BATTLETORN return from Japan....

.... and this video pops up on youtube form their show at Huck Finn in Nagoya. I realize I'm biased, but.... awesome. Two dudes, loud & distorted music. I'm sure William and Omid are still recovering, but I hope to get the scoop on how it went shortly. In the meantime... dig the video:

BREAKDOWN on youtube, + SHEER TERROR, and the ICEMEN

1.
I do regret having to refer to a conversation on a message board for this post, but some months back, Mike Scondotto or Inhuman fame spoke about Breakdown as a band that was "cool to like" and wear their shirts, but not actually cool to go see. Of course, this was in no way a dig at Yonker's best exports. I can't speak to Breakdown's heyday shows circa demo-era. However, '96 through '98 Breakdown was in top form and a lot of those shows (in NY at least) were half empty. No matter, they were still some of the best shows I've been to at that time.

This show popped up on youtube in the past few months, and it seems like Larry Susi (ex-Breakdown bass, then Sub Zero & Crusade bassist) put them up. I remember this particular show at the Wetlands on March 31st, 1996. At this show, Merauder had both Jorge and Minus singing with them for a special show. I remember being so incredibly excited for this show. Here's the kicker, though: it was a Sunday night, and I had something to important to do at school I had to do early the next morning. My folks were typically quite cool about my going out to shows, but I knew this one would give me static given the circumstances. I had to concoct some story to be able to do it. I felt shitty, but fuck, it was Breakdown. 12 years later, I still remember this show vividly.

You'll notice it's pretty much half empty, but people's enthusiasm more than made up for it. I still have the purple hoodie I was wearing in this video.





2.
It's old news by now, but the late great label Blackout Records is no longer. Bill Wilson's given up with putting out new records on Blackout and is dedicating his efforts to documenting the label's legacy on their new blog. Well, I wish the man all the luck in his future endeavors, and I applaud him on recognizing a good time to hang it all up. Blackout will remain a quintessential NYHC label and won't linger in an incredibly awkward period a lot of long time hc labels go through.

Here's a great reason to make it out to their blog. The Sheer Terror documentary in its entirety is available to watch. Good stuff.

3.
This has become a real late 80's NYHC post. Moreover, all 3 parts of this post are somehow related to Blackout Records. With this last one, I want to point you in the direction of an interview on Lifers Montreal with Marco of the Icemen. It's quite a good one, and you don't hear from those dudes too often. Check it out!

INTERVIEW: William and Omid of BATTLETORN (part 2)

Well, here we are with the second part of the Battletorn interview. Again, this was a Battletorn interview that was done a while back by their friend Mary and submitted to Maximumrocknroll.... who, for some reason or another, rejected it. Rather than posting some more pictures with this interview, I'll throw up some of the artwork and flyers that have accompanied Battletorn on their journey thus far. In the meantime, there's two related things I should take the time to mention. First of all: Battletorn's Japanese tour is imminent. They were hooked up by the rather awesome japanese band MGT and are playing some shows with them and a host of other great bands. Get a load of this itinerary:
March 15 Sendai @ Birdland w/ Marubullmen
March 16 Tokyo @ Wall w/ MGT, Slight Slappers, Vivisick, No Value, Life
March 20 Osaka @ Pipe 69 w/ MGT, Sk8niks, Completed Exposition, Tone Deaf
March 21 Kochi @ Chaotic Noise w/ Marubullmen
March 22 Nagoya @ Imaike Huck Finn w/ Marubullmen, Ada Max, NK6, Analizer
March 23 Tokyo @ Nakano Moon Step w/ Marubullmen, Crucial Section, Abigail, Fastkill, Mad Maniax
Crucial Section? NK6? Vivisick? The Slight Slappers? Not bad, huh? Battletorn just released a split tour 7" with MGT with awesome songs by both bands. It's limited to 200 copies and will be hard to track down if you're not in Japan (you might have some luck if you contact the band themselves via their own website...
But, if you you missed out on the Terminal Dawn LP, you can now get it on CD. Limited to 500 copies (again) and includes a remixed and remastered version of the Burn Fast 7" on it as well. Enough news, here's the interview.



Mary: And now you're on a label based out of New York, and…Canada?

William: Canada.

Omid: Yeah, Dan just went up to Canada. He put out The Misguided, Major Conflict, all these old NYHC bands. One of the guys in Major Conflict is putting out that movie, American Hardcore. [note: actually, it's "A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints" and has no relation to American Hardcore, but did do quite well on the indie film circuit] It's a big indie film right now. I haven't seen it.

Mary: What is a "true" Battletorn fan like?

William: She likes to buy me drinks, she likes to party…she likes to fool around a lot (laughter)

Omid: I don't think there's any women who like our band, except for you, or maybe a handful of women we were sharing intimacies with who would tolerate our noise, and then they learned to hate us (laughter). I think it's just dudes. The guy that likes fast music and likes to have a good time and who's not worried about it. Not worried about what his hair looks like and not worried about if he's got enough coke to get through the night, he's just raging on his own. Having fun. That's the people that I like. There's usually one of those people there. One. And that's who we have fun to play with and hang out with after the show and talk about metal with. The other people most of the time are not as interesting.

