best of 2013 by layla gibbon

It’s hard to sum up a year in sound; there are always records I forget about by the beginning of a new year that were all I listened to for months! The trials of modern day existences wiping minds clear when it’s time to compile comprehensive list type documents. I am also doing a year end top ten in the March 2013 Maximum Rocknroll, so this one contains some music that is not all MRR-able (ie came out on labels that maybe have deals with major labels for distribution etc etc or are just not “MRR” core) at any rate, blah blah blah. You can write me at Layla at maximumrocknroll.com A lot of these are things that I just listened to repeatedly, over and over and over on the way to work, always a sign of a record that’s got what it takes to make the maniax on the bus fade away and radiate. The best thing that wasn’t music this year was LIVING BY THE BEACH. Everytime it feels like the world is rotting away from you as it revolves just go to the ocean. OK. Also this isn’t in order and I missed things out I am sure?! It’s mostly punk even tho I listened to many other sounds and ideas throughout the year. I didn’t put any reissues. Past is passed.

  Body/Head-LP

This is gonna be on a lot of people’s lists, it’s transcendent /brutal / incendiary, an easy shoe in. I had no idea this was in store after seeing them live, it’s easily the best post Sonic Youth recording, Kim is a genius and this is essential.

  Cremalleras-LP

Scrape your eyes out rawness from Mexico City; Violeta’s vocals are coal for Christmas, the music is sick and perfect. Everything about this, from the LP cover to the out for blood nature of the punk contained within made me feel alive and ready for action. http://cremalleras.bandcamp.com/album/cremalleras

  Pleasure Leftists, “Elephant Man” 45

I like how it sounds like she’s saying Arrogant Man, her voice is so cool… as distinctive an instrument as Thalia from Come/Live Skull but that sounds so corny, an instrument?! What? She doesn’t sound like Thalia. But at any rate, this record did not leave my turn table all year and they were even better live. Cleveland out of place sounds for out of place people, post-punk but not posed.

  The Nots 45 on Goner

Goner put out 3 or 4 45s a year that are essential, and this was the cream of the crop for 2013. They cite Kleenex as an influence, but it sorta reminds me of a less garage/more punk A-Lines?! But then I watched some youtubes of them playing and there were many other musical dimensions present. So good! Usually 45RPMS is more than enough for most punk acts, keep it brief, the audience needs to sleep but they don’t need you to put em to sleep ya know? But this document made me wish there were 40 more coming out ASAP. A great record and I hope they make more 7”s and go on tour and maybe play the sea cave by my house?http://soundcloud.com/gonerrecords/nots-dust-red-goner-records

  EASTLINK-WILD DOGS

I listened to the tape that this 7” (and their other one too I think?!) was culled from a million times, cutting/biting sounds from Australia that is somewhere between Chrome and the first couple Pere Ubu 45s, for some reason it made me think of a more buzz saw Total Control, with less Eno, less head music and more metal box?! Metal machine music. I don’t know it’s just good and rotten ok, I can’t wait to get the LP. Fitting end times capitalism collapse music, ironic and hateful.

  Sauna Youth-False Jesii

I don’t think any of the rest of this band’s music sounds like this at all, but this 45 is a perfect Flatmates/Shop Assistants sound and a mix tape staple for me even tho I do not care for Pissed Jeans (the a-side is a cover of one of their songs), I have never heard the original version but this version is probably way better. The b-side is fresh too. The singer’s voice is so cool.

  The new Wire LP

Someone talked about how great it was, so I listened to it at work, then immediately sent off for it. It’s great, foreboding and a record for our times.

  QUANGO-Fatality-EP

I think this is members of an old anarcho punk band (the apostles?!) and  current London act Hygiene, it’s sounds like a band that would have started after hearing Never Been in a Riot, at any rate makes me think of Mekons at the peak of their powers which is a rare feeling… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrTykvWUqC8

    COMET GAIN AVENUE GIRLS 45

  I LOVE COMET GAIN this song is so good it makes me wanna be Billy Liar and Julie Christie at the same time. Songs for soul mods and crummy punkers. Photobooth photograph fans and delinquent squinters.

