Welcome, one and most!

Thanks to Dan, we have an absolutely stellar topic for this show! Relatable in all the ways, to be sure! We’re confident you will enjoy it! And we will be absolutely unputout (sic) if you don’t!

And of course there’s a lit playlist!

All things considered, it’s pretty handsome here in the bog! #bogmonstermusic

It’s the stir of echoes… what, indeed, lurks in the bog? #bogmonstermusic

One of the big parts of the energy of this time of year is that anticipation of what is just around the corner, whether it’s warmer weather, summer adventures, or just a few great upcoming records. One of the albums I am most looking forward to coming out a little later this spring is the return album from Cardiff Wales’ snotty post hard core indie noise merchants mclusky who have a new one titled The World Is Still Here And So Are We coming out on Ipecac Records in May. I was big fan of their original run of albums in the early 00’s as well as vocalist/guitarist Andy Falkous’ follow up band Future Of The Left (with some of the other former members of Frank Turner’s old band Milliondead), and the band has always been great at channeling a kind of snotty frustration that explodes into genuine rage at times while still through it in plenty of great little melodic hooks, even if it sounds like Falkous wants to start pounding his head into the wall in frustration for these fucked up times at the same time. One of the advance singles for the album, people person, captures this perfectly while accompanied by a great music video of an office gone feral, featuring cameos by the members of the band, their friends, and a few UK indie wrestling scene vets like Big Wavy Roy Johnson, while leaning a little closer to FotL’s more noise-rock riffage than some of their more melodic early stuff. I am trying to mentally manifest some kind of tour with these guys and Chat Pile with a date near me as I think that is one of the newer bands that would compliment them well ( even if Chat Pile are more on the sludgy metallic end of things compared to them). But either way, I am stoked for their new record and had to throw this track on my spring list for some hope beyond the dogshit.

These Northern Irish hip hop rabble rousers not only managed to produce one of the more enjoyable and anarchic albums of 2024, FINE ART, but they also managed to get their self-mythologizing eponymous biopic, where the band members play themselves in a raucous reenactment of the band’s inception while also drawing attention to the band’s proud Irish Republican politics and anti-colonial sentiments, while not glossing over their love of sketchy party drugs and other wild antics. Oh yeah, this is all delivered over grimy upbeat techno-influenced rap beats with lyrics that shift from English to Irish Gaelic, which is done so seamlessly that both my girlfriend and I thought we were having strokes when we heard their single “Better Way To Live” and suddenly realized they had switched to the latter mid-bar. Did I mention that their movie is also super funny as well? I love a good music-focussed comedy and the boys deliver, whether mouthing off to the local cops in Gaelic, to ketamine-fueled misadventures rendered in wacky claymation stop motion. I don’t know if the Kneecap boys have considered pursuing a career on the big screen on top of their musical pursuits but from their eponymous film I would not be surprised if that became a thing. I would also strongly encourage seeking out their sophomore album from year Fine Art, whose title track I have included on this here list as an example of their infectious club beats and smooth bilingual Gaelic to English lyrical transitions. 

My first favorite album of 2025, Bad Bunny’s latest Debi Tirar Mas Fotos was released just a couple of days into this fucked up year, and serves as an interesting evolution of his sound while also paying tribute to his home island of Puerto Rico while lamenting the changes there after years of US occupation and Shock Doctrine-style disaster capitalist gentrification taking over in the wake of 2010s  climate disaster. The album’s title translates to “Should have taken more pictures” and he accompanied its release with a 12 minute short film mixing documentary and animated segments and featuring long-revered nonagenarian Puerto Rican playwright and filmmaker Jacobo Morales that explains the album’s themes. Oh yeah, and on top of that Bad Bunny incorporates a whole new sonic palate of salsa, Latin jazz and other traditional Puerto Rican musical styles witlh a lot of big band accompaniment and traditional instrumentation, while still mixing in his usual Spanish language rap and reggaeton sounds. Bad Bunny hasgenerally been an artist I have respected quite a bit for his artistic vision and extracurricular activities like his dalliances with wrestling in the WWE and acting in things like the upcoming Happy Gilmore sequel, but up until now a lot of his music just pursued certain subgenre lanes that were just not my favorite but this new expanded sound and conceptual force of DTMF has really had me listening and has become one of favorite albums of the year so far. 

RIP David Johansen aka Buster Poindexter, iconic frontman for the glammy protopunkers who would later score a novelty solo hit with his cover of calypso standard “Hot Hot Hot”, as well as make some great cinematic turns in movies of the late 80’s/early 90’s like Scrooge’s (where he played one of the. Christmas ghosts who visit Bill Murray’s protagonist) and Tales From The Dark Side The Movie (an underrated horror anthology where he plays a contract killer hired to dispatch a murderous cat in a memorable Stephen King penned segment). The New York Dolls were one of those original bands that put Maxs Kansas City and CBGB on the map in the mid 70’s, and I was wq2  shocked as a youth to find out their singer was none other than the taxi driving spirit of Xmas past in one of my favorite holiday comedies. Of course after that I did go back and do my homework in regards to the Dolls’ sonic output and grew to love it as well as appreciate their rockin jams so I had to bring up this very notable passing. That being said, he’ll still just as much be that horror movie hit man chasing that little black cat around or the ironic crooner belting out fake patois in his later years in my childhood memories alongside his pioneering rock and roll hedonism. So for my mini playlist for these dogshit days, here is a rippin live version of the Dolls’ “Personality Crisis” from the TV series Midnight Special for your enjoyment

Speaking of New York City and glammy sonic hedonism, one of the newer artists that I have been getting excited about a new album from is Brooklyn’s Model/Actriz. I enjoyed their debut from 2023, Dogsbody, and am really looking forward to their follow up Pirouette coming out in May of this year, especially after hearing the first single Cinderella that came out around the end of February. I was around for a lot of the nascent dance punk scene in the late 90’s and early 00’s and managed to catch bands like The Rapture and !!! (Chk chk chk) in their early years so I was excited to hear M/A’s industrial-tinged no wave take on the subgenre 20+ years later. If a band’s onstage refreshment of choice is any sort of indicator of their general vibe, you would not find it surprising that in a live video of one of their recent festival appearances, vocalist Cole Hayden was brandishing an extra large bottle of red wine by the neck the whole time while swigging from it throughout the performance. Cinderella uses driving bass and up tempo techno-influenced drumming alongside tense skittering no wave guitar and Hayden’s breathy anxious crooning overtop, with the video as serving a campy queer punk club kid take on the titular fairy tale, with Cole as a moustachioed princess with a retinue of friendly but gnarly taxidermied squirrels to complete the Disney vibes. If the rest of Pirouette is as good as this lead off single it may be a ready source for your summer dance party needs.

In times such as these, what can a fella do? Besides play in a rock n’ roll band? Or go overseas to teach ESL?

I’m here to say that my passport has expired, and I see no reason anytime soon to renew! All these rad rock shows in the US, but…

As I told my pal GNA on Instagram… I’m 95% likely to end up in an ICE facility while the current regime is going. Too many Fuck MAGA’s in public places. Too much telling President Musk and other Nazis to eat shit. And yet… I’ve only scratched the surface of what I’m planning!

***Sudden clamor within the apartment.

What the fuck… who are you assholes… get out…

Shut the fuck up you fucking fairy!

Tttttzzzzzzzzz

Jesus! You fucking tasered me!

Ttttzzzzzzz

*Thump*

I’ve come to appreciate Propagandhi way more in recent years.

They don’t do LP’s, they do epics. There is deep lore out there. My pal David in Minneapolis called them “the only band that matters”, and back here in Alberta I was like fucking A right.

I’m glad these dudes are still going all these years in. I can’t think of a recent moment that needs these guys more than the one we’re in. Not even the post-911 period seemed as fucking nihilistic and devoid of hope compared to where we are now. We’re at peace for now. But for how much longer?

And it is fucking heavy as fucking fuck, so there’s that!

Somewhere during the Use Your Illusion recording sessions, Izzy Stradlin quit Guns n’ Roses. It’s easy to forget that in the late 80’s guitar-based music still sold many millions of physical units. Guns n’ Farking Roses were huge as fuck. I was all over both UYI’s, and from there Appetite and Lies. Once Izzy left, Guns n’ Roses stopped being a writer’s band. Which is fine. Because who has any use for Chinese Democracy, outside of being a historical oddity?

ANYWHO

I’m a writer, of sorts. I’ve always been this way. And Izzy fucking hits it out of the park on at least his first three LP’s. These, plus a whole pile of other recordings are just sitting there waiting for the attention they deserve.

I’ve listened to Memphis and Needles for dozens and dozens of hours in the past week.

Facts!

This is my current de facto going out and about tuneage.

This is a case where I know nothing about the band or the individuals, except that they’re from Ohio and that this LP is circa 2006 and that they played Fredericton, most likely Bugaboo Creek. I ended up with a poster for this release somehow, that I still have.

This is all to say that it fucking slays to fuck. It’s streetpunk of the best kind: sharp, witty, incisive, and uptempo as a motherfucker. It reminds me of all the things I like about Rancid, but with way less budget and time in the recording. One of the cool things about getting older is seeing connections between things over decades. Being able to revisit things from when you were younger with the benefit of more life experience and perspective is a gift.

There was a time when all I wanted to do after work was get wasted, write, and go to shows. This LP brings me right back there in all the good ways.

Plus, it’s named after a short story by Edgar Allen Poe… which I just discovered yesterday! Highly lit as a motherfuck.

<a href="https://colinbrooks.bandcamp.com/album/six-aims">Six Aims by TheNewSame</a>

As I write this, just a couple of hours have passed since I had my second interview with Colin!

The Internet is a funny thing, obviously… this is something where reaching out to people who look like they do cool art has benefited me immensely.

Colin is punk drummer since he was a child. But he’s been writing songs and putting out the results through Bandcamp for many years as well. His latest release as The NewSame is another example of a thoughtful, endlessly creative person putting out the kind of music he thinks should be in the world.

I’m proud of both interviews with Colin. I’m also grateful to call him a friend! And in times such as these, friendship is indeed punk as fuck!

I’d be remiss on the subject of friendship to leave out a mention of my pals Matt Gay, Jon Bowie, Matt Bowie, and all other members of these bands.

What can I say? I love these dudes.

If you look at guitar-based music in Atlantic Canada in the late 90’s and early-to-mid-00’s, you would have to include any and all bands who played at Bugaboo Creek and, to a lesser extent, O’Malley’s in Fredericton. Some of the most intense, grimy shows I’ve ever attended were at the Creek. The best times… I can’t remember!

Last summer, I told Matt Gay that I’d stop hyping the Fuckhawk, as this musical chapter has largely closed. Fair enough, I say. But it’s still on Bandcamp! And thank fuck that it is!

I feel conflicted about this.

First of all, let me say: I fucking love all music Frankie Stubbs has ever touched. It’s him and Paul Westerberg and the Lawrence Arms for me, as far as writers.

And so, I was thrilled when Frankie followed me on IG. And then I sent him a shitload of posts via DM. And then he blocked me. In so doing, he joined Hot Water Music, Jennifer Finch, Northcote, and one of the dudes from Samiam (not Colin!). It’s caused me to reevaluate, somewhat, my whole outreach approach for interviews and the like.

Like, I don’t want to fucking bug the people who give me inspiration with their music.

I’ve yet to check out any of the songs here except for the two (?) singles that preceded the release of the full LP last week. Like I said, I love Frankie Stubbs… and I’m also big on the Sainte Catherines… and all associated acts. At one point last year, the drummer and owner of Little Rocket Records was going to talk to me… and then I was ghosted!

So… as a fan, I guess I’m considered an irritant?

ANYWAY!

These songs are lit. They’re all in my 2025 playlist for easy reference. I guess I don’t see myself engaging with it more than that! But, you know, it’s definitely worth checking out!

<a href="https://alignrock.bandcamp.com/track/neo-noir">Neo-Noir by Align</a>

How stacked and/or traumatizing was 2024? Enough so that when Dan suggested a sort of odds-and-sods and other unmentionables from last year I was quick on the FB chat in the affirmative!

As previously, we hope your upcoming 50 46 weeks or so remain completely unfucked!

