en http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/ Thu, 1 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 Thu, 1 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 60 http://www.audioscrobbler.net/data/webservices punkasphuck86's Last.fm Journal http://www.last.fm/user/punkasphuck86/journal The Last.fm journal for punkasphuck86. Last.fm journals are a place to talk about all things music. 2008 in Music http://www.last.fm/user/punkasphuck86/journal/2009/01/12/2e6h31_2008_in_music Mon, 12 Jan 2009 17:02:04 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/punkasphuck86/journal/2009/01/12/2e6h31_2008_in_music Top 10 Albums:

1. Thrice - The Alchemy Index (technically two parts released in late '07 and early '08)
2. Protest the Hero - Fortress
3. The King Blues - Save The World, Get The Girl
4. Fucked Up - The Chemistry of Common Life
5. Laibach - Laibachkunstderfuge
6. Chumbawamba - The Boy Bands Have Won
7. Sigur Ros - Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust
8. Fear Before - Fear Before
9. Joan of Arc - Boo! Human
10. Envy/Thursday Split LP


Other Albums That Earned a Shout:


Opeth - Watershed
The Sound of Animals Fighting - The Ocean and The Sun
Mogwai - The Hawk is Howling
Melvins - Nude With Boots
The Mars Volta - The Bedlam at Goliath
These Arms Are Snakes - Tail Swallower


Under-the-Radar Album of the Year:

Imperial Leisure - the art of saying nothing


Discoveries of the Year:

NoMeansNo
Melvins
The Residents
Laibach
Joan of Arc]]> Top 50 Albums (more or less...) http://www.last.fm/user/punkasphuck86/journal/2008/12/25/2cs93v_top_50_albums_%28more_or_less...%29 Thu, 25 Dec 2008 01:05:01 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/punkasphuck86/journal/2008/12/25/2cs93v_top_50_albums_%28more_or_less...%29 ...I've noticed that some albums, for example the masterpiece that is Todays Empires Tomorrows Ages, never registers any plays on anything like this, even though I listen to it loads. Strange.

Would be cool if someone could make one of these that compensates for albums having loads of tracks on them (so that listening to D.I.Y.C.D. (50+ songs) once and Wish You Were Here (5 songs) ten times wouldn't amount to the same 'score'.) Anyway, whatever really. It's all good.

punkasphuck86's top albums
1. Man Is the Bastard - D.I.Y.C.D. (277)
2. Crass - Stations of the Crass (251)
3. Fear Before the March of Flames - The Always Open Mouth (240)
4. Ween - GodWeenSatan: The Oneness (223)
5. Minutemen - Double Nickels on the Dime (219)
6. The Number Twelve Looks Like You - Nuclear. Sad. Nuclear. (215)
7. The Fall of Troy - Manipulator (181)
8. Hymie's Basement - Hymie's Basement (171)
9. Crass - Best Before... 1984 (169)
10. Conflict - The Ungovernable Force (166)
11. Propagandhi - Potemkin City Limits (162)
12. Sonic Boom Six - Sounds to Consume (159)
13. Madlib - Blunted in the Bomb Shelter Mix (157)
14. Propagandhi - Less Talk, More Rock (156)
15. Cursive - Happy Hollow (153)
16. Ween - The Pod (151)
17. Crass - The Feeding of the 5000 (150)
18. The Weakerthans - Left and Leaving (150)
19. Fugazi - Repeater + 3 Songs (149)
20. Chumbawamba - Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records (144)
21. Converge - Jane Doe (144)
22. The Clash - Super Black Market Clash (143)
23. Boards of Canada - Music Has the Right to Children (141)
24. Bad Brains - Banned in D.C.: Bad Brains Greatest Riffs (141)
25. Fugazi - Instrument (140)
26. Fugazi - Red Medicine (137)
27. Fugazi - End Hits (132)
28. Converge - No Heroes (130)
29. Converge - Caring and Killing (130)
30. Fugazi - 13 Songs (128)
31. Warsawpack - Gross Domestic Product (127)
32. The Clash - London Calling (127)
33. The Weakerthans - Fallow (127)
34. Protest the Hero - Kezia (123)
35. cLOUDDEAD - cLOUDDEAD (122)
36. Reagan Youth - A Collection of Pop Classics (121)
37. Thrice - The Alchemy Index: Vols I & II/Fire & Water (120)
38. Fugazi - The Argument (120)
39. The Fall of Troy - Doppelganger (117)
40. Foreign Beggars - Asylum Speakers (117)
41. Rx Bandits - The Resignation (117)
42. Propagandhi - Where Quantity Is Job #1 (117)
43. The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (117)
44. Yo La Tengo - I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One (115)
45. Discharge - Society's Victims (115)
46. Yesterday's New Quintet - Angles Without Edges (115)
47. Suicide Bid - The Rot Stops Here (115)
48. Ween - All Request Live (114)
49. Doug Stanhope - Deadbeat Hero (114)
50. Fear Before the March of Flames - Art Damage (114)

