LOADED FOR BEAR / BIZARRE X

It's 2013, and aside from the shitty venue situation in Chicago and dealing with the cops shutting down shows, I am very stoked about the current scene. There are plenty of bands right now in Chicago that are worth checking out such as Sea of Shit, Worn Out, xAbruptx, Bogrot, Men As Witches and Machismo.  There are alot of people working hard and it's fucking awesome. The only other time I remember being this stoked about the DIY fast scene was 2007.   I was living in Logan Square at the time, and playing drums in a band called Belding, which eventually became Paucities after my best friend and bass player for Belding, Erik passed away.  Erik, Mike (Paucities) and I spent the entire year practicing, traveling and enjoying rich coffee while listening to dangerous amounts of grind in the grime sewer basement known as Casa Maldita. It was a wonderful time, an easier more simpler time it seems. Abrade, Disrobe, Altered Beast, Weekend Nachos, HWC..all these bands were killin it, however the one local band that truly was in a league of their own was Loaded For Bear. The Loaded For Bear/Bizarre X split cd is not only a testament to the brutality of Loaded For Bear, it will forever be a time capsule to that stoney summer of 2007.

The Intelligent lyrics, the gnarly vocal delivery,  the breakneck fucking riffs, the freak animal blast beats..no one in Chicago even came close to the sheer madness of this band and these songs. It was like Infest, Fubar, Kent Brockman and  Brutal Truth  thrown into a goddamn toxic genital blender. How they went overlooked in 2007 and today will forever puzzle me. The Loaded For Bear side of this album should have gained the attention of grinders worldwide, and these dudes should've been flown to every European and South American fest to showcase their talent. I must have listened to their side of the split for six months straight when it was released, and when I put it on recently all I could do was sit back and enjoy the memories of the my friend Erik laughing.

Much respect to Bizarre X, who I must mention as well. These dudes have been pummeling the German scene for quite some time with their brand of bass and drum grind. They had a new live tape come out as well, and it is brilliant. These guys are lifers for sure. However, as much as I adore the Bizarre X side, the Loaded for Bear material here is what continues to bring me back. All grinders around the world and especially locally should go back and check this out if you haven't already. If Loaded For Bear was still playing out, no one would be safe from the onslaught.

Cheers boys..now come back already!

IMPETIGO "HORROR OF THE ZOMBIES"

In 2001, I was 16 years old. I was very fortunate to have a death metal club right by my house called Smiler Coogans, and to have a family that didn't mind if I was out until 1 AM watching  metal bands destroy a room of 80 people (which was probably the max in the there). Anyways, 2001 was a fucking great year. I got to see bands like Mortician, Malignancy, Cianide, Fleshgrind, Macabre, Anal Cunt and  Exhumed on the weekends, thus making Smiler Coogans my home away from home. I would save up my paychecks from the grocery store I worked at, as well as my allowances in preparation for the shows. Then come show day, I would bring a Jewel bag up to the distro tables and proceed to blow a few hundred dollars in the course of an hour. Looking back, the stoned guys at the distro booths probably loved seeing that Jewel bag.

One summer I was at a Brodequin show, and I picked up the cassette version of Impetigo's "Horror of the Zombies" for 3 bucks. I almost put it back, but the guy behind the counter would have none of it. He said I needed to buy it now. So I did, and the guy behind the booth gave me a huge smile and thumbs up, and told me to enjoy. It took me a week or so to get through the massive pile of merch I had picked up that night, and somehow saved the Impetigo cassette for last (next to the Blood tape I also picked up). I seriously remember the day clearly. It was about 10 AM, and there was a huge thunderstorm outside. In my dimly lit room I put the tape on and laid back in my futon.

