Album Of The Week: Antidote - Thou Shall Not Kill

Antidote - Thou Shall Not Kill (1983)

This classic is probably one of the best hardcore records ever released. Antidote fucking rules, and this record is flawless. It's fast, angry, and straight up hardcore punk. Life As One, Real Deal, Something Must Be Done,  Foreign Job Lot, just a few awesome songs from this 7". Antidote was one of the early hardcore bands from New York and they definitely left a mark as one of the best hardcore bands from NY if not of all time. If you've never heard this band, or this 7" you should probably quit hardcore right now. I don't think I can ever get tired of listening to it and it sucks I missed their most recent reunion (though it wasn't the original line up).

This EP is deemed record of the week but it should be record of the year because it's that great. Their later stuff (Return 3 Burn LP) isn't nearly as good, but check it out as well. Alright, that's all I have. Check this record out; I highly recommend it like all my other records of the week. Antidote is the best band. Disagree and you're a poser. End.

2 ALERT LOGO DESIGNS

This is a design created by our friend xSLABAx he is a great great artist I seriously am amazed at the detail of this drawing. An angry skinhead dude breaking from chains over the word ALERT. This is Mike's idea in terms of concept and Slaba really put it to reality. Will thinks it's too angry and would be more fit for a heavier new york skinhead band, but I think it's great and fitting. Seriously an amazing design.

Our friend Jay Jacoby from Kansas designed his ridiculously amazing design inspired from the well-known Side By Side "stance" design. It shows the silhouettes of 3 crucial dudes "posi" jumping, the middle holding a mic. This design, in my opinion, is absolutely awesome and I recommend Jay to anyone. Like Slaba, he does his work for free. You'll see this design really soon, but I won't give out too much.

So these are the two designs we currently have. There's more on the way so I'll post them as I get them. Also, Tim McCauliffe is working on a shirt design for us as well as the demo layout/design and this dude is great so I recommend him if you need design/art done his website is www.timcauliffe.com Check it out! He designed the website for The First Step (www.thejourneyofathousandmiles.com)!

Stay true

XXX

Sweet house show in NY

Blogspot image sizing isn't very good at all.

So last night my band Alert played a house show in Schenectady NY at my friend Dan's house/venue called The Asylum House with The Effort and Gaining Ground. All Star Me was supposed to play but there was an incident with a van so they couldn't play and the Effort dudes were left with no equipment. The night was dark and stormy but we had a great time. We only brought drums and a guitar head so even though the show was supposed to start at 5, we ended up playing like 6:30-7ish. The space was smaller than I expected, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. We played a pretty sweet set I think, though my bass was WAY too loud in the beginning then I turned it down too much and midsong Mike had to adjust it. I swear I'm losing my hearing or something. Anyway, the set was good and kids mostly went nuts to the Judge and Project X cover (which I guess is kinda normal for a band you've never seen). I know sometimes I get into a band from the covers they do because I know they know music and it makes me more interested. So our set was cool (for the 3rd time).

Next was Gaining Ground from the Albany area of NY. I really liked them and I even bought their 7". They were heavy and kinda reminded me of Strife a little. (A lot of heavy bands remind me of Strife for some reason) but I dug them a lot. The Effort was awesome as usual and they covered Turning Point - Behind This Wall and In My Eyes - Take The Risk which was sick. 7th time I've seen Effort and they always put on a good show. I bought their four way split 7"

So after I almost left my bass at his house and he gave me a sleeping bag that belonged to a dude from No Turning Back, Dan brought us all to his burrito place called Bombers. I had a vegan chicken nugget burrito with barbecue sauce and it was the best thing I've eaten in weeks. We all ate and talked about some stuff then proceeded home.

In conclusion, the night rules, the dudes in Gaining Ground are awesome as well as the Effort, who we're gonna try to play with more in the future, the road leading to the Mass Pike is ridiculously dark and scary at 12:00AM. Seriously, look in the rear view mirror and nothing but total darkness. In front, only 2 feet ahead of the white dotted lines. THAT'S IT.

XXX

Album Of The Week: Release - The Pain Inside

Release - The Pain Inside

Alright this EP is fucking sweet. It featured Rob Fish (Ressurection/108) on vocals. It's heavy, fast, and pissed off New Jersey straight edge hardcore at its finest. If you're into Turning Point/Youth Of Today mixed with the heaviness of Raw Deal or Breakdown this is for you. It's a great EP (though I've read through interviews Rob sees Release as more of a necessary phase) and like the other albums I've reviewed, yes, I highly recommend you get this. When I first got this album I must have listened to it on repeat for a week and a half. I can imagine the energy at one of their shows back then because you can hear it in the music.

