By Joemack, Complete Failure

5. Go to The Smiling Moose by yourself. Drink, stare, and pretend like you’re not lonely.

4. Browse the used bin at Eide’s Entertainment. Act important and frustrated at the lack of selection.

3. Wander aimlessly around Downtown and South Side.

2. Go to the 31st Street Pub and hopefully not catch another psychobilly show.

1. Visit me and have me show you my secret bar: Shooters in Mckees Rocks, PA,  just outside downtown Pittsburgh. I love that place… Dollar everything!

Loudblast - Sublime Dementia 1993 (Semetary)
Appearing with three tracks on Century Media’s cool In The Eyes of Death compilation in 1991, Loudblast were virtually unknown outside the four corners of France even though they’d released two full-lengths and a string of demos prior to Sublime Dementia. Loudblast twisted Schuldiner’s brutal/melodic idiosyncrasies (from Human) into an always-moving, instrumentally adept edifice, which, for the time, blurred the lines between tech-death and thrash. Guitarists Stéphane Buriez and Nicolas Leclercq are particularly impressive if, like this release, unsung.

Sceptic - Pathetic Being 2001 (Empire)
Vader, Behemoth, and Decapitated are on your radar, but Krakow-based Sceptic, who still avoid the attention of larger labels with deeper pockets, aren’t. Well, Sceptic should be one of those blips if scholastic death is part of your daily mind-exercising classload. Guitarists Czesiek Semla and Jacek Hiro studied hard and got good grades at the Schuldiner University of Professional Death Metal. Like their late professor, these two guys bafflingly assemble head-scratchin’ songs with blazingly good solos. There’s a reason there aren’t any hot girls who know what scalars, vectors and matrices mean.

Afflicted - Prodigal Sun 1992 (Nuclear Blast)
In the years before after its release Prodigal Sun was largely ignored due to the fact that it never fit nicely in any category. Too obstreperous for the br00tal crowd and too coarse to the sensibilities of Cynic devotees. Sort of like Disharmonic Orchestra’s Not to be Undimensional Conscious, Afflicted’s debut existed singularly and no one—even the band abandoned the Prodigal Sun sound for trad metal on 1995’s equally ignored Dawn of Glory—bothered to attempt to replicate the Stockholm + kitchen sink-sound since. “Harbouring the Soul” alone is worth sitting through the rest of the album’s remaining wayward 35 minutes.

Quo Vadis - Forever… 1996 (VomiT)
Quebec is the strangest place on the planet. Stranger than Ulan Bator even. Coined after a Latin phrase meaning, “Where are you going?,” Quo Vadis is part of the same scene that birthed such eight-armed/legged things like Voivod, Gorguts, Cryptopsy, The UneXpect, and Beneath the Massacre. On debut Forever… Quo Vadis declared “nous sommes uniques!” through the incorporation of violin and opera into what is highly accomplished, technically demanding and mind-contorting death. Good luck finding Forever… on CD, but it’s damn good.

Sadist - Crust 1997 (Displeased)
Crust is what I’d call the pivotal, if criminally ignored, release by Genoa-based Sadist. Clearly, the Italians took a few structure ideas from Destroy Erase Improve, but as an album it’s wholly unique, with boppin’/slidin’ bass lines (think “Uriboric Forms”/ “Sentiment”), piercing, atmospheric keyboard layers, and obtuse, grinding riffs with a Holdsworth touch on the solos. A more direct comparison is Australia’s Alchemist. Sadist, however, opted for the cold and clinical on Crust.

By Laura Pleasants, Kylesa

Picking my Top 5 “prized vinyl” proved to be more of a challenge than I thought. But I learned a few things about myself in this vinyl journey: I am more of a dork than I realized and I have some great records. I’m not a collector and I didn’t pick my most valuable records, but after combing through them a few times and having a few listens, this is what I came up with (they’re not in order):

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Infernäl Mäjesty, None Shall Defy LP
Amazingly awesome Canadian thrash/speed metal that consisted of very well dressed metallers albeit a little later in the game (1987). Slayer stopped wearing Satan’s wardrobe after Show No Mercy but not these guys. Psycopath, the bass player, is seen on the back wielding an axe (the red hair light adds an essential aesthetic touch) and has little upside down crosses sewn onto his leather and chain onesie.

