N E M E S I S K N O X

“What was once my jungle is now my zoo”

Wow, December started with a bang! Right after coming down from the food high that was Punxgiving, Subversion grabbed us by the scruff of the neck and threw us into the pit! Probably the best hardcore punk festival I’ve ever been too in yonks—maybe best so far! I know many people gape at the line-ups for Chaos in Tejas and other similar festivals (myself and friends back home included), but down in old pit-of-fascist-spawn Greece, we don’t always get to see too much of those—so we did them ourselves. Now, being here, I feel lucky to have witnessed such a solid congregation of bands. As far as I’m concerned the bands that played at Subversion encompass some of the most current, compelling and accomplished out there today. There is little point in listing the ones that were good, as almost every band that took the stage was freakishly tight and powerful, truly blasting a sound that was just electrifying to watch! The two stages meant you would circle the venue, like a revolving door of hardcore after punk after post-punk after D-beat after hardcore…Fucking sick! Congratulations to Kat and Jeremy for organizing it and I’m already looking forward to the next one! I’ll quote Kat here and say that “2012 was the best year in punk yet.” Indeed it has been! Next issue the truth shall be revealed and enlightenment shall come to all ye disbelievers!

* Then, no less than a week later, I got another pleasant surprise. While perusing SF Weekly on a particularly cold and dark Thursday night, nursing a hangover with some red wine, I saw, jumping out from a bright yellow ad, Dylan Moran, the Irish comedian! The man who, in Black Books, had, essentially, what is still one of my (many) dream jobs (to own a bookstore and drink wine for breakfast while swearing at customers who ask questions before 11 am), was going to be in this town tomorrow! By the power of the internet I bought tickets right away and, the following night, the brain behind some of the wittiest comedy and modern truths stood a mere nine rows in front of me, sipping red wine, jolting up and down, waving his hands as he pondered on the evolution of the modern world. “[Crisps] are not awesome, they’re crunchy! If I opened them and haggard shafts of light and cherubim and angelic music comes out, they would we awesome OK? Mountains and rivers and the fact that I’m still breathing are awesome!” His inability to deal with harsh realities, like sunlight and sound first thing in the morning, make me feel a bit better about my own self-loathing and petrified anxiety about everything. (“Why do I even dare to think I could dream I could imagine I could hope?”) His feel-good self-mockery was at its best and it was a thoroughly needed experience, an excellent balancing force for my rather charged spirits.

* You hear about horrible things all the time; positivity can be elusive. Friends getting laid off or hit by giant SUVs, others losing a loved one, or getting mugged and beaten up… You read the news and the horror continues. Then you hear about one case, with relatively few victims, and the story goes on for weeks, as if it were the first time someone picked up a gun and fired bloody murder—because it’s not. Yet the Connecticut shooting blew people’s minds, despite the fact that the same government responsible for legal rifle ownership here is also the one in charge of blowing people up in far off countries.

People seem to only care about what’s going on in their own back yard. Until their neighbour fucks up, in which case they are ready to swarm over and dictate their disapproval and punishment. “The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple,” said the great Wilde. And that’s why you can’t trust what mainstream media tell you. You can’t trust what “independent democratic” media tell you either. (Just don’t trust anyone and you’ll be better off for it, K? K.)

* The recent rise in neo-fascism in Europe has been one of the things keeping me up at night. Reading an article about the Polish ONR and MWP nationalist groups officially uniting and calling for the overthrow of the Republic and the formation of the “National Guard” reminds of what’s going on in my backyard, Land of Zofos, Greece. Golden Dawn may be the only fascist group we have actually elected into parliament by so-called democrats, but it’s not the only one out there. In fact, an undercover scheme by Chicago anti-fascists exposed Golden Dawn supporters in New York! Right on!

* Back home, the usual suspects, and in particular the parliament/street bullies of Golden Dawn, pressured police, who went on a crackdown rampage. Arresting a whole block of protesters at an anti-fascist march in Volos, raiding the independent radio station 98FM run out of the ASOEE University campus in Athens and evicting the Big House, the Villa Amalias squat.

On Tuesday December 20, one day before “the end of the world,” cops invaded the historic squat, situated by Victoria Square in downtown Athens, Greece. The Big House had been snatched from us. The abandoned school, brought back to life in 1991 by punks, has been the meeting point and cross-pollination spot for countless Greek and foreign bands since its beginning. The building that represented so much more than the rickety foundations it stands upon, was boarded up by police and eight people were arrested and detained at the police HQ until Monday, when they were to be trialed for felonies (Bologna I tell you! No evidence or proof whatsoever). A massive wave of solidarity ruffled across Greece and other countries and on Mon. the 24^th all of them were set free; five of them were granted bail and have to sign up at a police station monthly.

The anger boiled inside of me and I felt so helpless from so far away, unable to do anything to actively help my friends, to help get our punk house back. I truly felt the distance and all the things I could never forget rushed back into me, never too far to begin with it: The constant state of fear, the feelings of injustice and absurdity, the blinding rage and the guilt of time wasted.

* I am trying to stay focused and use this anger to propel myself forward, and being inspired by MRR has always been one of the things that kept me going. Looking back through old issues, getting emails of thanks from columnists, small gestures from people that tell me I’m in the right place at the right time, these have all helped me on this quest to steer MRR into yet another year of punk existence and resistance.

I’ll admit I have had some bouts of self-consciousness, but I’m here to offer my services, help and advice and, with the guidance of those that came before me, this magazine shall continue to do great things, as it is what you make it! (We just coordinate). Should you have any questions, just ask. Assumption is the mother of all fuck ups, so let’s stay as connected as possible and keep the dialogue open. Apathy and disregard for fellow punks is not what punk is about, so let’s focus on evolving beyond our own insecurities and rising above our first world prejudices. We have so much to do and so little time, let’s put aside our differences and retain our purpose: punk for change.

I wish you all a happy, creative and courageous 2013, stay strong and don’t let any fucker get you down! I know that you’re two months in the future right now, so New Year resolutions will be long past by the time you read this, but welcome to my reality, which is to be stuck between both all the time—it’s as exciting as it is trippy, this warped concept of time and space! Keeps things interesting.

* Lastly, a small thank you note to all the people who have given me encouragement along the way, you know who you are. Hellos to Beenie in Tubingen, Dee Dee, Melvin and Jacque from France and our new gang of Russian friends—visit us again soon! Also, a giant thank you to all of our contributors from around the world, your submissions are greatly appreciated. A round of applause to all the people who made donations and/or thought of MRR for their holiday gifts…We have more cool things on the way, so stray tuned! Solidarity with all squats! Fuck apolitique lifestyle punk! No to guns, yes to fun! Free the pit! Dance!

This was such a crazy year for me! Moving to the MRR compound means I am spoiled for choice and constantly exposed to new and exciting things! So many good punk shows and sooo many releases! I will admit, I was not carried away (too much) by the recent wave of raw punk (back home we call it “kàtsa”), so I often found myself longing for sounds that would travel me to other places far and wide, the soundtrack to a surreal black-and-white dream of urban misery and longing. These records helped. (I could keep adding to this list every time I think of one more thing I forgot, so I won’t)

1. ANTIMOB – LP (Εξωτικος Παροξυσμος)

Words fail me. They usually do when it comes to the big, important stuff. There is so much to be said of this monoliic Greek band and their sound, but the music does it much better justice my ramblings. I love and admire these guys immensely, and their music speaks volumes to me, more than I can begin to descibe! Get this now!

2. CRINIMAL CODE – “Cold Thought” LP (Inimical) and “Hollowed” EP (Deranged)

Band of the year from Tacoma, Washington! I kind of knew it the second I heard this—esoteric, dark and mysterious. It all meshes so well, each track with the next, each release with the next. I liked every single thing they released this year and their live show was also a complete high! I hope they can keep pushing themselves and will continue to amaze us in the coming year! Well done lads!

3. NUN – “Solvents/Cronenberg” (Nihilistic Orbs)

The surprise of the year! Blip/synth punk from outer space (well, Melbourne)! Hearing this makes me as happy as it does angry. Happy because it is sonic bliss to me ears, and angry because I can’t understand why punks are so reluctant to fucking dance! Dance dance dance dammit!

4. YOUTH AVOIDERS – “Time Flies” EP (Build Me A Bomb / Destructor)

Dark, tight and melodic! French hardcore punk that screams my ear’s language. Jolting and actually danceable, though still legitimately angry, the self-titled track is one of the catchiest of the year! Give me more!

5. RED DONS – “Ausländer/Mauvaise Fois” (Dirtnap)

De facto one of my favourite bands in the last decade, they have honed a style all their own and blaze on untouched! “Ausländer” is probably my most played (and heart-felt) track this year (that opening riff is pure gold!) and their show with the ESTRANGED was just magical.

6. LOWER – “Someone’s Got It In For Me/But There Has to be More” (540)

Record of the season from Denmark, I cannot flip this fast enough. Two tracks of carefully-articulated genius. I had been waiting for this for so long, I am enthralled!

6. THE WAR GOES ON – “This Shitty Life” EP

I listened to this so much when it came out! I’m a huge NO HOPE FOR THE KIDS fan, and while this is not exactly the same, it still exhumes that great Danish melancholy I so love! The self-titled track is one of the best and catchiest of the year. Oh, and they also sing about football! Score!

6. PARALISIS INFANTIL – “Demo ’87” EP (Metadona)

Oh man, this Argentinian band is so good, you just feel it in your bones when it plays! Amazing sound, compositions and atmosphere! Their track “Hijos de Burgueses” still rings in my brain at random moments, especially the opening riff—it’s contagious! I’m so glad this exists, it makes me smile!

7. ACID BABY JESUS – LP (Slovenly)

Best band to dance to! Before I left Greece for SF and they went on a bunch of tours around Europe and the US, I danced at their Athens shows like there was no tomorrow! Dreamy yet twisted, garage-tinged inventiveness that should be experienced in tropical wet holes, drenched in beer and surrounded by friends!

8. DESPERAT – “Början På Slutet” EP (Hardcore Victim)

Frenzied crashing hardcore from Sweden. Scream and pound and blow your house down. Circling your room in a furious rage, like a lion in a cage. This is medication that wakes you up and it soothes your raw nerves.

9. ILEGAL – “El Aire Libre Fuera de los Dientes delo Monstruo Tirano Y Canibal” LP (La Vide Es Un Mus)

Noisy and no bullshit harshcore (did I just coin a new punk term?) from Montreal, this is punk as fuck, in every sense of the word! Nothing sounds excess or unnecessary; this is a furious exposition from beginning to end! You have been warned!

10. PARAF – “Prekinuti Koitus: 1978-1979” LP

One of my favourite Yugoslavian punk bands. I am in love with the female vocals (that make appearances on later recordings) but was glad to be introduced to their earlier, more unhinged work. A time travelling machine of a record.

Top 3 tapes from the Demo box:

BLACK COFFEE – tape (Bezerker)

Old-school yet completely relevant no-fills hardcore, with a minimal to-the-point expression, exactly how I like it! I would love to see this band live, so someone book this Oz wonder!

DAMAGES – “Defection” tape (Silenzion Statico)

Urgent, fresh and driven. Melodic and angry, this tape is a rocker! Young punks from/around LA, taking us into the new era!

DEHUMANIZED – tape (self-released)

So dark, so brooding, so mean. So good! Black metal blasts and hardcore experimentations from Olympia, Washington that go deeper that you dare to venture.