The quality is pretty good for its time, but I'm a sucker for recordings that aren't too rough and not too clean. To me, it's perfect. The intro is hard as fuck and it goes right into one of the best songs on the EP, Drug Free Youth, which should be covered more nowadays if you ask me. I don't have a lot more to say about this EP other than it rules and Floorpunch probably wouldn't be a band if Release never existed. It's great youth crew hardcore from NJ.

"THE PAIN I FEEL INSIDEEEEEEE" enter divebomb "THE PAIN'S INSIDEEEE."

ALERT update - 12/13/08

So I thought it'd be cool to give a little update about Alert, for those few who read this. I'll probably start doing this every couple of weeks or so, or if something big happens in between.

Tapes, you ask? Well we still haven't released the demo tapes because they aren't in! I bought the tapes and the covers from seperate companies and I bought the tapes before I bought the cases, but the cases already came in. That's probably the only part of the demo tapes that are in. So hopefully the cassettes come in either today or monday, so I can start dubbing them all. I'm also waiting for the art to be finished so hopefully this all comes together over the course of the weekend.

Completely irrelevant picture of Turning Point, courtesy of Jade Tree

Okay, as for plans. We have a few shows lined up in the next few months leading into 2009, including a couple of weekends. January 23rd, 24rd, and 25rd I believe we are doing a weekend with Right Idea, Overload, and Face Reality which is probably the most awesome line up ever. We're hitting up Baltimore to play with Mindset, Worcester the next day with I Rise, and a NYC date in the works. There's absolutely no way that weekend won't rule. So if you're in the area, make sure you stop by one of the shows. It will be a great time.

After that we're working on something with Fired Up and perhaps Hostage Calm, but I won't get into those details until it is 100% confirmed. After February we're not sure. We may do a weekend with Revenge after, and maybe something with Resolve either in the spring, summer, or both, since their singer is back from California and that band fucking rules.

Musicwise, we have yet to practice and try to write new material. We have a show coming up next saturday so we probably won't focus too heavily on songwriting at this time, but we're heading to release an EP on a 7" with this label from Florida called Life To Live Records, which is pretty awesome. So we're probably going to work on a few more songs in the next month or so. Keep an ear out!

So that's pretty much the update for now. Once we have the demos out and ready, I'll write something about it. Until then, stay alert! XXX

Resolve - 7"

If you haven't already, check out Resolve from Missouri. They are probably one of my favorite bands currently and I'm glad to do a review of their 7" I just recieved in the mail today. This band is fucking awesome with a strong Youth Of Today/Turning Point/Release/Straight Ahead feel. It's seriously that fucking good. As you can see, the cover of the 7", which was released on Commitment Records, was drawn by the european crucial artist RAM and it depicts a godzilla-sized dude wearing a straight edge varsity jacket, hoodie, champion mesh shorts and classic nikes storming through a city (Washington DC perhaps) while military soliders flee in panic followed with RESOLVE in big varsity letteting on the top. Amazing artwork indeed. RAM's style is very awesome and often reminds me of a Crucial Youth art style. The back shows the same up from the chest down wearing his jacket with an X'd fist with the song names.

Alright, now to get into the music. The recording quality if perfect and fitting. It's not too rough and not too clean and it's absolutely amazing. Mike (the singer) shows a strong, bold sense of a vocal style. Personally I think it has Skip feel (early Turning Point era) meets Release. The music is loud, fast, and in your face with multiple and great uses of the divebombs. It's truly like someone went back to 1988/1989, grabbed a bunch of dudes from the Anthrax, brought them to modern times and started this fucking band. I don't know why I haven't gotten into this band before, but as I'm listening to this record, I'm proud to claim Resolve as my current favorite band. Yes, #1 band of all the bands currently around. If you can, I HIGHLY recommend you purchase a copy of this 7" asap because it would be a shame for it to sell out and have you miss out on such a great record.

On a side note, I've talked to the singer through messages on forums and myspace and they plan on coming this summer. I'm going to try to make it a priority to get at least a weekend with Resolve when they come over to the east coast.