We’ve got QR codes attached to playlists! We’ve got the skills which don’t pay our bills but elevate the game in other ways both tangible and intangible! #bogmonstermusic

We ain’t done much, but what we’ve done’s alright! #bogmonstermusic

These Aussie rockers just narrowly missed being one of my favorite albums of the year with their third full length Cartoon Darkness, but I had to mention them due to how much this new release impressed me compared to their previous albums. I did enjoy their prior releases but this record feels like they found that “extra gear” as they say in that sportsy sort of stuff and their songs, while still as rockin and raunchy and snotty as ever, just have that extra little bit of depth this time around that comes with years in the rock and roll trenches. Vocalist Amy is still a snotty and in your face as ever but the riffs are more than just three chord stompers exclusively, with some groovy psych rock tempos mixed in and probably my standout favorite single song by an artist who I otherwise like and enjoy but have never been as wow wow wowed about like I have about “Chewing Gum”, one of the lead singles off this record that takes more of a Rolling Stones-type pace that get your head nodding along while still maintaining that snotty edge that is one of their trademarks. Australia has produced some pretty great bands over the past few years, between these folks, Viagra Boys, The Chats (and Speed on the more hardcore side) and Amyl and The Sniffers have been at the forefront of that wave with this album being my favorite release of theirs and a runner up for favorites of the year (that also features straight up one of my favorite songs of the year in Chewing Gum)

I had to shout out at least one local (local-ish) release from 2024, specifically the debut 7”EP by Charlottetown PEI’s Cell Deth on Sewercide Records, titled Catholic Guilt. The band are made up of a gaggle of Island hardcore punk all-stars whose resumes include bands like Uncle, Antibodies, Piercing Damage and Coy (as well as vocalist Story’s many solo and collaborative efforts on the folkier side of things) and they rip out six blazing fast hardcore punk ragers in just over as many minutes on this rad little slab of wax. Story was probably one of the first people I met during my first ever visit to Halifax and and a former band mate of mine from back in the 00’s so it’s awesome to see her new band put out this great record, as well as touring all over Atlantic Canada and making appearances as festivals in larger cities like Montreal in the past couple of years that they have been making music together. The music is fast and pissed off straight ahead punk rock with angry shouted vocals and lyrics that mix politics with meditations on getting older in counterculture. It’s one of those records that bleeds raw sincerity and the kind of thing that just feeds my soul in a sad scary irony poisoned world, especially knowing that it was made by folks I have known for decades in some cases who are totally legit musicians cranking out great punk tunes on top of being awesome awe-inspiring people. Definitely my favorite Atlantic Canada release of the year.

This was an older album I finally made a point of acquiring a physical copy of in 2024, for one very important reason. Main Source’s sole full length – 1991’s Breaking Atoms might not be one of the canonical top tier albums of the Golden Age of hip hop, but it’s still so damn good and of historical import due to featuring Nas’ first ever wide released recording with his verse on Live At The BBQ. Main Source were made up of Queens NY rapper/producer Large Professor and Toronto-born DJ/producers Kid Kutt and Sir Scratch, which meant they checked off enough boxes under the CRTC’s Canadian Content regulations to get a pretty high rotation of video play on Much Music at the time, leading 15 year old me to fall in love with their music as a result. The main reason I bring this album up and was inspired in late 2024 to finally pick up a copy of this album on vinyl is that it had come to my attention (via some posts my legendary producer and A&R guy Dante Ross) that it was no longer on streaming services at all. I know I am guilty of listening to much more of my music mpby those sorts of means than through physical media but lately i have been trying to make sur that I have physical copies of albums that mean a lot to me, and this is one that definitely holds a lot of sentimental value to me after it being in such heavy rotation in my early teens and the historical significance of Nas’ first appearance so of course I had to make sure make this one of my top physical media acquisitions of last year.

This year I continued slowly dipping my toe back into watching horror movies, a genre that can cover a lot of ground but that I have generally been picky about at the best of times and admittedly squeamish about a lot of the time, but there were a coupl3 of films from 2024 on the scarier side of things that really grabbed my attention. The first was Coralie Fargeat’s campy, blood soaked body-horror fueled satire of Hollywood ageism and misogyny The Substance. I don’t want to spoil the plot too much but I had a great time with the movie in all of its gross-out glory and thought Demi Moore turned in one of her best ever performances as an fading TV star who undertakes a radical anti-aging treatment after being fired by sexist executives. I also really enjoyed Osgood Perkins’ Longlegs, a Satanic Panic inspired atmospheric creepfest with Nicolas Cage going full Cage as the titular Marc Bolan-loving serial killer and Maika Monroe as the young FBI agent who shares an eerie bond of some kind with him. It’s a meditation on generational trauma and abuse, wrapped in a Silence Of The Lambs-esque thriller that takes a definite twist to towards the straight up spooky towards the end. I was also incredibly stoked to get a sequel to one of my all time favorite action movies (Mad Max Fury Road) in Furiosa. It maybe didn’t quite hit the heights of Fury Road but the origin story of that movie’s breakout character Imperator Furiosa was still a post apocalyptic heavy metal thrill ride of a movie. Also holy shit Chris Hemsworth turned out one of my favorite performances of the year as the loudmouthed biker gang leader turned aspiring warlord Lord Dementus, letting his full Aussie accent out howling over the desert winds in pursuit of Anya Taylor Joy’s Furiosa. All three of these movies get strong recommendations for me as my favorites of the year for sure,

Finally, there were a couple of video games I played in 2024 that I wanted to give a shout out to, one newer one that is probably my favorite standalone game of 2024 – Altus Studios’ Metaphor Refantazio and a very notable one from a few years ago that finally got around to – ZA/UM’s absurdist sci fi noir detective role playing game from  2019, Disco Elysium. Metaphor comes from the makers of the Persona series of role playing games that have a pretty rabid fan base on their own, and uses a similar mix of turn-based combat and a calendar-based game progression and social sim party bond building where the protagonist works to unite the many tribes of their magical world and break an ancient curse while drawing their inspiration from a “fantasy novel” written by a mysterious figure. There is also a classic evil guy with designs of world domination through keeping the populace of the fantasy world in fear of a variety of creepy video gamey monsters (whose designs were all drawn from Heironymous Bosch’s visions of Hell. The rest of the game’s visual aesthetic is pretty heavily inspired by anime, and some of the story cut scenes are even presented as straight up anime segments before switching back to the playable game part of things. The story itself is a pretty heavy metaphor (not just in name) for the struggle against fascism and the role that art can play in inspiring social change, and gets pretty heavy handed in that at times but in an endearing, Star Trek TOS kind of way and all in all comes together to be one of my favorite games released last year. I also finally got around to playing Disco Elysium in 2024, after owning it and having it in my backlog of games for over two years and it did not disappoint. It’s a weird but enthralling Twin Peaks-y point and click RPG with a beautifully hand painted art style where your alcoholic amnesiac detective protagonist starts out investigating a murder that seems linked to local labour unrest and then takes a wild turn through cryptids, retired revolutionaries, and a really annoying kid named Cuno. It’s got some really wild systems like how certain dialogue paths in conversation with the game’s NPCs open up points on an interconnected series of ideas that link together to give the protagonist some pretty wild perspectives on the world that influence how how they interact with the rest of the story, and is one of the best story-based (as in there is no combat of any kind in the game, just dialogue and interaction) games I have ever played. It was definitely hyped up to me beforehand, but lived up to that hype for sure and was my favorite game not released in 2024 that I played last year.

In the interests of beating a dead horse into further deadness… of going all in on exactly what I’ve tried before… I’m going with the handwritten notes format!

Taking Dan’s FB communication with me from earlier this week to heart, I’m including some entities outside the bounds of music, or even popular media generally! You have been warned!

TNB-30-notes

We got some prime Canadiana up in here! Deceased even!

Honey and Barry didn’t deserve what happened. The morbidness of it. The personal nature of the crimes. The baffling police response. All of it is so strange and sad. The book and the podcast series on the Toronto Star are both worth checking out.

And then on the other hand… NORM!

You can’t find a better comedian. Or Canadian, for that matter!

In the row up yander, we have The Faint standing in for the discussion on YouTube Music Premium! Digital music for algorithmic times!

Further and/or adjacently, we have Neil Young & Crazy Horse standing in for the discussion on My Own Personal Microsoft Outlook and my personal feelings about it!

And lastly, Dan definitely talked about Living Colour last year! Thanks to the Algorithm and all associated with it!

And what do have here? One of my favorite musicians of all time growing old gracefully and with conviction. Tommy’s standing in here for my nascent sobriety! And the gloriousness of the unfuckedness that tends to follow!

Let it be known that 2024 was pretty decent from a Rock Standpoint! Even though in other ways, the year was something like a dumpster fire to the magnitude of an atomic weapon… still, the Rock Prevailed!

“Oh, and be sure to check the playlist”

Something I am obliged to say!

All these hours you could’ve spent in the bog! It’s not too late! #bogmonstermusic

We’re comin’ to ya! On a dusty (digital) road! #bogmonstermusic

Some of my favorites from 2024: 

Charlie Manning-Walker had a pretty great year for releases in 2024. First, The Chisel (whom he plays guitar for) released their killer sophomore album “What A Fucking Nightmare”, making the move to Pure Noise Records for the first time and turning heads with their driving but catchy street punk ragers, and then Charlie’s more pub-rock-meets-hardcore side project Chubby And The Gang released their third full length and debut for Baltimore’s Flatspot Records “…And Then There Was…” came out in the late fall.The latter let  hubby Charles get the booz ballads and barroom laments out of his system after rocking out with his boots and braces out on The Chisel’s album earlier in the year (which I also talked about on the show not long after it was first released. All in all two great sets of tunes with slightly different vibes from some longtime scene vets over on the UK side of things. I swear, Chubby Charles is kind of the Greg Cartwright (Oblivians/Parting Gifts/Reigning Sound) of the NWOBHC scene in terms of general songwriting vibes especially on his …And The Gang efforts that were some of my favorite music of the year, alongside his more raging punk stuff with The Chisel.

I know I have already talked about Doechii on the show already fairly recently but she really seemed to have a busy back half of 2024 that produced some pretty great stuff. Her “Alligator Bites Never Heal” mixtape was one of my absolute favorite releases of the year to begin with, which the Florida rapper/singer followed up with an NPR Tiny Desk session, appearances on late night TV, killer sets at Tyler The Creator’s Camp Flog Gnaw festival and Kendrick Lamar’s annual Holiday Toy Drive charity concert, and even landed a handful of Grammy nominations. It’s really cool seeing an exciting young figure in one of my favorite genres of music get accolades like that based on some pretty great music kinda all at once after taking a few years to kind of get on her feet in artistry and life and stuff (as detailed in one of the breakout tracks from the mixtape, “Denial Is A River”). I feel like with a couple of notable exceptions, the more pop end of things doesn’t always embrace women in hip hop who can rap their asses off like Doechii can but she is seriously one of the more impressive emcees of any gender in the game currently and worth keeping an eye on for sure.

The last of the three albums I’ve talked about on the show recently that I had to bring up again in terms of favorites of the year, and it’s a doozy. An ugly lumbering collection of sludgy noise rock meets nu metal meets post hardcore meets just sheer volume and angst and venom over churning basslines and eerie guitars from these Oklahoman misanthropes. This album and the bands work on the whole does have some obvious reference points here and there but they put it all together in a way that just feels so refreshing and skull crushing at the same time. I mean, this is the second episode in a row I have been singing their praises so that has to count for an something. Seriously, if you like any sort of heavier music you need to go seek out Chat Pile’s latest full length. Like really, just go do it. Really, seriously go check it out. 

You know, if Kendrick Lamar had just released his quartet of tracks from the summer that completely annihilated and eviscerated the character and life of Aubrey Drake Graham, he could still be said to have had a pretty good year, but with his latest full length GNX arriving on their heels and paying homage to some on Kenny’s favorite artists and biggest inspirations, he kind of rules 2024. It’s wild to see how huge Not Like Us became, like a legit phenomenon and one if his biggest hits in a good few years, despite that it spends a good part of its runtime calling another artist out by name for being a pedophile. Like seriously, an EP of just Euphoria, 6:16 in LA, Meet The Grahams and Not Like Us outdoor maybe be my pound for pound favorite release of the year, but GNX, which arrived out of nowhere in late November was just icing on the cake. It’s twelve tracks pay tribute to inspirations and mentors like Nipsey Hussle and Nas alongside a heavy dose of classic West Coast hip hop sounds, and it was awesome to finally hear the full “Squabble Up” after it was teased at the beginning of the Not Like Us video. This was the year Kendrick Lamar had a real fire inside him unlike any in recent memory and his musical output really shows it

This Kentucky band really grew on me over the course of his year to the point that by the end of the year their latest full length has become one of my favorite heavy albums of 2024. I had heard their name and knew they were getting a bit of popularity outside of the more metallic end of modern hardcore but was kind of shocked to see sun-baked influencers in flower crowns stage diving to their music on the YouTube stream of this year’s Coachella. Here’s the thing, it’s no surprise to me that a band from the metalcore scene started crossing over into a more mainstream metal and all around popular audience, but the fact that one as raw and straight up heavy and punishing as Knocked Loose has started to draw that audience, while still on a small label is impressive indeed. Hell, they even scared some members of the audience to the point that they complained to the network during their late night TV debut on Jimmy Kimmel not that long ago. This is music to be played very loud through very good speakers that can properly handle the sheer low end punishment of some of their riffs, and a perfect soundtrack to putting your foot through a wall or something while flailing your arms wildly around the room to the tune of this gang of corn-country misanthropes and their harshly shrieked meditations on the ugly side of life and the soul. 

I’m trying to see how rendering the notes mostly through handwriting works! Writing by hand is definitely how I prefer to work, as much as possible before going to digital. Certainly, putting these things down with a pen and lined notebook pages brings me back to all the other scribbling I’ve done over the years and decades, ffs! The zine effect feels natural here. Thanks to Dan for being such an excellent pal on this endeavor! Thanks to you for checking it out any whichways or leastways whatsoever!

Best-of-24

Snodgrass & Rad Owl were both huge for me! Snodgrass is this low-key legend, and David from Rad Owl plays with him sometimes and also, weirdly, is just one day older than me!