  VIXENS-LP

ALL GIRL HC FROM CANADA!!!!! It’s the best. The tape is my tape of the century, and the LP took a while to grow, but it planted its seeds and my brain got rotten from em; if you like the song explode by void, and have a brain send off for this.

  Stillsuit LP

DUH!

  PANG-45

All girl group from Oakland who broke up before I saw them or knew of their existence; this 45 rules but I made someone send me their unreleased songs and they are SO GOOD TOO and it makes me sad that this great band dissipated before I got to truly obsess over them! The song Young Professionals sort of reminds me of post-Eno nervous art punk music, it isn’t on the 45 of course, but the songs on the record are great in a UV RACE sort of manner. I mean they just rule and they should at least do a tape discography?! http://pangbandsf.bandcamp.com/http://pangbandsf.bandcamp.com/

  The Courtneys-LP

The guy that put this out sent me an email saying I would like it and he was SO RIGHT; as soon as I heard it I immediately emailed the music editor at Rookie mag and told her teenage girls must know about this band, she agreed and made another million converts! Three women from Canada who simultaneously channel the Clean and Look Blue Goes Purple making rambunctious music for summer all year round adventures. Plaintive and dorky, hilarious and true, once you get hooked (some of my friends have been slow converts for some CRAZY reason) you can’t stop singing random lines… Driving to Santa Cruz along the PCH blasting this and looking out at the ocean reinforced how much I love this band! They are great live too. I really need a copy of their first tape if anyone has one…

  Bleached-LP

I know a few people that were disappointed with Bleached after the force and genius that was Mika Miko, and I think it’s not fair to compare. Bleached are for fans of the Zeros / Go Gos / Ramones / early Bangles etc, perfect LA music, and yeah they wanna make it and are sorta corny, but so were the Go Gos… It’s pop music! It’s just good eating greasy food as the sun sets over the ocean sounds, which is a hard sound to master; there are so many terrible terrible post-Burger Records acts littering highways and dollar bins with tired “beach” dreck. The Clavin sisters write great catchy pop music, and this record is all kicks (I will admit to skippin past some of the syrupy ballads)

  La Luz-It’s Alive

I am putting La Luz next to the Courtneys and Bleached I guess because they are all guilty of having tapes on Burger!? Not that that's a crime. At any rate I love all three. Tobi wrote about La Luz last year and I just didn’t quite get it. The same thing happened with me and the Vivian Girls, it took me until they pretty much weren’t a band anymore to like them! But this time it was a faster process, I got a promo copy of their record and suddenly couldn’t stop listening to it. Everyday on the way to work, while serving customers at work…  As someone who hears all the stuff that gets sent to MRR for review every month I get to listen to all the trends in elmo grind / fonzie sock hop jive / trip crust etc etc, and one thing that is apparent is that the kids LOVE the post Ty Segall/Burger Records  “California Surf  Pebbles Lite” sound. There are so many bands! Most of them unmemorable and as gimmicky as one of those post Jan and Dean surfploitation acts tin pan alley turned out… The garage reviewers grumble about the wimpy music on the constant. Well, I was ready to lump La Luz in with these unlucky hucksters, girl group meets surf music and all, but it was soon apparent that I was addicted to listening to their LP. I mean I love girl groups and certain surf sounds so… I guess I am writing an essay for this one because it’s a current obsession?! They are incredible musicians, the guitar playing is insane, like a session musician from 1964, the singing is silky/doom laden with perfect girl group harmonies, but none of it comes over as sickly and twee and gross and affected. They write great songs, lyrically and structurally, which makes me think that the difference between all the tired acts and this is simply being good at what you do. There is a darkness to their sound that in places reminded me of Quix*o*tic, I think that’s partially because of the echo-y guitar though. It’s very cinematic and the snippets of the lyrics that I can make out are sort of cool and unnerving. Watch this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRIt3aDX7-k and listen to It’s Alive ok. Also I need their first tape too if anyone’s holdin!