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Despite the hair, chains and leather, this album is a fucking RIPPER. When I first heard this six or seven years ago, I was floored and immediately hooked. Then I saw the cover artwork and the band photos and was even more addicted. My boyfriend at the time turned me on to these shredders during an overly obsessive Accused (and thrash metal in general) phase. The riffs on this record are so wicked and ripping and they do it all with good song writing and tempo changes. And let’s not forgot the haunting lyrics: “Marching defiant the legions bear witness, to stand against evil means you stand alone!” This is printed on the back of the record. I didn’t actually acquire a copy of this nice slab until 2005 when Kylesa toured with Coliseum. Both bands had fill-in drummers on that tour and it was Al [Biddle] who graced me with a copy. Al was playing drums with Coliseum but was from Toronto. I asked him about Infernäl Mäjesty and that I had been looking for a copy of the record. He informed me in the best Canadian accent that it was easy to get up there and that he’d track one down for me. I was dubious but a couple of weeks after the tour, the record showed up at my P.O. Box with the note inside to “be sure to smash your face when listening” YEAH! Thanks, Al!

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Corrosion of Conformity, Eye For an Eye LP
I will always have a soft spot for this band. I first heard them in the 8th grade although it was “Vote With a Bullet” from the Blind album. I think my favorite bands at the time were Black Sabbath and Rollins Band (note: this was when Rollins Band was good) so this COC band made sense to me. I bought Blind on cassette and jammed it often. Not too long after that I was at the record store and saw a used CD copy of Eye For an Eye plus six songs with Mike singing. I swiftly purchased it and went home to listen. I remember my brother and I were in awe of the fact that there were 26 songs on one CD. I really got a good deal for all those songs. When “Tell Me” came blaring through my speakers, I was stoked. It wasn’t like Blind at all. It was much rawer, dirgier and dirtier. I loved it and proceeded to buy Technocracy and Animosity. But it was this album that really got me into this band. The bass playing was lightning fast and I loved Woody[Weatherman]’s guitar playing. I was already a fan of Black Flag and the Misfits but these guys were from one town over and played like Sabbath lovin’ punk rockers. It ruled. I later found all the necessary albums on vinyl. This copy is great because it has some super shitty drawing someone probably did while in Chemistry class. It’s a toxic wastoid dude with “COC” hanging from what’s supposed to be an ear. And it’s got a rad cover of “Green Manalishi” at the end of side B.

Pink Floyd, Meddle LP
This is overall my favorite Floyd record. This record is great. “One of These Days” has one of the best intros ever and can cure you in the midst of a panic attack. I found this when I was about 20 years old at a large flea market for 25 cents. It’s an Italian pressing and completely beat up and worn. The record snaps and pops all over the place but with this album, it somehow seems very fitting and adds to the nature of the songs. I have laid awake many nights, drifting in and out of consciousness, listening to this record. I think this might be a desert island record for me.

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Danzig III, How the Gods Kill LP
I might be totally lambasted for listing this record but it’s hard as hell to find and it’s my favorite Danzig record (Lucifuge is a very close second). It’s the first Danzig album I heard. I guess I heard “How the Gods Kill” on MTV. I remember the song being on Beavis and Butthead and they made fun of the “wimpy” intro while praising the “brutal” crushing riff that follows. I had this CD, cassette and the deluxe CD/VHS for years until my late teens/early 20s when I decided to sell all of my non-punk and crucial metal CDs. Danzig was “too rock and cheesy” for me to take seriously. I had a mohawk and had moved on to a serious punk rock phase (yet for some reason I kept all of my weird ’70s rock records). Of course, that motive to sell was stupid and I had to re-purchase a lot of music later on and I recently found this copy while on tour in Europe. An older fellow was selling a bunch of good used punk and metal records at our Berlin show. I bought this as soon as I saw it (the first time I had even seen a copy of this record was just a few days earlier in Vienna when we were at a friend’s house. Of course I discussed the record with my friend and we both agreed that it was awesome). So it stands. This record is a cheesy metal rock moment of greatness.