On the whole, the year belongs to Hot Water! Three decades in and they’re touring the world and more vital than ever! Chuck’s first solo record in forever is also worth your time!

I’ve been listening to Jesse and the TRIPLE benefit LP for half the year now! What a writer this guy is! So much positive energy from Jesse, especially in light of things that would flatten many of the rest of us!

Lucero managed to get two singles off their forthcoming Unplugged LP out before the end of the year! It’s always rad to have more from these gentlemen to look forward to!

<a href="https://horsefuneral1.bandcamp.com/album/crucifix-in-a-death-hand">Crucifix in a death hand by Horse Funeral Band</a>

Horse Funeral, AKA Chris Bose and fellow conspirators, keep adding eclectic, thought-provoking, and deeply moving sketches that have a strange, nocturnal Tom Waits weirdness and ethereality to them! Maybe Chris would feel otherwise! It’s all worth checking out!

Frankie Stubbs is, hands-down, my favorite punk lyricist of all time! His writing has been there, in my ears, for more than half of my life! And the Jesse discography project is a chance to revisit Frankie when he was in peak form, recording and touring full-time! These songs have meant more to me over the years than I can properly express!

So we recorded this one maybe six weeks ago? Maybe seven?

At the time we were all about certain acts and artists!

“Whatever’s getting you through it lately” is how Dan put it… or thereabouts!

To whit, there was a lot going on! And that’s probably how it ought to be! I mean, you could do worse… most of the time, and generally speaking!

Oh, and of course there is a playlist!

Video dispatches from parts undisclosed! #bogmonstermusic

If ever there were an hour to spend with a punk-themed podcast, we’d probably suggest this one! #bogmonstermusic

This gang of Oklahoma noise-sludge misanthropes’ sophomore effort draws influence from everything from Jesus Lizard and Big Black to Korn to Godflesh to Jawbox, while also being just so goddamn heavy in a way that a lot of bands just aren’t these days. A lot of bands try to accomplish”heaviness” with some chugged barre chords here, a blast beat or slowed down double kick part there, and one of two or three sorts of conventionally “harsh” vocal styling over top. Chat Pile crash their crappy beater car into the side of your house after one or two too many really bad days at their crappy jobs and kick in what is left of your door afterward to let you know how they feel about it all. Their vocalist Raygun sounds legit at the end of his rope whether shouting, mumbling or crooning, as the band expands their sound from Albini-inspired bass driven lurches to a wider sonic palate while staying just so fucking heavy through the album’s ten tracks. Like seriously heavy. Chat Pile’s heaviness feels like sheer anger and frustration and negativity turned into sound, but in the best way. I feel like a lot of the best heavy underground music comes from out of the way places, and this Oklahoma quartet is certainly one of the best and heaviest in their own way going today.

Latest full length from one of hip hops most exciting rapper/producers, capping off a bit of an informal thematic trilogy of albums that started with 2019’s IGOR, the story of a toxic love affair collapsing, and continuing through 2022’s Call Me If You Get Lost’s tale of an ill-advised friendship-destroying love triangle and accompanying tropicalia-soaked escapism (featuring 00’s mixtape king DJ Drama as the voice of his inner monologue of ego-assuagement). This time around Tyler is marching to the beat of his own drum (complete with military uniform-themed imagery and stomping footprints used as percussion on the album opener) removing metaphorical masks while contemplating aging and prospective parenthood while examining past and current relationships along the way. His mom even shows up to deliver some between song monologues and commentary after a few of the tracks. While the last album channeled pastel Wes Andersonian imagery and aforementioned tropicalia in its travelogues, this album feels like it draws more influence from the bouncing 00’s bops of The Neptunes and Timbaland while still sounding unmistakably Tyler. He is definitely an artist that has grown on me immensely after initial impressions of his early works but these more “mature” adult version of him and his work has blossomed into one of my favorite artists of the past few years, with this album definitely building on that. 

Maximalist hardcore owing heavy debts to Nation Of Ulysses and Guy Debord or the Swedish Rage Against The Machine? Either way this record is an iconic album of the late 90’s, and with the announcement that Refused will be playing their final shows ever in 2025 I’ve been revisiting this classic. I was actually supposed to see them live at a show that happened to be booked for about 72 hours after the band decided to call it quits for the first time during a US tour with DC’s Frodus (who still made it to the show in question and played a killer set). This album mixes hardcore, post punk, pop, jazz and electronica in an attempt to make the biggest most accessible and appealing album they could as a means of communicating the band’s political platform to as wide an audience as possible. The album borrows its title from Free Jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman, and their “party program” draws ideas from the French Situationists and Nation Of Ulysses’ youth liberation rhetoric, over some of the late 1990’s most killer and catchy hardcore riffs. This year also saw the release of “The Shape Of Punk To Come Obliterated”, a tribute album to Refused with a lineup of new and older bands covering each track including Quicksand, Touché Amore, Snapcase, Zulu, Idles and others. I was a fan of this Umea Sweden based outfit from the first time that I heard the predecessor to this album, 1995’s Songs To Fan The Flames Of Discontent, but Shape Of Punk To Come really saw the band taking things to the next legal in all aspects, so it’s been great to revisit it again after being a fan of theirs for nearly three decades and knowing they will be calling it quits for once and all in a few months time. 

I was pleasantly surprised recently to find out that a foundational alternative band for me had just released a new album. The Cure were one of those bands who were just weird enough to appeal to someone like me who was just dipping their toes into weird, but just popular enough to get occasional plays on MuchMusic and for their albums to be available to borrow from the local public library during those pre-internet, pre-volunteering with campus radio years when that was how I accessed music without having to spend money on it (being a youth on a limited budget and all). Disintegration was always the high water mark of their sound for me, all sad and lush and dark and expansive. Also “Lullaby” may have one of my favorite bass riffs of all time. I feel like there was a point where The Cure and their frontman Robert Smith were considered the epitome of Goth as a subculture , until a little later in the 90’s when folks like Marilyn Manson became more the poster children for that moody mopey subculture at least as far as non goths were concerned. I was never a goth per se but I loved The Cure from the first time I caught one of their videos during a weekend afternoon re-airing of MuchMusic’s old “alternative” showcase City Limits as a youth, and their music was a formative stepping stone for me. Disintegration is the ultimate Cure album for me, and I was glad to see that Robert and co are still at it making music today, 

So I thought I would take a minute to recommend an underground music-adjacent movie I saw recently that I really enjoyed during a time when a lot of folks like myself have been wanting for a laugh and a bit of distraction. “Heavy Trip” is a 2018 comedy film from Finland directed by Jukka Vidgren and Juuso Laatio about a small town metal band with dreams of taking the stage at a big festival in Norway and their misadventures along the way. They practice in a reindeer slaughterhouse, their singer gets violently nauseous at the thought of getting onstage, and their drummer keeps needing to be resuscitated due to various misadventures. Along the way they find a name (Impaled Rektum!) invent a subgenre (Symphonic post-apocalyptic reindeer-grinding Christ-abusing extreme war pagan Fennoscandian metal) and land their dream gig, all while finding romance, breaking a violent patient out of a mental hospital, and robbing a grave/illegally transporting a corpse across an international border along the way. If I had to compare Vidgren and Laatio’s directing to anyone, I’d say it reminds me a lot of the way Bruce MacDonald captured the lives of small town oddballs and rock and roll weirdos in his early movies like “RoadKill” and “Hard Core Logo”. This Finnish comedy is very much by fans of metal for fans of metal but Heavy Trip’s goofball charm stands on its own beyond just subcultural references. There is even a sequel from this year titled Heavier Trip that I am planning on watching as soon as I can as well. It’s even available free to watch (with ads) on YouTube so if you are looking for some laughs with a side of reindeer blood soaked blast beats you should check it out!

This where I’m going to go full hack and speak to the current listenings, above and beyond what we were on about in the podcast, which was recorded six weeks ago or something…

Lots has happened! Lotsa happenstance afoot!

Academically, I’ll allow for some overlap… but in the interests of authenticity and expediency we’re gonna go back to what I’ve most recently been sharing via (very, very) unsolicited DM’s as music recommendations to various persons and/or entities!

This will be the holiday that I got through nearly every morning listening to “She Found You” from You are Freaking Me Out on repeat! Every Samiam album has at least two or three songs which utterly turn pop music inside out and that I can listen to for hours and for actual days and weeks at a time on repeat. Plus, meeting drummer Colin for one of the TNB interviews was a personal highlight for the year! How this band isn’t as popular as Green Day is anybody’s guess! They have been together for 36 years, and their Stowaway from last year is one of the best things they’ve put out! Jason Beebout is one of the most literary punk singers out there! His lyrics are like really thoughtful, well-composed short stories rendered with conviction on the level of Frankie Stubbs or Chris Wollard! Samiam are always on my playlist, and the holiday period this year has been even moreso for a whole bunch of reasons! They are playing Pouzza fest in May, and boy would I enjoy going to see them play in that particular setting!

This is one of my favorite things from 2024, so you can be sure we spend time talking about it on our forthcoming best of ’24 episode that we recorded not too long ago!

I’ve had this on repeat since it came out! Serious, daily repeat!

One of the things: these bands have been touring around the world together all year! And they sound it!

The Hot Water songs are as good as anything they’ve released since Feel the Void in 2022! The Wollard track is exceptionally lit; Wollard is a generational singer and songwriter for me! He’s among the best ever to take it up in his lyrics, singing, and guitar playing! For people like me, it’s as good as it gets!

Quicksand’s version of Radio Free Gainsville is something I’ve spent hours with, in and of itself. I’ve named an episode of the education podcast after their original from this split, Supercollider.

Speaking of Wollard, every year at around this time… the holidays, that is… I’m pleased to rediscover the Ship Thieves’ cover of “Who Put the Gum in Santa’s Whiskers?”. Everything I like about Wollard and his playing can be found on this cover! My melodic hardcore cup runneth over! I am a serious man, and these are serious things!

Speaking of Chuck, I’m going to put this down as something I’ll speak to more fulsomely in my Best of ’24 notes! Cause that’s what this most assuredly is!

I’ve stated here, there, and everywhere that sad bastard Americana is one of my favorite areas of music… or of artistic endeavor, generally!

And while the “sad bastard” factor is dialed down a touch here, this LP is some affirmative PMA through a folk rock vernacular! It’s also a worthy continuation in the vein of Feast or Famine, Gold Country, Till Midnight, or The Flame in the Flood! Chuck is always all-in! I got to meet Chuck briefly at the meet and greet when The Revival Tour played Calgary in 2013 and he was just as nice and gracious and down to earth as you could hope for!

Three cheers for Chuck and positive acoustic punk!

Speaking of PMA:

All I can really say here is goddamn and-a-half!

Jesse has absolutely saved me this past November and December. But for Glitter in the Gutter and the Silver Patron Saints tribute LP, I might be in seriously dire emotional and mental states. It’s been a time among times!

Glitter in the Gutter has moved the needle for me! This is where I go: you’re as good as Paul Westerberg at the songwriting thing! For people like me, that’s massive!

It’s hard for me to describe to a non-lifer what it’s like, sometimes. As baffling as it may be, there are people out there who aren’t obsessed with music. I’m not being ironic. I really struggle sometimes when I try to imagine the interior life of somebody who just sort of accepts whatever music is sitting on the radio or on the top of their algorithm or whatever. Music has been formative, serious stuff for me giving meaning and context to my life since as long as I remember having consciousness. Music is life. That is a basic tenant of my existence. There is nothing remarkable about that. However when you recognize a fellow traveler, it’s like you immediately have many, many other things in common as well.

Jesse is a lifer in a way that belies his commercial imprint. Bruce Springsteen, Billie Joe from Green Day, Bleachers AKA Jack Antonoff AKA “that Taylor Swift and other pop superstars’ producer guy”, Tom Morello, Lucinda Williams, Elvis Costello, Tommy Stinson, Ruby Stinson, Brother Wayne Kramer, Little Steven Van Zandt, Alison Mosshart, Mike Watt, Frank Turner, The Wallflowers, The Hold Steady, Rancid, Counting Crows, Dinosaur Jr, Agnostic Front… and many others!… all represent for Jesse on the Silver Patron Saints LP. It is a virtual yearbook of who’s currently doing vital things in contemporary rock music!

As my best friend Jon said when I shared the Springsteen cover with him: Who is this guy?

Look up his journey of recovery from a spinal stroke in Argentina to his recent benefit shows at the Beacon Theatre in NYC. Let me tell you, as a new and maxed out college teacher living in a small place away from his kids: this is exactly the PMA I’ve needed.

Positive Mental Attitude for life.

Everything I say about the Jesus Lizard sounds like everything else I ever say about the Jesus Lizard.

They’re back. They’re ferocious. They are old and gnarly as fuck. And they haven’t lost a step.

David Yow is one of the best front men ever. His closest real comparison that I can think of would be Iggy Pop in terms of physical weirdness and sheer endurance and longevity.

I’ll tell you what: as far as recordings go, the Jesus Lizard are better than almost anybody for consistency.

I’m thrilled they’re back. For people like me, they never went away.

Long live the fucking lizard!