Top 5 live shows:

ΠΑΝΔΗΜΙΑ (Pandemic) at Villa Amalias, Athens, Greece

HIBERNATION at Katarameno Syndromo, Athens, Greece

CRIMINAL CODE at the Swamp, Oakland CA

THE RED DONS / ESTRANGED at 1-2-3-4 Go! records (Oakland) and Thrillhouse (SF)

NUX VOMICA at the Swamp, Oakland CA

Would be Number One, but it was officially released at the end of 2011:

ANTI – “Aντι…” LP (Είρκτη)

One of the best punk records to come out of Greece and one of the best punk records I have ever heard! This is a masterpiece—how to explain such a special glimpse of a time now past, this is fucking historic! Overcast by the dark political shadow of the time (and the time now is always), drenched in glassy synths, stone cold beats that fuck with your head and vocals that sing lyrics that make your insides ache with anger and despair. Like a static shock, this will electrocute you and leave you shivering on the floor. This record brings new meaning to the definition “Greek punk” and, if you can truly grasp it, it’s a life-altering experience.

(It’s my birthday today, send me Marmite and Greek coffee!)

I know I can come across as a pretty positive person but that’s all in fact bullshit. I’m a bipolar anxiety case that self-medicates to keep my head from spinning of its nut. What people see of me is what I want them to see—what they conclude is their own business. I used to get so upset when others got the wrong end of the stick about me, when they believed the easy-to-swallow version of whatever stereotype they thought I replicated. Fuck ’em; assholes will believe what they want anyway—and complete fucking assholes aren’t people whose opinion I need, nor value, so fuck ’em too. I have since created some rules for myself that allow me to continue living without being a) homicidal or b) suicidal. Of course, I am too nice and seldom live up to my own expectations of being a Viperine Fatal, a Humain Terrible.

A man named Karl Lagerfeld once said, “Never compare, never compete.” It must have worked wonders for that fucker as he makes billions in the highly competitive industry of fashion. It does, however, sound like good advice for the punks of today, as it appears Punk is also becoming a highly competitive industry of fashion—and those last three words should never show up next to Punk, not even in the same sentence. For it seems that, in accordance to the capitalist market system that commodifies what it cannot destroy, Punk is suddenly big business. And by the same logic that a factory worker can be reconceptualized as a profit-making cog, punks are reconceptualized as both enablers and victims of this commodification. Looking punk (following fashion), owning punk (obsessive consumerism), selling out punk (profit-driven businesses) and assimilating punk (getting mainstream acceptance) is all hot stuff right now. The antipode of that, however, is that Punk is being expelled onto the world at light speed, thanks to the internet; so billions of people who’ve never heard of it before now can. It’s as exciting as it is depressing really. No one can guarantee that people who adopt the music and style also adopt the ethics.

Like anything, punks are products of their environment. A punk from Jakarta will probably have a slightly different set of practices to a punk from Ljubljana, and equivalently a punk from Utah might carry a slightly different set of values than a punk from St. Petersburg. However, many modern-day, ‘first-world punks,’ over-saturated and forgetful, feeling dared by this dissimilarity, allow themselves to be consumed by petty competition, shortsighted criticism and ignorant comparison. It is almost as if inner scene politicking and punk policing is now preferable to any sort of meaningful exchange of ideas or action. Instead of listening to what other punks have to say, and potentially learning something new or reevaluating something old, certain people will always prefer to preach their own gospel to anyone willing to listen. Any topic is an opportunity for them to show off how punk what a dick they are, to dictate their opinions and why they are better than yours, to brag about how many records they own, how often they kicked someone’s ass at a show and why they are the complete shit… Errr… “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Toto.”

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to listen to anyone who believes that whatever doesn’t fit in with their narrow view of the (punk) world, is wrong. For me being able to think outside the confines of normative thought is what Punk is about; and being able to discuss these new, unconventional ways is what I think punks should be doing. Discourse is more than just shooting the shit you know. It’s pushing your own boundaries of perception and exploring the vast potential contained within each of us; it’s just a matter of unleashing it. Yet if you’re going to be judged by other punks for not fitting in, or for expressing yourself differently to them, then let’s just call it a fucking day, because, correct me if I’m wrong, isn’t Punk about the very fact that you don’t fit it?

As far as I’m concerned, when it comes to the music, there can be as many types of Punk music as there are humans alive right now. If you disagree, my answer is that “no one knows what tomorrow knows,” so there. If Punk has to sound like [enter band falsely associated with what Punk really is], then fuck it! Let’s close up shop squat, because Punk shouldn’t have to follow any rules or trend, it should sound like whatever the fuck you want it to sound like—that’s Punk. And that’s why I believe more so that it’s about the people who make Punk happen, about how they make it happen and why—be it music, zines, distros, labels, shows or squats.

Punks don’t have to do anything; the idea is that they think for themselves and do what they do naturally, because they want to; and they do it themselves (so the Punk is Personal; and the Personal is Political). If they don’t want to be considerate, counter-creative, independent and proactive in the fight for equality, justice, freedom, peace and the right to noisy music…well, then they were never really Punk to begin with. Because, while for some people it’s part of who they are, for others it’s nothing but an easy excuse, a masquerade, a ticket to anything-goes. And shit goes nowhere.

Being a pessimist is not the same as never giving people the benefit of the doubt. Being socially awkward is not the same as being a rude, arrogant prick. Disagreeing with someone doesn’t necessarily mean they’re challenging your punkness, or doubting how legit you are, or shit-talking on you or saying they’re better than you. Learn to get over yourself mate. The sun doesn’t shine out of your arse, it doesn’t shine out of anybody’s arse; and it’s OK, not is everyone out to get you. If someone doesn’t like you or your effort, so fucking what? It’s yours.

I’m an empathetic person; I’m sensitive to the particularities and quirks of each and every punk and want to know all about where they’re from and how they came to be who they are. I’m also the kind of person who will turn the other cheek, just to give you a second chance at being an asshole. You prove me right and I go back to doing more important things. Because a wanker is still a wanker.

ENDNOTES: We’re still looking for a new coordinator to become my partner in crime here at MRR once Mariam leaves (snif) in early May. If after what you read you still think you can work with me (he he), then get in touch for an application at mrr@maximumrocknroll.com! You will be in charge of a large range of (*)tasks. We need someone with an a vast knowledge of hardcore, punk, garage and everything in between (from all over the world, not just USHC, not just Skandi crust or Japanese noise) with a strong vision for the global punk community, ideas, excitement and excellent organizational skills. You’ll also need to have an eye for (editorial) detail, a strong work and DIY ethic, feel comfortable working with strict deadlines and following specific guidelines, be able to delegate and coordinate others, as well as be capable of resolving issues in a mature, level-headed manner. We want someone who loves punk and is dedicated enough to spend a couple or more years on this one amazing job. You get to live at the MRR compound rent free, along with 44,000 records and a couple of roommates in (usually) sunny SF. You will have time for a part-time job but your main focus will MRR. Can you dig it?

Lastly, I want to briefly describe the monthly process, as people often get confused. This is a all-volunteer run magazine. No one gets paid for their efforts and everything is done because of the volunteers’ love for punk. As far as the coordinating part, we work on an issue two months in advance. So right now you are reading the January issue, which we worked on throughout November. At the end of November it went to print and returned at the beginning of December. As you know we have readers all around the world and distribution can take a while, thanks to postage services, distances, customs, California’s notoriously bad postage system, etc. By January 1^st (hopefully!) every reader has their issue, which they read throughout the month, hence why it’s the January issue.

Now, we pick and lock down content for each issue within the first week of each month. We assign records and zines for review on the 6^th of every month, so if your record or zine arrives after that, it’ll be reviewed in the following issue.

Demos are picked up and reviewed by reviewers at their own free, hence why it sometimes takes a bit longer for them to get printed. Patience young punks! Our demo reviewers are passionate dedicated music nerds, with busy schedules but a keen desire to serve the punk.

If you send us an interview, don’t demand that it get published right away. We get a lot of content and the only reason you’re reading MRR is because we strive to keep the quality high (we hope we’ve succeed). Five hundred word interviews with the same old boring questions, aimed at simply promoting your band isn’t good enough. Tell us something we can’t find out online, surprise us, make us think; push the boundaries for fuck sake—this is punk! And obviously sexist, racist, homophobic and other equal crap will be rejected!

We make sure to keep a good mix in every issue. This means that while we may have half a dozen interviews with Scandinavian hardcore bands, we can’t really run them all at the same time; every issue’s content gets pieced together in relation to the overall amount of content we have and can fit in each issue. So, if you haven’t noticed, we try to include something old, something new, something hardcore, something punk rock, something on the pop punk/garage/weirder side, something overseas, something local, something with punks of colour, anything other than the straight white male formula (women/queer/trans), scene reports, photospreads and guest columns. Thus, while your submission may be killer, dearest punk, you may just have to be patient.

It’s basically two people (*)coordinating everything that goes inside the magazine every month and one person making sure it reaches you no matter how far you live! We work every day on this magazine without cease, and we love it, so fear not that your efforts go unnoticed. How good those efforts are, is up to you. Punk is what you make it!

Instant gratification was never a characteristic of print publications. If you just want a “quicky,” use one of the many message boards.

Svoboda Punk!

(*) gathering/generating content, editing approx. 80,000 words per issue, doing layouts and photo editing, assigning records, fact checking record titles and following a style sheet, answering dozens of emails a day, functioning as the advertising/accounting department rolled into one, dealing with the bank, landlords, post office and neighbors, maintaining books/accounting, paying bills and the rent on time, plus reviewing records, CDs and zines, and writing a column monthly. Can you dig it?

Last month I continued to talk about how football and how I came to appreciate and love it. I also talked about Asteras Exarhion (Exarhia Star). I want to make a correction here and say that it is indeed Star (singular), not Stars and also that I accidentally wrote ΟΦΗ as being the acronym for Olympiacos FC, when it is in fact ΟΣΦΠ (that dreaded ΟΣΦΠ written everywhere, usually in the tackiest, often misspelled, tags and graffiti, hahaha). That was a stupid mistake on my part, as I know very well that ΟΦΗ is Heraklion’s team on the magnificent island of Crete. So sorry ΟΦΗ fans, I know you aren’t anchovies (γαύροι)! Also, to clear up any ambiguity, in 1976 was when PAOK fans started organizing officially at Gate 4, the Toumba stadium itself and all its gates have been around since 1959.

In this final segment on football (and how even just writing about it has my heart racing faster), I want to talk about the Ultras. Often confused with hooligans, the Ultras are the fans you will see at football games waving the flare around in tifo choreography; the ones who organize the crowd to chant in a round and the ones who create and set up those ginormous banners you see floating over the thousands of spectators. The Ultras have more invested in the team because, unlike the players who play the game, the fans live the game.

Some of these banners make political or social commentary and there have even been (surreal) situations of (Greek) cops chasing fans, interrogating drivers and searching cars in order to find ‘the anti-establishment banner’, which said Corrupt Politicians, Parliament of the Affluent, the Wrath of the Revolted Will Choke You; a banner reacting to the EU and IMF’s recent austerity measures. A couple more examples might better illustrate my point. In the chaos of burnt forests, freedom burns, which was in response to the political corruption regarding forest fires, a common occurrence during the summertime in Greece. Bribe Takin’ Gun Totin’, Trigger Pullin’, Nazi Thinkin’ Power Crazy Police Force – ACAB G4, in response to recent police violence during demos against the EU and the austerity measures. In Turkey, the famous diehard Beşiktaş Ultras raised a banner that said We Are All Black, after rival fans made negative reference to the French-Senegalese Beşiktaş player Pascal Nouma. The Beşiktaş fans even raised a banner saying We Are All Pluto, after an international committee of astronomers stripped the planet of its planetary status. We all know that’s preposterous and Pluto is indeed a planet, and an awesome one at that!

