American Alternative music reviews

i don't consider this band to be hardcore by a longshot, but they are nonetheless great. the big boys and the dicks may well be the two top austin punk bands of all time. the big boys could play fast hardcore ('wise up,' 'security') but they were not afraid to lay down some killer funk ('spit'). they delivered their goods fast and honest. this collection and its counterpart are long overdue.

An amazing collection of tunes spanning the Boys short but profolic career.They weren't afraid to tackle any genre which put them miles ahead of their hardcore peers.They carelessly stagger from one song to the next in what seems like a drunken stupor.One of the few bands in hardcore who actually sound like they're having fun!A must for any fan of this kind of music.

The Big Boys are a must for any collector. This is a compilation of their first three releases and is one of my favorite CDs in my collection of about 500. The origional recordings of these three releases are extremely rare and a definite buy if you ever see one in a record store.

Camper Van Beethoven offers a variety of musical styles on Telephone Free, all of them fresh, tuneful, upbeat, and wittily intelligent. From the opening Border Ska to the almost Byrds-like guitar rock of Ambiguity, every song here contributes to a very fast 40 minute collection of music, enhanced by the wonderful sense of -- on first hearing -- having no idea of what is coming next. I mean, what can a song called "Mao Reminisces About His Days in Southern China" possibly sound like? (As it happens it sounded to me like a bizarro mix of the Chieftains and theme music for a 60's TV detective series.) I would have preferred fewer instrumentals, but that's only because the lyrics ("some people say bowling alleys got big lanes" and the chorus echo "got big lanes, got big lanes") are so entertaining. Don't approach Telephone with a set of specific expectations, but by all means, do approach it.

This album contains the song take the skinheads bowling enough said.

this is one of my favorite albums of all time, and the vibes are completely amazing. this is definitely one of the best alternative albums ever produced. rather than being a "Simple Plan" or "Staind" (pick your own sorry new band) Camper wasn't just after the money, but had a vision. don't mistake the fun and whimsy of this album for a lightweight record. it's ska/punk/alternative, and done in a better way than ANY of the bands that followed in their footsteps. along with winning, sarcastic lyrics (most notably on "Take the Skinheads Bowling"), this album has some of my favorite all-time ska instumentals, the best (to me anyway) being "Yanqui Go Home". though it seems barely held together, there is also a sense of cohesion to the whole thing. this edition of the album is the best one to buy because it puts back in some long lost instumentals, and two tracks that never appeared anywhere, (Wasting all your Time, and the "Bonus Track" after the fab Abiguity Song).

i am one of the founding members of janitor. basically what you are getting here is a discography consisting of 3 seperate 7" records (two of which were never released). obviously i am biased having wrote the thing but i could not give it 5 stars even though i personally love all the songs. hardcore punk at this speed is meant to be taken in small doses - hence releasing 9 songs at a time. here you get it all in one sitting (27 songs in 25 minutes) and making it even more intense than we planned it. we had a great time recording this stuff and, as music fans, we feel lucky to have it available.

These songs were recorded over 2 years ago. Janitor stormed the stagnant Houston punk scnene and could not find much of an audience, since so many lsoer idiot posers were looking to "rock" to the pretty pop punk nonsense that is proliferating like cockroaches, and ruining the audience for good, honest, harsh, hardcore punk music. Everytime I got to see Janitor play a live set they literally blew away the audience. The moment they started playing about 2/3 of the audience would literally take 3-4 steps backwards. they were not ready for the aggression, the hostility, the pure rage imbedded in Janitor's music. Then there were some of the older punks, the ones that knew the harshness of Minor Threat and Dead Kennedy's and FEAR and the noise explosions of Eyehategod and Unsane, and the recklessness of early Suicidal Tendencies and Poison Idea, and these people LOVED Janitor upon first listen...

There are a lot of bands out there that claim to be hard, and harsh, and intense, but they have nothing on Janitor. ....In essence, Janitor re-created and re-freshed HARDCORE, without adding the obvious METAL ...so manyb bands think is hard. Janitor is the new breed. It is a terible shame that they broke up after just one album out, never having the chance to find their audience....They were the greatest band to hit the Houston punk scene and they were never appreciated. My sole duty in life is to guarantee a place in the annals of punk/indie/hardcore/noise music for what will inevitably be considered an over-looked masterpiece, among fans of the genre. Please buy this.

We're going out tonite is a good song and they hammered it live when they played in Melbourne, but they get a little long in the tooth...

I've got this CD and just about every other album, single, record of frenzal rhomb & not ONCE have i been dissappointed with any of them! frenzal are the most awesome punk band in australia & throughout the world! my favourite song is "cones" and hehe! i just love frenzal

THIS CD KICKS ***! FRENZAL RHOMB RULE!!! try there other cds especiall 'MEET THE FAMILY' .All there cds have great songs on them for people who have never herd of them before to people that have loved them there entire courers.

