post punk

If It Ain’t Cheap, It Ain’t Punk: Fifteen Years Of Plan-It X Records

annette — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Joe Biel

If It Ain’t Cheap, It Ain’t Punk is a sweet, well put together documentary film that captures the spirit and feel of the do-it-yourself, underground punk scene that has grown up around Plan-it X Records in Bloomington, Indiana. The film began as part of a filmmaking workshop at Plan-it X’s weeklong festival in Bloomington in 2006. In sixty concise minutes it documents the fifteen-year history of Plan-it X records and of the growth of the do-it-yourself, underground punk movement that it has helped foster. The film includes live footage of bands such as Operation: Cliff Clavin, Ghost Mice, Defiance, Ohio; Against Me, Soophie Nun Squad, Japanther, and This Bike Is a Pipbomb. It also includes interviews with important figures in the Plan-it X universe such as Chris Clavin, who runs the label, and Hannah Jones from Ghost Mice and Operation: Cliff Clavin, as well as many participants in the Plan-it X festival.

The tone of the film is positive, light, and respectful. It showcases the relaxed, friendly atmosphere created by the bands and fans and their commitment to the politics of do-it-yourself economies, punk community, and radical activism. It is clear that the filmmakers are a part of the scene and close to many of their interviewees. They capture the scrappy aesthetic of patched shorts, wild hair and silk-screened t-shirts and the sense of playfulness that infuses the scene through kickball games and quarry swimming, as well as participants’ dedication to freely exchanging skills, ideas, and resources.

The filmmakers also make a conscious effort to explain the scene to those who may not be familiar with it. They try to contextualize its emergence within the history of do-it-yourself hardcore, pop punk, and the ease of communication and information dissemination facilitated by rise of the Internet. While this makes for a balanced documentary, it also is where the film falters. It’s unclear whether the film is made for an audience that is already familiar with Plan-it X and will thrill to seeing their community captured on camera or if it aims to explain this sub-culture to a wider audience.

Because it is unsure of its audience, If It Ain’t, It Ain’t Punk’s only fault is that it does not analyze the scene very deeply. While the range of commentators includes men and women in nearly equally numbers and the filmmakers are sure to include some voices over the age of forty, including a very sweet dad who has come to the festival with his son, there is a lack of analysis about who exactly is able to participate in this sub-culture and feels welcome. Most of the faces are white and most of the bands are male and the demographic of participants is overwhelmingly young, most under twenty-five. While this is unfortunately inevitable in many rock-oriented scenes, because the filmmakers are so seeped in the culture of do-it-yourself punk, they would be in a good position to critique it while not loosing what makes it so special: the friendship, fun, and political commitment that the film highlights so handily.

Written by: Eleanor Whitney, January 7th 2011

Blasted!

admin — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Bitch

Short Story Records

Bitch’s second release, Blasted! is a bona fide labor or love, self-produced and fully funded by her loyal fan-base who labored themselves to the tune of $12,000. A ballsy, creative venture done by a few indie artists thus far, but pays off only for the truly original, passionate ones that appeal to music lovers with equal convictions. Blasted! shines with eclectic blend of electric violin, ukulele and moody, pulsating bass lines, all blissfully and ingenuously executed by Bitch. Add eclectic alt-folk rock, delicate layers of experimental instrumentation with affects, and probing, insightful lyrics. They travel from an introverted hinterland to a joyous landscape of sound meant to move and empower while leaving a lasting impression.

“Kitchen Dirty Revised” opens the record and sets an uplifting tone, with infused call and response and vocal layers conjuring up memories of group ‘singalongs’ and hand clapping in glorious unison. The loose, infectious beat stands alongside chirping birdies and Star Wars-like laser accompaniment. “Lost You” shifts gears a tad asking “what if love doesn’t multiply, just subtracts, scratches its fear on my face and marks me like that”. Her vocals convey the forlorn poignancy with warm, smoldering intensity. “Open Up” works up a groove with a bluesy guitar lead, and spoken word prose, eventually culminating with the indelible chorus, “The whole sky’s about to open up, and so am I”.

The title track, “Blasted” integrates her electric violin, so organic that it plays like a fiddle, no tweaks, just a raw timbre to match the emotion conveyed in her voice and the imagery the lyrics paint, “I’ll just add another scar to my belt, promise myself to never forget how this felt”. It concludes by sharply changing dynamics. “Bugs” rocks while delving into poetic verse intensely cradled by a booming chorus. “Wisdom” shifts and crafts into introspection “Lead me to your castle of would, far away from these shackles of should”. “Staying Alive” rounds out the brood with an inspirational call to action. “I get low I get high and if I can’t get either I really try”.