Going back to the Ultras, some groups have been known to align themselves with extreme (political) ideologies. A fine example are S.S. Lazio Ultras, Red Star Belgrade, the Bad Blue Boys from Zabgreb’s Dinamo, more recently APOEL fans from Cyprus—but that’s just fascism for you, sneaking its way into everything! The real Ultras are obviously antifa and they use football as a platform for critical thinking and positive influence. One world famous example is Hamburg’s team, Sankt Pauli, which you may know of by its Jolly Roger logo and passionate fans. In some cases, like in Turkey, or Poland, , Ultras must meet at secret locations so as to not get their families involved, for fear of being attacked by rival fans, most commonly fascists or neo-nazis.

One of the focal points of the Ultras culture is also the anti-commercialization of football, but at the end of the day, it’s about keeping football away from harmful, exploitative powers; much like punk must protect itself. It ends up going beyond the confines of the football field and the idea of football as merely just a game. Because it is obviously so much more.

A football match is like a micrography of society—people from every path of life, cutting across every demographic, all jumbled together for two hours, with only one thing in common: the game. Not everyone even likes the team in the same way, or for the same reasons, but everyone loves seeing that ball get kicked around. And this is and should be the fundamental reason people play and watch football, for the love of the game. However, you know as well as I how convenient it is for the wrong parties to use something like football as a means to fanaticize people into ethic, racial or any other kind of prejudice or hate. Fascists, cop pigs and other scum often find their most ready recruits among football crowds, an easy pool from which to proselytize young and angry youth. This is excatly why the Ultras take action. They create a ‘safe space’ for fans while voicing their anti-establishment/anti-cop/antifa sentiment and challenging convention with their DIY spirit.

A local collective that does similar work based in Athens, Greece, are the Radical Fans United (RFU). Every summer they set up their RFU festival to focus on this love of the game, the social and political meaning of sports and the exhilarating experience of witnessing it all up close. Every year, dozens of teams enter for both a football and basketball tournament, which last three days and are accompanied by film screenings, exhibits, talks, freshly cooked souvlakia, live shows and hundreds of people! I really wanted to score some fucking goals, so last summer I decided I wanted to be a part of it too! A gavros friend of mine from Asteras Exarhion jokingly talked about coaching a girl team to take part in the 5×5 tournament but I quickly made sure it remained no joke and joined the team. The RFU headquarters were just below Strefi Hill, which is where Asteras Exarhion has its stadium (for its female basketball team, which have been kicking ass in the first national league for a decade straight!) so we decided the shady basketball courts of Strefi Hill would be the most suitable for us to train.

Another four girls I vaguely knew from the square, anarchist demos and Asteras joined the team and we got started. All five of us were pretty badass ladies who didn’t take shit from men anyway, and our coach/friend was notorious for being a bit of a cheeky chauvinist, so we were more than happy to show them all that we could kick some ass! In fact, our goalie’s dumbass crush even went as far as to say said ‘I can’t believe a girl is fucking up something I love. There’s no place for women in football.’ Fuck that. I’ll bloody my shins and scrape my knees everyday buddy if it means I can score a goal, prove you wrong and make you sore. Of course, minor detail, none of us had ever actually played football before, but we didn’t care, the momentum and determination were there and that’s all we needed. We trained once a week for two months, then twice a week for the last month leading up to the tournament at the end of July. Sure, we took breaks to buy cold beers from the kiosk, shared smokes right after we were done scoring perfectly off-side goals, and usually all ended up partying together in the square right after practice, but that was half the point. We were the Skyles Exarhion (Exarhia Bitches!) and we were ready to bare some teeth!

Of course we lost, 0-1, but hey, our rivals had two semi-pro players and a girl who could maneuver the ball like a fucking champ! They actually made five attempts, so for our awesome goalie to save us four times was pretty kick ass! I think the ouzo she made us all drink before hand gave us that extra energy and ballsyness we needed! However, we were determined to show them that we play by our own rules, so we devised a devilish plan! We gave instructions to the DJ to blast a Greek punk song we all loved just as the last minute of the game clocked in. Eva and Hara made sure defense was tight, I kept the centre clear and Haroula drove the ball towards our goalkeeper, who then grabbed tit, ran across to the opposite goal and, to everyone’s dismay, slam dunked that thing right into their nets! The crown went wild and they cheered us on, booing the other team and throwing their empty cans at them, shouting at them to treat us nice because we are dangerous—it was mythical!

***

            On a completely different note, it is almost Halloween as I write this, Slapsgiving soon to follow, then X-mass. That horrid time of year when you feel compelled by that hippie dude named Jesus and all his followers to celebrate with family and friends, the fact that you are all still on speaking terms and survived another year, without going to the ER, the morgue or worse, jail. If this is indeed almost the end of the world, then make sure to give them hell! Do not quietly into that good night! Get mad! Upset their ‘safety’—revolt!

Because if you owe the system, it owns you and these scum-blooded crooks are cornering us into submission by any means possible. Fascism, religious conflict and economic austerity, they’re all nasty by-products and convenient preservers of the oligarchy. They will wring humanity of every last cent and penny, run every river dry, cut every forest down, kill every animal and ‘enemy’. And when that is all pillaged, they’ll take everything else—your property, your freedom and right to justice. Then your family. It’s already happening, don’t you see? It’s called democracy. And you help keep it in place.

At the end of it, hopefully humans will realize that money, and the whole goddamn system that goes along with it, is nothing but a fictitious noose around their neck; and if they really want to—and they will need to—they will free themselves of it. There should be no more human power fueling the totalitarian machine of profit; walk away. There should be no building, institution or legislation higher than the rationality and self-governing integrity of man; resist. We are only as free as our governments allow us to be. And when people finally have nothing but their very lives left to loose—and everything to gain—then they will fight. I only hope it is not too late.

Holy shit, it’s been such a long time since I had any time to write something for this here blog. Being so busy with MRR means I limit my uploads to past columns and occasional record reviews.

I thought about making this blog more focused on new releases and old things i discover that i find exciting, but then realized two things: one, there are enough blogs out there that are updated on a regular/daily basis chock full of the same shit i would be uploading and two, i simply don’t have the time. I could type in a couple lines about each one, but what’s the point in that? It’s unfair to the bands and it perpetuates the lightning-fast access to information you won’t necessarily digest, just hoard, like the info-nut you are. It’s also half-arsed journalism and i have a degree dammit—after all, we are professionals! You can get your dose of hardcore and punk and obscurities and hyped-bullshit and real rarities on better blogs than mine, honest. I might as well schtick to running the magazine and i’ll leave the online vultures to find their prey elsewhere.

And, seeing as i am violently sick today, after having too much beer and wine and champagne yesterday, i am bed-ridden. Hal of MRR radio fame and his lady Neddy were darlings and took myself and M. out to a Mediterranean restaurant for dinner, to celebrate our recent engagement! Turkish and Greek goodies, with delicious tzatziki and melitzanosalata that had me missing the simple yet tasty Mediterranean diet (unlike the fatty super-sized jumbo-food people eat here).

Then Hal drove us around the city like the great host that he is, showing us the best spots! We went to Twin Peaks to see the skyline and get frostbite, then we rode down  famous Lombard street and went up to Coit(us) tower, which was lit up like a giant red phallus (where we also used the Beam Me Up Scotty public bathroom). Then we stopped in for a drink at the legendary and beautiful Vezuvios bar in North Beach, just by the famous City Lights bookstore (i would buy every book in there if i could!), before riding through Chinatown and heading home! What a night!

View from Twin Peaks

Coit Tower

Vezuvios / City Lights

I still have to finalize my Top 10 for 2012 and it’s going to be tough because there really have been some incredible releases! For now though, all i listen to on repeat is the cover German-based Greek punks Free Yourself did, of Γκούλαγκ‘s epic, epic, epic, epic, epic, epic, epic track called Addiction (Εθισμός).

And time is an addiction. And time is the punishment.

And, in accordance with my sentiment, the doorbell rang and the postman showed up with a packet from my good friend Apostolis of World’s Appreciated Kitsch, stuffed with goodies like records, calendars, flyers, pins and posters! Oh what joy! I am listening to the new My Turn record and hearing him scream his lungs out reminds me of all the hard work he puts into the local scene, in Athens, Greece and the Balkans at large!

I keep bugging M. to do an interview with him for MRR! I am also working on finalizing the questions for crust legends Hibernation, plus this week I hope to do the Greek Punk radio show i keep meaning to do! I also want to plan a show in solidarity with all my friends back in Athens and the historic home-away-from-home, Villa Amalias….

Man, i really miss my friends back home, it makes me sad. It’s a weird feeling to be in a place where no one knows who you are. It can be extremely liberating and insanely pressuring all at the same time and I am constantly trying to remain true to my roots and not lose the strength and courage my local scene equip me with. I must take all it taught me and continually put it to good use. Or else, i might as well have stayed in Athens to fight the cops for our turf.

I bought the ticket, I’ll take the ride.

Thank the universe for $1.99 thrift stores and i have Hunter Thompson’s collected columns from the SF Examiner in one book aptly titled Generation of Swine. Now I bid you a due, i have to curl up in my bed of pain and listen to some more Greek punk and wallow in my drunken melancholy.

Last month I started talking about football (yes, soccer, so if you’re not into it you might wanna skip this column). I talked about four of the larger Greek teams: Olympiacos (or OSFP est.1925), based in Piraeus and named after the Olympic games victory youth, wearing a wreath as its emblem; Panathinaikos (or PAO est.1908), literally meaning pan Athenian, with the clover as its symbol (last month I said it was four-leaved, I was wrong, it’s just a normal clover); AEK (est.1924), the athletic union of Constantinople relocate to Athens and of course my team, PAOK (est.1926)!

I’m not from Thessaloniki where PAOK is based, or the Pera region of Constantinople where PAOK (once called Pera Club) originally came from. However, the fact that PAOK, like AEK, is basically a refugee team, after people were forced to emigrate due to population exchange caused by the Asian Minor catastrophe in 1922, made me associate a bit better. I come from a mixed cultural background and always felt kind of tangled amongst my roots (Greece, Romania, England, Scotland; born in the US). It made sense for me, who felt out of place with most things, to sympathize with fans of a team that is also out of place with its origins. PAOK is the team most supported in the northern, Macedonian region of Greece and I’m from Athens, but who cares? What mattered to me was that I found a way to enjoy football and a new dimension of society opened up to me.

If you’re not really a footie fan, then you, like me up until a few years ago, associate football with big name sponsors, famous shampoo-advertising players and large organizations with fancy names like UEFA’s Europa League, Euro Championship and Champions League, FIFA’s ‘Mundial’ World Cup and Confederations Cup, Germany’s Bundesliga, Spain’s Primera División, England’s Premier League, Italy’s Serie A. Like anything in life, it’s so much better to live things, rather than see them on fucking TV, broadcasted by mainstream media. Fuck that! Let’s take this lesson to the streets, shall we?

It’s fucking freezing in Thessaloniki in February and I keep drinking to try and stay warm, as hundreds of fans loitered about, shuffling feet in the mud, outside the giant PAOK stadium, in Toumba. The people outside sang chants, drank and talked in loud, excited voices about what was going on inside the stadum, which was lit up with bright white lights, making it look like a magic doorway into another world. The buzz from inside was just intoxicating, making all of us outside even more anxious to get through those horrid metal turnstiles; every ‘Oh!’ or ‘Aaah!’ from the crowd making us shake with excitement. What the hell is going on inside?