Instantly  my ears felt like they were caked in maggot covered rotted meat. I had spent all this time at Smiler Coogans seeing brutal death metal bands burp and gurgle and slam their way through the night, but this...this I loved. This was raunchy. This was disgusting. The album opens with the mid paced, headbanging gore metal anthem of "Boneyard", and goes right into the slow churning creepy crawler known as "I Work For The StreetCleaner"..The movie samples, taken from such classics as "Cannibal Holocaust" fit the album perfectly, as they set the mood for the next symphony of sickness. The lyrics are vile, and paint a clear and demented picture of absolute terror ("Staph Terrorist being my favorite, about a disgruntled restaurant employee who poops in people's burritos) . There's even "Cannibale Ballet", which is an atmospheric tribal jam that sounds like a colony of blood crazed cannibals are doing the backing vocals. You get the picture, this is some fucked up shit. The bass sounds like chainsaw going through an abdomen, and the vocals sounds like the singer is having said abdomen ripped out while he attempts to get through each track. The drumming, the riffs, the production, artwork (those crude looking zombies are freaky!)..everything about this album is perfect.

After hearing "Horror of the Zombies", I quickly became obsessed with Impetigo and their back catalog, and even named my first cassette label My Lai Productions, a nod to their song "My Lai". I hope distro guy at the Brodequin show knows that I owe him big time for making sure I bought this. Carcass, Autopsy, Repulsion, Impetigo..these are the true gods of horror and perversion. No one has even come close to the magic and genius of these sickos.

EXTREME SMOKE 57 "WHO SOLD THE SCENE?"

I have been thinking alot about my teenage years lately.  I spent my youth on the west side of Chicago, raised by two amazing grandparents. My grandma would peek into my poster covered room laugh at the absurdity of some the music I would be listening to- whether it be Manowar, King Diamond or some harsh Japanese noise. She was an amazing soul, and I miss her everyday.

During those days, I was receiving some awesome tapes in trades (as mentioned in the Warsore piece), and was lucky enough to get a dubbed copy of Extreme Smoke 57's "Who Sold The Scene?". Nothing prepared me for the sheer brutality of this album. I would laugh every time at just how fucking goofy yet scary this album was. It humiliated almost everything else in my collection, and I instantly dubbed two backup copies, just in case my walkman got hungry.

30 songs in 7 minutes. One song ends, and you get the sound a of burp, or explosion, or gunshot or chainsaw or creaking door to mark the beginning of the next assault. This ep had songtitles like "I Wonder What All Conservative Grinders Will Do With This?" and "Grindcore Is Rather Selling Out", blurrrcore "riffing", endless blastbeats and multiple vocalists puking, grunting and screaming in agony, all  resulting in a whirlwind shark tornado of aggression. It surprises me that I don't hear as much praise about this record as I think it rightfully deserves. Slovenia's Extreme Smoke 57 not only recorded the most intense, unmarketable, offensive grind record of 1996, they ended up recording one of the most timeless grind records ever. This is a serious top shelf album, and should sit snug between all the Sore Throat and Sete Star Sept albums.

INDEPENDENT MUSIC IS BORING
 

WARSORE "OPEN WOUND"

High school was a special time for me. The summer before my freshman year was spent at my parent's house, using up their dial up internet to discover music. I would stay up until 4am, hitting up every chatroom I could find to discuss..er..namedrop obscure bands. I browsed geocities webpages and stumbled across trade lists from grinders all over the world. By summers end, I was receiving packages daily from Malaysia, Macedonia, Greece, Italy and Brazil. The piles of lo-fi/no-fi tapes began to hit the ceiling of my closet, and once I started school that semester I was running a cassette label as well. There are two tapes that stick out in my mind during this point of my life ( a time spent at home on the internet setting up trades, standing in line at the post office, at work until late or at school..which means nothing has changed). One was a mix tape which I will go into next week, and the other is Warsore's "Open Wound" demo tape.

 My copy came from a German penpal, and was an obvious bootleg. The cover seemed like a tenth generation xerox, and the cassette was probably a fifteenth generation. I had to turn my stereo all the way to 10 to even somewhat hear it. However, the noises that came out of the speakers changed my life.

This 13 minute demo is a true lesson in grind violence. Ridiculously fast, single pedal blast beats, a singer who alternates flawlessly between high and low vocals, all the while sounding like a fucking mutant gargling battery acid, and those riffs. Such simplistic, non bullshit metal riffs. This was old school Napalm Death "Scum" era riffs covered in slime. Every song is as intense as the one before it. The bewilderment I felt after hearing Napalm Death for the first time was multiplied by 100. What also struck me was their song titles. Tracks like "You Rape You Die" and "Don't Settle For Death Metal" was something I could support, especially at a time when I would receive 10 tapes a day, and a few in the batch were shitty noisecore bands that had some sort of anger towards the female anatomy. The artwork features a dude being uppercutted into oblivion, and that's exactly how I feel after listening to this demo tape, even today. This was more than crusty grindcore. This was anti music/anti human aggression, all while maintaining a sense of humor (a Coneheads movie clip?? cmon!!!).

