this fucking band. this fucking album. repeat for weeks on end.

hermitologist:

Random Start: Harkonen, “Introducing The Creaker Sneaker”

If you’ve been reading Hermitology.com for a while it’s no secret that Harkonen is one of my favorite bands of the last decade, and Shake Harder Boy is one of my favorite heavy records that has ever existed. It’s timeless. I love it just as much today as when I heard it for the first time in ‘02. If you like your music heavy, nasty and angular, you’d better own this.

If you don’t, buy it here. Now.

pretty stoked on this. first show with my new production job. get out here. hang with friends. drink beers. let’s make the first show a blast so there can be more to come!

Frontier Bar // 21+ // Doors @ 8pm // Free

Sohns, Heatdust, Diving, In Braille

three of the most influential bands in my life broke up this year - for the moment - and two of them happened to be within the last 48hrs. going to write a special column for Friday. Five and Alive: “Five Things I Learned From Three Incredible Bands About My Favorite Music”

Here’s what I have as an outline…

It’s Not That “Album X” is Their Best, There’s Just a Moment Attached To It…

Progression Can Kill a Band or Make Them Stronger…

The Best Bands Will Challenge You, And It’ll Be Rewarding…

You Will Most Likely Hate Some of What They Produce…

Goodbyes are Hard, But Can Be Temporary…

nosleeprecords:

No Sleep Records is BEYOND excited to announce the upcoming release of “Give Them Rope” from Coalesce as a 2x12”. The record features both the 1996 version (remastered) and the 2002 version (what Sean Ingram calls the “George Lucased” version) in a beautiful Gatefold LP with a new take on the…

Though my book is dealing with Revolution in Just Listening - this is still a brutal start. Time for you kids to learn some history. Also, I couldn’t be happier that this is coming out on No Sleep. Chris Hansen is one solid (sexy) dude.

this happened last night. 10 years ago it was just a new brand of hardcore.

sargenthouse:

When Fugazi came onto the scene around the tail end of the ‘80’s, they redefined punk rock onto a pedestal many will never be able to sit above, it turned a lot of heads for kids seeking progressive music from what they thought it was or could be. It was a band that for many, and still many of my friends years later, that defined how talented and forward thinking genres can be, but how reaching outside the box and being honest as a musician will make you sit atop the rest for a long time. “Legacy” is a word that over 80% of bands today will never reach. Possibly 90%.

That’s a fact.

I’m not going to sit here and tell you that Fugazi had that much influence on me as a listener when I was young. It was a band I didn’t discover until college and even begin to understand, analyze and realize the true worth until the last few years of my life. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that the band I’m about to look back on will ever reach that level of broad influence, because time is yet to show us that. But picking up Progress by the RX Bandits for me was like others discovering Repeater. With each release and live show, I watched the RX Bandits just stride when getting better and better and give birth to some of the best music that will forever stick with me and be passed down. It goes without saying that missing the band’s Hoodwinked set of Fugazi covers at this year’s Bamboozle will be regrettable for years to come. A tiny itch in the back of my mind.

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I recently wrote  about one of my favorite bands going on indefinite hiatus and one that will show up in this book. check it out. listen to this band!

It’s crazy to think I’ve been working on a chapter which includes Thrice’s The Illusion of Safety. The way the guys just tried to cram every single bit of influence into one album and made it sound like something fresh for the next generation is quite something. Next month the band will release their latest piece Major/Minor, and I really expect nothing short of another great album.

Many won’t agree that Thrice are post-hardcore, but a lot of their influences are rooted in not only the bands some will complain about that aren’t discussed in full in the book, but that they’re “too this” and not enough “that” and etc. etc.

Thrice has really shown how forward thinking and ever evolving the real idea of post-hardcore is summed up to truly be. It’s about combining different sounds with similar backgrounds into a something new.

Want proof? I’d follow drummer Riley Breckenridge’s blog: Hermitology

These guys write with natural training and progression. They just TRY things, and whether it’s Beggars, or the album I’m writing about and researching, the band made a lot of smart moves and kept raising the bar not only on themselves, but the genre as a whole to the point where they’ve stepped outside the box greatly without losing the ideals that make them a great band to begin with.

thanks. I also write for Absolutepunk.net. you can follow my real blog here.

            Breakdowns are certainly a dime a dozen these days. Everyone stop. Now let’s all slow it down for the kids so they can swing their arms and such. Trust me, when you’re a young kid and you first hear a breakdown, it’s really the coolest thing to sink in the back of your mind and then react to. I’m unsure if it’s the equivalent of a rap beat for angry white suburban kids (though kids in the day just looked to Public Enemy and N.W.A. for that), or if it’s even the easiest thing to follow for those of us who think we know anything about keeping any sort of real time, let alone keeping a simple rhythm going by the click of our fingers.

            It’s been well over a decade since The Dillinger Escape Plan released Calculating Infinity, and with it has come a slew of great bands trying to retain the blend of mathematical technicality, metal prowess and the absolute insanity that revolved around the record. The one song that continues to stick is “43% Burnt,” which is usually the closer to most - if not all - Dillinger Escape Plan sets. The band completely let loose over guitarist Ben Weinman’s opening and closing statements/breakdowns. What’s funny is that the part in discussion is the simplest act during the whole social transgression of the piece. It sits as two pieces of plain bread outside a much layered texture.

I have an interview tomorrow and hopefully going back to my part time serving gig. That said, here’s an excerpt from The Blood Brothers chapter (which is done/fact-quote checked) for you all. I based the feeling of Burn Piano Island Burn around how structured and chaotic it can be to work in a restaurant. Surprisingly, the band told me they liked the way I used the analogy.

———

            The money is good in a restaurant. There’s a lot to put up with, but an easier retail job doesn’t pay nearly the amount a week’s worth of 30 hours would pay at most restaurants. It seems like no matter how much one wants to get out, there’s the grasp of that almighty dollar. Between a student and a career, there seems to lay thousands upon thousands making it somehow at a restaurant. I would think that a little more than half want to blow up their respective buildings.

            Henderson’s keyboard progression ignites “Cecilia and the Silhouette Saloon,” and a frantic call and response sets off between Whitney and Blilie yet again, swirling into feedback and a high hat, snare and a kick drum marching into normalcy.

            “With the first part [lyrically], I was using equations and redefining certain things after death, how it changes certain things,” Whitney said. “I was in a math class in college, and thought it would be clever to start off the song, instead of sentences, with equations. So the first part of it is ‘this equals this after death,’ and the second part is just a story about coming to life after death.”

            The song is structured very uniquely. Like a sandwich, the refrains of equations bread the meat of the story. As the story winds down (“Where is love now?”), Votolato swoops in the instrumental silence with a new guitar progression, like a new breath of life for the same refrain, just to destroy it into white noise and one final “new riff” before the track ends. That seems to be the gist of what The Blood Brothers were doing on Burn, Piano Island, Burn: Creating something to destroy it. Like building something to be proud of, consistently adding new ideas, and as an architect looks up at his or her respective work, they implode it.

            “I just saw it as A.D.D.,” Votolato says. “We would get to a part and then get to the next one. I never recall sitting down and writing songs wanting part after part. It was more like we would write a part and be like, ‘What comes next?’” Votolato reflects that it was adolescence, yet it was just the same formula that they had always used since the beginning of the band.