We are right below Gate 4, where PAOK fans have been gathering since 1976, to meet, organize and unite powers in support of the team. We have no tickets and the flock of people gathering round each entrance doorway never seems to thin out the whole two hours we’re there. We arrived early of course to catch up with other PAOKia and get buzzed on singing, praising and/or arguing about players. Seeing as we can’t get in any time soon, unless we want to get crushed in a claustrophobic crowd of retsina-drinking fans, my man and I take a walk round the stadium—or at least we try to. It is of course closed off by cops half way round. We decide to leave at half time, before shit got too serious. We were in no mood to get arrested. We were bummed enough that we couldn’t get inside, fuck the pigs! This time we were playing with CSKA Moscow, so local rivals (from teams ARHS and HRAKLHS, Aries and Hercules accordingly) were less on our mind. The cops, however, are always looking for the first sign of trouble to cause a large rucus themselves.

This wasn’t the first time I had bad luck. A few months earlier my man and I went to see PAOK play with AEK here in Athens, at the OAKA stadium. No PAOK fans were allowed to attend the game, so we had to disguise ourselves with normal clothes (so nothing too casual, rowdy or hooligan looking) and obviously nothing signifying we were PAOK fans! Back and white stripped socks eyeballed by the wrong type could have been enough to get us cornered.

This would also not be the last time I would have bad luck with my team. They were playing right by my house in Athens, with a local team, literally ten minutes from my house. It was a lazy Wednesday afternoon, the weather wasn’t great but it wasn’t raining and my man and I got our tickets and happily walked up the tiers; still kind of stunned that we could wake up from our afternoon siesta to watch our team play in our neighbourhood. We sang some chants, had a bit of a shouting match with our rivals and fifteen minutes into the game, things were looking good! Then, one of the rival fans throws one of the seats into the field, hitting the linesman on the shoulder! The game was interrupted, the rival team penalized and we all went home with heavy hearts and pissed of spirits. Like I said, it’s almost as if this team is cursed… Which seems about right, seeing as I’m drawn to the troubled, dysfunctional and condemned.

I remember one particularly cold and dreary Sunday morning. My man and I woke me up early, stuffed some coffee and beer in our bags and mounted his motrobike. Unfortunately it wasn’t a late game (13.00), but an early one (11.00), so we headed off to Alepotrypa (Foxhole) stadium in Kypseli, still groggy eyes and swollen from our hangovers, the streets still empty at 10.30 on a November morning. We made our way up the steep and rocky hill, with its stunning view from the top. A football field, with one long, concrete set of tiers facing the shitty city below. A small piece of paradise, smack bam in the middle of the oldest, most densely populated districts of Athens. The sun had just managed to make its way through a crack in the thick clouds and despite the cold, a crowd of about 100 people had gathered to honour our local team, AsteraV Exarceiwn (Asteras Exarhion) meaning Exarhia stars.

Exarhia is the part of town predominantly frequented by students, punks, anarchists, leftists, artists, writers, metalheads, squatters, hooligans and general riff raff. Whereas in many cities these groups are often marginalized to the fringes of society, here they have barricaded themselves off and declared this small neighbourhood their own. So, it would only make sense that such a community would have a football team that is largely run and organized by its own fans. The team largely became know because of Michael Lolos, who played for the team for 17 years, then went on to coach it for another 33. He was a figurehead in the local football leagues and around the Exarhia area, always smiling and friendly, interacting with the players and fans alike. A tournament was organized in his name and dozens of local Athens teams played in his memory.

Bang! Ffffsssshhht! The stick flares, then lets out the thickest gush of red smoke! White trikakia are thrown into the air, the team walks out onto the field and, just as if it was the World Cup final, we cheer and wave our scarves, chinking our beer bottles, sharing smokes, hugging and jumping up and down! Some people start to slowly mumble something in unison. Then the drum starts to pound. People start to chime in. “Astera we all left together,” then the rest us on our side continue “we all came from the square” then the far side “to conquer all the football fields” and us again “and write some football history!” And it continues: Astera we will never leave, we’re always close at hand, sick and alcoholic wrecks, that’s us, your loyal fans. Astera score a fucking goal, so I can fuck it all up, to serve up to the asshole pigs, some poison we call fola! They’re gonna eat some slaps and kicks, no one is gonna make it, and in our home Exarhia is where we make their grave pit.

We’re only fifteen minutes into the game, but the cold is already starting to make my feet numb. Everyone is wearing black, not just because it fits the team’s colours (black and white) but because it also matches people’s political streak (black and red, or just black). Members of the fan club are going around with a box of mini ouzo bottles, to help fight the cold. They’re also selling pins, t-shirts, scarves and wall calendars, to help support the team financially. Being in the second local division isn’t always easy and this team is as far from ‘star system’ football as it gets really.

There have recently been some riots downtown and so two cops bikes start to circle the periphery of the stadium to ‘check things out.’ Immediately the crowd begins to sing. The cop runs with his bike up ahead, oh the cop runs with his bike up ahead. How I wish that he would fall, in a massive pit with turds, to be rolling in the shit like a pig. They soon disappear and we get back to swearing at our players, then showering them with praise and whistles. Most members of other teams at this level are in their late teens. Our team is a raving bunch of punks, who show up for practice with a hangover, smoke weed before the game and party with the fans, their friends, at the Promotion Fiesta, like when we climbed to the second local division last summer; where we partied with fire crackers, a bar and big ass PA blasting punk, right in Exarhia square!

The rival team scores a goal… fuck! The crowd goes quiet for a minute. Fuck your fucking Jesus, fuck your Virgin Mary too, on Sundays we go to the game and not to Sunday school! People from the far end start to sing: Oeo oeo oeo, ten grams of weed are nowhere near enough I say-o! Oeo oeo oeo, I’ll always see you Asterara I won’t fail. I wanna see, police departments burning, their cars destroyed, the banks still freshly smoking. I want to see the parliament get burned down, the cops are waiting for us with their shitty pants down. And when one day Astera I will die, you know I’ll still raise hell, high up there in the sky. And when one day, I have to call it quits, in my coffin I’ll still fart and shit. One of the players is injured, but instead of being at home, he is here with us, shouting obscenities at his fellow players and getting angry with the referee. The crowd of course always sticks by the team and yells crap at the referee and linesmen (the one right in front of our seats of course get picked on the most!) and by the end of the game it’s not uncommon for a couple of our players to have rounded up a handful of yellow and red cards. After all, our scarf does say Sick, Drunk & Loyal – Unfair Play.

Warm coffee, the smell of weed and friendly banter keep me occupied as half time spills into the second half of the game. People are joking around, being silly and sharing beers and cigarettes. Sure, you could say we look like a bunch of delinquents with authority issues and a love for good times, but that would be true anyway. The difference is that some of us actually care about the idea of football and how it manages, much like punk rock, to unite people and create friendships and camaraderie.

I’m not just talking about watching your team on TV and buying their generic merchandise. I’m talking about a different loevel of dedication. Actually, physically going down to the grounds every Sunday and standing there, sometimes in the freezing cold and drizzling rain, sometimes in the boiling heat under a blazing sun, for two hours, and still considering every minute a moment blessed with awesomeness! Some fans go beoynd just ‘following’ the team. Some actually create their own teams, of fans this time. But more on the Ultras next month, as I would like to quickly mention something else, related.

I would like to say a couple of words about the tragic Hillsborough accident that occurred on the 15th of April 1989, while Liverpool played against Nottingham Forest. Twenty-three years later the truth has finally been admitted. What the victims’ families have been shouting about for years has finally been publically confessed. Not only did none of the Liverpool fans share any kind of fault for the 96 that died and 766 injured, it has now been proven that it was all down to shitty police coordination of the various entries and exits. Oh, but it gets worse! Not only did they mess it up, they then went and covered it up. For all I know, Thatcher gave the order herself! Twenty-three years later the Sun newspaper, the one that originally delivered the news on that fateful day, finally admits that it ran fabricated facts; facts which the police actually altered so as to frame the fans… To this let me add that police snitches are always deliberately causing a commotion at both football games and peaceful demos; because if the state cannot find a reason to intervene, it will create one. And once you can secure the deliberate creation of chaos, you can justify the systematic oppression of it.

If you read Greek, which you probably don’t, then make sure to pick up HUMBA! fanzine—the most well-written and beautifully made fanzine about indie football culture. Find me at www.nemesisknox.com. Δεν Εχω αλλη Μπυρα και ο Χωρος μου Τελειωνει, Μπατσοι Φασιστες Δολοφονοι.

OK, seeing as I’ve been so busy learning the ins and outs of the amazing world of Maximum Rocknroll, I decided that I would upload some of the reviews I did these past six months I’ve been here…Shiat, is it already six months? Time flies when you’re in the bubble that is the MRR compound—a house of punk rock awesomeness if ever there was one! Cool people coming through, a radio show recorded every week, Halloween pumpkin carving, Punksgiving and much much more!

LOST SOUNDS – “Lost Lost – Lost Sounds demos, sounds, alternate takes & unused songs 1999-2004” LP (#353)

What to say first about this band? That they are one of my all time favourites? That their records (all of them) contain some of the darkest, most enchanting, twisted, self-obsessed post-apocalyptic, sociopathic garage anthems of the previous decade? That no other band can conjure up such creepy, devilish, morbid and downright resonant gloom and doom in one song? Their sound is too close to my aching heart to be objective about it, but this LP and EP do a good job of summarizing what LOST SOUNDS were all about: noise, distortion, obsession, lots and lots of echo, psychosis, saturnine desire (oh vicious desire!) and expansive planes of fuzz. Take that and choke on it.

The tracks on this LP are what the title says, so expect to find an assortment of a couple classics (apocalyptica-dance-fever on “Total Destruction,” mental nausea on “Black Coats/Whitefear,” lamenting in stunned horror on “Glued to the Screen”), some ‘sounds’ and retakes (“Throw Away” a masterpiece of denunciation, claiming “If this is an endless circle I would rather walk the line/I’m the scum of the USA/I am just a throw away” and “No One Killer” which is timeless LOST SOUNDS), a couple cover tracks (“I Cannot Lie” originally by a band from the No No No garage comp and a ‘slaughtering of a wonderful CRYSTALS song’ called “Frankenstein Twist”), as well as some which were never “officially” released, like the vintage/’60s-sounding lonely-cowboy reject track “No Count”.

They’ve always had an air of cosmic destruction about them, a feeling of tormented pursuit; chasing mania, then hunted by dread, and their keyboards, lyrics, arrangements, themes and overall sound is pure ecstasy to me. Alicja has “a way like a serenade” and her voice gives me goosebumps (Lucifer Jay has indeed fallen down and I am your servant now), while Jay is obviously the Pied Piper of Hamelin, luring us like rats to a sonic death. Oh rapturous synth bliss, “it’s my dream.”

Yet listening to these tracks now, after Retard’s death, whose influence was undoubtedly audible in everything he created, I’m not surprised that some of them almost predict the ending this truly unique band would imminently have in 2005. “You will never seem me again/So I wave goodbye” on “A Foreign Play”; track titles like “I Didn’t Mean to Lose You”; or the wishful thinking on “Die Alone (Promise Me)” a bleak-as-death and cold-as-stone track found on the complimentary EP—they all ring like bad omens. The EP in itself is fucking brilliant, with a rawer version of their epic, escape-from-reality opus “I Get Nervous,” plus an equally epic, thundering and emotionally charged masterpiece called “Look at Me,” which oddly enough reminds me of the energy summoned by GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR on “East Hastings,” that spine-chilling composition used on the OST to 28 Days Later. “Look at me/and don’t you turn away/look at me/and don’t you cry/look at me/and don’t you be afraid/look at me/up in the sky”—it seems to loom like a ghostlike farewell, as this is apparently the last track Retard and Alicja ever recorded together.