In conclusion, this record is a 10/10 especially if you're into hard fast youth crew hardcore in the vain of Turning Point, Youth Of Today, Release, Straight Ahead, Wide Awake, etc.

www.myspace.com/resolve

My edge on him is my Insight!

Wide Awake - CT Hardcore

Think It Through Zine - Issue 1 Part 2

Alright so now that I'm back to the comfort of my basement, I can continue this intimate journey through this zine. I'll even go back and get into some of the band reviews.

So I left off after the graffiti done by Inflammable. On the next page it shows a bunch of modern awesome bands like Get The Most, Common Cause, Mindset, Right Idea, True Colors, and a nice little section on a sick band from the Ukraine called Clearsight. The next page has more awesome band pictures of DEA, Fired Up, Overload and Hostage Calm. And there's a section about Loud And Clear because they rule too. I must be sleeping or something because the next pages focuses on a european band called Balance. I don't recall listening to them yet, and unfortunately the sound card on my computer is busted, so I can't really listen until tomorrow, but judging from these live shots, I can tell I'm going to love it.

As the zine comes to a close there are some advertisements and band promo pictures of Step Forward, Go For Broke, and Thought Crusade, as well as a cool Screen Printing place called Lotus. Next page is an old Judge interview that was originally done by New Start Fanzine regarding the "beef" between Judge and Integrity which should be an interesting read once I get to it. The last page show some gnarly True Colors shirts and Jeff's closing notes and credits.

Overall I think this zine is fantastic. I love all the band reviews, new band discoveries, live shots, everything. He put a lot of time and effort into this zine and it really paid off. I'll definitely be at the front of the line for issue #2. I've decided to talk about the band he reviewed at another time. I'll just cop the demo and review it myself (I already have Face Reality's though so that should be up soon). I'm going to go into this zine with a little more detail for myself so I'm going to call this to an end.

Stay straight XXX

Think It Through Zine: Issue 1

Okay, I don't have a good camera, so unfortunately I can't upload any pictures from this zine at the time, so this blog entry will be text only.

So I just answered the door and a neighbor says "Hi, I'm your neighbor. The mailman accidently gave this to us." I look at the package and the first thing I notice is on the top left where the return address is, two crucial Turning Point logo looking dudes (I'm pretty sure its the same dudes from the Turning Point demo) just chillin over the name Jeff Hess. My eyes light up because I've been waiting for this zine for about a week and I'm super pumped it came and that the neighbor didn't just keep it. I doubt she'd know how awesome it was anyway.

So this blog entry is dedicated to this zine,  and I will type my opinions as I read through it for the first time. Ready? Here we go! (also listening to Amen Ra right now this band rules and I highly HIGHLY recommend you get into them if you haven't, especially if you're into heavy, ambient music). One more thing before I proceed. You might want to get a snack because this is going to be long...

So now I look at the cover, and I notice that it was drawn by xSlabax, an awesome dude from Ohio. I haven't met him (yet) but I've exchanged some myspace messages with him and he's designing some sick art for my band Alert as we speak. He is an amazing artist and it shows on this cover. It shows a brick wall and a door, an open door with a picture of Stephen TFS from their last show this previous September at Championship in Lemoyne, PA. The door is being opened by a dark hooded crucial dude with nikes laced up and a bold X on his hand with his finger pointing to Stephen. Two other dudes with THINK IT THROUGH written on the back of hooded varsity jackets looking into the doorway. THINK IT THROUGH is also written in a sick font above the door as well as ISSUE ONE and the price of the zine (3$). Featured in this zine is Judge, Seeker, Balance, Loud And Clear, and Face Reality in terms of bands. For other content there's a HC Art Section (I'm excited to see this) featuring Ram, xSlabax, Jay Jacoby and Graffiti by Inflammable.

I'll turn the front page. Alright, maybe I won't type for every page because there's way too much content in this zine (all the more reason for you to get it before its too late!) I'm reading the Intro to the zine and it's pretty sweet. It's Jeff talking about all he's done with hardcore and how it wasn't as hard as sitting down to do the zine. True story. It's not as easy as you think, especially if you want your zine to have substance to it.

Alright I'll spare you a little and skip out on the band reviews for now (I'll read them to myself when I go over the zine again) but the first band he talks about is Seeker and I can imagine it's all good because that band fucking rules. They are from Texas with influences as awesome as Beyond, late Bold, Underdog and Absolution. When this band comes to Massachusetts I'm gonna lose it. Face Reality is the next band mentioned. My band Alert is lucky enough to be able to do a weekend with them as well as Overload and Right Idea in late January which should be fucking sweet.