top albums generator »
]]> Thrice @ Electric Ballroom 21/08/08 http://www.last.fm/user/punkasphuck86/journal/2008/08/24/24o8oe_thrice_%40_electric_ballroom_210808 Sun, 24 Aug 2008 01:15:10 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/punkasphuck86/journal/2008/08/24/24o8oe_thrice_%40_electric_ballroom_210808 Thu 21 Aug – Thrice, We Are The Ocean, Twin Atlantic

Twin Atlantic:

Catchy, but uninspired stuff all in all. Certainly not an awful band for opening a mid-sized gig, but hard to imagine them setting the world ablaze or breaking any new ground anytime soon. As I say, some of their tunes had a real habit of creeping up on you and getting you caught up in their performance, but then - just as the songs were crying out for someone to take it somewhere interesting - they all sort've petered out.

The singer's voice really didn't speak to me either. It wasn't just the Scottish accent; I like a lot of Scottish bands - Mogwai; Oi Polloi; Jesus and Mary Chain; Cocteau Twins; even The Exploited in small quantities - I think it was more a combination of the singer trying to sound too much like the generic post-hardcore singer and still retain the Glaswegian edge.

Don't count on me buying their record anytime soon, but I wouldn't be pissed off or anything if they opened for someone else I wanted to see.


Year Long Disaster:

A few people have remarked on this band being a strange choice. Perhaps thats why I liked the decision; I've lost count of the ammount of gigs I've been to where the support acts are both under-par versions of the act I'm there to see. Thats how Twin Atlantic came across, but Year Long Disaster felt more like an aural assault than a clumsy preamble - and not just because of the obvious contradictions in style between the two - some blistering and pretty technical work from all three musicians kept their sound interesting and took it in unexpected directions without giving the impression that they were trying to work against each other. The result fell somewhere between classic hard rock like Led Zeppelin and the lo-fi noise rock of Dinosaur Jr. or A Place to Bury Strangers.

Unfortunately, I do have to say that - once again - I found the vocals a little hard to digest, and was struck by the feeling that the singer was trying too hard to add that 'rock edge' to his voice. When all's said and done, I get why some people at a Thrice gig would find Year Long Disaster a poor choice of support band, but for me, they did enough to stand out and (one would hope) were picked to do just that.


Thrice:

For me, this set reaffirmed Thrice's position as one of the top bands of our generation. This is probably a pretty controversial position to take (ever since The Alchemy Index I feel like I've been screaming at a wall over this one), but everything this band does leaves me with one overriding feeling - its such a shame that, in the modern music environment, Thrice will never get the kind of recognition afforded The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Clash, or Radiohead by previous generations.

Well, enough of me pontificating and on to the gig itself. It was a little surprising to see the band kick off with two older songs, but it was definitely a well calculated move and really got the crowd hyped up from the getgo. I couldn't help but think at the time (and this was backed up by my mate after the gig) that the crowd got going a little better than the band at first - they seemed just a little uneasy (perhaps nerves, it has been a long time since they played the UK?)