William: Sometimes there's might be more than one, there might be two. Every night when we were in England there'd be at least two guys that you could see other people were snickering at, and those people would turn out to be the most fun, cool ones. We'd feed off their energy in their audiences. It's always better when people are just standing around and then there are two people going apeshit. And then you're just like, wow! And then you're just like, alright, there's two of them and there's two of us up here, fair.

Mary: Did you feel any flavor of the month vibes when you played with Boris in England?

William: They got a very good reception.

Omid: Someone threw up during their set. We were on a boat, you know. Some other people were asleep. I was worried that the people at that show were not going to be into it, because we're really fast and they're really slow, but they were really cool people. I drove their tour bus over here. The best response was when we played with Wolf Eyes at this sort of rave, this big party. People were partying and it was this huge place. We'd never played any place that big.

Mary: How did you get on those gigs?

Omid: Kamikaze, man. They did everything. They're awesome.

William: They hooked it up! They did a split with…. What was that band they did a split with?

Omid: Army of Flying Robots.

William: Yeah. There's a big grind scene over there. Kids would go nuts as soon as anyone started blasting. That's all you need.

Mary: Was there the same palpable feeling of falseness in England?

William: Yeah, there's plenty of that everywhere. It's nothing that makes our blood boil.

Omid: It doesn't define us or anything. I think that we're attracted to people that are true and attracted to people who are honestly into it and doing they're thing. We like cavemen, people who are primitive and simple and not distracted and put together by what they think is cool.

Mary: Why does the primitive appeal to you guys? What does that have that the ornate lacks, for you?

William: well, for me, my attention span is pretty, uh…well, I did lots of drugs over the years and now when I listen to some music like that, it just doesn't do it for me. I can't tell one song from the other after awhile. It's like ok, here's a lead, oh wait, here's another lead, yeah, hmm. It's fun to watch people do live, seeing bands shredding and stuff is great, but if I'm just listening to a record or something, it's like, all I can think about is that they're in the studio like "Oh I messed up. Oh I messed up. Can we do that over? I messed up." And the engineer rolls it back until they get it right, fixes it in ProTools… when I hear something that sounds like they just recorded it in their basement, and it's just them playing by themselves, it doesn't matter about the mix because there's no need for production to hear the nuances and subtleties because they're just banging it out.

Omid: Hey, that answer was longer than our set! That was amazing, that's the longest thing I've ever heard William say! I'm in the same boat as William. I stopped doing drugs a long time ago but I'll be the first to tell you that it doesn't matter if you stop doing them, because a lot of the effects don't go away. I'm still buzzing from those Grateful Dead shows. It was a good time but my attention span is null, I've just been to so many shows where the first ten minutes is awesome, and then you're just like, fuck! Why do they keep going? What is their point? And I also liken it to wanting to punch somebody with your bare fist, to pummel them and walk away or do you want to put on the gloves, and slowly beat them down over like 45 minute period? We just want to rock 'n' roll. Fast and ugly, pretty much. I'm limited, musically, I can't play leads. So that's not gonna happen.

William: Our songs are so short that if we had long ones, if we did more of the same, then I think it would lose something. You just keep repeating riffs after awhile, it lacks the punch.

Omid: The Dwarves "Blood Guts and Pussy". Best album of that era. There was a lot of great hardcore bands with fast short songs, but I mean, whoever put out a 12 minute album before them? Pretty cool.

Mary: Who are the bands that you've seen lately that have been punching and running, straight through the bullshit?

Omid: We like Watchmaker! We're excited to be playing with them. I mean, just watching Brian's fucking eyes pop out of his skull you can watch that for more than 10 minutes. Not every band sucks after 10 minutes, but it takes some talent. Obviously we don't have that, but a band like Slayer can play. Black Sabbath, Motorhead. They can play longer but there's a lot of bands out there that don't have talent and don't write songs like Slayer does, but they'll play for just as long as Slayer. And it's just fucking boring. We don't see much that really knock us out anymore. Maiden was cool but they played their older albums.

William: I liked Kamikaze. Who else? I can't remember!

Omid: We like local bands, we like Valient Thorr, we like Prowler, Triac are good because they grind but they don't play for too long and Blake is a good front man who can keep your attention for more than 5 minutes.

Mary: What were the circumstances that lead to the new lineup?



Omid: Let's tread lightly on this one, but I guess I'll answer since I basically spearheaded that. It basically came down to personality, that's all, we were in different places. I'm 32 and I wasn't into the lifestyle that was coming in with our old singer. Obviously, that doesn't define her and I don't think she's going to be into that for her whole life, but what she is right now was incompatible with what we want, and it was too difficult to balance it. We just couldn't be in a band together anymore.

William: After awhile, we'd have a show, the three of us would show up, we'd play but we wouldn't hang out, we'd get on stage and play and when it was over we'd all split. You could tell this isn't healthy for a band that hasn't been together for too long.

Omid: When you're touring, you have to be able to get along together. The first show where we played as a two piece, it wasn't pretty, but essentially it just came together and was sort of organic. We've got to take some leaps of faith and go out there and if it doesn't work out or if it sucks or you lose some money than, fuck it, at least you tried. I recognize opportunities because I've missed so many of them. I remember [back in the days of Enemy Soil] getting asked to go to Japan with Corrupted, and at the time Richard wasn't the manager type, and he didn't book it and I didn't book it so we didn't go. End of story. It takes somebody to do the work and go out and get it done, now that it's just the two of us and we're going out to do it, for whatever it's worth.