Although not as good as The Orphan Tragedy this c.d. is pretty good. The first time you listen to it you will regret buying it, but after a couple of times you'll start to dig it. track 2 & 4 are the best.

Along with Black Flag, and The Butthole Surfers, COWS form what I like to call The Holy Trinity of Classic American Underground Punk Rock. I also consider them to be the most consistent band of the 90's, bar none. I'll even go so far as to call COWS the 2nd best band of the 90's, behind Smashing Pumpkins pre-96.
Alright, enough about my stupid acculates. Their last 5 albums, Cunning Stunts, Sexy Pee Story, Orphan's Tragedy, Whorn, & Sorry in Pig Minor completely blow my mind. I think it's cool that I really don't seem to prefer any one album over another. I dig that each album has a distinctly different sound.
They were around for about 4 years, and 4 albums before Cunning Stunts was released, and although that old stuff was good, it was nothing of the quality of Cunning Stunts. The production is not perfectly refined, but it is just right for the music, and every track is well above average.
I think they found their distinct sound most evidently on Sexy Pee Story. It's like a fusion between punk and hard rock, with snippets of jazz thrown in. They really remind me most of The Stooges; both Fun House & Raw Power. But it bears repeating that it is a wholely unique sound that COWS craft.
I respect the hell out of them for not duplicating that formula on their next release, Orphan's Tragedy. O.T. comes at you from a number of different directions, and I think you can tell the band was really trying to expand their horizons.
Whorn comes off raw, and aggresive. Again a nice change of pace from their previous endevor. You won't find anything that is subpar here. It Rocks!
Sorry In Pig Minor is a mindf... I think it might have been the brainchild of somebody's bad acid trip. Heavy as Hell. I love it.
I don't know why the band broke up, but they were indeed something special.

... this album is great, i loved it the first time i heard it, so did 2 of my friends who arent even COWS fans. id say this is a great place to start for the average guy who wants to get into the COWS but is a bit intimidated. this record will definitely disturb your thoughts, but hot ..., COWS are right up there with the jesus lizard in terms of... up rock. and the COWS do it even noisier than the lizard, if you can believe that. long live the COWS!

This CD was awesome! The music is great, and all of the songs are cool. I would reccomend it for anyone who likes punk! The variety of songs is great, I haven't listened to another punk CD for a while! I've been listening to it over and over again!

I thought for sure the MINUTEMEN were on this. Maybe on the vinyl LP and not this CD? I'm confused. (I'm no longer cornfused, they're there, they're there! on the CD, yeah baby, and a good song too, tho, it's the opposite of an oxymoron. That is, there's really no such thing as a MINUTEMEN song that isn't good, question only is, is it a great one or just a really good one. Ah, such pleasurable questions to ponder). Meanwhile, there were a bunch of really classic punk/HC/thrash comps back in the day (all great, these are not ranked). Punk rock comps were a way to get the music into the hands of punx world wide in a bunch, instead of doing a 7" or an LP. Remember, there was no Internet so there was no filesharing or MP3. If you stumble on any one of these comps, take my word for it, you'll be happy owning it, assuming yer into punk/hc/thrash (there's no metal in any of this or rap or rock or post punk and I believe every comp listed here is from the 80's, mostly the early to mid 80's).

These were albums. * means they were reissued on CD.
(the others may have been but I haven't seen 'em on CD)
1) Really Fast Vol 1 (Sweden) Each progressive comp after that
in the Really Fast series 2, 3, etc. got less and less high
quality musically
*2) This is Boston, Not L.A. Gang Green + more brilliant MA/HC.
*3) Flex Your Head - classic early 80's D.C. Wonderful
Dischord,
*4) I Thrash, Therefore I Am (originally on tape on BCT,
now on CD) with a bunch of European bands
*5) Last White Christmas vol. I w/ RAW POWER + many more, vol.
II with the unbelievable CCM + IRI! & TRAUMATIC from live
gig in Italy 12/04/03 (also was on tape, now on CD).
6) Russia Bombs Finland amazing Finnish HC bands
7) Propaganda hardcore 1983, Finnish HC, another classic comp
*8) No New York w/ No Wave master citified punx,
9) We Can Do Whatever We Want best of BCT in 1986
U.S. and European bands
10) Someone Got Their Head Kicked in Tonight - BYO
11) Grito Suburbano 1982 Brasil
12) Cleanse the Bacteria LP + 12" international: splendid!
*13) American Youth Report - Southern CA
14) Flipside 1 (volumes after that not bad).
15) MRR's first comp 2xLP, All Quiet On The Western Front
*16) MRR's Welcome to 1984 - international.

And these on tape only:
17) New York Thrash - ROIR (reissued on CD)
18) World Class Punk - ROIR international (reissued on CD)
19) Grevous Musical Harm international 1983
20) Raw War comp 1982 one of the first and best international
HC tape comps.
21) Kaaos-Lehden Kokoelmakasetti - Finnish
22) Barefoot and pregnant - U.S.
23) There is More - U.S.
24) Meathouse - U.S. and
25) America's Dairyland - U.S. (22 to 25 are 4 seminal
U.S. tape comps that never made it to vinyl or CD).