This may be a collection of ‘rarities’ but this is as compelling to an uninitiated listener as it is to the LOST SOUNDS completist. What’s most depressing is that this is probably the last we shall ever hear of this band ever again, unless more hidden gems are unearthed in the future in some sick Retard second coming. The LOST SOUNDS are dead. Long live the LOST SOUNDS! (Goner)

EPOCA DE RECLUTA – “Evolucionando Bajo Suelo” EP (#353)

I won’t say much. Not so much because I am one of the least qualified to discuss early Venezuelan punk, but more so because this is just fucking brilliant! Whatever words, in whatever language would not do this justice. A reissue of a 1994 demo tape by obscure/legendary Caracas band EPOCA DE RECLUTA (Age of Recruit). This is exactly how I like my punk and when I listen to this I can hear a lot of contemporary bands reflected in their sound—the relentless drumming, the gruff mean guitars, thick basslines and classic vocals that summon a fight! This is good on so many levels; and it’s only the first of a Radical Rock series of ’90s Venezuelan punk! Raw, anarchist, with an early ’80s USHC sound, with a rougher feel and street-wise edge, charging forward with scorn and conviction! The reason this is actually so refreshing is because you can hear the intensity and frustration that brought about the creation of the original release; in a Caracas, which, only a few years earlier, had lost hundreds if not thousands of workers during the ‘Caracazo’ riots of Feb. 27, 1989. Seven tracks of absolutely essential, prime South American punk, limited to 300, sure to sell out and guaranteed to spread like wildfire all over again! (Cabeza DeVaka / Noseke)

PROTESTANT / SUFFERING MIND – split EP (#350)

The first time I put this on I thought there must be some kind of mistake. It says four songs on the sleeve, but there’s only two! This clear orange piece of vinyl may look small, but boy, does it blasts some power: in just under five minutes SUFFERING MIND and PROTESTANT deliver four fast and heavy tracks. Polish grinders SUFFERING MIND launch their side with aggressive, metal infused hardcore, with ripped vocals and racing rhythm sections, then immediately pound in with what instantly sounds like a classic (“Obudzony”), full of blast-beats, gun-shot riffing, angry death metal growling and heavy breakdown ending. PROTESTANT have definitely grasped the meaning of mean fucking hardcore, with a sound that’s sharp (like black metal spikes) around the edges, yet still packs a solid crusty core. “No freedom, no life, no peace”. The rage continues with their second track, “A Sheep in Wolves Clothing”, splintering ears with crashing drums and choppy guitars and what do you know? The fun is already over. Suggested for repeated listening! (Halo of Flies)

SNOB VALUE – “Whiteout” LP (#353)

Let me start by saying that these boys have been busy busy busy, with their kicking and punching first tape, aptly named Keep It Short and Simple – K.I.S.S. in 2009, with Prince on the cover and tracks that just trip over themselves in fury and frustration, then another killer tape in 2010, which I also friggin’ loved—from the “bad cop” artwork and don’t-give-a-fuck lyrics, to the creeping, ripping riffs and mad lyrics—so I have anticipated this for quite a while! I can tell that they’ve definitely worked on this LP and these tracks are doused in indignation, antisocial aggression and contempt for humanity—I can relate,  “I don’t give a shit about what you did, when you were my age in 1986,” “sometimes I wish I were deaf, I would have peace at last.” Yes, antisocial hardcore for angry people, reminiscent of USHC classics, like the CIRCLE JERKS, DEAD KENNEDYS, MINOR THREAT, and more contemporary outfits such as the REGULATIONS and BRUTAL KNIGHTS. The compositions are still tight and catchy, but the band has developed them more, with slower, groovier hooks, slower intros, meaner guitar interludes and solos, layers and the ever-present, spiteful vocals; the kind of spite discovered in late adulthood, when you realize adulthood sucks and your peers are a joke!

While SNOB VALUE’s work has never lacked lyrical aggression or sonic force, these tracks have a more polished production, which makes conventional sense for a debut LP I suppose, though they don’t entirely lack that seedy subversive sound. Also, the artwork is quite minimal (“contrast reduction, disappeared horizon”) and while it’s handmade and still looks good, it doesn’t compare to their previous punk-ass designs. “1986,” “Hammer & Öl” and the self-titled “Whiteout” are stand out tracks for me; the first because it’s dark, honest, ballsy and foaming at the mouth (their pièce de résistance for this album if you ask me), the second because it’s sung in (their native) German and of course sounds all the more menacing for it (I hope to hear more auf deutsch) and the third because it’s SNOB VALUE essential: short and simple, fast, effective, mind-pounding. I’m already flipping this faster than I can keep track of and, while I do appreciate the more serious take they seem to have taken on this release, I honestly hope they keep some distortion and dirt intact, it’s that blunt irritation that makes ’em so great! Minor detail: I love it when bands have little messages scratched onto the wax; on ether side of this white 12” was: World peace can be fun – Anarchy’s a blast. Fuck yes! (Crapoulet / Prügelprinz / Spastic Fantastic)

V/A – “More World, Less Bank part 3: No Borders, No Banks” EP (#352)

Oh my fucking hell! This. Is. So. Amazing! Third compilation in the More World, Less Bank series, featuring top-notch Swedish crust, D-beat hardcore bands, that’s totally worth your time and effort. The cover features Swedish riot cops standing in line outside an important-looking building (I did some research but didn’t find out what it is) and every band on this will deliver a harsh, fuming, political assault on your ears! MISÄR start out this comp and exactly one minute and 5 seconds into their song they expel one malicious riff! And they actually only play this three-second riff twice! Please make it last longer than that! KRIMTÄNK come in after that with a very different recording quality and I think on the one hand that’s a shame, because this song is totally tight, old school raw and effectively simple early ’80s hardcore, but on the other hand this rawness of sound is well-fitting! SLAKTRENS have fuzzy and sharp guitars and a vocalist that sounds like he’s permanently got a sore throat, delivering short and choppy hardcore with furious energy. ESKATOLOGIA boom in with growls and mean metal guitars, the ripped vocals mesh with the guitars really well, the drums are fucking unstoppable and the melody b(l)ackbone behind this paints a grim, desolate picture that makes your eyes and ears bleed! And yes, there is also a B-side!

PASSIV DÖDSHJÄLP, who keep showing up everywhere in front of me, start out their choppy, fuzzy screamfest with the classic Manson quote (“Believe me, if I started murdering people, there’d be none of you left.”) The track only last about 30 seconds (not including the sound bite) so it obviously packs a good punch, with a rampant approach. INSIDIOUS PROCESS rips through you like a massive, multi-bladed shredder, with female vokills from a bloodbath nightmare, that growl and screech ‘fuck the elit’—this is blackened crusty D-beat at its best—blare on! MODERAT LIKVIDATION should need no introduction; their solid D-beat hardcore rolling along with force, carrying a depth of sound and a quality of execution that new bands should to take note of. END OF ALL close off this excellent comp, with crusty hardcore, with dual vocals, both ripped and bellowing, with metallic guitars and a steady snare assault, sharp production and classic crust riffage. Good comps burn like Motolov cocktails and this one does some serious damage! (Halvfabrikat)

NEGATIVE STANDARDS – “I-V” 10” (#350)

I actually saw this band play the second day I arrived in San Francisco and I can say they gave off a lot of power! As far as hardcore album artwork goes, I find bands can usually go one of two ways. Either very image heavy, with skulls, bombs, war pits, dead animals, corpses etc; or the complete opposite, as is the case in hand; just a black and white picture of a wall. Now, just because I’m an excessive person by nature, doesn’t mean I oppose such minimal artistic statements, laden with meaning none the less. In fact, it leaves a clean pallet for the music and draws the listener to wonder what the heck? This is heavy fastcore with metallic toppings, German hardcore trimmings, racing angry vocals and crusty rhythms. The second side (or at least the one without Latin numerals  on it) begins at a slower, more tormented pace but quickly picks up and by the end NEGATIVE STANDARDS had indeed made an impression on me. Both epic and racing, anguished and aggressive, this Bay area band—featuring members of ACTS OF SEDITION didn’t you know—is worth keeping your eye on. (Vendetta)

HELLSHOVEL – “Hated By the Sun” CD (#351)

There’s a strong feeling of motion to the songs, as if they are part of a larger narrative, which doesn’t seem impossible given the fact that they were recorded in “various apartments in Montreal and Berlin”. There are kaleidoscopic melodies, blimps and scratches, gritty drums and enough repetition in the riffs to safely assume some sort of unearthly state of mind had been reached by way of acid and absinth. It’s lo-fi enough to be absorbing, dark enough to keep you listening, but not overly-psychedelic so as to lose any of their garage flavour. Slightly distraught and mysterious, like the cover, this sounds like the ideal soundtrack to a sun-lounging, bourbon-drinking, chain-smoking, summer; or even a one-off, home-alone trip down mescaline lane, just you and your scary thoughts… Pas mal. (Slovenly)

V/A – “Warsaw Hardcore Punk Attack Vol.2” LP (#351)

Well, I admit this is a little different from the last thing I heard out of Poland, which was MOSWKA circa 1989, which I found on the Where the Wild Things Are compilation from Sabbel fanzine #14. This comp comes with a cool printed ten-page booklet with info and pics from all the bands and along with the music, you get a good taste of what’s going on in Warsaw at the moment. I’m a sucker for the sound of any Balkan language, so I was more than happy to review this. I notice that overall there’s definitely a heavy hardcore theme running through the whole compilation (with breakdowns to go around for everyone) and almost every band makes some political reference, even if only indirectly. If you like moshy hardcore, you’ll appreciate most of the songs on this: angry breakdown hardcore by DEADLIFT, BORN ANEW, SOCIAL DEATH, ska punk by the MUGSHOTS and NANCY REGAN, Oi! punk rock by TZN XENNA, the LUNATICS and PORNOSKINS, fast and melodic hardcore by STREET CHAOS, SOCIAL DEATH, NOISENSE and WSCHÓD (whose use of an audio-clip intro is quite effective), street punk by KOLIZJA, mid-tempo pop punk by NOWY SWIAT, heavy metalcore by REALITY CHECK, female fronted hardcore punk by ANTIDOTUM and POSING DIRT and lastly, my favourite, some powerful and dark post-punk with saddened female vocals by HATESTORY. I could listen to this song on repeat all night! (No Pasaran / Studio Fonia / Warsaw Punk / Dead Press / Warsaw Hardcore)

ARRESTUM – “Ihmistieteet” EP (#352)

Menacing, dark D-beat from Finland’s ARRESTUM with enough power to damage your ears if you go beyond 5 on your volume dial! This is crushing, brutal and deeply aggressive, with political lyrics sung in Finnish and I’m stoked that I get to review this! The A-side opens with an unyielding track driven by crusty metal guitars, called “Inho/Repulsion,” that comes to a blackened heavy close, before bursting into “Viha/Hate”, gathering motion and breaking out into epic riffage and tight drumming. This is epic in every meaning of the word and I love it! The single track of the B-side thunders down without cease, with hair-raising guitars that shear and shave, soaring with rage and grief, the vocalist bellowing Mikään ei muutu (nothing will change) with gut-churning force, the drums a sheer delight to get lost in, the guitars leading to a crashing post-apocalyptic crescendo. The crust disappears, the sound liquefies and it all ends with a single chord loop before fading back to silence. If this is what a good death sounds like, please kill me again! (Parta)

IVES – “Abandon” LP (#354)