Omid: We agreed to never play any of the three-piece songs again. I had thought about having another singer but in the end it was like fuck it, that would just be someone else, someone who wants something, who wants to have a say that we're not going to agree with, so we were like, why bother? It just worked.

William: It was easier to strip down, It was easier to do that then to build up again.

Omid: It was like taking off your pants and just walking around in your underwear. Feels kinda loose. You can feel the breeze.

Mary: When you're going out to do it, what are your goals?

Omid: Have a good time all the time.

William: That, and we're trying to do one more LP.

Omid: I like William and I like playing music with him. It's what I want to be doing and I know I'm doing the right thing. We have fun! We go out and we play live fast music, and some people dig it and some people hate it.

William: We write three songs and practice, and then we go home and figure out what riffs have been subliminally ripped off our favorite records.

Mary: With what conscious changes did you approach the new Battletorn?

William: I don't know if it was conscious, but it was unavoidable. The lyrics are very different now.

Omid: There's not as many big words. Because we're writing them and we're dummies and we didn't go to art school.

William: Well, I went to art school, but I still didn't know what some of those words meant.

Omid: I write a good portion of the lyrics and now William does too. I've got a ton of shit in my head. I have trouble remembering it, though. I'll play a riff and William will be like, that sounds cool, and I'll be all fuck! Hum it back to me, I can't remember it! Or I'll have to call my cell phone in the middle of the street or something and sing it to my voicemail. But there's always this stream of shit in my head, always riffs.

Mary: What are you proudest of now?

Omid: I just feel like we're doing it.

Mary: What do you mean by "it"?

Omid: We'll get on the Chinatown bus and come to Boston, you know? Just to play for 10 minutes. We're just fucking playing music and having fun, and doing it. That's what "it" is, to me. We're not gonna be on the cover of Vice magazine but fuck it.

William: In three years we did three tours, stuff that I never thought I was gonna do in any of the other bands I was in, more stuff than I've ever done in any other band. We did a UK tour, a Southern tour, a free LP someone paid for us to record…



Mary: Do you think it would be fair to say that you guys stripped yourselves of the things that were leading you in the wrong direction?

Omid: Yeah, that sounds about right. That's a good way of putting it. There were too many distractions, things pushing us in the wrong direction. We don't put as much thought into our direction as maybe we should, but they're our ideas and we want to do it our way.

MATW news '08: Cheap Tragedies LP + new webstore

I generally try to keep label business separate from this blog, but for the time being our website is out of commission as far as substantial updates. But we've got some exciting news to share for 2008, and I figured here's as good a place to put it as any. As you can read below, we'll be working on a site re-design shortly and that, along with my tackling Dreamweaver will finally mean regular updates to the MATW site!
___________________

First off, we're proud to announce that Cheap Tragedies will be releasing their debut LP on Mad at the World Records. Cleveland's troublemakers managed to start making a name for themselves on the basis of just a demo and the infamous Clevo-style ruckus which they already managed to bring to shows through-out the mid-west and east coast. With a CV that boasts some of the most respected hardcore bands of the last 2 decades (Face Value and 9 Shocks Terror to mention a few), it's not surprising. Their full length will follow up 7" releases on Livewire Records and High Anxiety 415 Records. CT start recording in the spring and the record is slated for a summer '08 release.
Cheap Tragedies on myspace

Mad at the World's webstore has greatly expanded to now include a full online mailorder, and carries releases from the likes of Grave Mistake, Criminal IQ, Deep Six, No Way, Profane Existence, Grand Theft Audio, Painkiller, and a whole number of international labels. Check out the store at www.matwrecords.com/catalog

We're hoping to have a complete site redesign sometime before the spring hits. The current site design makes it hard to update and expand, so a new one is on the way. When we put it up, we'll make sure to expand the pages dramatically and put up information on all the bands, including archival stuff we have from Major Conflict, Urban Waste, the Nihilistics, and the Misguided.

Battletorn's- Terminal Dawn record will be out on CD version in February 2008. The gatefold LP version from summer '07 sold out in a matter of 4 months and won't be re-pressed. The CD version will have the Terminal Dawn LP + a remastered version of their '06 Burn Fast 7". In continuing with the whole over-before-you-know-it approach, the CD was pressed in a quantity of 500, so pick it up fast.

More NYHC reissues in the works!

Battletorn interview

This interview was done with the guys from Battletorn and I believe submitted to Maximumrocknroll, who didn't like it for some reason. Oh darn. It's a good read though, so you can now read about it here. A bit on the long side, so I'll post half now and half later. I suppose it would be a convenient place to mention that the CD version of "Terminal Dawn" with remastered "Burn Fast" tracks will be out soon... limited to 500 like the LP version at that.

*************************************************************

INTERVIEW WITH BATTLETORN 10.28.06

How do you get your music to reach a wide audience, without compromising your DIY roots? How do you push yourself without being a whore? It's It's a difficult situation that most talented underground band finds themselves in at some point. It's rough out there you're hell-bent on doing things DIY: putting your music out there, wanting it to be heard, not having the money or the means to reach as many people as you'd like. Then one day, a subsidiary of a major label comes along looking in the gutter for a band to polish up enough to become the next big thing. Dirty and disruptive has become not only marketable, but lucrative, and when names are being dropped and contracts are being waved, it's easy to get lost in the hype and glamor of the music scene in Brooklyn.

