dave Grohl as your drummer it's easy to feel like no other drummer exists."
I Scream Not Coming Down (1986)
Ярлыки:
post-punk,
punk-rock
Too early to be post-hardcore but too uncommon for any simple classification, this Southern California quartet doesn't try to create a blizzard of noise — they go at it more artfully, but with equally ear-wrenching results. On Paganicons, singer Joaquin Milhouse Brewer tunelessly barks lyrics (as in "We Don't Need Freedom" and "A Human Certainty") that aren't bad in a pretentious mock-intellectual vein; the music is loudly abrasive, but with spaces and dynamics largely uncommon to the genre.
From Brewer's back cover credit of "vocals and sermons" to his complex, provocative lyrics (despite numerous misspellings on the lyric sheet), Saccharine Trust — guitarist Joe Baiza plus a new rhythm section — takes an abrupt religious turn on Surviving You, Always. "Yhwh on Acid," "Lot's Seed," "Remnants" and "Our Discovery" all contain biblical imagery and religious references, but in a context that obscures and reorients the themes well beyond easy recognition and comprehension. Musically, Sac Trust uses the punk idiom like avant-jazz, liberating the vocals to function semi-independently as blurt poetry, while the band goes through tight formation riffs that are carefully structured but not really within traditional song form. Sophisticated, and engrossing once you get past the daunting attack. (The first two albums were later joined as The Sacramental Element cassette.)
Proceeding further into the experimental realms generally reserved for the "new music" folks, Saccharine Trust attempted something really unusual with Worldbroken. The LP was not only recorded live, it was improvised on the spot! Joined by ex-Minutemen bassist Mike Watt, Brewer and two surviving sidemen rise to the challenge, producing a loose but controlled-sounding jam record (no punks here) that reveals its total extemporaneousness only in the rambling narrative of Brewer's lyrics.
On the jazzy We Became Snakes, a five-piece lineup (with sax and a new bassist) returns to the old-fashioned way: write 'em, rehearse 'em and then record 'em. Watt produced the record, which again reflects Brewer's religious fixation. The sonic formula includes syncopated rhythm vamps, lots of riffy solos on sax and guitar and dramatic vocal recitations. Imaginative and far-reaching, if not exactly enjoyable or accessible.
Over the course of 75 gripping minutes (gleaned from a vault stocked with seven years' worth of live tapes made by machines of wildly differing audio quality), Past Lives paints a slightly more complete (if less stark) picture of Saccharine Trust's awesome live capabilities as both inward-looking improvisers and kick-out-the-jams shamen. Quick cuts between the two facets that also crisscross chronological "order" create some jarring juxtapositions, but that's probably the idea. Only one song is repeated from Worldbroken; the seven tracks that are otherwise unavailable include one rare glimpse of the band, (spiritual) lampshades on heads, ripping through Black Flag's "Six Pack."
Freed from freedom's shackles, Brewer created a brooding, cohesive solo album of surprisingly concise, typically dark guitar rock. Though he's still as obsessive/compulsive as anyone tilling rock-poetry's increasingly infertile soil, Brewer seems to have toned down his more hysterical Elmer Gantry approach — even when petitioning the Lord. You'll only wince once (upon hearing the cover of the Doors' "Peace Frog," a reprise from Past Lives) over the course of the many listens you'll need — and want —
to breathe in this essence rare. [Ira Robbins/David Sprague]
Ярлыки:
post-hardcore,
post-punk
Breaking Circus was a postpunk band from the 1980s, based in Chicago and later Minneapolis, led by guitarist and vocalist Steve Bjorklund.
Bjorklund had earlier been a guitarist and vocalist for Strike Under; Breaking Circus was his next project. Breaking Circus signed to Homestead Records for their first release, The Very Long Fuse (1985), which borrowed members of label-mates Big Black, Naked Raygun and Man Sized Action for its drum machine-based production.
In 1986, Bjorklund moved to Minneapolis and began working with Rifle Sport bassist Pete "Flour" Conway and drummer/guitarist Todd Trainer. The band released The Ice Machine LP with the album's credits appearing as a Monopoly-style drinking game insert. Breaking Circus was joined by second guitarist Phil Harder for a national tour before returning to the studio to record another LP that was to feature four songs by Bjorklund, four by Flour, and four by Trainer. When the band arrived in the studio, they received word from Homestead that the label would only pay for six of the twelve songs that they had originally planned to record. All four of Bjorklund's songs and one by each of the other members were released on the EP Smoker's Paradise in 1987.
