more crap to grow out of...

Strung Up / Direct Control
I was lucky to catch a show on these dudes recent tour together. Strung Up are from California, and Direct Control are from Virginia. More on Strung Up below, but the Direct Control tracks are some of their best. DC has found a way to be fast and angry, yet at the same time extremely catchy. Basically, old school hardcore punk rock done right. Some future classics on here, especially "Plea for Peace." I'd say the DC side is best, but you're not losing out with either side. Absolutely essential for fans of old hardcore, and fans of new hardcore played old. Great limited vinyl too!


Strung Up- Society Rot In Hell
After loving their "Warfucked" 7" and a bunch of random mp3s, I picked up their full length recently. Musically, I'd compare Strung Up to the same sound as Caustic Christ. Fast, short, heavy, pissed off songs. Good catchy sing alongs, and fist pumping anthems make for a great west coast punk record.


Witch Hunt- Blood Red States
Witch Hunt's latest offering, after a move to Philly and reorganizing the linup a bit (the drummer moved to 2nd guitar). There's a lot more female/male/female alternating vocals on thsi than before, which is always awesome to hear. If you were on the fence about Witch Hunt's previous albums, this should convince you. I mentioned it in my Pointless Fest review, but the song "Twenty Five" is awesome.


Victims- Divide and Conquer
I enjoyed all the other albums by Sweden's Victims that I've got, and this is more of the same. They sound like heavy fast punk, there's some guitar noodling but it's far from metal. I like the artwork on this too, it's not the typical black dominant layout. The album itself is good, but not really much different than their previous releases (that can be good or bad).


Caustic Christ- Lycanthropy
I was really excited to hear this, since I loved everythign prior to this. I was a little let down, the first song is a pretty slow droning song, and the vocals sound very different. The second and third songs are re-recorded versions of the songs from their limited tour 7" from last year. The production doesn't seem as dirty as their other records, which I think works against them. After 2 listens, there didn't seem to be any new anthems. Don't get me wrong, it's still good but I wouldn't recommend it as a good introduction to the band.


Dead Nation- Passing Phase
This collects the "Face the Nation" and "Cenk EP" 7"s onto a 12" record. Both records have been out of print for a long time now, and were released by the band when they were still together. Obviously you know 4/5 of the later lineup went on to become Tear It Up, so it made the early DN 7" even more scarce once the TIU hype machine got rollin. I wonder why a full discography wasn't done instead, but I guess it's cool that it's music is available at all. A discography CD should come out at some point, since that "Dead End" LP is a killer, and the "Painless" 7" ain't no slouch either. Unfortunately I never got too into them when they were together, because I was an idiot. I did catch that reunion 2 years ago, and it was awesome.


Dirty BS- s/t
Awesome debut 7" from these Canadian rockers. Sounds a hell of a lot like some of my favorite TN bands, like Deathreat or No Parade. Has enough crust and enough old punk influences that it sounds fresh. I'm sure this has cool ex-member status, but this stands by itself as some good shit.


Brain Handle- 2nd s/t 7"
I think I read somewhere that this was recorded at the same time as their first self-released 7". Sounds like heavy old hardcore mixed with some stoner-ish parts. Pretty good and different, like the first 7". I think I'd like it more if I did drugs though... But there's a good balance of old punk to stonery parts, that it doesn't get over powered.


Havoc Records- the first 15 years sampler CD
I got this for free in my Havoc Records order, so I'm not sure how you'd normally get one of thses. Basically it's 38 tracks hilighting Havoc Records' lengthy discography. If for some reason you haven't clued into Havoc's consistantly good records, this would be a great introductions. Sort of like a "punk-o-rama' for real punk.

I decided to only review the new stuff I got recently. While reviewing old stuff may hilight it to someone who had never heard it before, I'd rather just review stuff that people can possibly track down. This will probably be the last reviews for a little while. I'm going to begin working on a zine, which will contain reviews, rants, interviews and pictures from my website.

Who's gonna help when my body is broken?

As if I haven't complained about my job enough on here... I was supposed to get Health Insurance after working here for 6 months. However, It's more like 8 months by the time it becomes active. Apparently the insurance company needs 30 days to activate, then it has to activate on the first of the month. Rather than being punctual with this matter, and give me the paperwork early; they decided to wait until exactly 6 months had passed and gave me the paperwork a week later. I started on Feb 3, six months from then is Aug 3. My actual insurance won't be active until Oct 3... 2 months late! One of the major reasons I took this job was because I thought it would be nice to have benefits for once, and here it is 7.5 months later and absolutely nothing.

Since our country does not have universal healthcare, a lot of people like me are drawn to crappy companies with good benefits. If benefits packages were eliminated from the employment process, companies may actually have to increase the pay rate. However, the health care industry is so messed up from insurance in the first place, that anyone without insurance can instantly go bankrupt trying to pay bills to stay alive. It's ridiculous that money is actually a deciding factor in saving a life in the first place.

Anyway, lately my stomach's decided that whenever I put food in it that it doesn't want it in there anymore. Which leaves me with annoying cramps, and being afraid to eat much. Because of my stupid job, I'll have to pay for the doctor's visit myself. With insurance it would be $20, but w/o it will be probably in the $100 range (which is over a day's pay).

NO more SPEC work!

I came across No ! Spec yesterday, after talking about some of my recent client troubles at work. In the graphic design industry it seems pretty common that people will try to get you to do work for them without paying you. Speculative work would be a scenario where if you do this one thing, they'll pay you for the next thing. There is no contract or guarantee that more work or payment will come at all. Contests are also this way, in that it cheapens professional designers by having people spend their valuable time working on something with no compensation. As a professional designer, I can potentially be spending my time working on paid client work, or improving my portfolio. By wasting time on jobs with no benefits, it really serves no purpose from my standpoint.
The past few potential gigs I've lost due to artists who will lowball their rates to a ridiculous proportion. I don't think my rates are high at all, and I make them up based on the client, but it seems like clients themselves aren't willing to spend money for quality. I recently got in contact with someone who had wanted me to do an illustration for a t-shirt. We had a few back and forth e-mails, and then he told me that he had no budget to pay me but would give me free shirts and promised more work in the future. This job was also advertised on Craigslist as a "job," if it was advertised as "do stuff for me for free" I doubt anybody would have responded to it.
Clients: If you want quality work done, you're going to have to pay proportionally for it.
Designers: Don't sell yourself short, you cheapen all of us by bowing to the whim of these people. Clients should have to sell themselves to you just as much as you have to sell yourself to them.