Nothing Is Funny

It's my guess that ten years from now the TermBo/HoZac-metal of today will be viewed much like the AmRep/Noiseville stuff of the late '80s/early '90s is currently viewed (i.e. with grumbles of "what's with this repetitive shit?" and/or a healthy bit of skepticism)... which isn't to say that this isn't a great record. I mean, sure, "Fresh Cuts" might come across as just another "World's Lousy", only without the foresight or graphics panache, but five of the six tracks here are top-notch rippers (The Curtains track isn't bad, for skittish post-punk stuff, but I'm leaving it off anyway). Supposedly only 300 of these were pressed and "sold out instantly!!" -- when I bought it at an FNU Ronnies show at the end of '09, the roughly-formulated selling point was that it was already out of print -- yet there have been copies listed for sale on Criminal IQ's web site every single time I've looked since then, so all of it was just another one of those phony hype jobs I guess.

I doubt that any of you would've noticed that I'd already posted "Ain't No Place" back when I first got this (except maybe now that I've mentioned it), but I could use something to do today anyway so I guess it wouldn't hurt to post the rest of it. FNU Ronnies and White Load are most likely the best out of this whole dump, of course; as for the rest, the Kill the Hippies song is abnormally great and really funny, starting out like some wavo-o college rock stuff before dropping into total thrash, while Sick Jump and Hank Wood kinda ape each other (no, really, go buy a Hank Wood record and see that I'm lying), and Flying Trichecos "Recidivist" is a Bastro cover. No, it's not, but I'm betting that none of you will bother to read down this far anyway.


FNU Ronnies -

"Ain't No Place"

White Load -

"Nothing Is Funny"

Kill the Hippies -

"No Control But Dance Control"

Sick Jump! -

"Fuck Kids"

Flying Trichecos -

"Recidivist"

FNU Ronnies tape

This is a tape that Campaign for Infinity (campaignforinfinity.blogspot.com) put together for the FNU Ronnies to bring along on their short tour back in early October, featuring "blown-out mono versions" (read: "scuzzy") of two FNU Ronnies songs. Only 50 copies were made, with the label selling out all of their copies within a week, so for oddity's sake I'm posting it here for anyone who wants it.


FNU Ronnies -

(these files are now listen-only, see the freearchive.org link below)

"Laptop vs. Beef"

"Ain't No Place"


P.S. I just found out that Campaign for Infinity already uploaded this tape to the Free Music Archive about a month ago, so you can go there for the original files (click here) and also check out some of their other tapes, like Holy Cobras, Pink Noise, etc.

Ain't No Place

TV Ghost this past Saturday were one of the top five bands I've seen all year, easily. I know they'd played in Ct. at least twice before already, but I didn't go, and whatever TV Ghost stuff I'd heard up to this point didn't prepare me for how totally ass-waxing their live set was gonna be. What they do could be lazily catagorized as lo-fi garage rock, I suppose, but you can't help but notice solid tangents to Scratch Acid by way of The Cramps/Birthday Party, too, as well as the heavy Joy Division-type bass lines ("isolation....") lurking underneath. Besides, it's really labeled art-punk, which means I must be pretty dumb, right?




Homostupids and FNU Ronnies also played, and between the two of them you'd think that FNU Ronnies would be the ones most likely to fall apart, but their set was mostly coherent while Homostupids couldn't finish a song to save their lives. I'm pretty sure at one point I saw the FNU Ronnies' drummer pick up a random half-empty beer cup off the floor and drink from it, which is pretty hardcore I guess (maybe, I dunno). FNU Ronnies were sold out of just about everything-- I think they had one copy of the "Golem" EP on CD up for sale-- except for a tape that they'd made 50 copies of, which I bought even though it only has two songs on it cuz it was red so it looked like a cool thing to have. Homostupids, on the other hand, brought copies of their new 12" 45 on Load Records, which isn't even listed on the Load web site yet (although the Load web site looks like it could be from 2007 for all I know). By the time they started playing it was well past 1 AM and everyone was already pretty wasted, so for every song they would barely get past one verse and a few chords before everything would degenerate into one big pigpile, until it was time to start another song. This was one of those shows where even if you don't do anything, the next day your feet really hurt for some reason.




Some advice before downloading: be aware that the FNU Ronnies track (from the "Fresh Cuts & Cigarette Burns" compilation on Criminal IQ) is classic, and that "Apeshit" is one of the great rippers of the 21st century so far (the 7" version, not the one that's on "The Intern" so much).

TV Ghost -

"Paradigm"

Homostupids -

"Apeshit"

FNU Ronnies -

"Ain't No Place"

(these files are now listen-only)