<a href="https://thejesuslizard.bandcamp.com/track/cost-of-living">Cost Of Living by The Jesus Lizard</a>

This film is something I’ve been looking forward to since I first caught wind of it through Harley Flanagan’s Instagram! There are few people who embody NYC Hardcore in the ways Harley does. He is synonymous with an entire genre of punk music… and to that extent you have to give credit where it is due! He tours with Cro-Mags throughout the year, and has myriad creative outlets and endeavors related to music and outside. Notably, he holds a third-degree blackbelt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and has written a memoir about his life! This long-gestating film recently opened at DOC NYC where it was the most-streamed film at the festival!

As yet, we are awaiting news of a wider release and/or streaming!

Hey there, every and anyone! Some time has passed! It has been some time! Lots going on, both hither and yon! And so in the somewhat distasteful tradition of Canadian Thanksgiving, here we are with a good smattering of what we are (uh… were as of a week ago!) listening to! Presently-ish and/or concurrently and/or contemporaneously!

We are sending this episode out to the memory of the one and only Ryan Hoben! Words fail us! Rest in Power!

We’ve got leftovers! Take a plate, yo! #bogmonstermusic

Ryan Hoben and I hadn’t really talked in years, just exchanged a couple of Facebook  messages here and there, with the last time probably around the time that he had first publicly announced he had cancer and that he would be documenting his journey with the disease through his podcast, “Surprise, You Have Cancer”. I don’t think I’m ever really properly communicated to him him what a huge impact he had on my life during those childhood and early teen years when were were still close, but let this be all the more reason to encourage you to tell the people who are imports t to you just how much they mean to you while you are able to do so and don’t be a dumbass like I have been. You see, Ryan was probably one of the first people I would call a friend when my family first moved to the North Side of Fredericton when I was 41like maybe four years old I think? We lived in the bottom half of a duplex on Gibson Street next to the train tracks and Ryan and his family lived upstairs, and we stayed friends throughout elementary and junior high school long after our families both moved out of that duplex. He was loud and wild and usually always the smartest, funniest and most creative person in the room but with no time for bullshit which led him into frequent conflict with all of the authority figures an elementary-school aged rebel would run up against in day to day life. He was friends with EVERYBODY, and was basically every kid in the neighbourhood’s social common denominator and was just as comfortable talking Dragonlance novels with nerds like me as he was running around with the elites of the Devon Junior High school social set or partying with the Neighbourhood dirtbags. His frequent conflicts with the teachers at our school led to him being transferred to another school downtown, where he discovered skateboarding, and eventually the local all ages music scene and a radio station at the university run entirely by volunteers that had a pretty killer all-punk show on Sunday nights. This was probably around the time he and I started growing apart as friends but not before he began sharing his discoveries of this whole other world of what seemsed like prettty mind blowing alternative culture to a bunch of young kids from the much less cool side of town. He was the one who encouraged me to start listening to CHSR and the check out local all ages shows, and he the one person I would credit as being my gateway to the whole punk rock scene, something that hat would have a massive impact on the rest of my life and even though we both took that whole thing in different directions, I can’t imagine what life would be like fire,e if he hadnt done that. Of course he became a teacher because he was smart as hell and loved an audience, and was always the center of any room he was in. Even if we did grow art over the years I still love him for the impact he had on my life and for being a friend when we were young and making friends wasn’t something I was very good at at all, so please please please don’t be like me and let the people you love know you love them while you can. Oh yeah, and while Ryan was living out west in the 00’s he fronted a pretty great rootsy indie rock band called Minto so I’ve included a couple of videos of theirs above. Rest In Power, brother.

I had originally been planning on including Sparkmarker on my list for another upcoming show but have ended up revisiting their music in a little more earnest this past week due to getting news of the passing of their guitarist Kim Kinakin this past week after a five year battle with cancer and kidney problems. The band started in Vancouver in 1990 and released a series of EPs in the early 90’s each named after the person responsible for the cover art (ie the Scallen 7” feature a photo  by noted Ottawa music photographer Shawn Scallen on the cover) eventually collected on the Products And Accessories CD, followed by their sole full length album 500wattburneratseven on Revelation Records’ subsidiary Crisis Records in 1997. They mixed the shouty emotive sounds of bands like Fugazi with heavier chugging but melodic post hardcore a la Quicksand, and were probably the first band that I remember seeking out solely based on a mention in a regional scene report column (in En Garde Quarterly zine). They were one of my favorite Canadian bands during that whole Ebullition-adjacent 90’s hardcore era and I was fortunate enough to meet their guitarist Kinakin a few times over the years, including him selling me a copy of the Neighbourhood Watch 7” he had in his distro for a toonie at a show by his later band Samsarasevin, so it was a major bummer to hear of his passing this past week, not long after our friend Ryan left as well. He had been sick for some time and ever the community organizer ended up spending his last days helping create helpful information resources for folks looking into medically assisted dying according to social media posts from his friends this week. So yeah, rest in power to Kim Kinakin of Sparkmarker, another good one gone and i suggest you crank up their best song (in my opinion) ”Kansas” and pour out a little of the beverage of your choosing in his memory.

One of a couple of newer hip hop artists I’ve been digging lately and wanting to highlight, and this NY duo, part of a larger collective of emcees and beatmakers called Taze Grip, are definitely the less commercial of the two. While Phiik and Lungs (who also makes a lot of their beats under the alias Lonesword) are both only in their 20’s, these two guys channel the spirit of the abstract dusty underground hip hop of the 90’s and 00’s with artists like MF Doom, Anticon, and the Def Jux records roster as closest points of comparison. I first got exposed to their music via a video of the two freestyling hypersylabic verses over a weirdly ambient drumless beat that went viral in certain circles on Twitter over the past year or so. Their songs are short but lyrically dense, with little regard to catchy hooks or choruses, just verbal gymnastics that explore all corners of the pocket over head-nodding beats. They have been making music together since the mid 2010s (when they were;still in high school) and have a pretty great album from earlier this year called Carrot Season that you can find on all of the streaming services so I would strongly advise you check it out!

Ever listen to an artist and wonder “Why are they not one of the most popular in the world?” That is what I feel about Florida-born rapper/singer Doechii. She has been kicking around for a few years new, since releasing her debut EP Oh The Places You’ll Go in 2021, which featured her killer single “Yucky Blucky Fruitcake”, and after a few more EPs and singles, signed with Top Dawg Entertainment, the label that you might be familiar with thanks to a guy named Kendrick Lamar who released the majority of his discography through them. Since that time she has had a couple of songs hit the pop charts collaborating with folks like her TDE labelmate Sza and JT formerly of The City Girls, and even popping up in a guest verse on the cursed new Katy Perry record. The thing is though that Doechii is probably one the top younger rappers going now and deserves all popular accolades she gets in my opinion. Like seriously, her new mixtape Alligator Bites Never Heal may be more a sonic sketchbook than a fully baked album, but her sketchbook is still miles more interesting and engaging than among other artists’ finished works, you know? It would not surprise me to see her really break out as one of the top stars in hop hop in the next couple of years as her lyrical skills and vocal delivery are miles ahead of the majority of her current cohort in the genre on top of her ear for a pop hook and artful choreography skills, so yeah this is a real “get in on the ground floor” situation of someone I could see being a huge artist in the future, who also has a pretty great new release to give you an introduction to their skills. 

I have been really enjoyIng the new single “Run it” by LA-based experimental hip hoppers .clipping, their first new music since their 2021 album Wriggle on Sub Pop, and marveling at how they may be one of the most extreme cases of a member of a long-running band having a side-gig vastly overshadow their main project. Clipping was started by William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes, a couple of dudes doing harsh noise power electronics remixes of popular hip hop songs in the late 00’s, eventually adding a vocalist named Daveed Diggs and creating an edgy, experimental turn on rap music mixing abrasive industrial synthesizers with smooth vocals in a very original enjoyable blend. The thing is though, with the band being from Los Angeles it should be no surprise that Daveed also did a bit of acting on the side, and in the middle of the last decade, after clipping had released a couple of albums on Sub Pop, ended up using his rapping skills to land a dual role of General Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson in the original Broadway cast of a little musical about various American founding fathers rapping their way through the Revolutionary War and its aftermath that was fucking inescapable for a while there (and in retrospect emblematic of a certain kind of pre-Trump centrist liberal cringe on par with “Pokémon Go To The Polls”), fucking Hamilton. This should not be held against Diggs or used as any kind of example of what his ongoing “real band” does in any way, as they sound more like a more abrasive take on the Soul Sonic Force more than any show tunes, and I’m hoping this new single is maybe a herald of some upcoming new full length and I’m looking forward to hearing what this long running act has coming up next.

A case of giving people their flowers while they are still around….Ian Hart, Halifax scene stalwart and internet music archivist. 

With all of the thought on recent notable passings I wanted to show some . appreciation to someone who is still around, who has not only made a ton of great music on his own over the past few decades but has also been doing his part  preserving out of print independent music from Atlantic Canada and beyond online via his blog and YouTube channels, Ian Hart. I’ve known Ian since back in the 90’s when I was a fan of his old bands The Chitz and Equation Of State, shared a jam space together for awhile in the 00’s when I first moved to Halifax  and we were even coworkers for a while in the 2010s where it was not uncommon for him to sneak up to my desk and quiz me on things like “top five favorite bands from (whatever random city)” on breaks. For years now Ian is also been preserving the music of the regional scene via his Atlantic Canada Hardcore And Punk blog site and accompanying YouTube channel with recordings of bands going back decades. Recently he has even uploaded demos by friends of the show like Fredericton’s EI (RIP Drew) and a bunch of old early 90’s era tapes by Saint John bands like Lizard, NYD and Dead Corps, and even an album by glockenspiel-wielding prog-metalers Hemlock who used to let me sleep in their practice space when I would hitchhike to do poetry readings or catch shown in SJ. In recent years Ian has started another channel dedicated to demos from outside the Maritimes, something he has collected over the years of touring in bands like Envision and Risky Business and just being a guy who travels to a lot of shows and festivals, more on the straightedge side of things but still a valuable resource for fans of “the scene”. Hell there are even old bands of mine that I didn’t have recordings of that Ian has preserved on his channels recently. This guy does the good work and I wanted to give him a shout out because of it so here’s to you, Ian, you are doing important stuff.

Being that I’m in my third province within two-and-a-half years, and back in the classroom for the first time in nearly a decade, the life has shown that there is absolutely no telling what’s on the way!

And so, in such pseudo-#deepthoughts fashion let us descend debasedly (sic) and undeterredly to these here track-toids!

Note to selves: I’m going full meta with these comments, which is always a sure sign that I started writing these weeks ago and left them abruptly for quite some time!

The best way to get something done is to get something done! You can thank me (much, much) later!

Here’s what I’ll start with: if ever there was a dude who cares about his audience, it is this guy.

You don’t go beat the boards in the UK with just an acoustic guitar for a couple hours a night absent opening bands or backing musicians, playing two sets of sad bastard music…

Unless you are legitimately a sad bastard.

And in that regard, for those of us who wallow in the sad bastard Americana realm… like, habitually, and at length… this guy has songwriting ability going out the sleeves of his denim jacket.

I sometimes wish that somehow alt country had really caught on as a genre in the 90’s and 00’s more than it did! Rock music would be better! Country music would be better!

This dude, on various songs, and specifically for me, on this album… articulates pretty directly what it’s like to grow up lower middle class or some version of that… and enjoying folk music and punk and metal and pop variously and with great ardor… so, relatability is there… the me who was twenty-five and broke and not up to much of ostensible social value… reaches out and gives the forty-six year old dad and teacher geezer a high five, somehow!

And, since we’re there, the guy writes sharp, incisive songs with top-rate delivery through awesome touring bands and session musicians.

But I digress!

Americana was a thing for me moving into the fall! I have the Apple Music algorithm to thank for even being aware of this at all!

Americana influenced punk music is an awesome genre, and I won’t hear otherwise! I am a deep and abiding fan of the Gaslight Anthem!

Anywho!

I have literally zero direct knowledge of this band! I glanced at Wikipedia a few weeks ago and remember none of it! Essentially, what I get is Oklahoma sad bastard bar rock going full Westerberg-via-Jawbreaker! I love the Westerberg-via-Jawbreaker thing anytime, anywhere!

Basically anyone who digs Hot Water Music, Leatherface, the Lawrence Arms, Avail, Samiam, or any similar or associated acts should dig the shit out of this!

I love the too smart to be dumb, but too habitually-bound to be smart genre of punk music a lot, and these guys do that and then some.

Like if Tim had been recorded for Epitaph and the Mats were from Appalachia instead of middle America. Or some goddamned thing!

This triple tribute LP has landed on me like a tonne of bricks!

I bothered everybody who I both on Instagram by sending them a screenshot of part of the track list!

Not only is every single artist on here highly fucking lit, the renditions of the songs slay in every single instance!

Like, Counting Crows doing Oh Sheena is tied with Mr. Jones and Round Here as world class pop music! With the PMA! Followed by Bruce Springsteen doing She Don’t Love Me Now in the most 60’s soul crooning style you could want!

You have Dinosaur Jr on this thing! You have Frank Turner on this thing! You have Tommy effing Stinson on this thing! Right after a killer party rendition of Death Star by the Hold Steady! That’s right: they put a direct Minneapolis connection into this record!

Rancid is on this thing! So is Agnostic Front! All the punks and all the folkies and troubadours agree that Jesse is among the best to ever do this thing! Lucinda Williams is on this thing! We are all, none of us, worthy!