  GOOD THROB-45

Watching this band play was one of the highlights of the year, real John Brannon style HC frontperson style from Ellie, this record is for fans of No Trend and hardcore and Honey Bane, reckless, fuck you, intelligence, vengeful feminists out for blood FOR LIFE! Good Throb are the best. The end.

  EX-CON-Cuda 45

Out for blood and vengeance; rudimentary destruction that I couldn’t stop listening to, Australian snipers summoning a sort of Babes in Toyland Royal Trux pummel.

  http://excon.bandcamp.com/

  Life Stinks 45

I know the LP has gotten a lot of props but I haven’t gotten a copy yet, and anyway this is the perfect format for their sound. 45RPM! Just a great punk record. If you like music from Cleveland OH from say, 1975-1981 you will want to use this to dig yr own grave. Free with every copy.

  ALSO: Veronica Falls LP / UNA BESTIA INCONTROLABLE-LP  / HOAX LP / LUMPY AND THE DUMPERS 45 / SHIRTLESS THUGS TAPE / PRIESTS TAPE

  LATE ENTRIES: Household LP / Angie LP

  EXCITED FOR IN 2014: spider and the webs, hysterics, La Misma, Ivy, Family Outing, Failed Mutation, Frau, In School…

P.S. add CRAZY BAND LP and SHOPPING LP to my almost made it section!

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!

Best of 2008 by Layla Gibbon

1-Becoming coordinator of Maximum Rocknroll. This is the main thing that happened to me this year. It's hard to explain how much work it involves and why I can't hang out that much anymore to my friends. It's basically two people running a business and putting together the content for a magazine each month, I am not super psyched on every issue I have worked on, but the last one, The punk in film issue was a definite high point. Having Black Flag/Target video, the drag queen performance troupe the Wasp Women and some Brazillian punks circa 1982 all on the same cover was pretty awesome... The nmovies contained within are all worth checking out. I wrote a column about the chicago punk one, which has great footage of End Result, a band formed by kids from the projects who walked in on a punk show in maybe 82, and decided to form a hardcore band with a bass and a saxaphone and guitar and no drums. That's hardcore. Also living in the same building as the record collection, being able to listen to Teddy and the Frat Girls and um some random Finnish hardcore from 81 I had never heard of til that second...

2-Silla Electrica Demo
Silla Electrica are from Spain and make the brattiest girl/boy punk imaginable, like the X record sped up times a million, totally desperate get used to it.



3-Trouble Coffee-bike rides out to the beach early in the morning when the fog is still covering the park. this coffee place only sells cinnamon toast and coffee, there's a stack of records and tapes and books, and random old junk like books about forgotten heroes of the michigan garage scene and riding boots and so on. riding my bike out to the ocean and out along it is my favorite thing I think.

4-Billy Childish and the MBE-Thatcher's children 7". total fury and disgust and so catchy and right on on all fronts, subject matter, sound, intent.



5-Lebenden Toten live at Thrillhouse, crammed in a basement while Chanel's insane vocals and the total noise destruction are all consuming and the show's over too soon and i was even in the pit, which I don;t think has happened since GRUNGE.

6-Sex Vid are my favorite band, miscreant hardcore style. The way and the truth.

7-brilliant colors tape, perfect mix of post punk and shop assistants, jess' vocals are dreamy and tough.

8-Billy Bao-from Spain via nigeria, the sound of rock music collapsing in on itself, angry shitbag sounds for mutant times.



9-getting to interview Raymond Pettibon at his house (thanks wendy!) and also Sharon Cheslow too, both were inspiring for different reasons... i have to figure out my interview technique, I think I am too goofy.

10-Death-this just got reissued by Drag City, classic sounding proto punk from Detroit circa 74, three African American's making perfect freedom sounds, I don;t know how to describe it but it's kind of classic rock sounding but then the song politicians in my eyes is not only proto punk but also um proto HR vocal style...