#375

Right now I’m sitting on a balcony that is facing the garden of my girlfriend’s family’s weekend house. I’m sipping great Czech dark beer and listening to Kromozon 4. Trying to scribe down the Hysterics interview, figure out interview questions for other people, writing a zine in Hungarian while only wearing a Rank / Xerox shirt and underwear. I’m on vacation. This is how a punk vacation goes.
Life is good I guess and I only feel spoiled when my baby is stuffing my head with her amazing grilled cheese sandwiches. It’s already June and May was busy as hell at Budapest. Pleasure Leftists, Hyterics, No Problem with Voight Kampf and Condominium played shows in the capital of Hungary. All shows were great in the sense of the main bands played amazing sets. But I got tired because I participated in promoting most of these shows and doing this while having a full time job with three bands, fanzines, my first serious relationship and other shit; sometimes I feel I give too much of my life to punk. But I guess I get back in return a bit. Cause punk is amazing and I will never say it’s not.

            It’s a bit interesting how cities get on the map of touring bands in Europe. Most American bands either know this guy named Flo or want to know him. He runs Trapdoor Tourz a booking agency which is a total punk operation. Have you heard about the cancelling of Total Abuse tour in the middle of their journey? That was him. And it’s so liberating that he works only on trust and promoters don’t have to suffer through asshole bands who treat them like servants. I will serve any great band delicious food and with a clean sleeping place anytime but assholes only have one chance with me.

            Budapest got on his map when Flo came here with Neon Piss who played in a rehearsal room that was packed with half naked punx who were dancing and screaming. Not the words since Neon Piss came to Europe only having a demo out and their record was officially released on the same day they played Budapest. Not if in this day and age a release date would matter that much since yeah the internet but I always loved the experience of people losing their shit even to bands whose lyrics are unknown by the crowd.
From then on bands are frequently coming here and not just through Flo. His tours are always great but it was amazing too to have Piss from Germany here. Maybe it has got to do with the fact that I met their guitar player while I was hanging in Berlin and he was the only guy who liked Hungarian moonshine and at one point we were showing each other our shitty tattoos and discussing Japanese bands until I puked and passed out.

            It’s such a letdown because Europe is full with amazing bands who rather stay at home or tour the US.

            What I sadly realized at these previous shows was that the crowed got tamed down. My heart broke when most of my friends were just hanging out in front of the club drinking beer when Hysterics played. It’s like local punks are not hungry anymore for visiting bands. Or the scene got diverse that now every subgenre has it’s own shows and people only get enthusiastic for their own beloved bands not for everything else.

            On one hand as a promoter I’m devastated by this idea above on the other hand as a band member I like it. I play in one band that sort of has a crowd and even if I’m not anxious to play live I like to play for a smaller crowd than for assholes who just scream their bullshit between songs. Punk is for everyone but for me this means you are able to create whatever you desire because no one could judge you for the outcome if you put your whole self into it. If putting your whole self into something ends up with yelling offensive, ignorant shit between songs to draw the crowds attention from the band to you then I’m sorry dude but your life is sucking sad.

            I miss freaks want to be freaks and wild people being illegal, free and interesting. I hate aggression and when someone forces his idea of behaving at a show on others. If you think a pit is a place where you can hurt others without consequences why don’t you just beat the wall? Maybe it’s my loneliness but I never understood the concept of only being able to dance with making other people fall around you.

            At the Voight Kampf show I was let down because live their new songs sounded like a punker version of New Order and while I was shaking my body I imagined the whole crowd dancing to them as people dance at a night club or as probably people were dancing in the Hacienda. I was sorry for the band because I guess they would have thought we had appreciated them more if this scene of party people partying had happed but for me just seeing and actually hearing them for the first time and having this vision in my head made the whole night really magical. Also since I wasn’t booking this show I had the freedom to arrive late and leave early with my friends to have one more for that night and discuss movies, books and gossips.