Good thing the dudes in Battletorn have short attention spans.

Battletorn is a two man thrash-punk assault from Brooklyn, NY. They're notorious for their "attack" approach to playing live; jumping onto other bands' equipment, ripping through a blistering 10 minute set, and jumping offstage again before the audience knows what's hit 'em. They joke about this "gypsy" approach to shows, and about how they play "caveman music," but their chidings are not apologetic or self-deprecating. The guys in Battletorn exhibit an unmistakable pride in their unpolished aesthetic and dirty DIY roots.

And well they should, for it was this DIY pride that carried them through the aforementioned slimy label situation to stay true to their DIY roots. After releasing an album on the trendy, super-hyped Megablade label (a subsidiary of a Troubleman Unlimited, who in turn is owned by a major), Battletorn began to get caught up in a scene that, thanks to the surge in hipster popularity of crossover bands like Municipal Waste, is decidedly less than true.

Battletorn, then a three-piece, underwent a sort of catharsis as a result of being engulfed by the Megablade scene. Omid and William, the musicians who now comprise the two-man thrash attack Battletorn, make it clear that departing from the raw and unrefined in favor of gaining exposure is a compromise they are not willing to make again. The guys in Battletorn see it this way: for every album sold to someone who's just in it for the scene points, some fundamental element of truth is lost. The struggle to stray true in a scene that rewards posing and posturing hasn't been easy, but then again, they don't really have a choice in the matter. They've been around too long to pander to "flavor of the week" fans. They no longer have the patience...or the attention span.

Given how much we talk about staying true in metal, Omid's Manowar business card seems like the right place to begin…




Mary: So how did you get that Manowar business card?

Omid: It's pretty fucking cool! I think it came from the show at L'Amours. They played there before it closed.

William: The Blizzard Beast came. Er…what was that other band that played?

Omid: Satyricon?

William: Immortal? Slipknot? Yeah, it was a good show.

Omid: It was a good show. There was a lot of, like…baby oil and metal. Metal and baby oil. Plenty of lubrication.

William: The singer said that he'd rather hang out with this dude than with the dude's girlfriend, because he knew he was a true brother of metal. (laughter) The whole audience just started, like, clapping and going, "METTTAAALLL!!" (raises his fist in the air, much laughter)

Omid: yeah, that was awesome, man. And then he poured a beer all over himself. There was a lot of beer-pouring.

Mary: Why is it that you haven't had much "industry" exposure? Is that intentional?

Omid: I guess. I mean, I feel like it's the kind of thing that could be helpful to have some stuff out there, like I wish Troubleman did a little more. Well I guess I shouldn't start naming names.

William: Go ahead, slam everybody on tape, dude. Those guys at Circus did nothing for us.

Omid: Yeah, I wish Hit Parader gave us more coverage. (laughter)…but anyway, so I got this Manowar business card…I think it could be helpful, you know, press is cool, but we didn't really scout it out or anything. Dan's just trying to get the name out, and you know, do a little bit of… information-spreading or whatever.

Mary: Is that a reason that you left Troubleman?

Omid: We were just this small part of like this huge "let's just take all this shit and throw it at the wall and see what sticks". I liked the fact that they did the first single and they made 300 copies of it, it was cool, but when they're making 2,000 CDs and they don't put anything behind it, and then of course only 500 or 700 are going to sell. I mean, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that people aren't going to buy something that's just out there. There has to be a little bit of legwork done for people to know its there and buy it. I don't want them sitting in a warehouse somewhere. I want people to have that music. I took a lot of the copies back and I gave them away. I'll give them away before I'll let them rot in a warehouse. This isn't a business for me, I don't want money, I've got a job, I'm not trying to make money off of this, we get by. That's kind of why we switched labels, now the setup is a little more intimate.

Mary: Did you see Troubleman giving that push to other bands on the roster?

William: I thought it was more of a word of mouth thing. I think most Troubleman bands are like that, if you like one band you probably like another other band on it, but the whole Megablade thing was kind of like an offshoot that didn't really fit with that label. There's so many indie bands on Troubleman, and then on Megablade has these really heavy, slow bands…and we were like a fast band and I think the novelty kind of wore off for them kind of fast. So we just decided to kind of stick with what we've been doing.

Omid: Can I just say they're cool guys and we really appreciated them? (laughter) I mean, they are really nice people.



Mary: How did the whole Troubleman thing transpire?

Omid: Well, they just came up to us and asked us if they could put out a record. There was other labels that asked us if they could put out a record, too.

Mary: So the labels approached you? How did you get the exposure to be approached in the first place?

Omid: Playing two shows a week for the first…oh, I don't know, 9 months to a year. Playing anywhere and everywhere, that's pretty much it, just putting ourselves out there. There were other labels that approached us but we had another member at the time and she was really into Troubleman. This label Mad At The World asked us right off the bat if they could put out a record and she didn't seem that into it. I thought it was a great label because they're a hardcore label.

William: Matador approached us. They didn't have anything left, and then I guess they picked up Early Man.

Omid: It's totally true. The first email we got from a label was from Matador, asking for a demo and we never sent it to them.

William: We didn't have one.

Omid: We never followed up on it.

Mary: Going with the hardcore thing, back before Battletorn was Battletorn, you had hardcore in mind when you first started out?

William: Yeah, we wanted to be an avalanche of hardcore.