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Kylesa, “No Ending/Point of Stillness” double 7-inch
This double 7-inch set is really rare and also quite special to me. Pushead used to do a lot of work for us and sometime in 2003 he decided that he wanted to do a limited skate board and double 7-inch featuring our very first 7-inch (on Prank, 2002) and the “No Ending” 7-inch (on Prank, 2003). But he wanted to do a very limited run and have it so that one song from the first 7-inch was paired up with a song from the other 7-inch so that the records would stand apart from the other pressings. 263 were pressed and each one was hand numbered and signed by Pushead. The covers were beautifully silk-screened fold out posters and the logo foil-stamped. Released only in Japan, you will probably never see this.

Runners up:
Melvins, Bullhead
Various Artists, This is Boston, Not LA
Various Artists, Cleanse the Bacteria
The Accüsed/Rejecters, Split LP
Initial State, Abort the Soul
Slayer, The Final Command
Slayer, Haunting the Chapel
Burning Witch, Rift Canyon Dreams
Bolt Thrower, In Battle There is No Law
Sacrilege, Beyond the Realms of Madness

Time Will Fuse its Worth, the latest full length record from Kylesa, is currently available on Prosthetic.

By David Pajo, Dead Child

In my mind, dropping the following five records as classics is like pointing out that everyone breathes while they are alive. I realize some of my choices are also the most popular of the genre but that’s only because they are fucking awesome. Some material didn’t make the cut. For example, I used to love Scream’s Still Screaming, but after listening to it again two decades later, I’m sorry to say it doesn’t hold up. The records listed below are the “cockroaches of hardcore” and will survive long after nuclear war (as well as any fad genres and dance movements).

Anyone mildly curious about the genre should give these a listen. I’ve included the year of release so you can see how this style of ferocity clearly predates the sort of tempos and brutality that is customary these days. None of these records reach the speed or mayhem that Napalm Death would achieve later in the decade, and may even seem quaint by today’s standards. So keep in mind that all these bands had either broken up or severely tamed their sound by the time Scum was released.

Minor Threat, Out of Step (1983, Dischord Records)
This record was such a huge part of my youth that when I hear those opening chords, even at age 40, my brain immediately starts sending messages to my adrenal glands to secrete enough adrenaline to lift a Hummer from an old lady. Jeff Nelson played a tiny jazz kit, but I still don’t know how he managed to make it sound so manic and frenzied. His playing is quite rigid — no cheesy Ulrich affectations here. He just played impossibly hard and fast. His snare arm goes over his head during the thrash beats while his hi-hat arm stays well out of the way. Many drummers keep their range of motion really narrow and close to the snare during the fast parts. There is a term for that style: pussyfootin.’ If you’re gonna play fast, don’t play fast and quiet.

Remember, you can’t use drum triggers to give the illusion that you’re wacking the fuck out of your drums — in 1983, they weren’t even invented yet. Although the Jeff Nelson Beat™ is slower than your average blast beat (and I love me some blast beats), I always found it more compelling due to the volume of attack and the syncopation he would improvise inside the beat. Ian Mackaye’s vocals are memorable, preachy and easy to shout along to (which was a big part of any hardcore show back then) but I never cared much for the lyrics or message. I was a skinny, dysfunctional geek and I was all about the music. It was enough to make me shave my head and eyebrows and beat up jocks with a chain I bought at Sears — shouldn’t all great music inspire such reactions?

Black Flag, Damaged (1981, SST Records)
This record didn’t thrash like the others on this list but it’s also the oldest record here. Skip the novelty song (”TV Party”) and revel in 20 year old Henry Rollins’ vomiting delivery of Chuck Dukowski’s brilliant lyrics. Ginn gets into some weird “shattered-glass” guitar playing on this album which he takes to the outer limits on 1984’s My War. Side Wwo is when it really starts kicking in. This could possibly be the most enjoyable record ever made about self-loathing, vandalizing, boredom, getting plastered, cops, suicide, depression, and other good times. Fave line: “I want to live / I wish I was dead”