I turn the page again and ooohh it's a bunch of logos of bands. I love this stuff. No For An Answer, Uniform Choice, Inside Out, Turning Point, Underdog, Wishingwell Records, Straight Ahead, there's no end. Well if I ever wanna rip off a logo, I'm coming to this book for answers. I turn the page and now there's a page dedicated to Jay Jacoby. and artist/cool dude from Kansas (who also is working on a few Alert designs) Man his art is awesome. There's a guy busting out of chains whil wearing a COS shirt and another dude posi jumping. This dude rules, seriously. On the other page is RAM's art and h is also pretty sweet. His style reminds me of Crucial Youth's art a bit which is a style I draw most like. I'll have to hit this dude up soon just because Alert has art from the other two and it'll have to be complete. Next page is an entire page to xSlabax and this dude is the fucking man, in every aspect of the word. Flyers, sticker designs, logos, he has it all and I'm at a loss for words as I look at the sheer awesomeness of this page. I sound very cheesey right now but that's because I'm in such utter shock and the awesomeness of this dude's art. Can't wait to play OH and meet him face to face. Next pages are the graffiti done by a european dude by the alias of Inflammable. I remember lurking his myspace pages and seeing pages and pages of nice graffiti done of great bands; Uniform Choice, Bad Brains, Youth Of Today, True Blue. Great artist.

I'm just going to stop here and call this part 1 because I'm about to leave now, but I will finish it a bit later. In conclusion, this zine rule so far and I'm so glad I got it.

Album Of The Week: Speak 714 - Knee Deep In Guilt

Speak 714 - Knee Deep In Guilt (1998)

If you didn't already know, Speak 714 is another Dan O' Mahoney band that formed during the alleged "youth crew revival" of the mid 90's. With Dan and Joe from Unity/Ignite, this band released two records on Revelation; Knee Deep In Guilt and a 7" The Scum Also Rises.

Now I must say this is probably one of my favorite records. I'm almost sure I like this band more than No For An Answer and all Dan's other bands. It's a youth crew style record, but the riffs are so well put together with structure and melody it feels like this band is in the direction of a post hardcore sound, similar to what Better Than A Thousand does. This record is so powerful it just makes you wish you were seeing them and had the opportunity to leap off the stage. This record is still available on Revelation Records so I'm not going to upload it (unless you can contact me some other way, then maybe I can arrange something) but don't sleep on this band (though they've been asleep for a while since they are no longer a band). Some of my personal favorite songs on this record is Virus, Throwing Stones, and the self-titled Knee Deep In Guilt. Most of the songs on this record is powerful in the sense that the vocals and the melody are in perfect sync, complimenting each other and giving off a certain feeling or mood. Maybe I just feel this way because I've always been able to detect certain moods of bands and songs. In any case, definitely check this band out.

www.myspace.com/speak714

REVENGE

Revenge.

Storming out of the depths of Western Mass is a new force to be reckoned with. Revenge. George (ex Casket) put together a monster of a band. Drawing influences from bands like Left For Dead, The Swarm, Think I Care, and Black Flag, Revenge puts out fast, heavy, aggressive music that should appeal to everyone that says they like hardcore. Not even playing a show yet, the amazing quality and substance of their demo proves this band is in to stay, and you can hear the demo free by downloading it either from their myspace page (www.myspace.com/revengema) or from mediafire here.

If you are a fan of Trash Talk, New Lows, Think I Care, or Mind Eraser you'll definitely love this band. On the demo, most of the songs are less than a minute long, so you have no excuse to lose your mind to some of the most anti-religious simple but powerful lyrics around today. "I'll shoot down the stars because they get me so vexed. If god really exists tell him he's fucking next." Just a taste of one of the hardest demos released in 2008.

If you live in the area, definitely catch this band at a show. January 4th in Springfield they are playing with Death Before Dishonor, Shoot To Kill, Crowns Of Kings and a bunch of others so make sure you catch that. Revenge.

BACK IN BUISNESS

So here we are. xOpen Mindx is back. I was originally going to call it quits in hopes of helping Mike with issue 2 of his Too Deep Until Now Zine, but so much has happened in the past month or so and it probably won't happen soon. So here we go! Back in buisness.