RAIN, DEATH & TAPES

Calling it rain in the Northwest feels somewhat redundant. It's never just raining. Maybe if we used synonyms or more descriptive nouns & verbs it would fit in my mind. Downpour, mist, spit, drench, sop, flood. Scatters, torrents, intervals. Soaked, itchy wet clothes, sticky, squelchy.

I haven't written anything in a while. Not for lack of things to write about, but for being too caught up in living those things, rather than documenting. However, my love of documentation and archiving of all things punk still burns pretty warm these days

Today, spending all day inside a warm comfort burrow of a house in eastside Olympia, with cigarettes and the internet at my disposal has made me nostalgic. I find my mind dwelling in the weird corners of loss and remembrance.

It's disarming when people you know, close or not so close, pass away, and you don't feel it. You know you should feel it. Feel something, right? But you don't and a couple days of pouring beers out go by, and friends are recounting tales, and still nothing. Then eventually it fades into the back of your mind.

Then a day comes when you're smoking on the front steps, all zoned out, or you walk past a piece of sidewalk, or see someone with the same hair from behind...and it just hits you. And you cry outwardly or internally and go through that stage of grief that took so long to get to you. So long, how come it takes so long? To go through these layers and these walls that we build up. If you're like me you built them up early on because it isn't cool to get emotional, and being tough is vital.

All my dead friends passed away from the same things. But we don't have to make synonyms for it, like the rain. That feeling doesn't need to be given different names. It's just kind of an empty spot. It's just that they aren't here anymore, and that's it.


______________________________________________________


 
I guess this post isn't in the usual Then The Cops style of "Come to this Show!" or "Hey these new bands are great and here's my top ten for the week!" but you can't be on all the time. Gotta be reflective too. It's a positive thing.

And now perhaps for something usual, a list of my drenched spit squelching Northwest vacation tape acquisitions, thus far.


KURRAKA demo :
Raw punk band I saw play in Seattle at the Highline. I believe they're from Austin, Texas. The vocals were super sick and reverb'd in just the right ways. The live energy was lacking but fuck it they were on tour and listening to the tape at home sounds awesome. At this point I would like to point out that the Highline's photobooth runs purely on credit card and boy did I max that shit out.

MURMURS Fly With The Unkindness:
Okay I had this tape already but this is the re-mastered version and it sounds great of course. If you don't have this tape already you should probably do your damnedest to get one. I'm really stoked to tour with them this summer down to Awesome Fest 7.

WET demo: Olympia band that sounds Nirvana as a fast punk band.

BROKEN WATER live: Remember up top when I was talking about all the different terms for rain in the Northwest? This band is kind of like one of those terms. Except made of people playing crushing tunes that make your insides choke and your skin feel warm at the same time.

FODDER Un Desplome: A band from Sacramento that played in Vancouver in maybe 2010, at the Alf House. I bought their tape then and mysteriously only ever owned the j-card & case. So I re-purchased it at Blackwater in Portland. I remember them being fast d-beat that I did some head mosh to.

DRAINBOW: From Phoenix, AZ. They recently played at Miami Beach, where I'm staying in Olympia. Noise-core grunge type tunes, dig it. I also was smoking for half their set so I'm kind of posing here.

BLANCHE BEACH: Also from Phoenix, AZ. A bit more on the poppy side, which I tend to like, melodic vocals, sporadic whoa-ohs. Kind of reminded me of MUHAMMAD ALI at times. The guitar player kind of looks like Morrissey. But he was a very nice person and I think we're friends now so I don't want him to take offense to that. If anything he is probably a lot nicer than Morrissey. If anything you should just listen to these bands and stop reading my lame reviews.

CRABAPPLE Softly: Very amazingly endearing pop punk band from California. Very a la SOURPATCH (members of in fact!), AYE NAKO, and for those of you who remember, CUB. This little blurb does not do justice to how much I enjoyed this band. Sorry.


