Best of 2011 by Layla Gibbon

My more structured top ten of the year will run in the next issue of MRR in terms of underground DIY punk, but here are somethings I didn't really talk about in that! I am really fried from putting together the latest MRR, but here are a tired human's attempt at writing about some things that really excited me this year! I feel like there were SO MANY cool new bands and tapes and shows and sounds, punk rock is an endless adventure! Everyone form a band ok?! This isn't in order, no hierarchical judgments! Skate for fun or not at all.



A)Osa Otoe-core

Osa is the best writer, Shotgun Seamstress is an incredible project, just reading the introductions is inspiring, makes me want to step it up, really excited for the book of all the zines, and hope that Osa continues to blow minds with her words... As she does with her sounds! The Firebrand/Vegetable tour was one of the coolest this year, both bands operating in the girl punk continuum in new and inspiring manners, serious freak out fan girl time was happening... 2011 was the next step in the new era of amazing girl bands that will soon take over your town, your brain and all of your time. This tour was affirmation of that. (They played with Grass Widow in SF who put out a 7" in 2011 with my fave song of theirs, Milo Minute" such a sneak up on you killer!!!) Anyway OSA-CORE is the future of punk, and I would also like to use this opportunity to shout out to Candice who is also in Firebrand for sending me the tape of her now broken up but incredible HC band NECRO HIPPIES!!! such a good band name! The tape is amazing as is their 12" on Brown Sugar records, a great band, RIP! NOLA girl scene is on fire. 
 


B) I am not a Pissed Jeans fan but this Flatmates/Shop Assistants styled cover is so rad! Apparently, Jen the girl who sings on this has never been in a band before, it's clear she should start five right away! I listened to this over and over.



C)http://vixens.bandcamp.com/

This was my favorite tape this year. All girl HC from Canada, this shit is SO RAGING, fall apart destruktion core that sums up what I want from hardcore. this sounds like fucking VOID playing GERMS songs, a total frenzy of noise and dissolution. Fuck this is so good! Actually scratch the GERMS this is just total chaos in vicious doses, this is what every CONFUSE/GAI nerd clone wishes their band was like. Seriously just intense noise with bits of destruction falling on your head, like a Survival Research Laboratory show in your bedroom with the Exorcist playing at the wrong speed in the background while DEEP WOUND knits you a sweater out of your stomach tubes. This is the reason punk exists. Fuck! Seriously, the singer’s voice is fucking possessed! Sick!!!!! 




D)Staring Problem tape: I feel as if I am gonna fall into a lake of my own hyperbole but this is totally great nervous sounding post-punk that’s quiet and unsettling, Allison Stratton vocals and really, the person that is writing these words out is so psyched that there are ladies making sounds as transcendent and rife with possibility / fear / otherworldliness as this. Moderntapes.bandcamp.com

E) Generation Suicida tape. This is a band from LA, the South Central punk scene is so rad that I think half of weird TV moved there from Oly!? might be wrong but at any rate this tape was played constantly, singing drummer who wrote an amazing piece about learning how to drum as a little girl in the zine that I picjked up in 2010(?! maybe before) at a Tuberculosis show at an abandoned beach in SF, and this tape gives me the same feeling that reding that did. Furious punk vengeance, male/female vocals, blood curdling destruktion force! this is why we are punks! Apparently they are even better live

G)Crazy Band LP and Bleached 7"s: post Mika Miko band frenzy section. OK< so bleached want to be bigger than the Fabulous Stains, which is... ok, Not what I want out of life, weird industry showcase despair, but I am not Bleached, so. I guess the world need something to replace the Bangles/GoGos void, but they write amazing Ramones/Zeros esque punkpop heart stompers and I like their last two 7"s best even tho Ooga Booga put out the first one, and Ooga Booga must be obeyed! yes! CRAZY BAND gets all caps as they are THE BEST!!!!!!! Thrasher Skate Rock tapes and Kleenex 7"s!!! Skate on the freeway!!! yes!!! This is EXCITING TO LISTEN TO!!!
this is my fave bleached song tho there is no exciting video to watch

H) H for HOUSEHOLD who make excellent post-Billotte core which I think more should go for... it sort of reminds me of Yellow Fever too!? But it's more desolate and awkward, less warm/comfortable, more post punk, their LP is an essential one ok!? really. Anything that makes me think of Autoclave gets fifty nine awards! household.bandcamp.com

I) Some LPs I liked a lot and couldn't bring myself to file: GG KIng "Esoteric Lore" (AN AMAZING GASSED IN THE GARAGE WEIRDO TIME,) Total COntrol Henge Beat LP,. Crazy Spirit, Shitty Limits Speculate/Accumulate LP, Rational Animals LP, Omegas LP, Cruddy LP, Hygiene LP, Younger Lovers LP, Iceage LP Pheromoans LP.

J) J is for Jigsaw, and these are more affirmations of the girl sound underground that is continuing to operate on its own terms:
SHOPPERS LP is a heartstopper, a winner, a force for good, Meredith does amazing zines, writes amazing songs, and they are on tour right now so go see them play or else!! Obediencia are from Spain and put out my favorite 7" this year: here is a song from it: I also check out: Las Senoras and Atentado so so many cool bands in Spain your brains will explode. Youtube wormhole! The Dark Lion 7" that came out this year was amazing-they were from Pensacola, and ruled, you can check it out there... oh and the Nature 7", so good... yes... m'laddddddys and THE CRUDE THOUGHT DEMO!!!!!!!!!!!! Put that band into you tube!! melt your brain again! the GOOD THROB demo also great! Excited to see the Woolf record! London girl scene end times! and RACHEL AGGS gets all caps bc all her bands are insanely dreamy, from Trash Kit to Cover Girl, and there's another Trash Kit offshoot, Halo Halo that I LOVED but I couldn't figure out how to get the 7"!? and LA LA VASQUES and NEONATES, Wax Idols, CYCLOPS is Tina Luccessi of Trash Women's new band it's SO GOOD! an eye for an eye!!! and SHARP BALLOONS is awesome memphis garage!!! dual vocals!

H) is for listening to bands on PERENNIAL which is the best label (milkmusicsonskullweirdtvwhiteboss), and also to GUN OUTFIT 12" a lot, and Brilliant Colors LP and Veronica Falls LP (tho I will admit I was disappointed, the 7"s were so sick! this LP was sorta... good but not on a level I was expecting) and of course THE COMET GAIN LP I waited SO LONG FOR IT that I thought I was going to die, but it was great. ALSO: I like Azelia Banks a lot. and i got the PET SOUNDS box set and loved it, got to meet brian wilson but he was so tired from three hours of autograph signing of box sets.

I am sure I am forgetting things that I loved, but here is a list so that's that. Start a new band,. I am going to. 2012! SHADIES LADIES REUNION TOUR!? we will play your coliseum!