Regional comps still rule. Ten Maine punk/hardcore acts from the age before myspace networking, the age of going on tour without cellphones. Fierce, aggressive hardcore from DOWN TO KILL, WICKED DEAD and CREEPY CRAWLERS, ripping off the rails fastcore from COMBAT and DONKEYPUNCH, brutal street stompers from GENITAL PANIK and PINKO AND THE ACTION BOYS, with CONFUSATRON, THE PUBCRAWLERS and some good ole '90s melodic skate punk from DHYS to round out the tape. Chances are extremely good that you weren't there then, but these fukkn kids were, and they documented it. I thank them for that.

RENEGADE MUSIC vol.1

Brutal, raw, relentless and disorienting, this Maine outfit just lays waste to all musical convention. You may start to feel dizzy during the anxious stops/starts in "The Subject Terrain," as BAKKARA just attack and attack with the subtlety of an earth mover. Ultra distorted (by design and by accident) bombastic chaos for the noise not music set. 

BAKKARA

Hard drinking Portland (Maine) Oi! from the turn of the century. It's hard to tell how tongue in cheek these freaks were, but the Oi!s are everywhere, the chorus to the first track is "you think you're tough // we think you're drunk" and there's a track called "Sister Flame Thrower" that sounds like it was lifted from a CLUTCH demo. If the internet is destined to become the $1 Bin of the New Age, it's artifacts like this one that will keep people digging in the Real World for the physical goods, because  LUNCH MONEY THUGS may never reach a reverential status in the Digital Realm, but somewhere in rural New England 18 years ago, there were 75 punks escaping their reality for a night...and LUNCH MONEY THUGS were the soundtrack for their escape. That is important. 

LUNCH MONEY THUGS

My introduction to this outfit was 2013's Wet Dry Jungala LP, a record I still spin on the regular. I want to say that it was an impulse purchase, probably based on their relationship with CORUM, but I can't say for sure exactly how I came to meet the band. But that meeting led to more research and a deeper bond, a bond that is still growing....and recently led me to this cassette release from 2009. Total freakout free jazz clashing with ambient psychedelic sounds, New Ideas In Psychic Music gets the point across, but in a very (and gloriously) primitive manner. This feels wholly organic and very real, and I love listening to the (unnamed) tracks develop naturally...patience and concentration may be required for some, but effort is rewarded. 

NEW IDEAS IN PSYCHIC MUSIC

All modesty aside, I think the last three comps I posted were total fukkn killers...and I see no reason to start making Fridays any less awesome today. BCT should need no introduction on a website dedicated to punk tapes, and First Strike was their first release, unleashing unknown US hardcore on unsuspecting punks combing the pages of MRR looking for tasty jams. The punks who mailed in their $4 (17 years ago and the price was the same as today - inflation still evades the punks) for this tape were rewarded with 60 near perfect minutes of blistering earnest hardcore. Milwaukee's CLITBOYS start the party with 8 songs, most of which can be found on their brilliant EP - political and punk as shit, especially considering their locale. FUTURE RUINS have a slight UK tinge, but their raucous thrashy punk is fronted by melodic USHC vocals and it works great - if you like to be confused (I do, so I place myself in the "fan" column). VIOLATION (from fukkn Maine), and VATICAN COMMANDOS (yeah, the band that MOBY played guitar in for a few months), are raging hardcore, the kind of shit that makes the genre awesome. SKOUNDRELZ are slightly more blah and more rock influenced, while MR. EPP take the hardcore approach and inject heaps of drugs into the mix (a good idea, at least in this case). POISON CENTER just fukkn rip, most of these songs are simply raw as hell (which is not a problem at all), while EAT THE RICH are San Jose's sunbaked-don't-give-a-fuck version Midwest hardcore and CULTURAL BREAKTHOUGH wrap shit up with three live and raw bangers...if you don't love hardcore after this tape is done, then you need to get your ears flushed.

FIRST STRIKE