As it turned out, the bass drum trouble they had right at the start was almost certainly the best thing that could have happened. Dustin got the opportunity to play Stare at the Sun solo, and suddenly the whole event became so much more intimate. This was a situation that other bands might have squandered and never got over, but Thrice seized the opportunity, relaxed, and never looked back.

As the set progressed, newer material became more and more prominent and I really got the impression that the Alchemy Index has added a new dimension to Thrice as a live band as well as a studio one. Songs like Digital Sea and The Whaler presented the biggest contrast, but so too the tunes from the Air and Earth records. Daedalus seemed to be a new fan favourite from where I was standing, and the quiet/loud dynamic of Broken Lungs was spine tingling up close!

While there was a place for some faster paced, old fan favourites (the ubiquitous Artist In The Ambulance, and Deadbolt, for instance) the bulk of the 'earlier' songs were from Vheissu (5 of the 11 tracks on that record were played). Fans of Thrice's psychedelic-driven fourth studio LP (like the mate I went to the gig with) might still have offered a sigh or two over the exclusion of this song or that, but the stunning melodies and sudden brutality of songs like Hold Fast Hope, mixed with chilled singalongs like Red Sky only served to prove once again what a broad pallette Thrice have to work from.

A few months ago I went to another gig, this time to see another eclectic - although altogether weirder - band, Ween. To anyone who does not like them, the idea might seem self centred, but every Ween fan understands why they chose to do away with support acts that night and simply play for over two and a half hours! On reflection, that might have been the only thing that would have made Thrice's performance better than it was. Roll on their next UK tour!!!]]> The Music Anthology of My Life (Part I - 1986) http://www.last.fm/user/punkasphuck86/journal/2008/08/04/23nrb3_the_music_anthology_of_my_life_%28part_i_-_1986%29 Mon, 4 Aug 2008 22:36:47 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/punkasphuck86/journal/2008/08/04/23nrb3_the_music_anthology_of_my_life_%28part_i_-_1986%29 First up, a note to those reading this...something along the line of the old media adage, "The opinions expressed in the following...blah blah blah". The top albums I've chosen for each of the 22 years of my life may be my picks but they are not definitively the greatest albums ever made, nor are they all neccesarily even my favourite albums: there are plenty of albums that came out too early to be up for selection, there are also some that never made the final cut because they were released in a particularly prodigous year (and, conversely, some that made the cut thanks to a lack of genuine competition that year). Please bear all this in mind when reading (and don't hesitate to recommend albums that you feel should be present!)

That being said, we can begin...

1986:
Top Album: Conflict - The Ungovernable Force

Runner Up: Chumbawamba - Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records

Worth a Mention: Dead Kennedys - Bedtime for Democracy

The year of my birth was ten years since the days of the The Ramones and Sex Pistols, in the mainstream punk was dead and long gone; superceded by toned down power-pop on the one hand and more refined post-punk on the other. In the underground, though, punk was still thriving.

True, the old bands were all dead or lost their edge; The Clash's last album had been released four years ago; Crass had called it a day in '84, bogged down in jaded reactionism and 'anti-music' sentiment in their final years; John Lydon had moved onto greener pastures with the - far superior to the Pistols for me - avant-garde stylings of Public Image Ltd. But across the pond in California one of Hardcore punk's greatest bands (themselves about to explode in a manner not too dissimilar to Crass) put out one final effort.

Dead Kennedys' Bedtime Democracy is considered weak by some fans; the band's opus by select others. Whether or not it stands up to the oft-praised first two records - or even the dark psychedelia of 1985's Frankenchrist - may be up for debate, what isn't is that Bedtime is a fine standalone album. The wide range of styles on offer - from the psychotic country-punk of 'Take This Job and Shove It' to the creepy prog-influenced sounds of 'Cesspools in Eden' and, of course, the aural blitzkrieg of 'The Great Wall' and 'Anarchy For Sale' - sets the album apart from much of 80s Hardcore.

