Dot Dash - Winter Garden Light (2012)

What a lovely way to start a miserable wet and rainy Saturday morning. I check my various e-mail accounts and in the one for this blog I find a link to a band called Dot Dash who grab my attention with the header of "dc band". I click a link and I'm immediately hit by the power of the drumming, the opening track is instantly impressive and hooks me straight in.

Reading further through the e-mail Dot Dash have a real heritage and consist of: -

Terry Banks - Vocals/Guitar (Glo-Worm, The Saturday People, Tree Fort Angst, Julie Ocean)
Bill Crandall - Guitar (Modest Proposal, Adam West)
Hunter Bennett - Bass (Weatherhead, Julie Ocean)
Danny Ingram - Drums (Youth Brigade (dc), Social Suicide, Madhouse, Emmapeel, Strange Boutique, Swervedriver and a few more that I can't think of)

So Danny explains the powerful drumming and with Terry, Hunter and Bill it explains the hook laden songs.

Dot Dash are a very accomplished powerpop/punk pop band, and this album speeds past you at a million miles an hour, not due to it's velocity, but due to the seamless sequence of flawless songs that take you on the musical equivalent of the perfect speed date.

The album starts with Faraway, full of atmosphere, Byrds like guitars and Buzzcocks trade mark "ooohs and ahhhs" and slips into track two, Countdown, equally hook laden and captivating. Before you realise it they've spun your head though a plethora of perfect pop songs and the album is finishing with The Devil's Road. All the intervening songs flow effortlessly into each other and are beautifully constructed with a clear/sharp production. This is a refreshingly uplifting album that I know will sit with me for years to come.

Thanks to the Bandcamp website you can hear the album here. You can also buy the album, for as little as, $7, which is a pittence for such a stunning piece of work.

Their Facebook page can be found here

Condemned to Death - 7'' (1984)

Back to these guys and their self titled 7'' from '84'  Two words...simply, fucking, brilliant.

If you want to know more look here.

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Thumbs up!!!

The Proletariat - Marketplace 7'' (1985)

I bought this on one of my regular trips to London to buy records from Rough Trade, Plastic Passion etc. I picked this up new from Tower records.

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Sheep Farming

I've had a Crass logo on this site/blog for ages , but I've never posted anything by them...time to change that.

I remember this time so clearly as I'd popped into town and into Volume records (home of the Toy Dolls) to see what new releases they'd had in. I spoke to the regular shop assistants and one of them alerted me to a flexi-disc they'd received. The flexi had been used to pack records that were shipped to the shop. Some were in perfect condition, others were ruined and bent. He said he thought it might be Crass; I asked him to throw one on the turntable and, sure enough, it was clearly Crass.

I asked for one, and he passed me a hand full of them. I loved this flexi, as I did early Crass. However they always presented me wtih an real dichotomy; on the one hand I adored their early work and they helped open my mind, yet on the other hand I kinda blamed them for the rapid downfall of UK punk, unfairly. 83/84 were strange times in the UK as many people were moving over to the peace/anarchist ethic espoused by Crass and were ditching leather jackets and DM's for canvas.

Even more strangely at the time of this flexi release I recall one person in particular wearing a Fuck Argentina t-shirt as they'd invaded the falklands....6 months later he was a peace loving anarchist who, when you spoke to him, would recite Crass rhetoric almost verbatim, conveniently he forgot about the T-shirt. This kind of assimilation into a Crassite mindset would narrow punk so badly that invention died and with it punk......for a few years.

The first two Crass albums and all of their 7'', except merry Crassmas, were borderline genius in my book; feeding the 5000 is such a great record. This 7'' is one of my favorite Crass 7'', only being beaten by Big A Little A and Bloody Revolutions which is simply astounding...still!!!!

Crass were far more than the overly political group they're portrayed to be these days...I recall a time when they were a hugely important, and influential, punk band.