Die Kreuzen, Die Kreuzen (1984, Touch and Go Records)
I would go out on a crooked limb and say this is the closest thing to death metal in 1984 — it would be another three years before Possessed would release Seven Churches. What else is a spotty teenager going to listen to? Night Ranger? I’ve never heard a shriek as scary and claustrophobic as Danny Kubinski’s on “All White.” Additionally, Brian Egeness’ asymmetrical, bent guitar technique was probably more of an influence on my playing and writing in Slint than anything else. Gothic, chorus-drenched bass and Bad Brains-like thrash beats (a swinging, double-kick / double-snare gallop) complete the knife edge of Die Kreuzen. FYI: The only way to get this record on CD is to buy Die Kreuzen’s October File. The album begins at track fifteen with “Rumors.” In the early days of CDs, because the space limitations were so much longer than vinyl, it was common to combine albums onto one disc.

Void, Faith/Void EP (1982, Dischord Records)
To someone that’s never heard this before, one might suspect that Void are Autopsy’s older, retarded brother. Ignore the Faith side, drop a copious amount of acid, and take a walk inside the mind of the magnificently insane.

Misfits, Earth A.D. (1983, Plan 9 Records)
Surely Bad Brains Rock For Light should be on this list but I burnt myself out on that record. It’s time to give props to my favorite Misfits full-length. Forget Metallica’s cover of “Green Hell” — if you loved Satan in 1983, Venom, Slayer and Misfits were all you had!

By Efrim Menuck, Silver Mt. Zion

1. THE SOUND OF DRILLS RINGING THROUGH POURED CONCRETE WALLS: the hotel bed you wake up in is half an hour from where you were and 6.5 hours from where you need to be. you took the expressway here and arrived at 3 AM. check-in involved bulletproof glass and a night clerk who is either young, angry and underpaid or old, underpaid and crazy. the day manager pegged you as degenerate musicians the moment your reservation details blinked across her database, and assigned you to the fourth floor. the fourth floor is undergoing either fumigation or construction, or both. the power drills start at 7 AM, ominous as distant aeroplanes until the 1/2-inch bit finds its torque- then the ceiling and walls vibrate at their own sympathetic pitch and sing like enormous concrete strings. you are a musician in a moderately popular rock band, your head is like a clapper in a giant muffled bell.

2. “FREE BREAKFAST” IN THE LOBBY: in the corner of the lobby there’ll be a breakfast bar. the breakfast bar is complimentary, which is another word for prepared without love. coffee, bagels, donuts, and a poster depicting either a beaming hotel employee holding a basket of cinnamon buns aloft, or a man in a handsome business suit grinning wryly over a cup of steaming 100% arabica coffee. in both of the posters, the sunlight is as rich and orange as a jar of honey. the actual lobby sunlight that you find yourself standing in is rather more atomic- thin and white and unforgiving. it washes through the windows like a dirty grey sheet, backlighting the potted dwarf-fir bushes which sit hunched along the front driveway like orphaned blast-barriers. the breakfast bar will sit in that glow until 11:30 AM, at which point all that food will get bagged and dumped in a utility closet next to the bottles of clorox, roach dust, and flower-killer.

3. 4 RIVAL GAS STATIONS STARING AT EACH OTHER ACROSS THE EXPRESSWAYS’ WINDSWEPT CROSSROADS: you’ll have to cross a broad expanse of concrete to get to the streetlights. regardless of the season, the wind will be a tribulation. the light will stay green just long enough for you to make it halfway across the expressway, at which point you’ll have to stand on the concrete median and wait. you’re a greasy, under-slept, longhair musician stuck halfway ‘cross a rush-hour highway, means that you’re the 9 AM headliner at the rubberneck jamboree. it’s a five minute show- stand there as still as a frightened cow and sadder than any mime, avoiding eye-contact with every idling driver until the light changes, and then cross the street and walk into the gas station. the gas station is ringed by more hunched bushes and tangled plastic bags flap from their branches like sad little flags. buy yourself a bottle of tap water and two packs of menthol cigarettes for the drive. menthol is a good driving cigarette for american highways- smoking them, you can pretend like you’re maria in “play it as it lays,” pretty as jackie-o in headscarf and shades, grasping at redemption by crossing four lanes of highway at 75 mph in a smooth arc that’s as sublime as the orbits of jupiter’s 63 moons.