This is straight up grim, thrashing black metal, with strong anarchist overtones and evident punk undercurrents. While this does most definitely reek of desolate mountaintops, bloody death by cannibalism and running through a CARPATHIAN FOREST, this duo hails from Jacksonville, Florida. And because the term black metal is pretty broad, let me say that this reminds me of what my metal friends and I used to say about late ’80s-early ’90s black metal bands hailing from Norway. To distinguish it from other sects of black metal, and for lack of a better description, we called it ‘punk played black metal’. Yet unlike BATHORY, DARKTHRONE, MAYHEM, early ULVER and so on, who did play black metal with a punk aesthetic, I feel the opposite is true for IVES: they’re punks who want to play with a black metal aesthetic—which is fine with me, I do too! The orchestration and production is just atmospheric and harsh enough to keep this firmly in black metal territory, yet oftentimes the sound on the drums is just downright punk! Sharp, shape-shifting guitars aside, this recording also finds a mandolin and violin put to effective use, summoning nightmarish echoes from beyond the mass grave we are all sure to share. This is a one-sided (!) LP and besides the useless acoustic guitar intermission near the end of the record, this reminds me of why I like black metal: it makes me want to escape to the nearest forest and just dwell there, doing drugs and making poisonous blow darts, until I’ve convened the powers of evil into an electric storm and channeled it into a midnight madness recording session…Limited to 200. (Prison Tatt)

ZEITGEIST – LP (#352)

OK, so the GORILA ANGREB/MASSHYSTERI/TERRIBLE FEELINGS formula for off-kilter female vocals on top of tense yet melodic music really struck a chord with people. As broad as that statement may appear, the actual sound honed by these and other bands similar, is much more distinct and easily recognizable here, in this band from Pittsburg, members of which also play in ICON GALLERY, which makes total sense. OK, so right off the bat I knew I liked the music, yet all I could hear were the things I didn’t like about Tilley’s voice (the chorus on “Someday,” the screamo and PARAMORE-ish bits of “So It Goes” and “Dogmatic Flu,” the meowing on “Relationshit”). I’m a stubborn person so this challenged me and with every listen I warmed up to it more. When she growls, croons and spits with anger and lust like on “Social Gag,” “1, 2, 3” and “Let’s Play House,” she really captures the tension the music carries so well throughout, while her sad howling chorus on “Atone” is a spine-chilling delight that rang in my head for days. The guitars are tight and constant, with a well-produced sound that’s backed by a solid rhythm section, alternating between heavy/fast, sharp/delicate, rolling/choppy at all the right times. There’s a memorable riff on at least half the songs, while the bass does some neat finger work above the layers of pummeling drums and crashing cymbals. My final verdict says guilty, of being a catchy yet thoughtful debut that I will listen to many times over. By the way, Zeitgeist means “spirit of the times” in German and if you haven’t seen the three-part documentary of the same name, I suggest you do. (Cobra Cabana)

V/A – DIMORNA SKINGRAS VOL.3 (#352)

Twenty-four tracks of raging Swedish D-beat, hardcore, punk madness ladies and germs! Each one guaranteed to fulfill your wettest, horniest, rawest hardcore dream, if raw and Swedish is how you like it! This sort of continues where the Really Fast records comps left off so you know it’s good! No foreplay, let’s get it on!

HANDGRANAT deliver straight yet melodic, agro hardcore, with D-beat sprinkles and crust trimmings on their song “Inget Nytt Under Solen” (nothing new under the sun), while on “Slå Blå” (slay blue), the drums pummel in, the guitars turn into solos and the vocalist sounds genuinely pissed about the police beating people until they’re blue, which is what this song is about. One-man project PP7 GAFTZER plays speed punk with reckless-sounding guitars that riff away with a crazy spirit and deep rolling sound (“Sliding Doors”), with awesome, hoarse vocals, shouted choruses and guitar solos that many will appreciate (“Life in the Mainstream”). Powerful and pit worthy! STOCKHOLMS BLODBAD start off with some samples in Swedish (which I don’t understand but dig ’cause Swedish rules), then charge off on a hardcore rampage (“Rattsprocessen”), with stomping drums, then crash into some black metal vocals and guitar touches, complimenting the singer’s gruff tone; I fucking love this!! Some more Swedish samples before all hell hangs loose in the circle pit that is the four-second “Jag e inte Botad”. More ominous-sounding samples above a doomy, crusty intro and metal guitars that ooze venom for their final track, “Va fan!”. BOMBANGREPP lay down three tight and heavy D-beat hardcore tracks, with brazen guitars, crusty and absolutely raging vocals and solid riffing throughout! VENGEANCE OF KARMA storm in with fuzzed out guitars that almost sound like they should belong on an early crossover black metal rarity and fucking rip it! Dual vocals, both throaty and scratched, with an enjoyably noisy and gritty production—then all of a suddenly it turns into a heavy hardcore breakdown, with double-pedaling and guitar-string pulls that recall DARKEST HOUR-influenced crap, that sounds altogether out of place with the blissful insanity they had going on up until that point. Their second track is short and sweet, with groovier riffing played at a solid speed, sharp solos, deep bass and angry vocals. (I’m having so much fun!)

On the flipside! “Checkpoint Sweden” it is indeed, as introduced by the BRISTLES, who play old school punk, with a touch of Oi! in some of the drum/guitar combos on their second track. PASSIV DÖDSHJÄLP turn the fuzz back up and steamroll out some chugging crusty hardcore, with melodic leads, buzzing bass, ripped vocals and steady, thick drumming. Gimme more! A change of pace and sound swarms in with INAVEL and their three awesome tracks of chaotic and raw ’80s-influenced hardcore, with razor-sharp guitars and exasperated vocals that at first I thought sounded Japanese; plus one track of mucking about called “GHB.” VON BØØM, who originally formed in 1984, take it from there, with fast and fuming hardcore, accompanied by yelped vocals and steady streamlines of thrashy riffing. THÄSHERS round things up for the final curtain, with two tracks of youthful, angry hardcore punk, with (what I believe are) female vocals and gang vox to carry the solo to the grand finale. (Pike)

MUTANT GENES – “Straight to Hell” EP (#353)

Angst-ridden, catchy, melodic hardcore punk, in the vain of AUTISTIC YOUTH and NO HOPE FOR THE KIDS, rooted in early BLACK FLAG urgency and ADOLESCENTS mania. Five tracks of late-night street fighting, pit-diving punk, with a mischievous no-hope attitude and straight no-frills sound. Frustrated vocals, brisk drumming and aggravated story lines are carried by convincing pick-work and slick solos; all rounded off with a production that’s suitably basement-sounding and organic. This EP is a very pleasant new introduction and even though they aren’t exactly reinventing the wheel, their approach sounds candid. I hope they kill it live, because there’s definitely fertile ground here for something memorable. A cool EP for sure, I can see “Straight to Hell” becoming a hit with the kids! (Vomit Comit)

LIGHTBEARER / NORTHLESS – Split LP (#353)

Most split records with two tracks per band are EPs, but not when you’re dwelling in a sludgy “post” swamp it’s not, so don’t be alarmed to find four slow-burners on this dark and mystical concept 12”. Slow-developing, heavy post-hardcore from Milwaukee’s NORTHLESS; apparently their side is “the first chronicle by the Luciferian followers, who document the struggle for Lucifer to enlighten the universe of the false god’s true nature.” Guitar layering and composition ideas that bring to mind ISIS circa Celestial and Oceanic, with some minimal GODFLESH chugging and techier touches à la KNUT on their second track “For As Long As You Shall Walk the Earth, Your Blood Will Reek of Failure”, which then stairwells into a MASTODON-esque stomp-drift, stomp-drift guitar trip, then pummels on at a steady stoner pace before adding the mandatory ‘pretty’ riff to come to a close.

The LIGHTBEARER side was a little more powerful on the first track “Celestium Apocrypha,” the way FALL OF EFRAFA were on Owsla (which shouldn’t surprise you, as it’s basically them since the three-record concept band of FALL OF EFRAFA is now over), with soundscaping riffs that remind me of early CULT OF LUNA; the overall sound swimming into ISIS waters circa Panopticon, then posting-out on a grand and gradual closure MONO/ENVY style. If you have no interest in any of the bands previously mentioned—or weed—then you’re obviously nothing like me and should give this a pass. If you want something deep and heavy while you slay behemoths at AD&D, or get high and meditate, or make love, or write your epic anarchist novel or whatever, then yes, this has got all the staple post-hardcore elements you need. However, if you, like me, have maintained a steady level of depression this last decade by listening to the better contributors of this epic genre, which ever-gains popularity thanks to countless bands rediscovering the power of the almighty riff as first unearthed by NEUROSIS, then you might as well go listen to any of your NEUROSIS records released between 1993 and 2004, because that’s where this is all fucking coming from. (Alerta Antifascista / Halo of Flies / Moment of Collapse)

REPLICA – flexi EP (#353)

“Never turn your back on fear. It should always be in front of you, like a thing that might have to be killed”—Hunter S. Thompson. Do not be fooled by this simple-looking piece of thin wax! Do not be misled into thinking this is a mere four-track flexi. This is five (yes, five) tracks of menacing, evil hardcore from this Bay area quartet of wrath. This grabs you by the neck, slaps you in the face and says ‘Listen you piece of shit, this is your life, don’t let anyone else but you fuck it up! Now fuck off!” That’s the kind of motivation I need to make it through the day! This flexi encompasses everything I like about hardcore. It’s heavy without being sluggish, riff-infested without being rotten, pissed off and hungry, like a rabid hyena on a serious quest for a juicy dose of hardcore madness. Unstoppable and fierce, with guts and brains, lyrics that are pensive and passionate, riddled with fear and loathing, self-destruction and misanthropy, encircling the sonic pallet of emotions like a wild beast. Juliana is a colossal riff maniac, delivering tense, racing riff attacks drawing from old school thrash to ’90s hardcore, complemented by Alicia’s thick and heavy bass lines that crawl up and down the spine of each track like a venomous tarantula. B (of NO STATIK) expels ferocious drumming (unleash some blastbeats!), with D-beat pounding, ecstatic and tribal thumping on “Becky’s Rite,” crashing cymbals and steady snare beatings to make your ears bleed! Dharma is a vicious necromancer and I feel she carries a primordial anger only few people can experience, as if they somehow channel the anger of aeons past, spitting in the face of authority, laughing at convention, screaming the truth because that’s all that makes sense, then lighting up a bloody cigarette after beating your ass in the pit. A-class stuff, released by Bay area’s dynamic duo Radical Punx Never Die! This was already sold out within a month of its release, so send love letters to the band and label and demand they reprint this! (Radical Punx Never Die!)

RAPE REVENGE – “Paper Cage” EP (#351)

A tight EP, packed with 16 short, fast and loud grindy fastcore songs, which is what RAPE REVENGE know how to deliver best. The vokills are pissed and raging, the drums solid and steady, the guitars sharp and fast, while the production is dark, dirty and gritty, sort of like the artwork. This EP comes with a ten-page Xeroxed little booklet, with a short explanation of what each track is about, with a strong political backbone (SxE veganism, anarchy, womyn solidarity, challenging the status quo, ect) running throughout. Short and angry powerviolence, a good place to start if you are new to this band. (To Live A Lie)

COUNTDOWN TO OBLIVION – “Discography” LP (#350)

COUNTDOWN TO OBLIVION was a Toronto-based band from 1998-2000 and featured members of various Canada-based hardcore bands (CURSED, WARFARE STATE, BRUTAL KNIGHTS, THE SWARM, ANTI-FLAG). This here LP, released by A389, is a collection of their work and I took to it like a dog to a bone. I admit I hadn’t heard of them, but I love CURSED and BRUTAL KNIGHTS so I had little fear. It includes their 1999 “Death Rattle” demo, their “Brain Surgery for Beginners” 7” and their part of the “Starting Fires” split 7” with THEY LIVE, plus three tracks from various compilation appearances. COUNTDOWN TO OBLIVION had all the things a good hardcore band needed: raw sound, tight guitars, solid bass lines, pissed off vocals and lyrics, menacing drumming and in-your-face attitude. “We had done all we could for a band that we had created just for some extra fun on the side,” the sleeve inside reads, but I think this is just as relevant today as it was then. Worth introducing it to your record collection, if you haven’t already. (A389)

Bala. BA-la. Say that out loud, BA-la! That means ball in Greek. It also means ‘footie’. That sport enjoyed for centuries across so many countries around the world also known as football—or, if you live in America, soccer. Their football is the other one that involves throwing a melon-shaped ball, catching it, running like hell, then getting pounced on by a dozen close-zised players ready to fight you for it. Or something like that anyway, I don’t know, I don’t really care at this point, that’s not what I’m here to talk to you about. Today I’m talking football!