The Wallflowers are one of the best low-key anthemic pop bands Gen X has! Billie Joe from Green Day is going full California pop! For fucks fucking sake!

The two tracks that I keep listening to the most incessantly are Turn Up the Mains by Alison Mosshart and Wayne Kramer and Stevie Van Zandt and Tom Morello! It is just the most rocking shit in the world! And what it means is, I have to check out Alison’s other stuff! And… Spoon do an utterly nasty, mad bastard stomp through The Way We Used to Roll.

Who even are these dudes? This whole thing smokes!

I honestly don’t know where I’d be without the Lawrence Arms!

I have bugged the shit out of their Instagram admin for the better part of a year! They actually respond!

I am truly a proponent of engaging as directly with musicians and writers who I admire as directly as I can! I’ve had to explain punk tattoos in an academic work environment fairly recently!

I may have worked Alkaline Trio, the Falcon, the Lawrence Arms, and Samiam into a lecture recently… legitimately! But potentially gratuitously!

And so, I’ll direct you to the awesome Red Scare Industries 20 year anniversary comp, cause Beex would want you to!

Here’s hoping they can share the deets on the War on Xmas 24! If such miracles could even be considered!

Hey hey hey hey, run for your life! And all the way into this here, our second episode on the mostly non-musical media!

And boy, do we bring the non-music! Pleased to be clicking at the things below, if clicking like… aligns with your purposes for being here, man!

If your ears aren’t bleeding, you probably need to turn it up! #bogmonstermusic

https://store.abramsbooks.com/products/fall-through – buy it here! 

This graphic novel is a love letter to DIY basement show scene of the 90’s and punk as a community and form of expression (even if The Sex Pistols were basically a boy band, as speculated in one aside in the story)  in the form of a fantastical tale of summer tour by a small town band, the power a great song can have, and the seven inch as perfect encapsulation of how sometimes great bands only come together long enough for a few great ideas, all killer no filler. Author/artist Nate Powell has the bona fides of having come up in the same Arkansas DIY scene as the fictional band at the centre of the story, playing in the band Soophie Nun Squad while also doing artwork for zines like his own The Schwa Sound, HeartAttaCk and others back in the 90’s before moving on to wider acclaim in the world of comics through the 00’s and 2010’s including MARCH, a three volume series of graphic novel adaptations of the memoirs of civil rights activist turned politician John Lewis released between 2012 and 2016. It’s a fairly quick and engaging read and a major recommend for fans of punk rock and comics/graphic novels. Each character looks like they could have stepped out from a crowd shot in a 30 year old Shawn Scallen live photo and the story is heartfelt and relatable even with its turns to the fantastical at times. Definitely a recommendation from me for all fans of punk rock and comics.

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/horror-vanguard/id1445594437

Horror Vanguard at Apple Podcasts

Hosted by Jon “thelitcritguy” Greenaway, Ashley Darrow and Kyle “laborkyle” Kearn – a trio of teacher/writer/general academic smart folks who all share a love of horror and the Gothic, movies good bad and otherwise, and socialist theory, but with jokes! They have a way of breaking down the themes and imagery of horror movies old and new, whether classic or craptastic in a way that is thoughtful and heartfelt with a deep love of the genre while also having tongues planted firmly in cheek during wacky riffs on Lovecraft or Derrida or stories of their love of various fungi. The HV Crypt contains not just deconstructivist analysis but also plenty of silly jokes and rambling asides on things like the stories of HP Lovecraft or the video games of auteur director Hidetaka Miyazaki while riffing on that weeks film. Their taxes can sometimes range from the incisively grounded analysis of a film’s plot line to wild speculation of imagined subtext in even the trashiest and lowest budget genre fare. I really appreciate the care and craft they put into each episode, no matter how ridiculous the topic at hand may be, and I’ve been exposed to a ton of great movies and even some awesome and interesting books like the writings of cultural critic and philosopher Mark Fisher and the recent anthology of late 20th century genre film analysis essays We Are The Mutants through the recommendations of the hosts week to week as well. Cohost Jon Greenaway’s new book of essays Capitalism : A Horror Storywould be worth your time too but if you enjoy horror movies and/or political cultural analysis (but with jokes!) you should totally delve into the HV Crypt for a listen.

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/first-seven-inch-club-aka-border-boss/id1171603348

First Seven Inch Club at Apple Podcasts

Two dudes who used to play in a band together in the 00’s that now spend their podcasting time breaking down often-forgotten slabs of vinyl of the 90’s and 00’s in a loving but often cutting and ruthlessly funny way. These dudes are lifers and definitely know their stuff when it comes to the realms of punk and hardcore, but have grown enough as people over the years to recognize and acknowledge some of the sillier and/or cringier tropes of the genre and will roast them lovingly yet mercilessly with an intimacy that only those in the know can really pull off. Every week they mine the distro dollar bins of yesteryear fr forgotten classics and sometimes best unremembered ephemera, with tongues planted firmly in cheeks while they dissect the graphic design choices of scene teens three decades ago and lament the occasional cringy lyrical choices. The pop culture historian in me loves their dedication to re-examining sometimes obscure cultural output of decades past while the cranky old guy in me can appreciate the curmudgeonly humour employed by hosts Scott and Mike over the course of their undertakings. I’ve also really been enjoying the bonus content they create for their Patreon subscribers, including a spin-off series “Equalizer Punk” that looks at punksploitation episodes of old TV shows like Quincy and CHiPS as well as things like sensationalized after school specials warning parents of the dangers of their children’s experimentations with the genre. All in all the guys create a ton of great content for those who enjoy the meeting of archival preservation and good natured jokes about niche culture. One of my favorite weekly listens for sure.

Okay so this is probably the most acclaimed video game of 2023, but seeing as it just celebrated one year since release and I have devoted something like a few hundred hours through various playthroughs of this sprawling video game based on Dungeons And Dragons’ “Forgotten Realms” campaign setting I figured it was worth including on my multimedia list. This game is huge and deep with a wealth of story hidden in all corners of its sprawling maps told out over the course of three acts, where the player (either as their own created character or one of several pre-made origin characters) gets abducted by an interdimensional alien invasion and has a psychic parasite stuck in their head, leading to a series of fantastical adventures culminating in a journey to to the titular city while tangling with ancient curses, murder cults, literal deals with the devil, and all manner of romantic misadventures with your fellow adventurers as well as a few shape-shifting hippies, smooth talking demons and amorous tentacle-faced monsters along the way. Since the game came out for consoles in late August 2023 I have started like nine or ten play throughs and have finished at least a couple of those while exploring all of the deep branching narrative options of Lariah Studios’ game. Literally tens of thousands of lines of dialogue were recorded to cover all manner of ways that the player wants to handle the situation, whether they decide to swing their swords through the situation, smooth talking their way out of danger or turning the other party into a farm animal and the game is really a wide open sandbox allowing for all manner of play styles while still faithfully sticking to D&D’s 5th Edition rules to handle the affair. I’ve probably put in nearly five hundred hours on the game since it first dropped last year and still find new weird little details and fun interactions every time I roll up a new “Tav” (the default name for player-created characters) for another adventure in the titular city. It’s also won pretty much every major “game of the year” award out there and the creators are still updating it with new content like additional end game story scenes and extra dialogue options. If you like video games and/or tabletop RPGs and haven’t experienced Baldur’s Gate 3 yet you need to totally check it out.  

In regards to what I’ve been digging in the world of the big screen these days I figured I would mention a recent film I saw and thought was very good as well as a wild short film by one of the actors from my feature pick. Jane Schoenbrun is one of the more interesting filmmakers out there on the A24-distributed end of the cinematic world these days and her first feature “Let’s All Go To The World’s Fair” was cool and creepy and one of the rare films that uses online spaces and media as the means of storytelling in a way that really works to tell its tale of a streamer who goes through *changes* while haunted by a cursed Bloody Mary-esque online challenge  so I was really looking forward to seeing her new feature. “I Saw The TV Glow” jumps between timelines as Justice Smith’s Owen is forced to re-examine the past via the surprise present day reappearance of a long-missing old friend and a shared teenage obsession with a Buffy The Vampire Slayer-inspired fantasy series called “The Pink Opaque”. It is a slow moving but visually striking exploration of identity, memory, the perils of nostalgia, and gender dysphoria. It mixes dreamlike fantasy with the real life horror of the day to day, including a veritable jump scare of sheer insensitive douchiness by The Chris Gethard Show alumnus and alternative comedy madman Conner O’Malley as Owen’s boss at the local movie theatre. This also led me to checking out O’Malley’s own cinematic exploration of identity mixing dreamlike fantasy with nightmare vibes in his short film “COREYS” (available for viewing on his YouTube channel). A stereotypical suburban dad named Corey suddenly finds his social media algorithms overtaken by videos of a man who looks exactly like him living a cartoonishly debauched life in a series of Las Vegas hotel rooms, claiming to be “the real Corey” and that he exists outside of time, leading to a confrontation and results straight out of David Cronenberg. Both of these cinematic experiences are weirdly complimentary and both worth checking out for sure.

Canada. gov ca – live at The Marquee Club in Halifax (a show I went to recently)

Maritime-born Montreal-based nostalgia merchant and travelling raconteur, mostly known for slinging Canadians-centric memes on Instagram  and has recently taken to the performing the occasional live show, including a recent appearance here in Halifax that I was able to catch at the Marquee. After playing some classics by The Rankin Family over the sound system for an extended period of time to get everyone hyped up, “The admin” regaled the audience with jokes and stories of his interactions with Anne Murray, Cape Breton chanteuse Rita Macneill’s rabble-rousing political organizing past and subsequent CSIS investigation, and a rundown of the history of fishermen’s credit unions in Nova Scotia. Part standup show, part history lecture, and part late night hangout bullshitting over beers with an old pal, the @Canada.Gov.ca live show experience was one I very much enjoyed. Apparently each live show is different with all new material tailored to the city where he is performing. I’ll admit, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from a live show by a meme-based instagram account, but the guy’s live show was totally entertaining and worth checking out if he ever graces the stage in your town. 

As mentioned during the recordings, I’ve been all over the place this summer!

My multimedia herein has been about SURVIVAL this summer, quite frankly! I’ve been living in hotels for around six weeks at this point… I’ve changed cities and jobs for the second time in 15 months…

I saw my kids for the first time almost a year!

We hit the theatres a lot! And that leads us handily into…

I saw this with my kids in Kamloops! We went and saw a bunch of other films on this list.

I’ve really developed a fixation with the minions since seeing this film.

We went to a bunch of movies, like… a bunch… and my older kid kept asking to go to Despicable Me. Frig right off with that nonsense, said Dad of the Year (DotY)… until one day I relented, and friends, I am some glad we did!

Like, at one point the younger boy had to ask me to keep it down… cause my guffaws were apparently A LOT relative to my fellow filmgoers…

I’ve used this movie as a starting point for some of my English Criticism lectures this past week! I ran a supercut of minions doing minion things of the big display screens in front of the classroom while the students were writing assignments!

Even now, as I watch this GIF below as I type this… part of me is rolling in the aisles of the theatre hysterically…

BOO-FUCKIN-NANA FOR THE WIN, AMIRIGHT??

I really dug the first Quiet Place film! And so did my kids. Krasinski & Blunt are among our generation’s most disgustingly talented actors, and so the family drama landed. And… CREATURE FEATURE!

And so, having not bothered with Part Two because who cares, my boys and I hit the Cineplex in mid-July and totally got our tickets and popcorn value out of the trip! Lupita Amondi Nyong’o is a brilliant, commanding presence in a role which could have been cheesy and/or underwhelming as fuck!

Speaking of disgustingly talented! It must be weird to be Ryan Reynolds. I mean, he’s a weird guy… but he’s just now this uh… let’s see… movie star, movie executive, writer, soccer team owner, handsome, talented dude from Vancouver (or is that Ottawa), and married to the brilliant, talented Blake Lively… Hugh Jackman is a consummate showman… The Prestige is one of Nolan’s best films, and Hugh is like, talented as a thespian… beyond physically contorting himself to the kajillionth degree for the Wolverine role…

Every bit of me cringes! I could have easily avoided this film. WGAF. But my younger kid wanted to go. And so we went. And it was fine! I enjoyed it tons at the time. The fourth-wall schtick lands for me! And 80’s and early 90’s comics, including all the various X-titles meant alot to me at the time… more than I can properly express… so… the fandom behind Reynold’s ridiculous spectacle was evident as fuck! Well-done everyone, I suppose! And especially to my kids for making me go!

I have to admit that Kamloops, BC punches above its weight when it comes to independent cinema!

That significant qualifier is, as many (some?) reading this might know… that city put me down a rocky path… that I’m still contending with in major ways both personal and professional!

This is all to say that the Kamloops Film Society is actually really really to be commended for their ongoing, passionate commitment to offering high-quality films… on the regular…at the Paramount Theatre in downtown Kamloops… which can otherwise be a sad spectacle offering clear evidence of failed public policy when it comes to basic city planning… and, more notably and concerningly… no strategy whatsoever to address the significant numbers of homeless and underhoused downtown… well above and beyond those anywhere else I’ve lived… and I’ve lived all over Canada and around the world..