4. BURGERKINGTACOBELLSUBWAYWAFFLEHOUSEWENDYS: cut to the chase and go to denny’s. buy yourself a boca brand vegetarian hamburger with american cheese. they’re manufactured by the prepared-foods division of lockheed-martin. they don’t taste much, but neither do they haunt. they’re as simple a protein-delivery device as you’ll ever find on a highway, and they will do. somewhere nearby, two children with ketchup smeared on their cheeks will pummel each other while their mother stares into the pained sunrise. as you sit waiting for your bill, your presence in the restaurant will anger some, sadden a few, and amuse many. the waitress will not call you ’sweetie.’

5. ONE ABANDONED SHOE, SWEET AND BEDRAGGLED, AWFUL AS THE BODY OF A DEAD CHILD: on the walk back to the hotel, there will always be an abandoned shoe somewhere. pick it up and carry it with you. show it the rest of your band when you meet in the parking lot. embrace it as a totem to the loneliness and dread of the modern touring musician, and love your band. know that you will carry the noise of these highways inside of you for the rest of your life, and love your life. know that you’re lucky to see the things that you’ve seen. go forth, get down, and be proud of the fact that ship hasn’t yet sunk. grin into the sunlight as you yield and merge- playing music can be an honest trade.

13 Blues for Thirteen Moons, the latest full length record from Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band, is currently available on Constellation.

By Cam Pipes, 3 Inches of Blood

In no particular order…

1. Two Airborne tablets or two Emergen-C packets dissolved in a Vitamin water: This mixture is chalk full of B vitamins and electrolytes which help when you’re dehydrated from all the alcohol.

2. Two extra strength Tylenol and a big bottle of Gatorade: Headaches are common for me when I’m hungover and Tylenol always does the trick. The Gatorade replenishes lost fluids.

3. Orange juice and a greasy breakfast: If you can keep food down, a greasy breakfast will start you on the road to recovery cuz there’s likely no food in your system. Afterwards, wash it down with some O.J. It tastes refreshing when a hangover is in full force and will neutralize the fat from that food you just ate.

4. Water and more sleep: Sometimes you feel too shitty to do anything and the day is pretty much a write off. Just get some basic fluids and go back to dreamland.

5. Cup of good coffee and a marijuana cigarette: One of my favorite cures. The caffeine from the coffee will thin your blood thus minimizing the headache a bit and the joint will take away the nausea you may be feeling and get you hungry for a greasy meal (see #3 above).

By Zach Simmons, Goatwhore

Excuse my fucking language…

1. No fucking toilet paper in the goddamn bathroom: You get to a club after you’ve been riding in a van for 12 hours and have to take a shit…and there’s no fucking toilet paper.

2. Water on the goddamn fucking stage: It’s a pain in the ass when you go to rock the fucking kit and you’re sliding and flip-flopping all over the goddamn pedals.

3. Nowhere to eat around the venue: Sucks so bad when you have to spend a whole fucking day at a place when there is nothing in the vicinity of where you’re playing to eat. Since we’ve played most venues countless times, it’s easier to plan ahead, but it fucking sucks when it happens.

4. Loading equipment in/out of icy terrain: I’ve busted my ass plenty of times slipping on ice while carrying a guitar cabinet drunk. Some people at clubs are fucking morons and don’t put salt down on frequently travelled areas outside and around the venue.

5. Cheap ass venues who don’t turn on air conditioning: It’s the middle of summer and you’ve got a packed-ass show rockin’, and there’s no air conditioning or goddamn fans in the venue. It fucking sucks. You’re practically breathing other people’s sweat. It’s a challenge getting through a 45 minute set when it’s 190 goddamn fucking degrees in the place.

5) Heckles questioning the Quarterbacking ability of Jamarcus Russell
All those Neurosis “quiet parts” make this so easy you barely have to yell.

4) The exodus after Mastodon finished
Because, really, what’s the point of watching Neurosis while you’re coked-up?

3) Sidebanging
Like we’ve said, this is never acceptable under any circumstances. Can’t you just pretend Isis are playing and harmlessly headbob?

2) Girls
Young ones. And reasonably attractive, too. Where the hell were you when I was single and went to Neurosis shows in the ’90s?

1) A Valient Thorr hoodie
Further proof that you can sell anything to anyone.