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Showing posts from 2009

Review: Amish Electric Chair - "Straight. No Chaser"

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The playfully perverse name Amish Electric Chair dons across their equally morbid DIY cover art gives little indication of the fiery melodic punk contained therein: a fuming concoction of equal parts Anti-Flag, Time Again and Strike Anywhere with their own fervent Midwestern twist. The initial shock of how much the EP’s opener “Social Revolution” sounds like Justin, Pat, Chris and Chris may take a moment to wear off given the familiar sneering vocals, rolling bassline, unabashed political stance and even the chord pattern. However, when it does, a varied but consistent five-song disc emerges. Arguably, the best of the bundle is “State of the Union,” which unlike its opening-number counterpart, seems more reflective than angry as it attests, “Young kids and girls / You’re at the top of the world” above a warm four-chord progression. Like the opener, “Jellico, Tennessee” gives a resounding nod to Anti-Flag musically and lyrically with a simple chorus of “Fuck you, Jellico, Tennessee.” “W

Review: The Braces - "I'm Telling Everyone"

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The Braces have changed it up significantly since their 2007 self-released LP Yeah Right!. Nearly gone are the angsty vocals, the sloppy poppiness and the amateur lyrics of the past, replaced with a cleaner, more accessible sound. There are benefits and disadvantages of the changes, which don't appear to affect the net enjoyment one way or another. Though the welcome absence of goofy, immature cuts like “Dr. Phil” is appreciated, the band’s more serious and emotionally-laden numbers like “Confidence,” “Flood" and "I Love You, But" are inversely out of place, even while occasionally packing some hooks. The best tracks on I’m Telling Everyone are those that balance the playful with the sincere, like the two-minute “Jumping” and album opener “I’d Rather Be Hot,” a declaration of why California’s so great despite its myriad flaws if only for the climate. I probably would have made the same argument some time ago, but two winters in Minnesota have proven that four seasons

Review: The Manix - "Stay Low and Go"

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The Manix of Minneapolis (not to be confused with Manix of Long Island) are probably best known nowadays in relation to guitarist and vocalist Corey Ayd’s “other band,” Banner Pilot, even though they’ve been at it almost as long, toured the country, and have their own healthy catalog to boast. Released earlier this year, Razorcake predicted Stay Low and Go might be one of those discs that doesn’t grab you right off the bat, but eventually ends up at the top of the playlist, and that appears to be its exact effect. Though the Manix’ brand of Midwestern pop-punk is rooted in the tradition of its forerunners with catchy guitar leads, members pulling multiple vocal duties and compelling group sing-alongs, they’re certainly no derivative product of their environment. The first five seconds of “I’ll Fill It In” are rather unassuming, a three-chord progression over a stiff rhythm that quickly breaks into the frenetic pop-punk the Manix display over the course of the next 20 minutes. Ayd and g

Review: 16 Second Stare - Red Carpet Material

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This one’s a bit of a head-scratcher: rock/metal from Lutz, Florida, credited as a two-guitar duo in the lyrics booklet though clearly also composed of bass and drums. The packaging of their debut full-length Red Carpet Material is plastered with attractive women in seductive poses, and said objectification is supposedly “for the troops” because “freedom isn't free” and “these chicks are our gift to you.” Before going into any extensive rants about justifying sex appeal for military service, it should also be mentioned that 16 Second Stare has the same trouble conveying ideas lyrically as they do warranting scantily clad females on their album art. Take “Anymore” for a quick example: “I don’t care if you want me anymore / It’s my time so let’s make it easy / I don’t care if you’re a pretty little whore.” The title track is much the same: “Wanna go for a ride / Release the fantasy / In our time of need.” Those are just two examples, but there’s nothing of any real substance on the e

Review: Banner Pilot - "Collapser"

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The fact that Banner Pilot has risen to such success (signing to Fat Wreck, international recognition among other merits) without heavy touring or high-profile promotion is the ultimate testament of this band’s ability to write a song. Their feisty brand of melodic (though not poppy) Midwest punk caught fire only a few years ago, and their popularity has exponentially grown with each release. Of course, it could also be having one of the best band names ever and/or being composed of members from such quality acts as Off with Their Heads, the Manix and Rivethead. Still, Banner Pilot is somewhat misread by more than a few (my previous self included) as a Jawbreaker or Lawrence Arms by-product. And while they do claim influences from said bands, Banner Pilot’s approach is unlike any of the bands they’re often lumped in with. For one, Banner Pilot has rarely based songs around booming choruses á la “Indictment” or “Your Gravest Words,” for example. They are, however, more prevalent on Coll

Review: Suicide City - "Frenzy"