Let me start by saying that I have never been the sporty type. I remember having classmates in school who were into football—so pretty much every boy—but didn’t find any of it appealing. I was more interested in flipping through magazines and cutting out as many blue things as I could find for ‘my blue wall,’ or dressing up in weird shit with my twin sister and putting on music(al) mashups, than things like football, or piano lessons. We just played outside, making tree-houses in the back garden, which was the whole mountain side. Sure, I enjoyed volleyball in school and even did some floor and rhythmic gymnastics for a few years when I was younger, but by high school I was on the delicious combo of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll!

In college I remember seeing lots of wealthy young yuppies, walking into class carrying nothing but their cell phone, cigarettes, sports newspaper and keys to their jeep. They made bets on game outcomes and lost huge amounts of money (because they had it) and even got pissed off when you badmouthed one of their players. Who are these meatheads, I would think to myself, who have time and money to waste on things like football? I thought it was dumb, so much money wasted on big events and organizations, meanwhile the people are losing their jobs; the games still sponsored by large companies, the players sold back and forth as if it was all part of a Playstation game. (And yeah, Christiano Ronaldo plays like a pro in both).

Then, about three years ago, something weird happened. I had been working a shitty job for a year or so and got to picking up a crappy, daily newspaper every morning on my way to work. I worked alone and so had more than enough time to read the whole newspaper with my morning coffee if I wanted to. And so I did. It was another excuse not to work, so I read everything—and I mean everything, even the bullshit ads and moronic letters to the editor, the horoscopes and car/moto section and, of course, the sports pages. So, every day I read about football teams I didn’t support and got news on players I had never seen play. I found out the gossip on who was embezzling money, the rumours about player A being offered huge amounts of money to play with team B, the radical past of coach X and the horrible injury of scorer Y. My job was kind of boring and my life even more so at that stage, so I enjoyed being able to follow these events and games. I even asked old men on the street about match results, just to stay ahead with what was happening, and to amuse myself of course. Old men discussing football with thick countryside accents—fucking best!

When reading about any competition, one leans towards something. I didn’t even watch any football games, ever, except for the Mundial Cup, which, I mean—come on, who doesn’t watch that shit even just a little bit when it’s on? Anyway, I just knew that I wasn’t going to support either of the two main teams, the eternal rivals, Olympiacos and Panathinaikos. I remember both these teams growing up, one was red, the other was green.

A red was called a gavros (anchovy), they originate from the port of Pireus (much like anchovies, which used to be sold at games, old school fast food) and their home stadium (surprise, surprise) looks like a giant frying pan, a detail rival fans have noticed and mock repeatedly. Their symbol is a white, statuesque-looking, wreathed young man on a red and white background and pretty much 99% of Olympiacos fans I have encountered are meat headed idiots.A ‘green’ was called a vazelos, from the word Vaseline shouted by Olympiacos fans after a particularly brutal match. I don’t think I need to point out the connection between Vaseline and a sore loss, do I? They originate from Athens, their symbol is a clover and their stadium is right in the centre of the city, across from the police’s main headquarters, ΓΑΔΑ. Most Panathinaikos fans I have encountered are richer kids, often just dorky, other times jocky, most usually just middle of the road boring.

I ended up sort of leaning towards AEK, mainly out of reaction—in high school I had an (older) punk classmate who was an AEK hooligan (he was that scary calm, you know, when he gets angry he goes mental) and he told me some crazy stories from some of the games and it was brutal. AEK is the team from Constantinople, relocated to Athens, with the double-headed eagle and a stadium that once stood in New Philly, Athens, now torn down, so they play at the big OAKA stadium. Like all Greek teams, there’s enough shit to dig up on them, you could block out the sun. Years later I was to meet another punk who was somehow knee-high in working for AEK and he too told με some crazy stories, this time about the inside workings of the team and it was pretty surreal. Their mockname used by rivals was lagos (hare), presumably because they needed to run fast to avoid getting their asses whopped. I know there are punx out there who can correct me if I’m wrong. …

At some point I tried asking dudes about football and their reactions ranged from funny and stupid to downright moronic and sexist. Then in 2010 I met someone who really loved football, grew up on it and spoke to me about it with such passion and genuine interest, that I realized there was something I’d been missing—besides watching the games and getting the rules obviously. He didn’t only talk about amazing coaches, or unforgettable fouls, or even talented players. He spoke about the experience of being there, at the stadium, watching it all live! About traveling with a bunch of other crazy people by coach, or train or airplane, to go chant and cheer along their favourite team. To get drunk on the happy highs and to morn the horrible lows.

His team was PAOK, another Constantinople team, relocated to Salonica; their symbol a two-headed eagle, their colours black and white, their stadium in Toumba, Thessaloniki. PAOK’s eternal rival is ARIS, whose fans can also be known as skulikia (worms)! I got quite interested in the image he had painted for me, as we sat at the pub, drinking beer, shooting darts. It was something much better sounding than the corrupt, dog-eat-dog, shit talking, deal-making/deal-breaking world of modern day professional football as I had perceived it so far.

            PAOK is one of those love/hate affairs—you love it when they win, but you hate it when they lose, it’s almost like they’re cursed or something. OK, obviously the more money you can launder, the more you can spend on buying ace players and I guess PAOK didn’t have as much as the rest. Though we still had a pretty neat array of players in recent years, so sooner or later larger, richer Greek and European teams scooped them all up. Though Salpigidis won’t budge his thick thighs off the pitch!

            I was learning the rules, even remembering some of the player’s names. I was actually following a sport. Me! The eternal chain-smoker, was actually chain-smoking while watching football! Well I never! That summer I watched as many World Cup games as I could, which was most of them seeing as I was unemployed. Little did I know that I was soon to experience something way better than crappy, organized football events, sponsored by Citibank and Adidas, broadcast by mainstream mean. I was going to witness the gore and glory of a third division football match. But I was not going to see just any team. I was going to go see Asteras Exarhion!

To be continued…

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August was a pretty intense month… On Friday there was a gig at Thrillhouse, packed to the rafters, with so many people that you couldn’t even hear the vocals if you were in the back! Needles and Weird TV rocked it and Martin was nice enough to keep me company on the bus and we rode back together on the bus. Saturday saw me on a small road trip for the Think and Die Thinking festival, which took place from Aug.24 to Aug. 26 in San Jose.

Mr. Lambert of Connoisseur and various other bands (including the Abominable Iron Sloth, at least for one moon) was nice enough to give me a ride with all the distro stuff. The ride was scenic and (I’m guessing) very California. It’s funny how the ride out of SF, on the way to the airport looks a bit like when you’re leaving Athens on your way to the airport.

It took us a while to actually find the youth centre but when eventually we did, it felt like walking into a prom party or something. There were bands playing, balloons, a disco ball, food and drinks, lots of tables with zines, handmade thingamajigs, band merch, info stands…there was also a weird bundle of pink material, somehow assembled to look like…well, we decided to leave that open for interpretation and just enjoy the quirky surrealism it added to the whole event. I got to hang out with some cool people, while reading back issue of the mag at the distro table, have some beers and enjoy some good bands. The Street Eaters were the surprise of the evening for me. I’m a sucker for male-female duets and the Street Eaters reaffirmed my liking—good dynamics, songwriting that sounds more like a story (their story?) and dual vocals that complement each other. No Babies were also powerful, with cool female vocals (the bassist of the Neo Cons actually) and I go to see Weird TV, which was nice, since I could hardly hear them play at Thrillhouse.

The people were all very friendly and there were kids of all ages and colours of the rainbow and there was an overall feeling of welcome and fun. Neat bonus: the screening of Riot Ghoul, a short film made by local punx, about a girl who leaves a dead end relationship after being approached by the ghost of a dead punk, with a twist ending (plus a badass cameo by Marissa Magik!).

Rich of Perm Ru wrote a very well written, witty scene report about San Jose a while back for MRR, so it’s no surprise he was helping organize it all. He also DJ-ed in between sets and it was sweet! Smooth, mellow soulful music, some funkier disco (but not crappy) stuff, some more boppin’ rap and r’n’b (but again, super tasteful) and by the end of it, people were dancing to Rihanna’s hit ‘We Found Love’ (in a hopeless place) in a actually quite hopeful place. I left with a warm fussy feeling in my stomach and look forward to next year’s third Think and Die Thinking festival!

Sunday Amelia came by the house to record a radio show with the Brain Tumors, who later that night played the Fortress, with Coma (who were heavy and proggy, got their tape) and Caged Animal, who may have only played about sixteen minutes, but it was sixteen minutes of rage, speed and crazy screams from Tony! Rad! Brain Tumors were also tight, with a vocalist who pounded the mic on his head, bounced off people and when the mic gave up on him, he just screamed into people’s ears, which I thought was great! No mic? No problem, you’re still gonna hear my rage! Cool people and all of them delivered a good show. Which was inside some kind of bat cave run by suspicious occultists…weird.

The week flew by, like they do here, it’s almost like the fog end the day quicker when it starts to roll in round sundown. It’s both spooky and really cool at the same time. So the weekend came round very fast and Prank fest was upon us in no time. I arrived in time to grab some (very tasty) food at Souly Vegan a few blocks up from the Metro in Oakland. By the time I got back to there Replica had just started their set and they were killing it. The crowd was warming up and the pit was already quite vicious. Right after they finished, no sooner Merdoso started out on the big stage. They were much harsher than I recalled from their Forward show, where they sounded darker and a bit more epic (in a good way). Either way they started, pounded us for a handful of tracks without cease, then I had to go back inside the small room to do my job as coord and table for MRR. Responsible coord y’all!

Hunting Party were up next and I hadn’t seen them since I first arrived here, so it was nice to see them again and I remembered correctly, they rock it. Justin and Jake are just riff menaces and Bou Bou has my ideal kind of voice for pissed off bare bones hardcore like this: raspy, throaty, spitting out lyrics like they were his last testament, with a conviction in his eye that is both inspiring and kind of frightening. Just as I ventured out for a quick cigarette break Deathraid started up in the big room and as the smoking section was right at the back opposite the stage, and the doors were open, I got to smoke and see them play. They were chaotic and agro, just like I remembered them to be, from when they played in Athens two (?) summers ago, at the old mechanology workshop room of the Polytechnic Uni in downtown Athens, an industrial interior if ever I saw one. An amp ended up catching fire that night, just because it was being played so hard by all the bands. It started to smoke, then literally went up in flames! It was a right sight! We told this to one of our crazy sound engineer friends in Salonica and he went crazy, ‘yeah man, it’s all electricity, that must have been awesome!’