Since the kids don't need a tradelist from Germany anymore, here's a youtube link to the demo. Aussie grind freaks rejoice!

AUSSIE GRIND

CHRIS MOORE

Hey all! So this is my first attempt at making a blog, and I hope to keep it updated on a regular basis. I could think of no better way of kicking this off than with a short interview with my close buddy Chris Moore. Chris plays drums in Magrudergrind, Coke Bust, Sick Fix and DOC, and if you're into hardcore and/or grind, you've probably seen this maniac destroy the drums while touring through your local bar/club/basement/garage. Here Chris and I mostly discuss Magrudergrind, and what to expect next from this handsome fella.
Enjoy!

DO: Chris Moore-you are a world renowned road warrior, touring the planet with Magrudergrind, Coke Bust, DOC..yet I also remember you as a young kid (with one baby dreadlock) on your 2nd US tour, chilling in Chicago looking for internet, unable to secure a gig in time. Tell me about the first few tours Magrudergrind embarked on. What was the whole experience like, and what sticks out in your mind from the early days.

CM: - Hahah. Yeah I think I met you when I was 15 or 16. When Magrudergrind was preparing for our first tour we were still in high school and personally didn’t know anyone who had been on tour before. So it was a total shot in the dark about what to do and what to expect. We booked the whole tour using contacts from that zine Book Your Own Fucking Life. I think our plan was to do a 2 week tour but seeing as we were 15/16 years old and still in high school our parents wouldn’t let us leave for 2 weeks straight. So we did one week in the NE/Midwest, came home for a few days and then one week south. Like I said before we had no idea what to expect, so we prepared for the worst. Canned food, camping stove, tents etc. Our tour vehicle was Avi’s 1980’s Toyota van that looked like a space ship. The engine was in the middle of the car so it got hot as fuck in there. I’m actually still friends with some of the people that we met via BYOFL on that tour. We played a handful of shows with I Object from Buffalo and that was coincidentally their first tour as well. Biff their guitar player is currently on tour with Coke Bust right now haha! Most of the shows were bad but it was a fucking adventure and was really fun.

DO: Early on, the Magrudergrind crew was gaining a lot of steam, yet there was an incident where you did a split 7 inch with Vomit Spawn-a very un p.c. noisecore band. Tell me about the whole situation and what you learned from it. Have Vomit Spawn ever tried to contact you all since?

CM: Yeah that sucked. That was actually our first record. We randomly got contacted by Vomit Spawn who had somehow heard our demo and said that this kid Andreas from Militant Records in L.A. wanted to put it out. A band wanted to do a split with us?? Someone wanted to put our music out on vinyl?! That was a first for us so we jumped at it not even knowing really who the other band was. When we finally got the records in the mail we all sat down and looked at them. I remember the track listing for the Vomit Spawn songs were like “Barb-B-Queer”, “Vegan straight edge dick”, “Cumdumpster”, and something else fucked up. We were kind of speechless. We printed up a slip of paper to put in all of them that said something like “we are not a sexist or homophobic band and didn’t know VS we’re a bunch of bigoted rednecks”or something haha. It was pretty upsetting and disheartening especially it being our first real record. I don’t think the record was ever repressed. We are still good friends with Andreas who put out the record!

DO: As you guys became more and more popular, you suddenly departed ways with Marc your guitar player. People today know that the split was not pretty and there was some tension between Marc and you and Avi. What happened exactly with the whole situation with him leaving? Years on, have you all made up or is there still beef?

CM: Well that’s a pretty loaded question. I’ll try and give you the skinny. Basically the final straw with him is that he stole money from us. On top of lying about dumb shit and being a dickhead he was our friend. Avi had known him since elementary school and I had known him since middle school. Avi also lived with him . It was a pretty big bummer but it was best for the band. After we kicked him out he moved to philly and stole money, stole music equipment, and lied to a bunch of people about dumb shit. He moved to Richmond and did the same thing. He moved to Europe after that and started driving bands. I’m not really sure what he does now. That shit happened so long ago so I don’t really harp on it. He’s a shithead and im sure he will get his if he hasn’t already.