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Brooklyn’s Suicide City claims themselves as one of the last bands to emerge from CBGB before it closed in 2006. Which I guess is true. The problem is that even though the location and venue was still the same, this CBGB was nothing compared to this CBGB . Obviously. Suicide City was formed by Biohazard guitarist Billy Graziadei in 2005. Eventually, Jennifer Arroyo from Kittie (remember them!?) was added on bass, and the resulting quintet began playing shows and actually building a solid following in the NYC area. Now, what the guitarist from Biohazard was doing forming a melodramatic emo-nü-metal band is anyone’s guess -- perhaps Biohazard wasn't controlling enough of the Hot Topic demographic. If that was the desired outcome, Suicide City has certainly positioned themselves for a run at it. The greater part of the record (quantity-wise) is made up of three-to-four-to-five-minute modern rock songs inflected with heavy doses of emocore wails, treated vocals, nü-metal riffs, an occ

Review: This is Hell - "Warbirds" [EP}

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Generally when hardcore bands begin meandering down the path towards crossover, thrash, and eventually full-blown metal, it’s because they’re running out of ideas, trying to expand their fanbase, or possibly see a little bit more cash potential in headbangers than two-steppers. But for whatever reason said unnamed bands begin blowing the winds of change, This Is Hell gets a free pass for probably not falling into those categories even while turning slightly in the direction of crossover thrash. Although the band’s preceding full-length was interesting and enjoyable enough, Warbirds looks slightly more appealing right off the bat, with song lengths hovering around the two-and-a-half-minute mark instead of the four-and-a-half minute tracks that populated Misfortunes. Furthermore, by the time the music gets going, it’s fairly evident that This Is Hell aren’t barking up too high on the thrash tree. Aside from some guitar soloing rarely seen in the band’s previous catalog, not much is diffe

Review: Intro5pect - "Record Profits"

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Back in 1999, the Faint had recently begun their transformation from a Braid-influenced post-punk band to an electronic-leaning dance-punk group, !!! had been tinkering around and releasing singles, and Big Audio Dynamite’s foray into techno-punk was over a decade in the past. But no act had successfully blended the tenacity and politics of punk rock with the programmed beats and synthesizers of electronic RPM until Intro5pect debuted on the fledgling GC Records with their Education 7-inch. After high-profile tours with the likes of Dead to Me, Citizen Fish and Leftover Crack, a full-length on A-F Records and an EP on Blacknoise with Stza Crack, Intro5pect returns to where it all started with Record Profits. The seven-song EP gets going with what is likely to be one of the catchiest non-Orgcore songs of the year, “Work to Live.” The choppy `77 guitars are layered alongside 8-bit synths, blipping and bleeping over a driving digital rhythm. “Fuck Your Flag” smacks of a poppier Anti-Flag

Review: Unknown Instructors - "Funland"

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In the long and seasoned musical careers Mike Watt and George Hurley have jointly commandeered -- from the Reactionaries to the Minutemen, the Bootstrappers, fIREHOSE, and the Unknown Instructors heard here -- there is a spirit of exploration and perpetual breakthrough that miraculously never seems to cease. Sprouting from the original seeds of the Southern California punk scene, the pair and their co-conspirators throughout the years have grown the branches of their musical tree, swaying into such forms as jazz, art rock and experimental improvisation without ever disconnecting from the roots. At first it seems that Funland might run contradictory to the preceding pedestrian analogy. The drumless, bassless “Maji Yabai” opens the disc with nothing but a sauntering jazz guitar lead and Watt’s thick, croaky spiel, musing semi-animatedly like a working-class beat poet: “Maybe transcend a brutal reality / I guess it was time undefined / You can dance with your mind, Maji Yabai.” This is, h

Review: Reaching Hand - "Threshold"

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Female voices have been a part of punk all the way through its evolution, from Nico and the Velvet Underground to X-Ray Spex and the Avengers through modern bands like Lemuria and Deadly Sins. But frontwomen have been markedly less abundant in the hardcore scene, clustered mostly among crust and thrashier styles with bands like I Object and Bring That Shit. But there aren’t too many bands playing Comeback Kid-styled youth crew revival with female vocalists, and that’s where Reaching Hand comes in. Hailing from the unlikely sanctuary of Portugal, Reaching Hand has made inroads into the U.S. on Thorp Records and covered Europe via Chorus of One with their debut EP, Threshold, after forming in 2007. In five songs -- all hovering around or below the two-minute mark -- Reaching Hand effectively demonstrates their fresh take on hardcore while drawing parallels to many of today’s biggest names. With seemingly little time for intros, outros or breakdowns in their succinct songs, the opener “Ti