ANYWAY

My kids are of an age now where basically the only public activities we can enjoy together are movies, sports events, restaurants, and stores… which is actually a lot! They’re turning into adults at an alarmingly fast rate, so I’m pleased as hell we were able share these absolute classics of 20th Century film. Had I stuck around a few more days, we could have caught Tremors (1990) featuring a way young Kevin Bacon who has aged really gosh-danged well, come to think of it!

I was looking for a way to watch Delirious! Apparently that absolutely genius concert film is currently unavailable for streaming in Canada! Boo-urns to that, I say!

As it turns out, Raw is available (or was) on Amazon Prime? Or was it YouTube for renting?

ANYWAY

This was actually the last film I watched with my boys this summer.

Eddie Murphy in the BLUE leather suit, mind you… my kids learned way more about Bill Cosby than I ever expected to share! And… because the Internet is a wretched, awful place… they understood the Michael Jackson jokes without needing an explanation from me!

Honestly, if Eddie were to bust out some leather and do a standup FOR TIMES SUCH AS THESE!, I’d be totally there for it. Has he done more standup films besides Raw and Delirious? I’m one Google search away from learning this totally non-essential info.

The man is a legend for Raw and Delirious alone. I strongly recommend watching this with the teenagers in your life, cause that is really the intended audience!

Eddie Murphy and 80’s standup forever, generally!

This is my favorite book of all time… hands down! I’m never not reading this, since discovering it around early 2023. It’s philosophy as a way of life… by one of the most powerful humans ever, in the history of humans!

The fact that Marcus was so intensely focused on being a better person… to the point that when I’m walking past the weed store… or considering whether to stay out… or thinking of where I want to end up in five years… or nearly any personal situation… of the kind of advice I’d want to give my kids in just about any situation…

Look, I want to lead a rich, joyful life during my few microseconds on planet earth. But if the shit’s not mindful of others, thoughtful, purposeful, and kind… then what kind of life is that, exactly?

I think everybody should read this. I’m not religious, but if I were, it would be around this… the cult of Marcus!

Stoic philosophers and self-restraint and mindful, purposeful living for the win!

Jim is such a great guy.

I mean it! If I wanted a blueprint of how an ideal writing career would play out… always busy, always with a deadline, lots of travel to awesome locations… based in gorgeous Northern California… and in touch with some of the absolute best, coolest, most impactful musicians and associated creatives and outlaws… listen, he’s a gentleman!

Jim has written three of the best works of punk scholarship out there… his history of SST Records was my first of his, and you should definitely check that out!

Make it Stop is rewarding from a story standpoint, and a writing standpoint… like, you dig the way Jim puts together words… the prose is just stellar… and such stellarship is the mark of a professional… paying attention to the story at the sentence and word and beat and image level…

As Jim mentioned in our interview earlier this summer, his purpose is to entertain! I would seriously recommend checking that convo! I am stoked for anything Jim is working on… including journalism and his awesome Substack newsletter! I am looking at ways of potentially getting Make it Stop on my English course syllabus somehow! Stay tuned for the particulars!

I just caught wind of this on FB last week!

I fucking love Leatherface so much, let’s be clear about that! I can’t think of a band, from a songwriting standpoint, that has meant more to me over the years… with the possible exception of the Replacements / Paul Westerberg… except the Mats are commercial juggernauts, pathetic though that is, compared to the rocket from Sunderland…

When I was twenty-five, I dreamed about writing this book! About somehow working myself into a position with writing where such a thing would be possible… hopping on a plane and somehow being able to talk to Frankie, Dickie (RIP), and all the myriad players, promoters, writers, roadies, carnies, punters, and schemers in their orbit.

As a 46 year-old English teacher and as somebody who still listens to Leatherface, Jesse, Pope, and every Stubbs-associated recording or act I can track down… this is radness of the highest fucking order!

I’m also really glad this is coming out on Toronto-based ECW press… given the Boat’s long association with Canada, including the absolutely brilliant Medictation record with Montreal heroes the Sainte Catherines!

I’m just so glad that this exists! And that it’s coming out this fall!

This is me being somewhat of a sneaky fucker, getting music into the ostensibly non-music episode!

And so, sneaky fucker-like, here are a few (bunch) that I’m really, really glad to have in physical media… as opposed to the whole iTunes thing… which is like, a different bag entirely, man!

Where once there were slabs of vinyl… and YET MAY BE AGAIN… until such time, and in due persistence… the compact disc, the first digital format will serve until the humble (meagre!)(meek!) resources of yer local English ‘structor may begin what will be, perchance, the final or at least most egregious foray into vinyl ownership! Possibly after the children are properly launched… with jobs and so forth!

ANYWAY

And so on! What fun!

I have a fetish about things I can touch… I mean, uh…

ANYWHO

When I came here it was out of necessity. As in, I needed a job, my dudes!

You can check the various episodes of this podcast and the other from the May, June and July times! To say nothing of uh… most of 2022 and 2023…

This city has saved my pathetic, middle-aged ass!

Dynamic, international, culturally and academically vibrant… HIGHLY AFFORDABLE AND LIVEABLE… I’m not saying I’m surprised… I’m saying… my experience here is confounding all the Fort Mac stereotypes I’ve encountered over the decades… the people I chat with here all say that there was the “before” and “after” boom times… and it’s been the “after” times for awhile… which for my purposes is just fine!

Finally, I’m really digging being an English teacher again for the first time in nearly ten years! Oh Captain, my captain and so forth!

Unless your name is Drake, we hope you’re having a great summer!

This episode is coming at you on the Canadian August civic holiday… the middle of the summer for all intents and purposes!

And so here’s where we were circa a week and half ago… our summer jams! Click below… and don’t sleep on the YT playlist, neither!

We’re scorching this audio, fr #bogmonstermusic

Brooklyn singer/rapper Kamauu had one of my absolute favorite songs of three years ago in “Mango”, an alt-R&B slow jam which I can only describe as one of the most emotionally mature breakup songs I’ve ever heard. I was excited to see him switch more to more of a grooving hip hop approach in this collaboration with fellow rapper Siimbiie Lakew and cellist Trapcellist. This is some vegan food co-op polycule venn diagram overlap kind of music but in a good way? The way Kamauu weaves between singing and rapping really reminds me of a more patchouli-drenched East Coast version of Anderson Paak. Strings and tablas interweave while the artist assures us he is properly hydrated in the opening verse just so you know what we’re getting into but it’s also perfect music for smoking on hot hazy summer days so onto my list it goes. 

A fist-pumping experiment in crossing of genres streams, with North London emcee Cliffe rapping over a bass driven post-punk/indie rock track. A relatively new artist, the Nigerian-born rapper grew up with one sibling active in the UK grime scene and one who loved pop punk and emo and after years of absorbing these disparate familial influences started experimenting with a cross pollination of both for a sound he jokingly refers to as “grindie” (for grime+Indie) in the interview that accompanies his Colors Studio (popular Germany-based youtube channel focusing on hip hop and R&B music) recording of this single that mixes 00’s danceable indie rhythms, driving post-punk bass riffs and half-rapped half sung vocals. He’s a newer artist with just a few songs available widely via streaming but one I look forward to hearing more from in the future. 

<a href="https://cadenaworld.bandcamp.com/track/brat-nigga-summer">brat nigga summer by Cadena</a>

CADENA is the hip hop side project of show favorites ZULU’s guitarist/vocalist Destiny Yusuf, with a couple of pretty solid EP’s (also available on his bandcamp) under his belt over the past five years or so. Charli XCX’s BRAT album has been one of the biggest releases of the summer crossing sunny pop with chemically-fuelled club beats (not to mention its adoption as a vibe by a presidential candidate since I first started these notes so why not drop a killer freestyle over XCX’s “360”? This song was originally just available via his Instagram, but has now been put up on Bandcamp for our enjoyment. 

This is me trying to catch up on a blind spot regarding Mach-Hommy’s solo work after hearing guest verses by the Haitian-American rapper with the everpresent bandanna covering his face on a few Griselda-related artists songs. It’s got a dusty Madlib-esque beat by Conductor Williams and a chorus borrowed from a French folk song and killer rhymes and is a must-listen for any fans of classic grimy NY hip hop, not unlike his fellow Griselda-mates like Westside Gunn and Benny The Butcher. Hommy really is one of the most skilled rappers in the game and I am glad that I am clearing out that previous blind spot regarding his solo work now (especially this year’s “#Richaxxhaitien” album that this track is from. A little bit of classic style boom bap for this list of songs for the summer.

Well, I wrecked my YouTube algorithm again looking into music scenes from other countries again. This time I blame Megan Thee Stallion, or at least the guest emcee on her viral hit “Mamushi”, featuring Japanese rapper Yuki Chiba. I knew the genre was popular Japan but have been pretty unfamiliar with any artists of the genre from that country other than DJ Krush back in the 90’s. Team Tomodachi is Chiba’s most recent hit, and you can tell how popular it is by the sheer number of remixes/freestyle videos featuring seemingly every hip hip artist in Japan jumping on the instrumental all over the internet (I’m partial to the “Dirty Kansai” and “GALS” remixes personally). This total earworm has sent me down a Japanese hip hop rabbit hole lately that I’m sure will creep into a future show but had to find its way onto this list as well. 

A love letter to 90’s “alternative rap” and early 00’s video game/snotty Sum 41 skate punk aesthetics, I have been been loving these guys two albums recently and this song featuring Danny Brown captures their whole vibe perfectly, like an alternate reality Beastie Boys/Cypress Hill collaboration between Valence and Brae’s shouts enthusiastic delivery and Brown’s high pitched nasal rhymes. Their whole deal is very much a conscious pastiche, but a loving one with great care taken in presenting it and goddamned if they’re not really good at what they do. A little bit of “Check Your Head”, a little bit Cypress Hill or Funkdoobiest, and a truckload of Jolt Cola’s worth of energy and charisma equals Joey Valence and Brae and I’ve been loving every second of their music. 

Montreal street punks recently on tour with show favorites Home Front whose name translates to “reinforced concrete”, newly signed to the great La Vida Es Un Mus Discos after a couple of EPs released on smaller labels. As Operation Ivy once said “there’s nothing wrong with another unity song” and these scrappy québécois oí boys have brought us one en Francais with a catchy whoa-oh singalong chorus. Have I mentioned that I do love a whoa-oh singalong chorus? They are definitely of the “wearing boots and braces to the function”  kind of guys and for sure will be bringing the catchy riffs and passionate choruses with them (and probably lots of beer as well, unless they just drink all of yours instead. Tabernak c’est good punk rock hostie!

You do not know what a boon to my mental health this was. I have been a fan of Weird Al Yankovic since childhood, and this first recording from old Weird in just about a decade may on the surface just seem like another one of his trademark polka medleys of popular hits of the day, but on a spiritual level represents a four minute dose of pure joy in audio form. Billie Eillish, Miley Cyrus, Adele, Ed Sheeran, Olivia Rodrigo, Ariana Grande, WAP (yes, the Cardi B/Megan The Stallion song) and even Taylor Swift get the polka treatment, with some well placed vaudeville-esque sound-effect work taking the place of some of the less family-friendly lyrics and just nothing but happiness and love maaaaaannn. I dunno, it’s been a bit of an eventful summer that can be a bit hard on the head and sometimes something like a new Weird Al song can really hit the spot st times like that, you know?

What do I even need to say about this song? You’ve probably already heard it recently *somewhere* within the last couple of days and it’s been hovering around the top of the charts for like the whole summer. The final killing blow (for now?) of his series of systematic and thorough complete verbal assassinations of another artists’, he’ll another human’s character I think I’ve heard on record? Plus it’s probably the most straight up catchy thing Lamar has ever released. It’s been discussed to death already I know but there is no way any list like this could NOT have Not Like Us on there, you know? Plus having the legendary South Central community organizer Tommy The Clown and his dance students in the video was pretty awesome too. Also worth seeking out is the live video of Kendrick’s recent “The Pop Out” live show where he played the song through at least six times or more, never losing it’s impact once. 

Until the green wave of BRAT summer washed over the pop culture landscape it looked like this Missouri-based synth popper’s campy angsty 2022 LP Diary Of Midwest Princess was going to creep up on top of the ultra-competitive “pop girly”mountain after years of toil on the sidelines, including backing up her long time friend and collaborator Olivia Rodrigo. This is one I’ve absorbed mainly via my partner who is a huge fan of hers and has been playing “…Princess” on repeat for most of this year but ear worms will ear worm and I’ve found myself humming along as well, even though a middle-aged dude like myself is most likely furthest thing possible from her target demo, but between the catchy songs and her distinct visual presentation that draws heavily from the more clownish end of drag aesthetics mixed with trashy John Waters camp it’s hard to not take notice so on the summer jam list it goes. Also, I can’t not mention that my original introduction to the music is Chappell Roan was via English Teacher turned professional  wrestler “The Anxious Millennial Cowboy” Hangman Adam Page and his public Spotify playlists during the past few years. 

It’s the dogged dog days!

It’s the days I’m back in Western Canada, sniffing the air for smoke… contemptuous of Drake… getting ready to put down new personal and professional roots again… ready to go another six or eight weeks without seeing my kids…

Rejuvenating summery-like while there’s still time!