There's some great 7" punk rock comps, but,
that's another story.

Feast on this music punk. Punk tested (over 20 years),
punk approved. Punx knew this was classic stuff (yeah,
all the stuff on this list) back in the early 80's and
yer ears will tell you that's still the case today. Yer
task now is to get those ears in front of this music.
Your ears will be thanking you for years to come. Punk. chrisbct@hotmail.com

This album was my intro to the L.A. scene. Every great band from the area with the exception of Black Flag and Circle Jerks is represented here.If you are curious about the bands that influenced current bands like the Offspring and Blink 182 this is a good introduction. Of course after hearing these bands you will probably never listen to those bands again.

...which is probably why they had this bratty appeal; taking jangly 60's mod-pop, NYC-inspired noise, and the general malaise of post-grunge fallout and mashing it into the classic Indiepop oft heard on late 80's/Early 90's college radio. This album is a bit awkward, made up of b-sides and few odd remixes, so I wouldn't exactly give it a full 5 stars. Definately not their finest hour - but a compelling listen nonetheless and must-have for any Unrest-fans.

All I know about this album is that I had it on a cassette tape about 5 years ago. My fondest memory that calls this album to mind is: Several nights me and my friends indulged in some mind-altering activities and I would always wind up skipping down the street to this album blaring from my headphones. I can't really explain it in words, it is just something that you experience when you connect to an album, and it starts speaking to you in some sort of other language. But, I credit this album with my maturation, my adolescence, and in some way this album was a parent to me. Guiding me in some direction without uttering a word directly to me, but rather me listening, interpreting, and creating my own joy off of the goddang beautiful fukking music on that cassette.

tom hambridge is the producer and wrote some of the songs for susan tedeschi cd "just wont burn". the cd is high energy rock and roll. my favorite cut is a bluesy duet with susan tedeschi called "opposites attract" and the rockin "boneyard: that would fir on any lynyrd skynyrd cd.

What a great first album! This is pure no gimmicks, unadulterated rock and roll. The crunchy guitar work on here reminds me a little of Keith Richards, or Ron Wood when he was with the Faces. Hambridge brought on 4 hired guns for guitar duties on here. The most prominent being Mike Welch, who has had a good solo career himself. He also has brought on the great voice of Susan Tedeschi. Hambridge produced her great solo album "Just Won't Burn", and wrote many of the songs on that album. The first single off this album is Opposites Attract", in which Hambridge and Tedeschi trade musical barbs with each other."I like to listen, she likes to talk,I like the front seat, he likes the back, I bark like a dog, she purrs like a pussycat". I'm betting they had a lot of fun with that song. She also joins him with some seriously good singing on "Long Way Home", and the slow burner "Highway", that's got some of the best guitar work on the album. One of my favorites on here is "Gas",in which Hambridge brings in a sitar that gives the song a 60's psychedelic sound. Different than anything on the album. Catchy and very cool.In between all this is just fun rock and roll that hasn't been sung with this much passion since the early days of Springsteen. Hambridge is a very good songwriter and producer. Something you don't see very often by somebody who just plays drums and sings. If your a fan of the old Stones or Faces, and hungry for some of that kind of rock and roll, I promise you that you'll love this one. My favorite album from 2000.

What an off kilter piece of magic this is. While not sounding too much like either band, the Disraeli Gears wah wah (presumbaly courtesy of the Screaming Trees) definitely colour the sound so that the sparse settings don't seem as ramshackle or throwaway as they first seem. But what a collection of tunes! Odd, off tonal vocals and tales of angst, the standout here is "Tales of Brave Aphrodite", which would have been a decent Beat Happening song, here lifted into the strstosphere by the collaborative genius of both groups. If you can find this, get it. My copy is on vinyl, as I purchased it on its original release in 1988. Why doesn't K re-release this?

This is an EXCELLENT album...I wish it was full length as the songs are great. Calvin Johnson, of Beat Happening, sings a small bit off tune to give it an original sound....All 4 songs are real fun tunes and I recommend any Screaming Trees fan to pick this up anyway they can. I have mine on cassette. Great 4 songs...

If I wanna hear covers, I'll go to see a concert
but doing covers of the greatest band in punk history? you just can't do that.

The late Drew Blood, a good friend of mine submitted the hidden track which follows the final track of 'Shutdown'. It is a spoken word poem he wrote about Darby, The Germs and LA Punk in general. It doesn't get credit but is audible if you wait for the last track. I really love the diverse versions each artist brought to show the influence The Germs had on them in whatever way they did. Darby you are missed and so are you Drew.

I loved the Germs when I was in Jr. High School and bought GI on vinyl when it came out. This seminal album has inspired many other bands and is a masterpiece. I picked up Circle of Friends at a used CD store yesterday and it brought back old memories. This is a great CD if you liked the Germs. I found the Posies rendition of Richie Dagger's Crime to be hilarious.