            It’s funny how now away from the city and punk reality on a long weekend I found peace to write in a garden. I like music that fits perfect to gardens and right now I’m listening to the Gutter Gods lp. They are from Australia a place that is far away from everything. I know barley nothing about that continent except it’s an almost empty island for the outcast. Gutter Gods is a psychedelic oi band where Meatdog the insane drawer sings. They seem to be obsessed with the future while their music sounds so hopeless and melancholic. Sure there is aggression since a skinhead sings who has a head tattoo and psychopathic eyes and the music sounds as a really bad, never ending acid trip. It’s so existential, like feeling let down for no reason staring out the window of your flat that is facing the ocean letting the sun’s reflection set down on your face turning the sky dark and being unable to stop the city’s scum from crawl out their hovel and take over the streets. They have this weird outsider flavor to their music as what they do would be a secret and we only could observe the upper layers of it but will never blend with the feelings of the inner layers.

            My prediction seems to be right as Gag just recorded a full length album which will be out at Iron Lung records. I have only heard one track that came out as a preview for the whole record and it was awesome. Gag sounds as a band who would be amazing to see live. If I remember it right, and I can’t check it now cause it’s a garden without wifi connection but they are from Olympia right? Haven’t checked that town on google maps but I have always visioned that town as a huge garden where people are crammed together in punk houses, forming bands over bonfire before they fall down from their rotten plastic chairs in a weed daze. Gag probably doesn’t drink because they seem to be such nerds, also they look too cool on photos and so energetic on live videos. Their simple recipe to write songs comes from mixing together lot’s of feedback and the stomping parts of SSD the crazy noise and monotony of No Trend and same fast parts from the Midwest craziness. They seem as a band who probably doing it right and even they carry in their sound the feeling of this is more than just music. My friend who toured with them said they are the coolest to hang with so probably they are not assholes.

            I’ve got a tape from a local label with the coolest name Pizza Days Records. For me everyday is Pizza Day thus I relate easily to his releases. Too bad it costs a lot here to press your band on vinyl and because everybody is poor as fuck it’s a rare thing to happen. I got a tape of this amazing local band called Gross Out. There are some Xs before-after or between the words since Gross Out is a straight edge band in the vein of the mean Boston sound but their approach to such philosophy could be named as eternal tolerance. I saw them once where the singer said things between songs that actually made sense and didn’t make anyone feel provoked because of their chosen way of having fun. Half of the hardcore scene talks shit on them because they are critiquing the arrogance of sxe and making fun of hardcore cliques. Funny thing is it made a louder fuss within the scene than nazi related bands. Seems like for hardcore kids it’s still the biggest problem if a band has provoking lyrics toward the crowd and it’s attitude than racisms, sexism, homophobia, rock star attitude within the scene. Don’t wear your white pants, don’t start bands if you identify yourself as a woman just follow the code and don’t forget the struggle. Gross Out is not just a band who says different but they rip so fucking hard. Their guitar player is a little kid with amazing riffs. Their singer is some musical genius who threatens their bass player to tune in for the last song which last for 20 seconds. He is a perfect hardcore singer or will be when he will sing facing the crowed. The night I saw them he was bare foot, moving the whole crowd. It was great.

            The past few weeks was not only good in getting stuffs but buying too. I could put my hands on the Crustwar repress of the Zouo 7”. One of my all time favorite hardcore records. Mutant craziness channeled from another evil dimension. Full with ideas that basically would kill of each other but here it raises the freedom level of the music. It supposed to be fast but for some reason the manic beast of the music is restrained and on chains it’s like a dangerous power house. The whole thing is grotesque, funny and frightening at the same time. Like a vision of the failed future of punk.

            Talking about failed future some smart minds in Scandinavia re-released ex Yugoslavian bands in an amazing package art. I was lucky enough to purchase myself a Defektino Efektni 7” and a Kaos lp. I love the Balkan hardcore since it’s wild as fuck but these two bands showed something more. Not as Sarlo Akrobat who were the Minutemen of the Mediterranean Sea but Defektino Efektni has this paranoid vibe which is excellently mixed together with post punkish riffs. The singer has a great theatrical voice which alienates him from humans. Cause art is not real. The gatefold 7 inch cover contains a brief bio of the band and few awesome photos. Constant guitar playing and raising tension with the battle of who could play louder the bass or the guitars. This rerelease is essential.