These singles have been living in my brain. I wake up humming along with Samiam, and contemptuous of Drake. It’s that kind of summer. It’s a bonfire of the schadenfreude.

Repeat after me: THEY NOT LIKE US, THEY NOT LIKE US!

Now pass the 0% Heineken…

This summer I’ve lost all perspective.

When the Apple Wrap comes out in November or thereabouts, I’m going to see analytics to the effect of MULTIPLE DAYS LEADING INTO WEEKS listening to nothing but Not Like Us.

It’s the catchiest shit in the world. That bass! Those strings!

Everything I dig about Kendrick… the writing… the flawless technical delivery… the personal history… the spiritual journalism… the swagger… the blazing intellect… humor jumping from every bar… educational as a motherfucker…

I’m a guy whose on his third hotel room and second city of walking around yelling:

FUCK EM ALL AND THEY MAMA

BEAT YO ASS AND HIDE THE BIBLE IF GOD WATCHIN

CERTIFIED LOVER BOY? CERTIFIED PEDOPHILE

YOU BETTER NOT EVER GO TO CELL BLOCK ONE

THEY NOT LIKE US, THEY NOT LIKE US

I’ve listened to this track 1000% more than I’ve listened to any other rap track ever. On the other hand I’ve yet to intentionally listen to a track by the 69 God. I say intentionally because there’s no escaping the Degrassi Cornball from Toronna. I probably watched the visual he did with Future, Khalid, and Bieber for the freak show value two or three times. Times have changed.

ANYWAY

LONG LIVE KENDRICK. HE DESERVES ALL THE AWARDS AND ACCOLADES THIS YEAR.

This time three months ago, I was still living in Saint John, New Brunswick, doing e-learning for a security company, and thinking that’s how it was going to go for the foreseeable while.

Subsequently, I was laid off… turned forty-six… recorded around a dozen interviews for this podcast and the education show… sold all my records… lost or replaced almost all possessions I owned whatsoever… got a new job… flew out to BC… visited my kids… and moved to Fort McMurray, Alberta.

I’ve been grabbing singles as a life preserver, basically!

I enjoyed… and continue to enjoy… Samiam’s excellent record Stowaway from last year!

People may recall that I spoke with Colin, their drummer, a couple of months back… and it remains one of my favorite chats of the series so far! I nearly went to Vancouver to see them play a few days ago… but elected to land in Fort Mac early… out of some notion of professional and parental and financial responsibility, somehow…

I’ve listened to this single on repeat for days… again, the Apple Rewind will tell the tale… much like their Stowaway single “Crystallized” was the song I listened to more than any other for 2023… if everybody listened to Samiam as much as I do… I think the world would legitimately be an excellent place!

In a parallel timeline in the Bog Monster Musical Multiverse (BMMM), their track 80 West from Trips is blazing through the Billboard Hot 100 and every other goddamned thing!

A post shared by Samiam (@samiam.band)

I’ve had Jon’s brilliant new LP on repeat since I landed in Western Canada around three weeks ago… produced by Bill Stevenson and recorded at Blasting Room, Bill also plays drums on this record… which is part of why the whole thing slaps so hard!

Jon is one of these dudes who’s been around forever! His Instagram says his dates this year are his twenty-fifth anniversary shows! He’s one of these dudes who has been flying somewhat lower on the radar than many of his contemporaries… I dug into this album at the recommendation of David from Rad Owl during our conversation for this show a month or two ago!

I’m walking up and down the one main street in this oil sands town… I’ve wandered among the dust and the human despair of downtown Kamloops, BC… I’ve watched the gorgeous women playing beach volleyball on the paths of Kelowna…

Somehow my life and my family’s lives are inextricably bound to this wild region of big skies, pickup trucks, and people with ideas that couldn’t belong anywhere else!

I’m running back West whether I want to or not… to anyone who said I’m not that bright… they were right!

There’s nothing wrong with your first rodeo! You’ll do great! Or you won’t!

For my McMoney, this is one of the best punk releases of the year!

When I started following Rad Owl on Instagram, it was on the basis of some cool images on their account… or maybe I tagged the Replacements or the Descendents and they followed me first…

Whatever the origin story, my interview with drummer David was another highlight for the podcast in a spring and summer full of them!

David is an incredibly thoughtful, intelligent guy… FOR A DRUMMER…

*Drum roll…

But, real talk, our conversation the other month was wide-ranging and clocked in at something like an hour-and-a-half… which is basically a double episode of sorts! And it could have been longer!

Every song on their new LP Rage Gracefully is blasted from the heaviest pop punk you could want… following Propagandhi, the Descendents, Samiam… along with Twin cities heroes The Replacements and Hüsker Dü… along with all the rad terrain thereabouts… they also lean into heavy metal and thrash… particularly Iron Maiden… in terms of leaning on the groove… with Motörhead… and Thin Lizzy… and Sabbath… and all that other fun, scuzzy 70’s and 80’s hard rock never far from reach…

At one point in our convo, David mentioned that everybody in Rad Owl contributes their talents and resources to the band, above and beyond musically… these guys are pros… they’ve been around… they’re lifers in this music… and it comes through in the songs, performance, and how they’re putting the record out!

Growl is just a great, fun barebones punk jam with serious metal and hard rock swagger. In times such as these, these tumultuous-as-fuck 2024 summer times… it’s exactly what the bartender ordered!

<a href="https://radowl.bandcamp.com/album/rage-gracefully">Rage Gracefully by Rad Owl</a>

Another track from my sojourn through Kamloops, BC!

After an utterly disastrous beginning to a personal trip there…

Let’s just say… in this city my career hit a half-decade of turbulence… my marriage reached the end of its track… I was unemployed for 16 months…

And besides the personal aspects… Kamloops, like no other city I’ve experienced… seems utterly powerless to do anything about significant numbers of homeless throughout downtown… many in acute drug and mental health crises…

It’s among the HOTTEST cities in Canada… and every summer I’m there… you wait anxiously for wildfire smoke, or the lack thereof…

It’s dusty… it’s dry… it almost never rains… there is some absolutely unique and breathtaking nature… and Indigenous and First Nations histories and culture… existing in parallel to an utterly stagnant downtown and North Shore…

And so, to keep my spirits up, I blasted the Op Ivy… give me some enlightened formative ska kicks… give me a band from the late eighties that could’ve been anybody’s band…

This LP lands for me just as hard as it did when I heard it for the first time at age eighteen! And for my McMoney it has one of the best saxophone parts in the whole of punk music!

Positive fucking vibes to the rescue, basically!

The Jesus Lizard... have been back for awhile now, reuniting periodically… but with Alexis Feels Sick and Hide and Seek as singles… they’ve released their first new music in more than twenty-five years… in advance of a new record “Rack” coming out in the fall… and they haven’t lost a (weird, shambling) step!

Ultrabomb… is an international punk supergroup, featuring Greg Norton (Husker Du), Finny McConnell (The Mahones) and Jamie Oliver (UK Subs). Their latest album Dying to Smile is out now! It sounds like all the good 80’s punk and hardcore… which is appropriate, giving the gentlemen’s histories and lineage!

The Hard Quartet… is a brand new band featuring Stephen Malkmus! Pavement are so rad that I will listen to this and enjoy the hell out of it pretty much no matter what!

Northcote… I feel slightly weird and bad about Northcote! Matt Goud is a terrific singer and songwriter! He’s a millennial… born in 1985, as per Wikipedia. His record Hope is Made of Steel is one of my favorite Canadian post-hardcore things ever… I’ve written about him and talked about him variously on this show… I tried reaching out to him about interviewing for our podcast twice… the first time he ignored me… the next time, a year later, he initially seemed positive… and then he blocked me! He’s sensitive I guess! Matt… younger man… I’m sorry? No hard feelings, pal! Anyway, Hope is Made of Steel is terrific, and I’ve been listening to it a bunch here in Fort Mac!

Chuck Ragan is touring South America with Hot Water Music behind their excellent new LP Vows… I’ve been listening to his 2009 solo LP Gold Country on repeat here in Fort Mac… particularly when out in the massive nature all around here! All of Chuck’s solo and folk and acoustic music is highly rad… and that’s good enough for rock n’ roll!

Howdy, fellow aficionados!

On this episode of the TNB, we’re on about family-oriented acts…

As in, family members in the same band! What could possibly go wrong?

Please bowl over your siblings to get to these here media controls!

You will also, of course, want to check the YT playlist to go with this episode!

AKA… audio footage found in a blood-spattered barn! #bogmonstermusic

A seminal western Canadian punk band who embraced the darker side of the sonic palate during their 25 or so year run, John (drums) and Rob (bass) mixed the Residents with Joy Division, jazz experimentation with thrash bombast alongside a variety of collaborators (and an occasional hockey-themed side endeavour). I feel Ike there is a time when young folks are first getting into “alternative” types of music where they will initially pick a bigger band from the past as an anchor point and kind of build their framework of taste from there, like “old school” punk forebears as astrological sign or Sex And The City character in some kind of alt-rock training wheels personality test or something, and Nomeansno were that band for me, I played bass (poorly) and love that their songs were arranged around Rob’s gnarling bass riffs rather than the power chord guitar focus of so many other bands of their era. They could still do power chords just fine and better than a lot of people, as evidenced by their Slap-Shot (the movie not the band) inspired side alter egos The Hanson Brothers. There was always something just ugly and nasty in the best way to their music, whether percussive polyrhythmic freak outs or haunting bass driven dirges, literally nobody did it quite like Nomeansno. I am so grateful that I was able to see them in all of their glory, including the Hanson Brothers drummer playing along with Jon for the main part of their set and a fulll Hansons set as an encore, as well as seeing a mesmerizing Rob Wright solo performance a few years later, and will always treasure their music, as nasty and misanthropic as it can be sometimes. I don’t need to sell you on Nomeansno, you already know you love them so you should just go check out one of their albums again as soon as you get the chance, you know?

Stalwarts of first the Memphis punk scene and later Portland Oregon, brother Todd and Paul Burdette had played in a variety of bands separately before starting His Hero in the mid 1990s. This band was seriously one of my absolute favorite bands during their brief three album run. Like, I seriously wore one of their shirts until it rotted off my body during my early 20’s extreme dirtbag era. Of course when I bought their debut “Thirteen Counts Of Arson” I didn’t realize it was a 45 RPM record and felt a little intimidated by what seemed almost too gutturally heavy until I put it on the right speed and then was blown away by their mix of anger, melody, and sheer heaviness anchored by Todd’s impassioned growls and ripping guitar riffs over Paul’s thunderous drums. After a couple of years of HHIG the brothers also started side project Deathreat (not to be confused with the similarly named Death Threat, a side project from some of the Hatebreed folks active around the same time) where Paul got to sing while his brother took over drumming duties. When His Hero called it quits following the departure of bassist Carl Auge in 1999, the remaining three members of the band (including both Burdette brothers and guitarist Yannick Lorrain whose praises I have sung on the show previously) reformed as Tragedy, blending a little classic 80’s hardcore-style seasoning into the mix that birthed the unfortunate genre descriptor of “Stadium Crust” to their sound, due to the big epic chords and dramatic dynamics of their songs especially in comparison with the three chord protoceratops bombast of so many of their compatriots. What can I say, HHIG were one of my absolute favorite bands for a good part of my early life so of course the brothers at the centre of it all had to be included on my list.

Siblings Alison and Katie Crutchfield started out in Alabama pop punkers PS Eliot in the late 00’s/early 2010s before becoming disillusioned with that end of the scene and the crappy macho attitudes and general bad vibes they ran into during that band’s run. Katie released her first album under the Waxahatchee moniker, American Weekend was released in 2012. The same year, Katie’s sister Allison and her Philly-based pop punk/alt-rock unit Swearin’ also released their self-titled debut. Waxahatchee have risen from folk-punk side project to one of the biggest artists in that realm where indie rock meets rootsy Americana over the course of the half-dozen or so full lengths between American Weekend, and her latest release, 2024’s Tiger’s Blood. Like “late night talk show musical guest” level big. Swearin’ had a few more stumbles along the way while still among some great music. They released their sophomore album Surfin Strange in 2013, and then after the next year took a couple of years off while sorting out some interpersonal stuff between band mates, reforming in 2017 and releasing their third album Fall Into The Sun in 2018.

I was even lucky enough to see Swearn twice over the years, once in the back of a weird vintage curio shop and once at Toronto’s famed Horsehoe Tavern. While Alison’s Swearin sound might hew a little closer to the pop punk end of things compared to Katie’s Waxahatchee work, both siblings have stayed close and even appeared on each other’s projects over the years and both write some pretty great songs in their respective styles so I had to include them on my list.