Mary: What happened before you guys met that took you in the direction of wanting to start a straight up hardcore band?

Omid: Well, it was our friend Sean's idea, he said, "let's start a band with three guitars" and so we were going to play with them, but then…we just played with each other. (laughter)

Omid: We didn't invite anyone else into the sandbox, except for Beverly… and then we just went back to… playing with each other.

William: Yeah, we just really like playing with each other. (more laughter)

Omid: No, it's totally true man! We're two men who like to play with each other. What's wrong with that?

At this point, the food arrives: plates heaped with steaming piles of ribs, slathered in smokey-sweet barbecue sauce. The interview is paused for a moment, and when the tape cuts back in, it goes straight to Omid's voice saying:

Omid: (evidently about Matador) They just jumped on whatever bandwagon, there is, you know? We would have probably gotten money and yeah, they would have done something behind it, but it would have been totally false.

William: We would have had to go on tour with Early Man, you know?

Mary: When you say "false" like that…what experiences prior to forming Battletorn shaped what your definition of "true" is? How did you get to the place where Battletorn was the band you wanted to be?

Omid: I'm going to put this piece of beef in my mouth and let William answer that.

William: Well, I played in a lot of bands in Virginia and D.C. that were hardcore, and punk, but they never really went anywhere.

Mary: What did you mean by "went anywhere"?

William: Uh…No one liked us or came to our shows. (laughter) And then coming up here when Battletorn first started out, we were not exactly true… we were playing a lot of shows that were, uh…

Omid (interrupting him) That doesn't mean that we're not true! What do you mean? We were true!

William: Well, we were getting swallowed into a scene that wasn't really true.

Omid: Well just because the scene isn't true doesn't mean that we're not true.

William: That's…well, true. (laughter) But we didn't let falseness prevail. Death to falseness.

Omid: Personally I think truth is the scene itself, you know? I'm old enough and William's old enough to have seen so many fucking trends come and go and people think that they're into this and into that. Really, we were around in the first wave of total fucking posers, and we saw in junior high school when kids were wearing Iron Maiden t-shirts that they bought at the mall, I mean, that was everybody was wearing, you know? Preppies wore polo shirts and, and whether or not they were really into it or if they were borderline, everybody else wore Maiden shirts, that's just what they wore. They never even heard the music….and now that's all happening again. I don't think that's why we started Battletorn, but there's definitely something to it there. I always preach about truth. I think truth is important. I think doing it yourself, as a band, and doing what you want to do is important.

Mary: "Death to false metal" says the man with the Manowar card.

Omid: Death to false everything. Just do your own thing and it doesn't matter if it's not cool or if people don't like it. There are so many trend hoppers and people jumping on band wagons. Especially in New York, that's like the capital of poserdom.

Mary: How has environment affected outcome here? How has New York made you guys what you are?

Omid: I don't know that it has. I think we were pretty set when we got here. I mean, I just wanted to play, and we've been in bands before, not in New York…

William: I just happen to live up here, man…

Mary: I know you played with Enemy Soil…

Omid: I played with them on that split with Corrupted. We were supposed to do other recordings, but I was living the 'hard life', so that wasn't the most prolific band. I mean, going to the studio wasn't really a priority. When we recorded one time, I remember, the drummer didn't even show up, that guy that's in Pig Destroyer now. He had to go take some girl to the doctor, we were in King from Deceased's basement and I was like, totally hung over, it was Saturday morning, Rich Johnson was in a really bad mood and so we just taught King the songs and we recorded them in his laundry room. That was my first exposure to playing that music. But as far as how we play goes, I think William's a lot more talented a musician than I am, I just play what I can and it just sort of flows. That's it. We did it on our own, write some riffs. William writes a lot of the guitar riffs too, he's really a guitarist who happened to become a drummer.

Mary: Then what is the falseness you were talking about before, especially in New York? What did you mean by that?

Omid: I mean, when you look around, there are just so many fucking people, just fronting that they're…..I mean, metal is definitely the flavor of the month right now, but it's not just metal. It's a thousand things that people get into for a minute, but the thing with metal is the most offensive to me.

William: Yeah, it's the one I feel the strongest about. There's that whole, kind of like a thrash revival right now that can be frustrating, I'm not going to name names, but…

Omid (laughing): Can't you hear the frustration in his voice? Can't you hear, it, how frustrated? He's so angry! (laughter)

William: You know, it becomes the flavor of the week. People who didn't listen to it back then, or… there are some cases where people are just discovering it and think it's great, but there are people who know they didn't take it seriously when it was first out there, and now they're playing in bands like that.

Omid: I don't think people can get into something like that. I mean, it's not like you can't get into something and be truly dedicated to it, but you can sense people that just seem like a lot of it was very transparent. I grew up very dedicated to heavy metal and hardcore music, and to see people take it lightly.

William: It's funny to see a bunch of people with Suicidal baseball hats and bandannas and acid wash jeans and big high tops now.

Mary: Do you guys see a lot of that at your shows in NYC? The transparent people?

William: We did for awhile.

Mary: What was that all about? Why did it stop?

William: (laughs) Well, they were just the flavor of the week scene. I think they thought it would be cool, and after hearing us, realized that, no, we don't like this, but it's cool for us to be here. So they went back to dope or blow or whatever they do, like joined a disco or something.

