hi hi checking in. the horrors persist and the stench of demonic hubris seems like it’s everywhere. this months show is spiral sound as a service. recommended for the gym, screaming into a pillow or rapidly clenching and unclenching your jaw.
What do you do with your Anger? Is your hate pure? Like gasoline, rage can corrode or fuel, depends what we do with it. Those incandescent feelings can purify instead of poison if you do it right.
Been beset by a strange curdled energy that requires a direction so it doesnt burn my skin off or result in self-flaggelation and the type of defeatism we can ill afford. Lifting heavy weights has helped me with this in the past months. to say nothing of discipline, its been enough to find myself in a body more obedient to my instructions than i could have possibly imagined. I go to two gyms: a pleasingly grotty 1990s one on the top of a decrepit shopping centre and a powerlifting gym the other side of the river full of german antifa vegans whose political opinions on what they probably refer to as the ‘nahost konflikt’ i will be doing my best to avoid. their logo is a wreath and college font which brings me nicely to the subject of the show: the music of my youth that takes the impotence out of anger: yes, ur moshing.
For Aries season I figured it was time to lock horns and butt heads, so my show this month is short sharp sixty mins of megaton mad bitch music to amp you up. It’s 100% incendiary hardcore and little something extra to tool you up for seeing red and taking names.
A few notes:
i. I first heard the song ‘Knee Deep in the Dead’ on this No Idea CD Sampler in 2003 and it blew my head off. I got it free with fracture magazine. editor of that mag used to call me beautiful on friendster when i was 15 lmao. simpler times... Five years later Cursed had played at my friend Owains’ student flat in Cardiff and i recall dear ol Chris Colohan appeared in his boxers while holding a single sock asking if there was a perchance cupboard he could go sleep in.
ii. For my mosher sins I went to a festival called Burning Fight in Chicago in 2009 to see the first reunion of the band Unbroken, then flew alone to the west coast to see them again?! Truly the energy of being 22. Forgot to include Unbroken on this mix, probably because their affect is less rage and more sadlad, but this riff still goes. Think the guy who drove me down to LA from Oakland ended up becoming a nazi actually? can’t remember. mystery lost to time. That era of hardcore reunions was so strange and it is good that it is over. end of history lol no but why did I also see the band Underdog four times in two years!?
iii. zach de la rocha’s interior design
no spiritual surrender to mid century dupes
iv. Listen to the whole Runt Record here total Ralph simmonds core (Mock Heroic heads stand up) yet this time he was on drums and translates his era defining riffs to the brittle clattery snare. Whole record is a clenched fist. This song is called DWP - Department of Work and Pensions and Ash my bandmate in Good throb who sang in this band post-Frau saw the sharp end of their fuckery while working with people who rely on state support due to being disabled. Here’s a petition to sign against their latest murderous assault on those who need help to live.
v. Bulldoze - Remember who’s Strong. ok zaddy. This is modern art to me. the camp affect of so much hardcore makes it ontologically gay. like the gym
vi. Picked the NA song Evacuate to honour Ola, true apex hardcore girl who told me that was her favourite at a gas station on Stab tour I jumped on, somewhere in Insane America eleven years ago. The fact she is one of 18 people who been in UK prisons since November without trial is a psychotic reality of our times and the whole show is dedicated to everyone behind bars for channelling their rage correctly. here’s how to write to them or donate to the legal defense fund.
Anger is an Energy.
So let it burn.
Postscripts and notices:
The full archive of all my radio shows is here
How’s your Mood, Comrades? Hannah Proctor did it again
I need some more income at the moment and something I do a bit is write blurbs for bands writers and artists, and sometimes people pay me. You can too. Here are some I’ve done recently. Do hit the line if you want to.
In Berlin? Interested in disrupting the incredibly depressing destructive approach to conflict in the social cultural or political world? I’m running another iteration of my workshop called BIG BEEF AND BEYOND this time w my buddy Sarj, on addressing harm differentiating between conflict and abuse, rupture and repair all without exploding absolutely every bond required to stay effective. how to be pragmatic supportive useful when shit kicks off. uses marxist frameworks and some simple psychological tools. guaranteed no woo woo. Pull up.