Shortsight - "Why Spend Time Learning" 7"

Shortsight was a female-fronted Belgium hardcore band that was a part of the whole H8000 crew thing, which I was never really very interested in. I remember thinking Norway's Lash Out was a part of that whole clique (whose 1993 release The Darkest Hour is a real winner), but once I got my shit together, realized they weren't even from the right European country and (eventually) listened to the band Congress, I quickly lost interest.

This record was always a bit of a screwball for me, I dug the chunky, definitively mid-paced, "new school" sound they offered here, but new vocalist (as of this, their first release - Hans Verbeke, who ran Sober Mind Records and also played in Blindfold, manned the vocal duties on their demo tape...see what I did there?) Saskia Verbeke's relatively unique style never really entirely did it for me. I don't know, I guess her voice just always struck me as pretty monotonous...just my opinion. This four song ep is an early Conquer The World release, which is probably the only reason why I picked it up in the first place. Sometimes the recording of the drums (in particular that barely audible, yet somehow gruesome-sounding ride cymbal, man) just makes me want to set my house and all of my belongings on fire, and begin a new quest in life which mainly involves extinguishing the lives of people who've wronged me, all Master of the Flying Guillotine style.

For those who might be interested in these sorts of things, these kids were an edge band, and the lyrics of these songs dealt take an animal-rights, anti-media stance. It was recorded and mixed at Cats Studios in March 1993. CTW #03.

Tracklist:
1) Anger
2) Darwin
3) Wheel
4) Trace

- the best part of this seven inch is the first 42 seconds -

Chokehold Reunion - Philadelphia, Pa

Here's some less-than-spectacular footage I recorded of the July 24th, 2015 Chokehold reunion show that took place at the Voltage Lounge in Philadelphia. Also on the bill that night was Florida's Morning Again and Baltimore's Noisem (who were both actually really good) as well as Pittsburgh's Eternal Sleep and Erie's Human Animal (who were both pretty awful). I genuinely felt bad for Morning Again to be honest, because they had to follow Noisem, who seriously ripped. I wasn't sure what kind of reaction they (Morning Again, that is) were going to get because I know they've been playing shows again for awhile now, and I didn't have a gauge on if people were excited or not. Thankfully, they pulled it off and kids were into it, moshing like complete fucking retards and going out of their way to kick other folks in the face / back of the head. Glad to see that the scene today is populated by mongoloid retards, just as I'm sure it was two decades ago, but I'm now (conveniently, I'm guessing) forgetting about. Anyways, I'm not trying to use this post to trashtalk those who wanna "dance", just those idiots whose goal is to act like complete douche bags while blatantly showing zero regard for other people in the audience.

Chokehold played pretty damn well for not having performed together since early 1996. Especially noteworthy was the execution of the songs by drummer Matt Beckman, who, let's be honest, played pretty sloppily on a few of the songs that appeared on various XchokeholdX releases. To quote my buddy Sam, "it looks like he practiced a bunch for these shows, or maybe he just got better". I was quite confident that I was just going to get all bummed out watching Chris Logan sing songs about veganism or straight edge when he clearly is neither of those things anymore (I ain't judging, I broke my edge in 2000, yo) but in actuality, didn't bother me at all during their set, nor did I really even think about it. I wished they played some of the jams from the Jawk 7" because it's a great ep, but hey.

                                                                               
Originally, I wasn't even planning to attend this show cause I'm old and bitter, but thankfully my pal Sean convinced me to stop being such a fucking boner and go. In the end I'm glad that I did.
Good times.

Common Ground 7"

In 1997, I saw this Vermont straight edge band's 7" listed in a Very Distro catalog, and since the description of it sounded like something I'd be into I took a chance and bought it. This was indeed a smart decision. These 5 kids played straight ahead, melodic youth crew hardcore and they did a pretty damn good job at it. It has enough variation / changes going on to keep most people into this style of stuff interested throughout all four songs. I would say it's similar to Ensign or even Bane in the fact that it was heavy enough for new school kids to get into and classic enough for the old schoolers, as well. The artwork is hilariously bad (although appropriate for the style), and I definitely judged this first when it arrived in the mail before listening to it, so shame on me, right? I'm pretty sure I'm the only person I knew who owned this record, or even ever heard of this band...both then and now.

If you were a part of or were into (you're no dummy, so of course you were) the redux of the youth crew stuff in the later years of the 90s, then I'd certainly recommend this overlooked gem to you. The record was released on Ignition Records in early 1997, and these songs were recorded on Halloween 1996 at Eclipse Studio in Hinesburg, Vermont.

-here-

Tracklist:
1) Slave
2) Smolder
3) Reflections
4) Through Example

SevenYearsWar - "Ranks of the Common People"

Please let me begin this post by telling you that this band was amazing. SevenYearsWar was a four piece from Burlington, VT and they played energetic and furious straight edge hardcore that was heavy, but without necessarily being metallic, per se. Let me also inform you that their self titled 7" from 1995  is certainly one of my favorite seven inches, period. Also, if you asked me who the five best straight edge bands in the history of ever were, this band would find their way into that answer*.

This cd was a split release by NY's Struggle Records and the extremely important and prolific Moo Cow Records, and was released in 1996 with 1000 pressed. If you are reading this blog and you aren't familiar with Moo Cow, then you need to go ahead and make sure you do that. Legendary 90s d.i.y. hardcore punk label that covered a vast array of styles. Anyway, the band had originally planned to record this record with Brian McTernan at Salad Days Studios. Apparently there was some sort of mix up, and the band recorded at a different studio (Bristol Studios) and, instead, had McTernan remix it at a later date. This gives me the same sentiment I feel towards Turmoil's "From Bleeding Hands": all of the songs are quite excellent, but with the quality of recording the album should have received, who knows how awesome the final product could have turned out. As an aside, the cover art was done by Ten Yard Fight's Anthony Pappalardo.

"Ranks of the Common People" is full of intelligent, political and socially conscious lyrics to go along with rrrreeeeaaaallllyyy awesome, hectic, well played hardcore punk that was pretty technically proficient. You can tell vocalist Jonathan Hughes felt strongly about the subject matter of the lyrics he was yelling and screaming. Also, the drummer of this band is really good and that's important to me because, well, I play drums. Underrated and often overlooked, which means you probably need to have a go, mate. Recorded during April of 1996.

-have a go-

Tracklist
1) Eighteen
2) Hibakusha
3) Caged
4) Witness
5) Nativecrown
6) Nrubaidem
7) One Of Every Three
8) Terrestrial
9) Pogrom
10) Phonemes

*Threadbare, Undertow, Chokehold, SevenYearsWar and Encounter.