At 21 tracks long, its no lightweight either, but far from sinking into the same cliched attacks on 'the system', no subject is safe from Biafra's piercing (and, let's not forget, often hilarious) analysis - the usual candidates of politicians and police are joined by a host of pop-culture references - 'Dear Abby' being one of my favourites (you really have to check out the lyrics to appreciate it) - and the punk community is fair game for scathing commentary just as much as the business community thanks to the epic 'Chickenshit Conformist' and others.

Back here in England, another band firmly rooted in punk music, but with an eye for different styles, announed their arrival with a debut LP that gave little indication of where they would be a quarter of a century later. Chumbawamba's Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records was released in '86 as a direct response, and criticism of, the Live Aid concert. Not unsurprisingly for a punk debut, Pictures... is a little rough around the edges musically but still precludes the band's future, more mellow, sound. Space is found for driving, funk influenced, basslines, some pretty guitar and vocal melodies, and outright folk music. The heavier parts belie a strong Crass influence, with a fuzzy, lo-fi guitar sound and vocals very reminiscent of Eve Libertine at her angriest.

Punk bands have often found it hard to pull off the concept album, that feeling of righteous indignation synonomous with punk rock struggles to lend itself to the kind of focused songwriting neccesary. Pictures... however, manages to stay well on-topic for much of its course. The associations between 'Starvation, Charity, and Rock 'n' Roll' and the wider roll of government and business conjured up by the album's lyrics flow well. One has to concede a certain lack of metaphor in the lyrics that might well make them cringeworthy for some, but there is undoubtedly no deficit of passion or imagery here. A challenging idea for even a well-established act, Pictures... comes very very close to being my top record of 1986, but is beaten by one of the finest - and underrated - hardcore punk albums of all time...

...Far-and-away the angriest of the 80s anarcho-punk bands, Conflict have sometimes been labelled as 'Crass' baby brother' (although it must be said the claim is rejected by as many people as make it). The Ungovernable Force, their third full-length LP, did more than any previous record to dispute that claim and set Conflict apart as a tighter, heavier musical force in UK punk.

The adrenaline - or amphetamine - driven fury of much of the record is well-balanced by lighter, catchier elements in songs like 'C.R.A.S.S.' and 'Statement'; these parellel musical themes reinforce the parellel themes of anger and peace in Conflict's philosophy and aesthetic perfectly. The band's first flirtation with dub reggae on 'The Day Before' is a spine tingling herald of things to come for them, whilst the use of tape loops and radio samples throughout is another nod towards the ubiquitous influence of Crass on the anarcho-punk scene.

The different vocal styles of Colin (at his most aggresive and impressive), Mandy (melodious, hopeful, and despondent all at the same time), and ex-Crass frontman Steve Ignorant (at times reminiscent of hip-hop more than punk), lend yet more eclecticism to the record.

The Ungovernable Force's ultimate strength comes from being both a product of its time and place; and a timeless classic of punk music. Musically and lyrically - especially lyrically - the album captures perfectly the anger, uncertainty and *ahem* conflict of the Thatcher years, yet it is not uncommon for new listeners to be genuinely shocked at how old the album is. It remains as fresh and relevant today as it did 22 years ago - despite all that has changed (musically and politically) in the intervening years - and probably offers a better signpost for contemporary radical music than anything on offer in the world of today.



p.s. The Following albums deserve some sort of mention:

Subhumans - 29-29 Split Vision

Public Image Ltd. - Album

The Flaming Lips - Hear It Is

Bad Brains - I Against I

XTC - Skylarking]]> It's Friday Night and There's Nothing On Again....... http://www.last.fm/user/punkasphuck86/journal/2007/11/16/b6fzb_it%27s_friday_night_and_there%27s_nothing_on_again....... Fri, 16 Nov 2007 19:55:59 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/punkasphuck86/journal/2007/11/16/b6fzb_it%27s_friday_night_and_there%27s_nothing_on_again....... Children in Need is on tonight, and while the celebrities do their part to appear oh so caring I thought I'd do my part in keeping with the tradition for charity not change. I'm sitting back and enjoying Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records


"This is a smokescreen, and this is why people die"......]]>