This sophomore release represents Bitch as an innovative songstress and musician who channels into her punk activism. She reaches out far and wide with her choice of instruments, themes and dynamics. Blasted! leaves its mark with slam-style poetics, stories of unrequited love, and empowering rock ballads. It’s an earnest, unifying assemblage true to its word and a gift to the fans who funded it.

Written by: Cat Veit, March 23rd 2010

Masks EP

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:00:00 +0000

By Double Dagger

Thrill Jockey

At best, the EP is a misunderstood, wondrous short form sampling of a band’s experimentation between full-length albums. At worst, it’s a disc of cutting room floor material that should have stayed in the waste bin. Double Dagger’s Masks EP is not only the former; it’s one of the better post-punk collections to land in my iTunes in a while.

While “Song for S” is an interlude jam, “Imitation Is The Most Boring Form of Flattery” brings to mind a mix of math rock and a late ‘90s punk rock show in a Midwestern all-ages venue. Strange reference? I was there. It’s the best comparison I know.

“Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing” is a high-energy screamfest with a confusing metaphor about surprising everyone with your understated, underdeveloped potential. “I’m gonna be the next big thing/A sheep in wolf’s clothing” repeats the chorus, causing me to wonder: am I already wearing the wolf’s clothing? Then why would I aspire to conformity?

Clocking in at six minutes, “Sleeping With The TV On” sounds like Slint’s “Good Morning, Captain” meets Fugazi’s The Argument. Punk is known for ridiculously short tracks, but the very existence of post-punk breaks that rule. Double Dagger do right by this epic-length lover with a ballad about dual lives wrapped in shouts about sleeping in the screen’s glow and not wanting to go home. I listened to the six minutes of angst and frustration on repeat for days.

For design geeks in the know, it’s possible to confuse the Double Dagger punk trio with the typography of the same name—or with the design company, Post Typography, which is run by the band’s vocalist Nolen Strals and bassist Bruce Willen. The name seems like a nod to post-punk, and I am once again reminded—my writer/animal caretaker self—that doing what you love can mean multiple manifestation of the same creative spirit. The team even wrote a manifesto that begins, “Typography is dead. You have killed it.” Even if you state your politics front and center, you can succeed in this world. A message of hope in a post-hope era.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, March 10th 2010

Hung Like A Horse

admin — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 01:00:00 +0000

By All Leather

Dim Mak Records

Members of The Locust and Some Girls make up the edgy electro-punk industrial outfit All Leather, mixing angelic screeching over electro beats and spastic hardcore pummeling, which are all packed tight into ten glorious minutes of the Hung Like a Horse EP. All Leather consists of guitarist Nathan Joyner, Jung Sing on drums, and Justin Pearson doing vocals. They collectively rail against all that is decent with dirty synths and lyrics to match. Indulging in their playful hedonism, Hung Like a Horse isn’t as much decadent as it is audibly interesting. There is a pounding undercurrent that consents to headbanging while allowing itself to delightfully canoodle with the bouncy elements of electro-dance.

Colorful song titles will relay the story before even hitting play. The music itself almost garners more cred by combining earnest raw energy with their unfettered sense of humor. “As The Hog Pisseth” opens the record with a sledgehammer of metronome beats dripping in “Miller-Lite fantasies,” as the amusing lyrics suggest. Next up, “We’re Skrewed.” Pearson punches the lyrics hard enough to match the intensity of Sing’s beats. Drums and lyrics work in tandem throughout like a diabolic tag team as Pearson belts, “Civilization… vs none.” The kinetic “I Don’t Hate Fags, God Does” has you dancing in place amongst the hippest of hipsters, while gleefully throwing elbows left and right, reveling in the thrash curveball thrown. “Audios mi Amoebas” works the industrial magic with pulsating white noise. The aggressive fusion builds and accelerates until the very last note.

Post-punk bliss, albeit thrashy and brash, Hung Like a Horse works on many levels. It delivers the goods if you appreciate heavy spastic rock made interesting and fun, thanks to spirited electronic dance grooves. The EP gets to the point pretty quick, clamps down hard, and draws a little blood between minutes six and seven. They know how to replace the pop with the sludge all while staying true to the raucous energy that defines it.

