Reblogged from Hockey Dad Records:

The Bloggers 24 Hits
Hockey Dad Records 24

“I’m bootlegging a collection of some of my favorite early Bloggers songs, all from before jam 75. I didn’t ask the dudes for permission! Don’t tell them! Essential and obnoxious Vancouver lo-fi/noise/indie/outsider jams.”

“This is the first digital only Hockey Dad release, something I’ll try to keep doing because that shit is FREEEEEEE. I still have a few copies of the Bloggers self titled CD available if anybody likes physical objects that play music anymore. Jarrett from Geographing/Student Loan may still be working on a release with The Bloggers, but I haven’t heard much about that lately so it may have fallen apart.”

“Cover collage by Ryan Dyck. That’s me.”

Download

The sticky girth ending at Labour Day had been interned. Spin towards Autumn, discard Summer’s buoyancy and grin at negative thoughts before it gets too cold.

August is the second longest month, after February, if you don’t pay attention to the number of days. A hit for every day until September!

Air conditioned songs about girls and other stuff. What’s your least favourite song?

Iceage (please pronounce it like a Descendents song, I would think it’s funny) is a band from Copenhagen with a Justin Bieber look-a-like, and you might have seen them in the copy of Viacom Magazine sitting in the bathroom of your shitty retail job.

I wore a Suicide shirt to work the other day and a guy got excited and told me about how Suicide invented Industrial and influenced Nine Inch Nails and didn’t mention punk once. Iceage is sort of like that. People keep calling them post-punk or hardcore or punk or no wave, because they work in all those frames of reference. They’re young and noisy and write catchy songs (a couple songs are pop-punk for sure, or maybe just Futureheads rip offs), so you probably like them already.

They arrived Stateside on tour not long ago, and last week they played a set on WFMU, including two covers that aren’t on New Brigade, for the new fan / completist.

Iceage plays their first Canadian show at Parts and Labour on August 17, with guests to be announced. My money is on Dentata.

I’m tempted to write this off and say that it’s everywhere, but it seems coherent to me. The synths and percussion feel weightless and summery even when they’re cold and dark. Maybe they match up with my dreams.

Love Cuts’ new 7” is out now on Nominal Records. While the postal strike holds mail order hostage, you can download five tracks of Beat Happening cuddling with UK DIY, unless the internet finds a way to have a labour dispute too.

Total Abuse just put up three two tracks from their upcoming (last?) record for Post Present Medium. I didn’t really get into Mutt, I liked the pissed off excitement on the Demo ‘06 and Sex Pig 7”s and their self-titled, but Hogg swings so far into desperation that the Prison Sweat EP might work. It opens with a seven minute track and closes with nine minutes of something, so the EP is as long as their albums. We’ll see how it sustains.

Masked Killer

Hogg

Denton, Texas funboys the Wax Museums just posted two new tracks to the internet. Sunburn isn’t seasonal, but lucky for us, fun is fun all year. Socket might be calmer than most of their self-titled, but it sounds like it belongs on Q: Are We Not Men? A: We are Back from Samoa! Someone please make that record (no mash-ups). And Wax Museums, please come to Toronto!
myspace.com/thewaxmuseums
soundcloud.com/the-wax-museums

(Originally posted 10 12 18) Calgary’s Grown-Ups just let slip their upcoming lathe-cut release on Scotch Tapes. Two tracks close to their full hearts, E.T. Phone Home and Tubby Dog are brisk sing-alongs, a step back closer to the Reatard pop of their first tape, but still with the hardcore tendencies of I Can’t Win and We’re Not Friends. I don’t know if that’s progress, but here are two of the best songs they’ve ever recorded. Their tumblr also generously offers free downloads of every other song they’ve ever recorded.
grown-ups.bandcamp.com
grown-ups.tumblr.com

(Originally posted 10 12 11) In the opposite Corner, Chris Vincent (formerly: Cheerleader Camp, Detention, London Drugs, et al.) sent me a six song, 10-minute “rough rough” demo of the new Del Shannon Redd Kross band Harsh Words. It’s an easy fit into what’s been coming out of Vancouver for the last while. Garage punk, but it doesn’t bite that Atlanta band, and it’s got perfect weird vocal deliveries on top of catchy guitars and minimal drums that couldn’t be replaced by a machine.

I won’t say they’re a fully formed butterfly. They sound like a new band, but they’re ready to play shows, and they know what they sound like. It’s grubby and straight-forward, with hilarious don’t care post-domestic lyrics. “Never worked an honest day in your life / (something) the way you’re spending your bouncing cheques / Nothing is a deal when its all on sale!” Not even quite angry, more grumpiness-fueled cynicism. My parents wouldn’t like it and it reflects my almost minimum wage, spend all my money on groceries and records, read Archies in the checkout line existence.
myspace.com/harsh.words
mediafire.com/?p0l3r9bzfzfqh9f

Rock Casualties found by Ryan Dyck. wellillbedamned.tumblr.com

My dad collected Jack Chick tracts when he was a kid. He did it non-ironically, probably before he started hiding Styx records under his mattress and hanging out with his best friend who knew all nine sex positions.

He sheltered me from them for a long time. My parents did a great job of not scaring me into religion, and I’m thankful that that shit isn’t burnt into my psyche, but I was pretty good at critical thinking for a kid. By the time I got my 11 year-old hands on Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables I knew that Kill the Poor was satirical, although I might not’ve known the word. Back in the Y2K we had five TV channels, and there were only Simpsons reruns twice a day, so I had to figure out how to laugh at This Hour Has 22 Minutes or something equally… Canadian.

I might’ve found them hilarious as a kid if I knew they existed, but I love them now, and when an elderly woman offers me one on my lunch break I smile and say thank you and she walks down the street, warmed that my soul is skidding towards salvation.

Inside, they’re a mixed bag. “Did a global flood really occur? Sceptics say no, but the Bible says yes.” The cover might urge you to not follow Satan, and instead of Satan being a metaphor for vice, they’ll carefully reason out why performing Satanic rituals is a bad idea. Or maybe you’ll be surprised, and you’ll get a fantastic article about the separation of Church and State and the influence of religion that should really be passed on to James Dobson, Sarah Palin, and friends.

Anyways, Ryan Dyck (Hockey Dad, B-Lines, etc.) has a new blog of his favourite tracts that’s wonderfully curated. Enjoy I’ll Be Damned, but keep in mind that Jesus will have the last laugh.

Elsewhere on tumblr, Calgary’s Grown-Ups just leaked their upcoming lathe-cut release on Scotch Tapes. Two tracks close to their full hearts, E.T. Phone Home and Tubby Dog are brisk sing-alongs, a step back closer to the Reatard pop of their first tape, but still with the hardcore tendencies of I Can’t Win and We’re Not Friends. I don’t know if that’s progress, but here are two of the best songs they’ve ever recorded. Their tumblr also generously offers free downloads of every other song they’ve ever recorded.
grown-ups.bandcamp.com
grown-ups.tumblr.com