DO: After Marc leaves, Mo (A Warm Gun) joins the band. Why did you decide to go with him as a replacement?

CM: Maurice was a friend and our bands played together a bunch. He was also a sick guitar player. So it worked out pretty well.

DO: During this time, you boys blow up. You tour Asia and Europe, your debut LP comes out on the legendary Six Weeks Records, and your US tours are supporting bigger bands like Unholy Grave and Yacopsae and Phobia. With all of this going on, why the decision to replace Mo as your guitar player?

CM: So we had some U.S. stuff planned and our first big 2 month European tour coming up and earlier that year Maurice shattered his ankle or something skating and had to take off a shit ton of time from work. By the time he recovered he basically had the option to go on tour with us or keep his job working at a veterinary hospital. Out of all of us he was the only one with a good job. I also think we wanted different things from the band so he left. It was totally on good terms though. It was awesome playing music with him. We are still good friends.

DO:  Breaking away from the history of Magrudergrind for a minute, tell me a little about yourself. What drummers growing up really pushed you to make the decision to play drums?

CM: Believe it or not, watching Chong play drums in Up in Smoke made me want to start playing drums. Drummers like D.H. Peligro (Dead Kennedy’s), Steve Charlesworth (Heresy), Earl Hudson (Bad Brains), Pete Sandoval (Terrorizer, Morbid Angel), Mick Harris (Napalm Death), and Max Ward (WHN?,Spazz,
Plutocracy, Capitalist Casualties) were/are really influential in the way I play drums.Also the drumming in Hellnation really blew my mind the first time I heard it.

DO: What do you do when you're not playing in MG, or Coke Bust and touring? I would seem that you would have little time to do anything else besides play in bands and do the usual practice/tour/record routine. How do you do it?

CM:  I’ve been working for a pet care company for the last 3 years or so. My boss is very cool and lenient with me taking time off for tours. I really like my job. I enjoy taking care of animals all day. I don’t foresee myself doing it forever but it’s good for now. I also do a lot of shows in DC. Last year the singer of Coke Bust (Nick) and I put on the first year of Damaged City Fest which is mostly hardcore punk bands. It went really well so we are going to do another one next year.

DO:  So now, we enter guitar player number 3- RJ. His style his so much heavier and crunchier and just more "metal" in general, yet as scary as that might be to some of your more punk fans, his playing style really works with MG, and the albums he has been on with you guys has led to some really unique and memorable tracks How was the initial response to RJ joining the band, and why did you decide to have him join in the first place?

CM:  Same deal with Maurice. He was a friend, played with his bands a bunch, and was a sick guitarist. He joined right before a one week tour with I Object on the west coast and then immediately went to Europe for 2 months. His first show with us was a sold out show at the Smell in LA. It ruled. He learned something like 40 songs for that tour. It was pretty crazy.

DO:  Has it been hard for MG to move forward and continue to write and release music since you are all in different states now? What impact has it had on your band if any?

CM:  Yeah between us living in different states and conflicting work schedules it makes things a little hard but we are still touring and writing music. Driving up to NY from DC for practice sucks though haha.

DO: Are there any regrets in the MG catalog for you? Anything you wish you could've done differently?

CM: I think its natural to regret or feel embarrassed about things you did when you were a teenager but in the end who cares? It was fun at the time.

DO: Is there anything left that you would like to accomplish as Magrudergrind, and as a musician?

CM:  I just want to tour to as many places as possible. I still haven’t been to South America, Africa, China, or Australia yet. It would be awesome to play shows there one day.

DO:  When we played together in Ohio a few months ago I told you that I was proud to have seen you grow as a musician over the years. You are a killer fucking drummer and I always enjoy watching you destroy the drumset. Any final words for the interview Chris?

CM: Haha thanks man! You’ve got some brutal pipes yourself my friend! It’s cool that we’ve known each other for this long and haven’t become some rockabilly dudes with flaming martini shirts…yet.