Omid: I think a lot of those people might have been attracted by our other lineup, too. Our singer was friends with a lot of sort of DJ-scene people.

Mary: What were the preconceptions people formed of Battletorn when you had a female singer?

William: Some people said we sounded like some band we've never heard of.

Omid: The Cums.

William: We've never heard them but I guess people thought we sounded like them.

Omid: That was Troubleman, they wrote that on our press release. Our label as people in general were pretty cool, they were around and into the music. I don't want to talk about that now. We've got a label now that's all hardcore with people who are putting out hardcore music and they're cool. We appreciate what Troubleman did, I don't have anything bad to say about them.

William: Nope.

LIFERSMONTREAL.

A little while ago, Hugo interviewed me for his blog Lifers Montreal which he does with his boy Tremblay. If you're interested in anything I have to say, you can find it here: LIFERSMONTREAL. They have a lot of cool stuff up there, make sure to head over there every now and again.

7" reviews: Fed Up!, Critical Picnic, Youths, La Piovra

Fed Up!- Lashing Out 7"
It's a sad fact that you don't see too many hardcore 7"s coming out of the Big Apple these days, so respect to Fed Up! for taking on this format. Rough and tumble hardcore from New York City. There's a heavy Breakdown and Raw Deal influence on these tracks; imagine if those bands had been skinheads and came up in the 90's, and you might take a guess as to what Fed Up! could sound like. They lay it on pretty thick--2 of the 3 songs on this disk are about fighting, and this was even recorded at "Beat Down studios," but having known the guys from Fed Up! for about 10 years I can vouch for the fact that they're the real deal. For folks who like the gruff, oi! influenced hardcore of folks like 86 Mentality should lend an ear to these dudes here.

Critical Picnic 7"
Really noisy and lo-fi hardcore from California. In fact, I haven't heard as trebly a record since the Satanic Malfunctions 7". That is to say, as far as productions valuesgo-- not very good. However, it's hardly the point, as the guitar and trash-can sounding drums almost meld together in a whirlwind of hardcore noise. With songs like "Bob Saget Was a War Hero" and "Disgruntled Pedophile," you get the impression that the delivery is just as important as the songs themselves. And as for delivery you get some serious piss and vinegar here. The Meatmen would be proud, methinks. Fun stuff that you might have to clean up some to pull off an LP's worth of material, but it works fine for a 7".

the Youths- Youths Youths Youths 7"
For a long while in the 90's, there seemed to be dearth in really good melodic hardcore bands. I don't mean pop-punk, emo, Fat Wreck Chords style stuff--- that was always a dime a dozen. There seemed to be a good amount of crazy thrash bands that were pretty good, and not a whole hell of a lot of bands that pulled off a Zero Boys, Adolescents, Kraut type of vibe well at all. (Sure, there were exceptions, and I think that one Krayz record is a shining example.) Then bands like Young Wasteners, the Observers,or Clorox Girls popped up, and nowadays kids seem to be able to pull it off much better again.... And Portugal's Youths are one such band. Catchy, hook-ridden hardcore punk full of mid-paced songs of shouted lyrics and amped-up, jangly guitars. A real nice hardcore 7" for sure.

La Piovra- Risacca b/w Danni Collaterali 7"
After hearing that Ohuzaru LP last year I'm convinced Italian hardcore has some serious shit up their sleeve, and along comes La Piovra to lend some more evidence to that claim. Though this is just a 2 song 7" (I think limited for a tour of theirs) they seriously manage to do more damage over the course of 2 songs than most hardcore bands can manage over a whole album. They've got one hell of a backbeat, and their Dictators-meets-Sonics through a filter of Minor Threat-meets-State of Alert mayhem is pretty powerful. But they're the heirs to a great tradition over there that spans from Raw Power, CCM, Declino and some dozen more powerhouses, so I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised.

INTERVIEW: Tony Erba of Cheap Tragedies

I was rather psyched at being able to do an interview with Tony Erba to talk a little bit about his current band Cheap Tragedies. At the risk of riding his nuts a little bit too much, I'll tell you why in a few points:
1. Hanging out is always a great fucking time and you can always talk some good rock n roll.
2. His current band rages.
3. His past bands have been at least awesome; at most really fucking important.
Read on...


MATW: Cheap Tragedies has been together for under a year now; can you give us a rundown of how you got together? You've also managed to get an awful lot donein the few months you've been active as a band. To what do you attribute your efficiency-- experience, wanting to hit the stage right away, boredom, all of the above?

Erba: Yeah,all of the above. They players in the band had the band together before I joined and good songs written but no vocalist and a vague direction in which they wanted to proceed. John Millin (guitarist) is a natural leader and someone used to making things happen yet has played exclusively in Youth Crew styled bands that were all very good, but I think my addition has reinvigorated him and he seems to be having fun with being freed from the shackles of an admittedly confining style of hardcore. Now he can write whatever the hell type of hardcore/ rock he wants and have a good time in the band without cowtowing to the dress and narrow sound of a Youth Crew situation. At least, thats MY perspective on it. I may be wrong and they may be just putting up with me through clenched teeth.

9 Shocks Terror broke up in 2006, and Amps II Eleven bit it in April of 2007, so I started literally having night terrors at the prospect of no more band practices, no more money pit, no more tours, no nothin'. I just so happened to be bullshittin with Jeff Grey, guitarist, and he mentioned that they were doin' a semi Youth Crew/'80s HC band, and mentioned the personnel involved. I knew everyone except the drummer, who turned out to be such a completely kickass surprise, anyway I knew who was involved and I said to myself-- "shit yeah, this sounds like it could fuckin' RAIL." So I called 'em.