Back inside at the Metro, Effluxus had just started. I will admit I have enjoyed them more at previous shows, but they still dispensed a heavy chunk of hardcore. I caught a glimpse of Bumbklaatt on my way to the bathroom but didn’t really hear something too appealing to my ears. No Statik were going to start soon in the small room and shit was about to get crazy! Every time they play people just go mad, it’s contagious! And they did this time too! One large cha was even offering jumps off of his hands, to leverage/fly people into the crowd! Who said punks weren’t resourceful?

Up next were Citizens Arrest and Dropdead, both in the large room, but neither of them appealed to me. I know a lot of people like them but the vocals of Dropdead were just inaudible…sorry. Respect, but not my kind of thing.

Sunday saw me back in Oakland, this time at the 1234 Go record store, where—wait for it—the Red Dons and—again—the Estranged were playing!! Two bands I really really really like were going to be playing the same bill, in a cool (literally, air conditioned) place, with just a few people (40ish), surrounded by records! It was just great! Neon Piss also played (last minute call) and they were a great warm up. I couldn’t really believe I was seeing them live, until their singer strummed and yelped ‘because there’s nothing for me, in this city, what a waste of time, nothing works out at all.’ I used to listen to that song so much back when I was in Athens, the lyrics and sentiment very much in line with how I felt. The intimate setting was a real plus, as I got to see them from about three metres away and they were all just thoroughly enjoying playing they music. Their new stuff is also really good and even though I didn’t manage to ask them about it this time, I have to ask how come they used Greek on the cover of their latest EP. The Estranged were better than I could have expected. The guitarist just goes kind of shaky and wild, singing at the top of his lungs, the bassist hopping up and down, the drummer slamming away at his skins. After seeing that, I knew going to Gilman for the first time wouldn’t seem like such a treat…

Because 924 Gilman, apparently, is not what it used to be. There have been many issues about the fact that, even though it still has the NO RACISM, NO SEXISM, NO HOMOPHOBIA sign hung up near the entrance, bands that in fact breach this rule have played there. Many band in fact boycott playing there, as they feel that it should not be running the way it does… And while this is not enough, someone wrote an article about Gilman in the SF weekly, using quotes they had no permission to use. That’s not only bad journalism, it’s also disrespectful and shitty! In addition, when Mariam told the article author that she didn’t ever intend to be quoted and that quoting without permission could get one into a lot of trouble, the author then went to claim on facebook that ‘MRR is threatening to sue me’…I mean, what the fuck? Is people’s filter so damn egotistical, jaded and downright manipulative? Lesson learned kids, punx can be assholes too.

Anyway, after grabbing something to keep me sustained and a couple cigarettes outside, I finally entered. Brainoil were playing when I decided to go in and even from outside, the sound was pretty loud! I missed Walls, but I got to hear some of it from outside and they sounded just killer! Inside, the dude asked me if I had a membership card. It was super loud so I had to ask him to repeat the question. Are you a member? I said no. I pointed to the ticket stand and made a finger gesture indicating I wanted one. I handed him my $20, he handed back a red card and a bunch of change and I went merrily on my way inside. Then, waving his arms and looking quite pissed off, he stopped me at the doorway, saying nothing, just pointing to a girl seated behind another table, who also also looked angrily at me. They thought I was trying to be a cheapstake them and bypass the entry fee—which of course I was not, they just assumed I knew what Gilman was and how it worked. Which of course I do, but hey, you’ve been going to shows for three days non stop, you’ve tabled a couple of ‘em, you’ve already had more beer than food and you’re tired; you hand over a twenty, you get a card, you think it’s your way into some punk fun…

Brainoil are masters at what they do, which is slow, sludgy, stoner doom. Slices were modern macho hardcore, with a dude who made faces when he sang; I felt both kind of patronized yet entertained, I suppose the effect they were going for. Iron Lung were of course the highlight of the evening for everyone and even though they are considered to be legends, they were not something I felt I had never seen before (yes, I will await your hate mail). Maybe it’s just because I wasn’t feeling it at that moment. They were however, very good at what they do, the drummer is just sick and has a sense of humour (more bands should do that, mix up their set with some stand up comedy about punk) and their playing was just tight, focused, heavy, mean and menacing. A good one.

Final gig, though technically it’s not August anymore, was the New Flesh, Synthetic ID, the Estranged and the Red Dons at Thrillhouse. I was so damn excited and happy that I’d be seeing them for the second time in a week, I had knots and cramps in my stomach all day. I planned on doing an interview with the Estranged (seeing as they’d never been interviewed for MRR) and the Red Dons (seeing as their last interview in MRR was four years ago) and had been doing my research before sitting down to write up any questions. Basically by the end of it I thought, oh fuck, it’s all been said and they’re probably sick of saying it all over and over again (I mean, we are talking about integral parts of the Portland scene, people who have been in a number of bands that I love and really admire…so I knew I’d come off as an ignorant dork, which is of course what happened.

I arrived early-ish, my idea being to do the interview before the show, but various people suggested we do it afterward when we would all be more chilled. And drunk…. Bad call on my part, seeing as not only had I come up with a pathetic selection of questions, I had was also kind of getting the yips. So, whereas normally I am a chatty, outgoing person with lots of questions and queries, this time I couldn’t form my sentences, my thoughts were going in circles, my words were sounding foreign to me and overall I’m sure they all deserved a better interview.

Of course i loved the fact that I got to talk to them all and that they were even down for answering my unimaginative ponderings and feel very grateful and still kind of awestruck. Still, I feel I have let myself down. If you had asked me six months ago who would i like to see/interview with MRR, these two bands would have been on the short list… I would have come up with awesome, brain picking questions, we could have discussed any number of topics, including but not limited to the integral politics that rule our lives, modern punk scenes both local and global and how they are changing/improving, fun and nasty memories from previous tours and bands, dealing with post-modern living, fighting the system, taking punk one step beyond the music and what is their ideal soundtrack to the up-coming Apocalypse…

The actual gig itself was just killer. Thrillhouse had great sound (or should I say the bands knew what they were doing!), it wasn’t as packed as the last gig i saw there, so it was good to be able to see, hear, move around and feel comfortable. Half way through the Esranged i felt like just diving through the people in the front, shake things up a bit, you know, get people dancing…but as usual i remained my wuss anti-pit self… Then during the Red Dons i thought fuck it! I’m going up front so i can see everything. Another bad call.

Boys, you can get vicious in the pit and when you’re busy pushing eachother around, being all bro and playful, you are in fact fucking up the whole experience for some. I know the pit and slamdancing are an integral part of punk and that yes, people help you up when you fall and all that, but shoving people without thought or care where they might end up or what kind of damage you might cause, is not only careless, in my book it’s not punk. I had this same bad aftertaste at 1234 when Hoax played and at Gilman when Slices played. The pit was so fucking brutal, you did not venture in there unless you were prepared for at least a bloody nose… and while all this is fun for some and, depending on how big the venue is, you can easily avoid it,  for me this gets my goat and ruins shows for me: being shoved from behind into other people, getting kicked about, elbowed, beer-drenched, pulled and yanked and eventually pushed into some drum equipment.

At first i was more worried about the equipment; what if i broke it? I mean, who creates a pit that ends up being a threat to the well being of the place you’re in? Or even to the well-being of those around you? It’s not like we were at the large room of the Metro or something, this was Thrillhouse. I know it’s badass and punk to get fucked up at shows and wake up with cuts and bruises the next morning, but that’s not my idea of fun anymore. When i did gigs back in Athens, the one rule we tried to follow was ‘no beer fountains near the stage’ because hey buddy, it’s great that you want to wave your full can of beer around, spraying everyone, but you’re not the one who is going to be paying for the equipment to be fixed when it short-circuits because of your turd-sized brain! The drum kit was fine, but my ass sure as hell wasn’t, it ached like i had just been skewered with a metal pole, which i guess i had (cymbal stand bruise). So, i retreated back to my dark corner near the drummer, where i wouldn’t be in anyone’s way and where i could dance without fear of getting brutalized. And dance i did. I danced like i hadn’t in months!! So thank you to all the bands and piss off to all the pit spoilers.

Finally at bout 01.00, we all started to file out of Thrillhouse, the bands ready for a 10-12 hour drive to Portland, me on my way back home with a head full of (more) questions. And, as often happens at times like these, we sort of scattered, waving goodbye from afar, yelling thank you and blowing kisses. ‘Come to Portland’ Zach yells as we’re almost out of sight. ‘I will. I promise!’ I yell back just before I hop into the car.

I didn’t even take a picture with them all… how fucking pathetic! Lesson learned kids: don’t let you stomach drink if you want your brain to think. My apologies and thank yous to the bands, i still think you’re one of the best things since sliced bread.

***

Anyhoo, that’s my round up for August, I could have delved into more detail, or just been a bit more informative of some of the bands, but this is the third revisiting of this post, this time burdened by a heavy hangover, a sore bangover (headbanging hangover)

New column up soon!  Until next time, save the planet, bin a nazi!

Pussy Winecock

THE MISERABLE LIFE OF EFTHIMIS POLYPROKOPOYLOS

A short story by Eleni Dimopoulou, originally published in After the Rain zine, circa 2001. Reprinted in Nowhere zine, summer 2012. Translated here. Tone and language simplicity has been maintained to represent the original work as closely as possible.

73% of long-term recovery leaves given to policemen and jail wardens are due to mental health issues [M. Foucault]

Police man. Commonly, a cop. Nationalist, proud. In his head brews a Big idea. Not like something abstract. An idea for Efthimis Polyprokopoulos is something tangible. Something forceful. The “force” found at the end of his club. His baton being a natural extension of his phallus. And his phallus an adaptation of his mind. Efthimis, to put it simply, shoots national danger in the chest. Beats up scum like he fucks hookers.

Or vice versa: Beats up hookers like he fucks up scum. The first one troubles him in particular. Because he pays for it. No Government foresaw those extra expenses of his. Plus every Government modernized the Police force. Efthimis hated modernization. He philosophizes: In the past cops were thought of as heroes. Fucking and beating. Beating with shields, clubs, kicks. Without having to account to anyone for anything. But instead of battles body to body, they now worked from afar. With tear gas, chemicals, cameras and the like. Chemistry and Technology have destroyed the meaning of Repression. Distanced the oppressor/executioner from the object of oppression. Denied him the happiness of direct contact.

  And that’s why Efthimis beats his hookers. Because they have the audacity to ask for a condom. Other than that, Polyprokopoulos was very conscientious. He knows his job well. Because it’s a dual issue. Most think he wears his suit to protect them from criminals. Efthimis knows—from personal experience—that the percentage of pathological criminals, in every country, are counted on the fingers of his threatening hand. No. Efthimis has one job. To protect citizens from other citizens who want to be protected. The preservation of Lawful Order, being a pimp, was a highly familiar occupation.

Efthimis finds sending the pricks to the slammer unfair. For everyone else. Jail is a stupid construction which uses up space and money. The cost would be minimal if they just shot those bums.

Efthimis Polyprokopoulos considers himself to be an honoured ancestor of a french race of Higher Policemen. And doesn’t think he is anyone’s pawn. Whatever he does, he does for himself. It so happens his will coincides with Government orders. Many times the Government reminds him of his old lady. Shrew and burly. Lost without her old-General and her Son. Without Laws… toothless, with no false teeth. And without the Galley, a peasant rag.

That’s where Efthimis Polyprokopoulos finds meaning: in everybody else. In his fellow people. His friends are the finest of them all. His closest pal of all however, is the Mirror. Loyal and obedient. “Shave yourself!” it would say and he’d shave. “Scratch yourself!” it would yell and he’d scratch. Submissively. The only right one. The only law-abiding one. The most useful. The only one who does, right away without a second thought, with absolute humility, whatever he’s told. The only one.