Friday, September 2, 2011

In Grind We Crust; My Top D-Beat/Grindcore/Crust/Doom/Anarcho Peace Punk Bands

I won't launch into what will eventually unravel as the brightest, strongest, and longest common thread of my life in this particular post, but suffice to say that I'd be dead a thousand times over without punk rock. I've heard that said sort of casually by any number of folks over the years, some of them even meant it or believed it to be the truth, but I can definitively and positively state that for myself, it's an absolute fact. Or, as my father would cryptically and redundantly state; "It's a true fact.", neglecting to realize a)why my older brother and I laugh at him every time he says that, and b)that by it's very definition a fact HAS to be true! Rod and Saul (said brother, my only sibling, my non-physiological twin, the other half of my brain/heart/soul, I've never met ANY siblings who're as closely connected as we, even real genetic twins, identical or not) have been pressuring (in a wholly flattering and non-annoying manner, mind you) me to really start devoting the time and energy into writing my first book, and I'm finally ready too, I think. Some of the shit in this one (many more to come, I promise you that much) has had to mature, ferment, or like, have the PTSD (that's not a joke) volume turned down over the years for me to be able to think about it, relive it to a certain degree, or for me to be in a strong enough and healthy enough emotional space to get it out there onto a page. Plus I had to finally feel like that both with a carefully worded legal disclaimer stating something about creative license or artistic interpretation or saying that it's a work of fiction would be enough to keep myself and any theoretical monetary recompense for a book that might occur. Now, at this point in my life, I've completely (as completely as one can) shed the emotional mantle of guilt and shame and general fucked up-ness that comes with abuse and shit. There's just too much insanely funny/sad/weird/absurd etc stuff that went down through out my early and formative years that, at the end of the day, is damned entertaining and deserves to be told. A slice? I was homeless and starving at 13 and my brother and I slept on the streets, in graveyards (dead people are really safe to be around!), and ate at churches and food banks or shoplifted food to survive, and my uniform? Skintight DIY handmade black skinny jeans reseamed and stitched with white waxed dental floss, sewn in added on zippers, ass flap with a Crass patch, and haphazardly skewed sewn repairs and punk rock patches pegged like gloves above my beyond broken in burnished black 16 eye Doc Marten's (they used to be well made and lasted forever, even though I walked for miles as a homeless punk teen), a low slung bondage leather belt, a black leather pyramid stud belt, DIY hand sewn and fitted band shirts, a couple of vintage button downs (I remember one was from the seventies and was insane leopard print and over sized), a trashed slouchy black beanie, pyramid studded bracelets and collars, bondage ring collar and bracelets, a ton of vintage jewelry, and my beloved vintage black leather motorcycle jacket, which I still have today. I'm 5'1", and I currently weigh about 100-103 pounds, but back then? Malnutrition and starvation made me a jaw droppingly hollow 88 pounds or so. Some of the soundtrack to this period of time has been on super heavy rotation on the tables lately, and I was excitedly discussing the prospects of Saul and I playing crust/grind/stoner/sludge/doom punk when Rod and I move back home to California. We're really stoked on the idea of doing like a Nausea style call and response feel, so I was showing Rod pictures and listening to them when it just struck me how much I love that band and how INSANELY hot and styling Amy is...so here's a smattering of Nausea and a few others that have been really influential for me...grind your face in!!!

Bands I HIGHLY INTENSELY recommend:
Nausea
Discharge
Dystopia 
Phobia
Neurosis
Buzz*oven
Doom
Amebix
Crass
Subhumans
Rudimentary Peni 
Filth (with MY guitarist for .38 Gauge, Lenny Rokk)
Strychnine (ditto above)
Scarred For Life
Dogma Mundista 
Pig Children
Meanwhile
EyeHateGod
The Melvins
Deathtoll


 








1 comment:

fantastictime said...

I used to hang out with Discharge in Hope st Hanley in the cafe next to Alternative clothing and watch them practice in a lock up in Fenton. I was 11 years old and my 16 year old sister was friends with bones and I even ended up with the Discharge leather jacket from the single cover. A few years later in 1982 I lent the jacket to a 15 yr old girl called Tracy Davis from Sandbach to go to a party and I never saw it again. Im 46 now and still wonder where it ended up.