 More tape updates to come. I've still gotta go to the Bay on Tuesday, so I'm sure I'll find tapes down there...somehow? Thanks for reading. Sorry it's been so long. Real life vs. internet, real life always wins.


xolegs

p.s. My band SIREN SONGS is going on tour at the end of August down the West Coast and through Texas and the mid-west and stuff. With Murmurs of aforementioned greatness! So please come hang out with me and give me tapes to listen to.

march 4th acoustic show

Been awhile eh? Too much working. Here's a show coming up at a new space I'm involved in, in Strathcona. Its gonna be a DIY, collective run, record store, show space, info shop. So basically punk utopia. I'm stoked. Come out to this show if you are in town.

FEB 2ND FUNDRAISER/ HARI LEGS 'LAST' SHOW

HxC

There is a local magazine in Vancouver called Discorder, which rarely produces anything of interest to me these days, but I found this little gem of an interview with local hardcore VACANT STATE and I figure I'd share it will y'all.

Maybe some peeps would be interested in starting a monthly rag? Does this query come up in minds every year and never follow through? Probably. But nevertheless, get at me, I'm mostly sober these days.

DOWN TIME

I'm starting to accept the importance of down time. Doing nothing, eating ice cream, watching TV, listening to lots of cleanly produced pop punk, and early 90s northwest indie stuff. Down to one job from two, working five days a week; it's less work but my mind has been so frazzled when I'm off shift, stepping out from the shelter into the fresh air. I barely register the bike ride home. I'm on automatic until I reach the sanctity of my apartment, microwave some coffee (I'm using the microwave, signs of giving up) and put on some mixtape I'm stumped on. I play and rewind, play and rewind, fill up the coffee, dump the grinds, fill up the coffee.

A large part of my job requires listening to people, hearing what they're saying, and responding without accidentally inserting judgement, bias, or condescension. It should be as simple as thinking before I speak, right? But it's not. Being full time at the shelter this year I am starting to realize how I interact with my environment, and am more aware of myself in it, physically, if that makes sense.

All existentialism aside, here's some stuff:

     My friend Reece, whom I've long admired for his tireless productivity, among countless other qualities of person, and my shift partner Travis, whom I've known just as long but now spend 3 days a week processing feelings with and complaining to, have a piece of land out in P.E.I., which they are building small structures on, planning to reforest, and orchardize (new word!).  I've never been but it looks amazing and I'd love to visit. Anyway, this summer they canoed to ghost towns in the Yukon, and Reece wrote a zine about it. I have a mild obsession with ghost towns, so I was super stoked to read it.

       HARI LEGS will be playing a fundraiser show on the 2nd of February at the Chateau Ouesty (the new punk house west of the Chateau Noir, Vancouver, BC). And then Hari is going back to Montreal, which makes us all very sad. Other bands include the PRO-TEENS, and probably whoever else wants to jump on the bill, as long as its over by 11pm! There's an event on stupid whateverbook, but I just told you about it, so just go and fuck everything else. The show is a fundraiser is for a new DIY space that I'm hoping to help out with as much as possible. DIY or die!!

xolegs

FOG 2013

It's been unusually foggy during the nights here, giving the city a hushed, eery feel. My old band HARI LEGS played a show on New Years Eve, which was super fun and sweaty and beer soaked like any good house show should be.

It was at the Mansion, a house that has been hosting benefits and feminist queer-core bands for the past couple years. They're being evicted soon enough, and the house demolished, and in its place, some kind of multi-story modernized hip building in its place, I'm sure. This kind of thing is happening everywhere, and it's too depressing for me to go into. The importance of old buildings is big in my heart, it's one of the reasons I love living in the city, and as more and more old structures are replaced with glass and concrete market rental flippers, the less I am inclined to stay.

But like I said, let's not get into THAT.

Let's instead focus on the good stuff, like DIY punk shows happening at places that aren't bars! Everytime this happens, it may be an insignificant event to some: another punk show where I have to go and hang out? Ugh, it's all so mundane, woe is my routine life of going to shows and going to work hungover. But it warms my cold little sardonic heart! And before I get too sentimental...a flyer that even appears handmade! Go punk!

Also I made a top ten for 2012 and instead of copy and pasting I will link you to my friend Greg's awesome blog: Remote Outposts


xolegs