HARDCORE BAND BREAK-UP INCOMING -- SEAN IS GETTING INTO B-BOY CULTURE.

PIC(S) INFO: Spotlight on primary VOID lyricist and band drummer, the late, great Sean Finnegan rocking a "Wild Style" (1983) sleeveless T-shirt, with "Bubba" Dupree to the left of him looking more glammed out than in the band's earlier days, c. 1983-'84? 📸: Jim Saah.

Resolution at 1080x728 & 640x819.

PIC #2: Behind-the-scenes shot of the 1983 hip-hop cult classic/docudrama, "Wild Style," with the titular "Wild Style" mural by graffiti artists ZEPHYR, Revolt, and Sharp in the background.

Sources: www.picuki.com/media/2629286378490184617 & Dazed Magazine.

Fugazi, Salle des Fêtes, Kingersheim, France 6/10/1995 (FLS #0685)

This one was brought to my attention by @alexmitrani who earmarked it as a personal favorite. Having listened to the recording repeatedly for the last couple of days, I certainly found plenty of strongpoints to enjoy.

The tape documents a one-off performance in Kingersheim, a small commune in northeastern France. It was the last out of ten shows Fugazi played on French soil in 1995 (it appears Ian MacKaye was unusually mistaken when expressing his praise and gratitude for the country during the show, mentioning a total of 12 gigs in France in 1995). 

Fugazi performed no less than 28 songs on this particular night. And considering the running time of the recording clocks in at around 1 h 44 mins, this will surely be one of the longer shows the band ever played.

The opening of the set is a scorcher and the band comes out swinging, going balls out. The performance is pretty much on point and ardent throughout, yet particular highlights in my book include the wild Turnover breakdown, Joe’s bass driving songs such as Bed For The Scraping, Long Division and Long Distance Runner, and a phenomenal encore 2.

The set list includes a high dosage of Red Medicine tracks (10) and most of their earlier work is thrown in the mix in equal measure: In on the Kill Taker (4), Steady Diet of Nothing (4), Repeater (5), 7 Songs debut EP (4) and the 3 Songs seven-inch (1). The Margin Walker EP is the apparent absentee here. 

Note that this show features the only (!) live version of Greed in 1995, and includes rare 1995 sightings of Break-In, KYEO and Glueman as well (here even with Combination Lock - which actually appears to be encore 3 by itself - to close out the performance).

Banter is scarce yet portrays the band in an upbeat mood, not considering the occasional rebuke drawn by the local lighting tech. Note that Guy addresses the patrons in French most of the time, reminiscent of, entre autres, the phenomenal Fugazi show in Bordeaux 1992.

The only thing that takes my enjoyment of this recording and show down a notch is that the audio, particularly of the instrumentation, is stretched a bit thin and trebly, hinting at the audience source of the recording.

Video footage of this concert is available, and can be accessed through the following archival link: https://archive.org/details/fugazi1995-06-10 

Much obliged @alexmitrani.

The set list:

1. Intro 2. Merchandise 3. Public Witness Program 4. Greed 5. Do You Like Me 6. Interlude 1 7. Bed For The Scraping 8. Walken's Syndrome 9. Reclamation 10. Interlude 2 11. Turnover 12. Interlude 3 13. Back To Base 14. Downed City 15. Shut the Door 16. Waiting Room 17. Break-In 18. Bad Mouth 19. Give Me The Cure 20. Interlude 4 21. By You 22. Interlude 5 23. Forensic Scene 24. Long Division 25. Runaway Return 26. Interlude 6 27. Long Distance Runner 28. Encore 1 29. Fell, Destroyed 30. Great Cop 31. Blueprint 32. Encore 2 33. KYEO 34. Target 35. Sweet and Low 36. Glueman 37. Combination Lock 38. Outro

Jawbox “Static”

• Novelty (1992)

8/27/23.

About 2 years BB (before blog), I bought this self-titled release from Washington D.C. based band Deathfix. I remember reading the review in Pitchfork and listening to "Better Than Bad" and being hooked. 2012 was a time when I was rediscovering power pop - The Raspberries, The Toms and Gentleman Jesse were all favorites at the time.

And while Deathfix (a collaboration between Brendan Canty of Fugazi and Rich Morel, a touring guitarist with Bob Mould) does have powerpop sensibilities throughout, it can be a bit darker. Pitchfork mentioned Deep Purple crossed with Big Star.

This was released on Dischord, and remains one of my favorite albums of the the 2000s.

Recorded live November 1987.

Twitter X, Threads & My Take on Social Media Best Suited for Photographers

by Johnny Martyr I don’t know about you, but I am not really all that concerned about the controversial rebranding of social media platform Twitter to simply, X. If you’ll notice, I have never even embedded a clickable Twitter icon to my posts or website, so there’s nothing to change on my side! But what social media platforms are best suited for sharing ones photography anyway? While my…

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Hammered Hulls — Careening (Dischord)

Careening by Hammered Hulls

Hammered Hulls raises the ghosts of 1990s DC post-punk with taut explosions of guitar, the merciless propulsion of picked bass, fire storms of percussion and an angsty poetic yowl. A super group of sorts, the band brings together lifelong punks Alex Mackaye (of Untouchables, the Faith, Ignition, the Warmers, and yes, Ian’s little brother), Mary Timony from Helium and Wild Flag on bass, Mark Cisneros (Chain and the Gang, Des Demonas and others) and Chris Wilson on drums. The band released a three-song self-titled EP in 2019, which shares one song, “Written Words,” with this album. The four of them worked on this album, off and on, during the pandemic, but there’s little evidence of COVID-related lassitude. Their onslaught here is tight, disciplined, and ferocious, the aggression stuffed down into a narrow-gauge barrel for targeted destruction.

The album starts with “Boilermaker’s Notch,” all thrashing precision, the guitar mostly tamped to a tense grey rumble, but allowed to ring in bright, rainbow-colored power chords at the end of phrases. Wilson’s drumming is disruptive. He executes frantic, off-balance fills, then settles into a double-timed gallop. And MacKaye shouts short, koan-like couplets into a gaping void. “It’s ringing in my ear,” he finishes, and yeah, ours too, in the best possible way.

Hammered Hulls engages with issues in an oblique but feral way. “Rights and Reproduction” lurches through staccato thickets of guitar and bass, its refrain of “Permission requested…Permission denied,” a rallying cry amid thorny bursts of politically charged poetry. It’s got to be about Dobbs, but not in any direct way. The throb of Mary Timony’s bass near the end is like a migraine building, unbearably tense and confining.

The music is tight and driven, but it has its intervals of lyricism, where the guitar chords arc out anthemically and the barbed-wire starkness breaks for something akin to beauty. The guitar-slashing, drum bashing, bass pulsing breaks in “Needlepoint Tiger,” sound more like math-y post-rock than punk; they’re exciting and elevating. “Abstract City,” too, has a grand, enveloping surge; its instrumental sounds come in like a tide rolling in and up to your knees. MacKaye is mostly a barker, a ranter, a howler, but he has his moments of D. Boon-ish introspection, especially on the closer “Mission Statement.”

The point is that Hammered Hull can crank out a classic DC post-punk when it wants to, but it can do a lot of other things, too. Barbed wire and paranoia break for intervals of unexpected beauty—and vice versa. The lines are clean and the intensity undeniable.

Jennifer Kelly