Not originally a family act, The Breeders started out as a supergroup made up of The Pixies’ Kim Deal, Belly’s Tanya Donnelly and Slint’s Britt Walford, by their second album the true core of Kim and identical twin sister Kelly Deal came together in time for their breakout Last Splash LP. “Cannonball” was one of the earliest songs I ever tried learning my ear on bass thanks to that distinctive opening riff that just crawls into your ear and just won’t leave. The band’s runaway success led to a hiatus in 1994 while both Deal sister sought treatment for substance issues but the band got back together towards the turn of the millennium with a new lineup and released the follow up to Last Splash in 2002, Title TK. they released one more albumin 2008 under that incarnation and then reunited with the lineup of the band circa Last Splash for a 20th anniversary tour celebrating that album, which is the version of the band that still plays around currently. While they only released a couple of albums initially, and technically with two very different versions of the band between their first and second albums, but for just a minute, The Breeders felt like one of the biggest bands going in that 90’s alt rock scene. Hell, even Kurt Cobain was a fan. That’s why I thought it was pretty cool to see recently that the chart-topping young pop singer Olivia Rodrigo personally asked the band to open for her at Madison Square Garden this year as they were apparently one of her favorite bands growing up. For their sheer impact over the course of just a couple of records I figured I’d have to mention them (oh yeah and there is Kim’s whole thing with that other band of hers you might have heard of as well, but we can save them for another show.

These are a couple of younger Southern California dudes who I feel like needed a mention due to their influence together and individually on the modern hardcore scene. Colin and Taylor Young first really made an impact on the scene in their heavy hardcore-adjacent metal band Twitching Tongues whose first album Sleep Therapy came out in 2012. There are a certain kind of dude that you will find in the HC scenes who is not happy unless they have a million different side projects on the go at once, and the brothers Young are definitely of that ilk. They moved on to start Gods Hate afterward on more of a straight up “break your nose in the pit” sort of hardcore end of things, who I’ve talked about on the show before due to their vocalist’s other career as a professional wrestler. After GH made a huge splash at hardcore fests around North America, the brothers started their more death metal oriented Deadfuckingbody project to work on the more technical end of their riffage, not to mention Twitching Tongues reuniting over the past couple of years as well, and their many individual music-related endeavours. HTaylor has made his name as an esteemed producer for records by artists ranging from MSPaint to Xibalba, and Colin has not only composed multiple entrance themes for pro wrestlers on the AEW roster, he also co hosts the popular Hardlore and tends to just kind of pop up everywhere these days. These guys seem like some ambitious and talented young dudes who alsways have a ton of projects going on so I figured they definitely deserved a mention.

Let me thank Dan again, as I did in this space last time, for choosing a topic that is pretty easy to populate… in fact, trying to limit this to six or seven artists was somewhat of a challenge… like actually REALLY a challenge…

It turns out family and rock music goes together like Texas and cannibalism…I mean like generational poverty and class exploitation… I mean, uh…

You think your people are better than mine? Why don’t you come over here and say that!

*Sir, this is a Wendy’s*

ANYWAY…

As mentioned during the recording, I really dig the National! Who are uh… two sets of brothers, one of them being twins… and then Matt, the singer… which for siblingdom gets even weirder!

Boxer, High Violet, and Trouble Will Find Me are all, for me, perfect albums! Not one skippable song in the lot! You can also make a strong case for Alligator as having some of the smartest, darkest, most awkward sad bastard pop songs of the mid-00’s!

Anybody who loves indie rock and Spın̈al Tap… which should be all of you!… will enjoy the Mistaken For Strangers film about the National… by Matt Berninger’s somewhat… uh… Lebowski-esque filmmaker brother… or rather his attempt to make a documentary about the National…

To paraphrase Wayne’s World… you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll hurl!

I’m including the ‘Mats here simply because without the Brothers Stinson we have no indie or alternative music as we know it… the entire trajectory of popular music becomes questionable… unmoored from its tether…

The word is, and by “word” I mean “unsourced commentary on rock websites from some years back”, Kurt C named the second Nirvana LP after one of the tracks on Pleased to Meet Me… and to go deeper into the ‘Mats lore than anyone wanted… as per Westerberg, the song in question is a response to his feelings about Bob Stinson… fired for many, many things in a band used to going far beyond driven…

What we’ve learned from Bob Mehr’s brilliant, no-stone-left-unturned Trouble Boys biography is that Bob suffered terrifically from domestic abuse during highly formative childhood years… and that he and his younger stepbrother Tommy went on to have a permanent and profound impact on popular music of the late 20th Century is nothing short of a goddamned miracle.

It gives me great pleasure to finally have the opportunity to properly praise the brothers Reid!

Listen, you want noise, drugs, terrible hair, and that utterly dire, particularly Scottish sense of humor and irony paired with deep fatalism… which characteristics tend to run deeply in Maritime Canada, as far as it goes!… you cannae dae better, ken?

I know that Psychocandy is an LP that turned the world upside down… but for me, it’s really Darklands and Stoned and Dethroned that blow the doors down… and Automatic is pretty off the hook… and probably there’s a bunch more in their later catalogue that is worth checking out… Munki, in particular…

I think I got their city in Scotland wrong. As my Scottish forbearers may, somehow, be sad in the Scottish afterlife… TJ&MC hail from Glasgow… you know… like of “Glasgow smile” fame?

Don’t even get me started on Irvine Welsh. Or haggis. Or kilts. Or Robbie Burns! Just don’t!

<a href="https://lastwolfinthewoods.bandcamp.com/album/raised-on-losing-ground">Raised on Losing Ground by Last Wolf in the Woods</a>

I didn’t mention this on the show for lack of time, but boy oh boy is this a departure… of sorts! For Ben “Lucero” Nichols! This synth band is a collaboration with his daughter Joslyn Milburn! And I’m here to tell you that songwriting and vocal performance must be in the home… cause this seems way accomplished for a singer of her years!

This came out with low fanfare and a Bandcamp page last year, and what’s caught my attention listening to it for the first time since then… is how much it sounds entirely like its own thing… when Ben sings, it’s one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary rock music… but because the instrumentation is so utterly different than the punk Americana that Lucero has made their own over the past twenty-plus years… it really defies separating the parts in your mind when you listen…

Furthermore, as per the Bandcamp… it’s the soundtrack to a forthcoming graphic novel! Which explains the wide expanses of… synths… many bars without lyrics or singing… heavy on atmosphere cause synthwave, but also in keeping with an aural experience to be complemented with a narrative and a visual!

Ben’s brother is the immensely talented Jeff Nichols… whose film “Bikeriders” has opened in theaters across North America lately… that’s to say Joslyn’s uncle… said motion picture being named after Jeff’s brother Ben’s band Lucero’s song… it’s downright cinematic, right?

You have families of doctors… lawyers… cobblers… carpenters… and artists! It’s an excellent thing to hear!

<a href="https://missingnbhardcore.bandcamp.com/album/last-man-standing">last man standing by MISSING</a>

Really, we need to do another episode, at least one more, about family acts!

As mentioned in the podcast, I have deep love and respect for members of Fredericton skatepunk stalwarts Missing featuring brothers Jon and Matt Bowie! Missing were legit in all kinds of ways beyond the musical… including in the Deleted Scene website (RIP), show promotion, and in many other projects and in many other ways generally… musical and otherwise!

<a href="https://missingnbhardcore.bandcamp.com/album/tough-crowd">Tough Crowd by MISSING</a>

If you’re talking family acts in Canada, you have to include the Timmins siblings… the three or four of them who have, for the most part been most of the lineup for many these long decades since the late 80’s when they started out in the family garage in Toronto! That’s about as real as it gets for my era and my milieu… late Gen X and pre-internet teen years for the win! Furthermore, while I can’t speak to any of their other albums meaningfully… I can definitely say that Trinity Sessions is one of the most Canadian folk rock things ever… it holds a special place… it’s nighttime listening, 100%!

If, somehow, you missed the documentary A Band Called Death, from about 10 or 12 years back, do yourself a favor and give it a stream! It tells the story of one of the heaviest, early punk bands… Death… from Detroit… managed to record an absolutely killer EP… and then live on in dignified, working class low-key lives… until in the early 00’s when the recordings resurfaced through family connections (?) and thence resulting said documentary and, including presently, playing live and doing some limited touring. …for the Whole World to See is an essential EP for fans of this kind of (rad) music!

Finally, I can’t let these notes go by without shouting out the Screaming Trees… the shoulda-been’s of Seattle grunge… as per Mark Lanegan’s deathly funny memoir Sing Backwards and Weep, recording sessions and live performances could erupt in major fisticuffs… and wrestling… between brothers Van and Gary Lee Conner… thunderously, as these dudes were pretty ginormous! It was largely due to this tension between everyone in the band, as per Lanegan, that they got as far as they did, touring with the likes of Alice and Chains, Neil Young, Oasis, and many others. Now Lanegan is gone, and so is guitarist Van, both within the past two or three years, and both relatively early in middle age.

Weirdly, or not!, this puts me in the mind of something to the effect of take care of the people around you… and reach out to them more than you already do…

I’m gonna get weepy if this keeps up!

People far and wide, you have to know that with this interview we have utterly exceeded any expectations or hopes I’ve previously held for this podcast!

Colin Brooks is one of the best drummers in punk music! He plays for Samiam, including on last year’s brilliant LP Stowaway, along with The Big Cats (Little Rock, AR), and countless musicians and bands and acts… punk and otherwise… spanning multiple decades! He also plays guitar, sings, and releases music as TheNewSame!

Do yourselves a favor and check the convo!

East Coast punks forever!! #bogmonstermusic

<a href="https://colinbrooks.bandcamp.com/album/opposition">Opposition by TheNewSame</a>

It’s hard to express how stoked I was around a week ago when Colin replied kindly and quickly to my completely unsolicited Instagram DM!

I’m used to artists blocking or limiting their DM’s to people who… are actually friends! Or people in the “music industry”!

My feeling with this show is… punk in approach, professional/academic in execution! And so Instagram is… for me… like the parking lot outside the venue at a fucking rad all ages show! If you’re in the parking lot getting high or smoking or drinking or being straight-edge or whatever… you’re fair game!

And so, much respect to Colin for being a talented, prolific artist… but also just for being a straight-up awesome dude… in the true punk rock spirit! Your genuine kindness and clear passion for everything you do is an inspiration, pal! Real talk!

Some highlights from our convo are as follows!

Checking out Colin’s significant Discogs page… and his Wikipedia page... these only tell part of the story! But it’s one hell of a story…

Little Rock’s punk scene in the 80’s and 90’s was so rad, they made a documentary about it! And an accompanying soundtrack! And Colin’s early bands are all over them!

Colin remains tight with his pals in Little Rock’s The Big Cats… and they play gigs whenever their schedules allow… which can be tough cause Jason White also plays in a little group called… uh… Green Day…

ANYWHO

Seriously, Samiam’s Stowaway from last year remains one of my favorite of all their many, many brilliant LP’s. I’ve spent entire days listening to Crystalized on repeat! And the video is actually super-cool… a rare thing for any music video, in my opinion! Colin’s playing is a major part of why Stowaway sounds so rad… contemporary and forward-looking, somehow! It’s a pretty awesome thing!

Colin’s been living in NYC since the late 90’s… and he makes music outside of Samiam as TheNewSame… so you 100% need to check his Bandcamp… and TheNewSame’s Instagram!

Probably my biggest takeaway from the chat was how much friendship factors into what Colin is up to! In the dozens of bands and acts he’s been involved in a decades-long career in music, creative potential and hanging with pals figure highly as motivators. That is as rad… and as punk… as it gets!!

All we are saying is give war a chance!

Folks, in the nearly two years since this pod slithered from the bog seldom… OK… never… have we done a double-episode before…

Furthermore…

Matt Gay is the rock star we need in such fucked up, tumultuous times such as these! Fire might kill The Thing… but it only makes Matt Gay stronger!

Click below if you think you can hang!

This gets you to the smoke break! Who’s got a lighter? #bogmonstermusic

You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here! #bogmonstermusic

Go to Discord Records!

Give Ian MacKaye all your money!

Your band’s Bandcamp page sucks compared to the mighty Fuckhawk! #bogmonstermusic

<a href="https://fuckhawk.bandcamp.com/album/fuckhawk-touch-it">FUCKHAWK: Touch It by FUCKHAWK</a>

<a href="https://fuckhawk.bandcamp.com/album/fuckhawk-ii-street-fuckin">FUCKHAWK II: Street Fuckin' by FUCKHAWK</a>

I swear on the Hair of Fabio that this is the most fun we’ve had doing one of these… pretty much ever!

Matt Gay is a party you can’t contain.

The cops are knocking, but we can’t hear ’em!

You don’t go to a Fuckhawk show to not see Matt Gay set himself on fire… ON YOUR BEHALF!

The radness contained in these recordings oughta be illegal, but we left society behind a long time ago!

Finally, I am pleased to share that Matt Gay has accepted my generous offer of pro bono employment, sans benefits, and as such is now Principle Consultant — Upper Canada for 506 Consulting (2022) Ltd!

The stoke factor runs amok!

Anyway, here are as many tracks as I think is reasonable to share from our double-fisting r&r extravaganza!

You definitely have participated in ROCK HISTORY, pals!

Humbling, right?

Better get used to it… whenever Matt Gay is around!

For all inquiries regarding Fuckhawk and/or Matt Gay musical performances and/or speaking engagements and/or other media queries, please reach us via:

Dr. Matt Stranach

Principle Consultant

506 Consulting (2022) Ltd:

https://linktr.ee/matt_506

506 Consulting (2022) Ltd., Trading Cards… coming soon… by unpopular demand! #bogmonstermusic

ANYWHO

Here are Matt Gay’s Three Favorite Bands!

Think you can hang with the ‘Hawk?? #bogmonstermusic