The band broke up in 1988. Phil Harder went on to form the trio Big Trouble House. Flour recorded four full-length solo albums for Touch and Go Records. Todd Trainer recorded two EPs under the name Brick Layer Cake before joining Shellac. Bjorklund released a final 7" single of solo electro-pop versions of songs by Naked Raygun and the UK Subs under the name Breaking Circus before moving on to work as a producer.
The Very Long Fuse (1985)
The Ice Machine (1986)
Smokers' Paradise (1987)
Ярлыки:
noise rock,
post-punk
Formed in 1983 by high school friends Joe Goldsborough and Daniel Lindenstruth, Reptile House became Baltimore's premiere hardcore punk band during the '80s hardcore punk scene. The group's unique sound mixed the energy and melodic sense of their D.C. punk neighbors and such California punk bands as TSOL and the Dead Kennedys with darker esoteric imagery and psychedelic guitar work. Reptile House opened for a who's who of American hardcore bands at local punk clubs such as the Marble Bar and Jules Club House, as well as headlining such clubs as the Washington D.C. punk Mecca the 9:30 Club.
The group's original lineup featured Goldsborough on guitar, Lindenstruth on vocals, David Rhodes on bass, and a pre-Samhain London May on drums. The group's first record was the four-song 7" EP I Stumble as the Crow Flies, which was released by the band's own Druid Hill label in conjunction with Washington D.C.'s Dischord Records. The group went on several tours of the United States turning people on to their sound as far off as Detroit and Texas. Reptile House then recorded the Listen to the Powersoul LP, which was released on Goldsborough's Merkin label in the fall of 1988. Shortly thereafter Lindenstruth made his departure from the group, changing his surname to Higgs and forming Lungfish with Reptile House guitarist Asa Osbourne. The group, now in need of a new frontman, recruited ex-Grey March keyboardist Ron Weldon for vocal duties, but shortly thereafter the group broke up. Goldsborough went on to form the psychedelic pop outfit the Ultra Violets with Reptile House bassist Joey Cirri and continued to document the Baltimore underground music scene through his label Merkin throughout the late '80s and into the '90s. ~ Rick Kutner, Rovi
Ярлыки:
post-hardcore,
post-punk
The band was formed in 1987 by Andy Maconald (aka "Dr. Technology", guitar), P6 (aka "Fat Bastard", "Wilberforce", real name Phil Eaglesham, vocals), with the line-up completed by Mofungo Diggs (Steven MacDougall, bass) and Richie Dempsey (drums). The band wore asbestos firewear, gas masks, flashy shirts and balaclavas on stage, and after support slots with the Happy Mondays, The Wonderstuff and The Shamen began their recording career on the Moshka label with the Bros are Pish EP, poking fun at then chart-toppers Bros, among others. This resulted in discussion in a Smash Hits inerview, with Craig explaining to the Goss brothers what 'Pish' Meant. Their debut album, Five Fingers, Four Fingers, a Thumb, a Facelift and a New Identity followed in 1989. Dempsey departed to join Dawson, and was replaced by Mr. Jason (Jason Boyce) of the Dandilion Adventure, and the band were signed up by top indie label Blast First. Their first release on Blast First was the 1990 EP Eyeball Origami Aftermath Wit Vegetarian Leg. A further single 23 Skinner followed in January 1991 before their second album was issued, Pish In Your Sleazebag. Touring Europe and playing shows with dutch band Revenge Of The Carrots and old colleagues Dog Faced Hermans, the band split up in 1992, before which they recorded a session for John Peel's BBC Radio 1 show. Two years later, their last, posthumous, release was the Barbed Anal Exciter EP
p6 /Phil Eaglesham and Richie Dempsey are currently both members of DeSalvo along with Allan Stewart of Idlewild and Alex Grant, formerly of Idlewild. The band released their debut album on Mogwai's Rock Action Records in 2008.
Ярлыки:
hardcore,
noise rock,
post-punk