I've always been someone who gets involved in bands to travel and take them as high up the food chain as we can go, within reason. I hate sitting on my ass, and the other guys in the band are seasoned vets who want the same things out of a band that I do--minus the blow and the felching.

MATW: Cheap Tragedies is a big departure from a lot of your more recent bands. When putting together the band and the first songs, was there an intention or a concerted effort to adhere to a particular style?

Erba: Ehh,to me it's almost just like heyday-era Face Value-- catchy,anthemic hardcore with a solid rock underpinning. Not all that different for me. Amps II Eleven was straight boogie-punk, so the rock thing I totally embrace. I see us playing fast yet catchy rock-oriented Hardcore.



MATW: For folks that have yet to see you guys play, what can one expect from a gig? Will it have the over-the-top, aggro approach some of your past bands had reputations for? If so, does that just come with the territory with Clevo bands?

Erba: Uhh... yeah,I cannot and will not be tamed or mellowed out or controlled. I'm a fucking animal. I want to force the music down the audience's throat. If I'm not having a good time and being fulfilled at a gig,I think I oughta charge the audience a SECOND time on the way out the door for being boring. I only know one way to play live-- that's to go out and get after it and play loud as fuck and wild as hell. The other guys are freaked out a little but i love the blood, sweat, and mayhem. I'm upping the ante every show. Diving off PA's, breaking bottles over my head, jumping on the bar, and abusing my body til I throw up after the show is typical. Think a 'posi' Blag Dahlia crossed with Evel Kneivel.

MATW: Speaking of Cleveland, for a lot of years, continuing well into the 90's, there was some major drama between some folks from New York and Cleveland. It seems that, although you were in a real popular band back in the late 80's to early 90's, you didn't get too wrapped up in all of that. With a good amount of hindsight now, do you have any thoughts on that stuff?

Erba: Yeah it was fucking ridiculous then, and equally retarded if it still goes on now. I never was involved, we played everywhere for an average of 4 months out of the year with Face Value,and worked it pretty hard with 9 Shocks. I never got involved with what those idiots like fatass Chubbie Fresh or Dwid were doing.

MATW: You've been playing in active bands for the better part of the past 2 decades. Have your reasons for playing changed throughout those 2 decades? How about your aspirations for you bands in general?



Erba: No,i need an outlet for my frustrations and depression and I love playing non-commercial aggressive music, same as I always have. I love traveling and seeing the friends I've made over the years and seeing that band that you never heard of and having them knock your dick in the dirt.

MATW: A good number of your bands are quite respected in the "DIY circuit" of hardcore wherein punk "business" has typically looked suspiciously on profit, particularly when it comes to record companies and the like. You've been in some quite popular bands that have sold a good amount of records over the years by hardcore standards. It's no secret that recently a good portion of the record industry is sounding the alarm over decreased record sales, downloading, and other issues. By today's standards, selling a few thousand copies of a release is no small feat, even for bigger, established labels (hardcore or otherwise). Given that a lot of your past bands have been in that league where you could expect to sell a couple thousand records, how do you stand on the whole business of these current "issues," and on making money in the record business in general?

Erba: It is a very interesting question. The pressing of the Face Value 7"s were 1000 a pop... at LEAST ten pressings of that that I know of. Then, the LP, with probably 8,000 pressed. Then you had the CD with both the 7" and 1st LP on it (all on Conversion Records). Plus, the cassette single (now there's a retarded format!). Then, about 5,000 pressed of the live single (Nemesis Records). Then, the 2nd LP ("Kick It Over," Doghouse Records)... probably when it was all said and done, 5000 total pressed of LPs and CDs. The band NEVER GOT ONE FUCKING DIME from any of these sales. Not to mention that Conversion sold their rights to Revelation, who quietly kept that shit in press for years. I can't stand to think about it. Dennis Remsing, you cocksucker. Not too mention that that shit's on Lost and Found in Europe, bootlegged as hell.

With 9 Shocks, Stepsister and Amps II Eleven, it varied. 9 Shocks never got paid from Sound Pollution, and got royally FUCKED by Devour Records, but with with Havoc he took care of us real good, drove us on tours, went to Europe; Felix is great. Totally stand-up yet still able to make money,albeit in a punk, ethical way. Smog Veil is great too, they pushed Amps and we had a publicist, I-tunes money coming in, Amazon money coming in, shoe sponsorships and shit, good promotion, decent distribution, etc. He's a good dude. I hope people download the shit out of our stuff on Soulseek or wherever. I will hopefully be involved with ethical people who treat the bands well and promote their labels properly-- everyone wins, that way. I don't want to put bounties on people's heads-- but I will, if I get fucked over.



MATW: It seems that Cheap Tragedies could very well bridge a little bit of that gap in audiences between the DIY-hardcore crowd and the more mainstream hardcore crowd. How do you feel about that, considering that your loyalties seem to lie firmly in the DIY- camp?