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You talk about your revolution, well, that's fine
But what are you going to be doing come the time?
Are you going to be the big man with the tommy-gun?
Will you talk of freedom when the blood begins to run?
Well, freedom has no value if violence is the price
Don't want your revolution, I want anarchy and peace

You talk of overthrowing power with violence as your tool
You speak of liberation and when the people rule
Well ain't it people rule right now, what difference would there be?
Just another set of bigots with their rifle-sights on me

But what about those people who don't want your new restrictions?
Those that disagree with you and have their own convictions?
You say they've got it wrong because they don't agree with you
So when the revolution comes you'll have to run them through
You say that revolution will bring freedom for us all
Well freedom just ain't freedom when your back's against the wall

You talk of overthrowing power with violence as your tool
You speak of liberation and when the people rule
Well ain't it people rule right now, what difference would there be?
Just another set of bigots with their rifle-sights on me

Will you indoctrinate the masses to serve your new regime?
And simply do away with those whose views are too extreme?
Transportation details could be left to British rail
Where Zyklon B succeeded, North Sea Gas will fail
It's just the same old story of man destroying man
We've got to look for other answers to the problems of this land

You talk of overthrowing power with violence as your tool
You speak of liberation and when the people rule
Well ain't it people rule right now, what difference would there be?
Just another set of bigots with their rifle-sights on me

Vive la revolution, people of the world unite
Stand up men of courage, it's your job to fight

It all seems very easy, this revolution game
But when you start to really play things won't be quite the same
Your intellectual theories on how it's going to be
Don't seem to take into account the true reality
Cos the truth of what you're saying, as you sit there sipping beer
Is pain and death and suffering, but of course you wouldn't care

You're far too much of a man for that, if Mao did it so can you
What's the freedom of us all against the suffering of the few?
That's the kind of self-deception that killed ten million jews
Just the same false logic that all power-mongers use
So don't think you can fool me with your political tricks
Political right, political left, you can keep your politics
Government is government and all government is force
Left or right, right or left, it takes the same old course
Oppression and restriction, regulation, rule and law
The seizure of that power is all your revolution's for
You romanticise your heroes, quote from Marx and Mao
Well their ideas of freedom are just oppression now

Nothing changed for all the death, that their ideas created
It's just the same fascistic games, but the rules aren't clearly stated
Nothing's really different cos all government's the same
They can call it freedom, but slavery is the game

Nothing changed for all the death, that their ideas created
It's just the same fascistic games, but the rules aren't clearly stated
Nothing's really different cos all government's the same
They can call it freedom, but slavery is the game
There's nothing that you offer but a dream of last years hero
The truth of revolution, brother................... is year zero.

Las Mordidas - Demo (1994)

I've mentioned them in a number of posts before, so thought it was time to let this demo see the light of day. As mentioned this band was started by Chris Thompson after Circus Lupus disbanded. The band also included Dug E Bird (Rain Like the sound of Trains, Fidelity Jones, Underground Soldier, Beefeater etc etc), Jerry Busher (Fideliey Jones, Chris Bald 96 etc) & Jon Kirschten (Rain, Chris Bald 96).

Chris Thompson is another of the artists I follow religiously and I'm so glad I do as he NEVER disappoints. So.....as demo tapes go, this one is in the premier league; totally outstanding imo; I love it.

If I could be granted one wish it would be to be born in DC on the same birth date....man I'd have pogo'd so hard I'd be three feet shorter. Anyway...enjoy this Demo; two of the songs were, much, later released by Dischord as a 7''.

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The Monorchid - When the Mutes Begin to Root 7'' (1996)

Oh D.C. how I love thee.

Another great Washington band with a real heritage, The band consisted of: -

Chris Thompson - Vocals
Andy Cone - Guitar
Chris Hamley - Guitar
Andy Coronado -Bass
Tom Allnutt - Drums

While this band may not be a household name, Chris Thompson should be as he's been in, Lunch Meat, Soul Side, Ignition, Circus Lupus, Fury, Las Moridas, Skull Kontrol, Red Eyed Legends and a couple more besides.

The Monorchid offer really good angular hardcore punk n roll. If you like any of the bands above, you'll like this...if you've never heard any of the bands above, why not give this a shot and see what you think. The band released 3 7'' and 2 albums, all are worth tracking down.Chris' vocals on this 7'' always reminded me of Mark E Smith.

This is a vinyl rip, so it comes with free pops and hisses; just like the old days.

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How can you be lonely when your house is haunted?