            Do I have to start on how great Kaos is since the MRR house was so loud about it even my ear in eastern Europe could hear it? Sometimes it’s ridiculous that I hear about a band that was at one of our neighbor countries from the US. What matters is that I have heard about them and now I can listen to their lp in the best format ever. It’s new wave but sometimes as fun as no wave. Not more than a month ago I bought the Los Microwaves lp at a record fair. Them and Kaos have this beeping noise to their sound. Reminding us when computers had class and it was us who were using them not the other was around. It’s a powerful party record for gatherings where the cop calling neighbors are busy serving their duty as if to be young and want to have fun would have it’s cost like there were a philosophy of being the queen and king of the dance floor. Loner bedroom dancers included as well. There is a party in your headphone just push start on your music playing device.

            Yesterday Gross Out played as a supporting band for two boring ass straight edge bands but I went and they were super sick. Singer was angry as fuck coordinating his band just as Michael Gira did when I saw Swans. Their whole set was bridge by feedback between songs except once when they went completely silent and the crowd sounded frightened. The dead silence in the air was mixed with amazement. It was funny how the band commanded their angst on us. They used more blast beats in their new songs than they have on their demo. They played a lot with the sealed concept of hardcore. Breaking up it’s layers and redistributing them, picking up some pieces and laughing on them, showing how fun is it to play with the easily fragile state is hardcore. While doing this they still stayed true to the core.

            The other two bands were boring for me a lot. Things I wouldn’t expect at a hardcore show are bands speaking about the importance of friendship (this is irony) and being able to buy an UBR record (reality!!!!). I went through this amazing distro and went home with the U.B.R. discography record, The Proletariat’s Soma Holiday and a Gauze record that has Fuck Heads on A side and Equality Distortion on B. After founding these records I felt like I should drink a beer in celebration but I rather got high sitting on a curb. Way to blend in the crowd at an edge show.

            I’m a man of needs and the thing about needs is it comes along with always wanting something else or more. Most of the times I wanna say the past is the past and America is America let’s hear contemporary bands from all over the world singing their lyrics on their own language. Want their voices to be instruments which are able to transform their thoughts even if I can’t understand the things they are singing about. I too sing some of our songs in English but I sometimes talk in german with my girlfriend too.

            So even though I get millions of e-mails from shitty bands who wanna tour, maybe great bands are not that lame that they need to write me. But I want their fans to write me fucking e-mails telling me what’s great in their scene! Or whatever what was great.
Some people say everything in MRR is shit and every band except theirs and their friends are terrible, waste of time and space. I’m quite the opposite. I do think a large part of the bands suck. Even among the good ones there are uniquely good ones who stand out and there are millions of regular bands who just don’t suck. But again wasting your time on hating bands, telling how everything sucks and only that is great what is connected to you is really fucking stupid. Talking about what is bad and not about what is great is like eastern European football hooliganism. When you are not about loving something but hating everything else. These people love to shit on others but hate to be shitted on. I just sat in a van with such who were wanted to annoy, humiliate and shit on me but when by mistake I harmed them just a bit they turned into little babies crying and really frustrated. GG Allin escaped from cops many times hiding in the venues bathroom as a scared child, covered in his own shit, scared. When did he ever got shitted on? When is these scumbag people ever get hurt? Maybe their bands are good or even great. So fucking what? Millions of other bands are great too who don’t fabricate this ladder from body fluids to stand above others. Fuck the haters always and forever!

            MRR is not important. It’s not THE punk. It’s not even THE punk fanzine. It’s just a version of punk. It’s whatever the people who are doing it make out of it. It’s whatever the readers think it is. It’s made by some people who sometimes only write three sentences about records that could be discussed through dozens of pages and sometimes they write about their bullshit life way too long rather than just mention it in as a limb of a long sentence. Sometimes they write better than anyone else in the music biz. Life is nothing and if you think MRR is something that worth the time to criticize it than you probably believe in god too. So you are a fucking idiot.