Written by: Cat Veit, December 8th 2009

Dude Manor

admin — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:30:00 +0000

By Living With Lions

Adeline Records

Dude Manor is the first-ever record that reminds me of my age, and tells me that I am no longer in my twenties. Listening to the EP is like hearing dozens of bands you’ve heard before. This sort of familiarity, however, brings you closer to the EP. If Living With Lions is aware of this then it is a marketing strategy that could make or break the group’s career.

Opening with an intro that lasts for fifty seconds, this is a premonition of things to come. Dude Manor is noisy, it is fun, and it is testosterone-heavy—and there’s nothing wrong with that. It evokes memories of punk in the ’70s, shades of ’80s post-punk, and a dash of indie rock and grunge in the ’90s. In the end, labeling doesn’t matter anymore. Matt Postal’s guttural screaming compliments Stu McKillop’s boyish back-up vocals. It is the band’s own testament of All Tomorrow’s Parties: lots of beer and total debauchery. (Dude Manor is the band’s endearing term for the house they shared in Vancouver.)

There are accusations that bands associated with emo have the tendency to be misogynistic wherein they paint women as the guilty party, the ones responsible for their misery. Though the group is made up solely of boys, Dude Manor doesn’t drive away potential female followers. Postal doesn’t blame the object of his affection for his heartache, as is evidenced on the single, “Said and Done”: “I thought that I was different from the boys you see/It turns out that I’m as bad, so don’t take a second look at me.”

The riffs on Dude Manor are decent, many times, infectious, but there’s nothing new or extraordinary. The lyrics are what you expect from a rock band: introspective, aggressive, full of self-loathing. On “Later Is Better” the boys talk about the power of nostalgia, the things they have taken for granted and, finally, a self-analysis on why certain things or actions happen.

A personal favorite is the last song “A Noisy Noise Annoys the Boys.” In it Postal hints that after listening to Dude Manor’s six songs the would-be listeners will be craving for more. “It’s going to pull at you, until you hit the ground/Point your ears at me so you can hear the sound of my voice/Will you listen if I tell you more?”

So will I listen to Dude Manor again and again? The answer is yes. As for some people who would think I am too old for this record, let them blather all day long; I couldn’t care less.

Written by: Elen P. Farkas, August 4th 2009

Things Are Getting Sinister and Sinisterer

admin — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 00:03:00 +0000

By Edie Sedgwick

Dischord

This is perhaps the ultimate postmodern album of the year. Edie Sedgwick—not to be confused with the Warhol muse (or maybe you are supposed to conflate the band and the woman)—records loud, jangly, post-punk melodies, and on Things Are Getting Sinister and Sinisterer, every track is named after a person or film, from Bambi to Rob Lowe to ODB (rest his soul). On some tracks, it becomes difficult to decide whether front man Justin Moyer feels he is speaking about these people or channeling them. Despite the genius in these songs—and the album as a whole—the most interesting commentary is found in the tunes about some of pop culture’s reigning women.

Mary-Kate Olsen, whose name is the title of the album’s third track, is told – or tells us – that she needs “A lesson in control/A lesson in being thin/Don’t eat/Then repeat.” Numbers are then chanted in repetition, and it doesn’t take long to understand this as representing the diminutive starlet’s weight dropping as the verse progresses. The song takes aim at the media as well, but is it really effective to take on eating disorders by calling out Mary-Kate? Or is the joke on us for thinking celebrity media is ever about authenticity, a place to discuss substantial issues? The song feels tasteless on some level, yet that could simply be a matter of feminist opinion and how you choose to analyze these things.

Similar to MK, Angelina Jolie is called out on her family strategy: “Thinking about a baby/Working on a baby/Let’s go get a baby/Black baby.” After calling it a “bourgeoisie lottery” and wondering about “the line between good works and publicity,” I sat with my jaw near my lap, bewildered and amused that someone bothered to make a song about Jolie’s absurd wild-woman-turned-saint transition. Maybe I should be horrified by this irreverent attack on what some view as Jolie bringing necessary awareness to the plight of poor children, but I’m no Jolie fan, and I’m trying to live in a society where we don’t take ourselves too seriously, something I’ve never been personally good at. This song may be harsh, but it fits my cynical worldview.

After a while, the album’s formula does get a bit predictable and feels overextended. If you pay no attention to pop culture, you probably won’t understand the name-drops, but if you are tuned into the world of “Hollyweird,” listen for cop references, questions about whatever happened to the Brat Pack, and about how Sissy Spacek is “Gonna sing about what I’m about/Gonna be about what I’m about.” Things Are Getting Sinister and Sinisterer will make you laugh or dance, or if you’re lucky, both at once.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, November 25th 2008