Erba: I think we're indeed very versatile and I think you're right on the money-- we played kind of a 'professional' HC Fest called "This Is Hardcore" featuring Bridge 9 bands and Agnostic Front and whatnot that was put on by the FSU people in Philly, and they couldn'tve been more pleasant. There was no fights, it was well-organized, we had a great time slot, and they didn't say a word about my antics, which were typically outrageous. A totally different scene than what I'm used to, but we went over well and were treated fine. Later that night we drove to NYC and opened for Drop Dead at the Cake Shop, and that was jammed-packed with the crustys and bike-punks, and they were of course raging and we got over with the crowd and it was kickass. That made me feel great about the potential of this band.

MATW: I remember finding it refreshing that your take on the punk and hardcore thing was that it was part of a larger history of rock n roll. I'm pretty with you on that, and think it's a straight-on, open minded approach to the genre. You'll see a good amount of folks who will almost exclusively listen to hardcore/ punk, or if they do diverge from that, to bands that have been accepted as being "close enough" to hardcore/ punk. Do you think it would change the hardcore scene much if folks listened to and checked out other kinds of music on a more regular basis?

Erba: Hell yes, then you'd have more bands like Annihilation Time rising to prominence. If you only take influences from one particular background then your band will be one-dimensional and generic as hell.

MATW: With respect to the last question, I've got some music-nerd questions for you. What are those 5-10 current faves you'd need to be stranded on a desert island with? I guess in the days of iPods, a question like that makes a lot less sense, but whatever....

Erba: Current faves? Stupid Babies Go Mad, Glucifer "Basement Apes", Drive-By Truckers "Decoration Day", Living Stereo demo, Wolfdowners demo, Malabar Brothers demo, the Tough & Lovely "Tough and Lovely" CD, Collinwood Soul Group demo, Broken Needle LP, Hell's Information demo, the Kids reissue, Midnight "Endless Sluts", UV Rays CD, GC5 "Never Bet The Devil Your
Head."

MATW: I think we've chatted on a couple occasions about some killer 70's rock shit like Atomic Rooster and Mountain that you were keen on. There's as much a reissue industry for that 70's rock and weirdo psych shit as with hardcore and punk bands of yore. Do you follow those releases at all? If so, what are some recent gems you've been exposed to?

Erba: HELL YES. I am glad that you are so up on this shit! I just got some great reissues by Buffalo (amazing Australian 70's hard rock), Flower Travellin' Band (Japanese freakout/ psych), Leaf Hound ('70s English Sabbathian filth), High Tide (late '60s Brit boogie/ blues movement) etc etc.

MATW: You don't really seem to take a break from music much. GSMF broke up, and you were still doing 9 Shocks Terror (and Step Sister). In the interim you were doing Amps II Eleven (right?), and as soon as 9 Shocks broke up you seemed to have started this band. What can we expect from Cheap Tragedies in the coming months and do you have any other projects lined up on the side (Upstab or anything)?

Erba: C.T. has 2 singles coming out on Livewire and High Anxiety records, and the LP on MATW. Then touring and 3-day weekends as much as humanly possible. Hitting the Fests as much as we can, and we totally want to go to Montreal, so I'll be callin' you soon, dig? Also I am talking to some pretty good-sized labels about getting a proper reissue for Face Value--the 1st single, the first LP,the live single and live and radio cuts. The Face Value stuff has been sought after by a whole new generation of HC kids and they can't get their hands on it. Are you interested, Dan???? I'm working on a 'solo' LP with different friends playing on different
songs--styles are pretty much Kids/ Dwarves/ Pretty Things/ Saints/ Birdman/ GG and the Jabbers/ Rose Tattoo punk rock 'n' roll. Hopefully my brother and I will do an Upstab reunion one of these days, but he's in Arizona now. I also think the final chapter has not been written on the Nine Shocks saga...stay tuned!

the Black Dot in Montreal

This will be a short little post dedicated to help "getting the word out" about a cool new project happening in Montreal by a couple of dedicated music heads. Last night was the official opening night of the Black Dot on St Laurent, located in the space left by le Local (and I swear that a record store was here some years ago that I got a Venus and the Razor Blades 12" and some Suzi Quatro LPs on a visit to Montreal some years ago). It's basically a loft space that is undergoing some renovations so that is can house exhibitions, parties, shows, what have you. Last night was a bit of a celebratory party with a bunch of bands playing covers for shits and giggles. Plenty of beer was flowing, the place was packed, and it was a pretty damn good time. You can see some footage of this on DanEdge's Society Suckers blog and be sure to check that blog as well as the Size Em Up website for details as it seems like there will be cool shit going down at this place in the months to come.

Archived Major Conflict radio interview from Anti-Emo Empire

Some of you guys may be familair with the radio show Anti-Emo Empire out of Connecticut, DJ'ed by Jeff Terranova (ex- Up Front member, and Smorgasbord Records honcho). Quite a great show, and a good dude to boot. He's had quite some cool guests interviewed on the show, and recently an archive of those interviews has been appearing on his website. Definitely check it out as there's some quite good ones with members of Leeway, Gorilla Biscuits, H2O, America's Hardcore, Verbal Assault, SIN34, Government Issue, and more.

Of course, the one that hits closest to home is this interview with Dito Montiel of Major Conflict done right after the reissue came out on Mad at the World, which I'll post a direct link to RIGHT HERE. Give it a listen peoples...

You'll be seeing some more content going up here shortly, including a great interview with none other than Mr Tony Erba talking about his new band Cheap Tragedies. Good shit, my friends.