Subhumans - Reissues

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With the exception of Crass (who often teetered on the edge of art-punk or equally experimental conduits), the UK’s Subhumans are arguably the most influential anarcho-punk band in history, and certainly one of the most prolific. With eight studio records to their name, an addition to the Live in a Dive franchise and a handful of EPs, Southern Records has taken it upon themselves to re-master and reissue six of the band’s classic albums originally released on the band’s own Bluurg Records. From their DIY ethics to their radical left rhetoric, the Subhumans helped continue to carve out the definition of anarcho-punk even while the genre’s pioneers, Crass, were moving swiftly towards their end. At a time when bands like the Exploited and Chaos UK shouted their lyrics like political slogans, the Subhumans often seemed more reflective, or at the very least, like they were part of something much bigger. Their first LP, The Day the Country Died became somewhat of an instant classic, selling

Review: Straylight Run - "The Needles the Space"

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With the recent departure of co-frontwoman Michelle DaRosa as she attempts to launch a solo career, now seems as good a time as any to examine an album largely ignored by the Punknews community, and for fairly good reason. Coincidentally, it is DaRosa who creates the more captivating moments on The Needles the Space, which wouldn't seem like good news for Straylight Run as they continue on without her. Outside of a few tracks, the biggest drawback here is how unmemorable the album is as a whole. While the compositions have become much more rich and layered than they were on the band’s 2004 debut, they’ve completely swapped out the energy necessary to bring their songs fully to life. Though they chime, bubble, beep, echo and whir, they never rise above a feathery murmur for their entire 45 minutes of existence. Some of that is by design. “How Do I Fix My Head” hovers menacingly, aloft with DaRosa’s sighed song voice before surrendering to an unsteady bob of skillful hi-hat work and

Interview: Jesse Michaels (Operation Ivy, Classics of Love, Common Rider)

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When I first started getting heavily into punk around 9th grade, Operation Ivy was one of the first bands to really resonate with me. Their simple message of individualism, unity, and nonconformity was uncompromising, but never without a glimmer of hope hidden beneath. Years later I heard my first taste of Common Rider and was blown away to find out it was the same singer as Operation Ivy, Jesse Michaels. Since then, I have collected every piece of music he has done, from Operation Ivy bootlegs to the four-song Big Rig EP, to Common Rider and beyond. When I heard Jesse Michaels and his new band Classics of Love was coming to Minneapolis, I jumped at the chance to interview him and could not be happier with meeting him and finding out more about his life and projects. In a 2003 interview, Michaels said of the late Joe Strummer, “I was lucky enough to meet him and he was everything one would hope for in somebody they looked up to.” Now I can say the same of Jesse Michaels. You can click

Review: The Mars Volta - "Octahedron"

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What about the voice of Geddy Lee… How did it get so high? I wonder if he speaks like an ordinary guy (?) I know him, and he does” - Pavement, 1997 What about the voice of Cedric Bixler-Zavala… How did it get so high? I wonder if he speaks like an ordinary guy (?) I’ve heard him, and he kind of does” - GlassPipeMurder, 2009 It’s been just a year since the Mars Volta’s Grammy-winning The Bedlam in Goliath dropped, but everyone’s favorite pair of afroed Texicans are already back with a new set of spacey riffs, vexing time signatures and hallucinogenic lyrics comprising the eight songs of Octahedron. While comparing this post-hardcore/prog-rock/Latin-influenced jam factory to Rush is both a lazy description and an erroneous one, it’s harder to avoid on Octahedron than in the past. While this may be due in part to not promoting the album with a free Circle Jerks cover, and the album itself somewhat lacking the frequency of spastic freakouts found on Goliath,

Review: Outbreak - "Work to Death"

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What’s the appeal of Outbreak? That’s a lot like asking why people enjoy slam-dancing, hedg-ediving, or skateboarding without pads. It’s violent, it’s aggressive, it’s crass, and it’s fun. Outbreak throws back to the golden days of hardcore, but not in a completely aesthetic way like such similarly great acts as Government Warning, Double Negative and Chronic Seizure. With Outbreak, the crude lyrics, manic shouts and sandpaper riffs aren’t homage to the past -- they’re the full-throttle effort of a band whose initial ambitions exceeded their correlating abilities. But that’s kind of the charm. And while they’ve grown musically and lyrically since, the offsetting youthful vigor has helped them maintain a level of rawness that most bands would have lost after six years of touring and putting out records. Thankfully to rest any doubts that might exist based on the previous paragraph, the band has provided such illustrative examples on their new 7”, Work to Death, as the 38-second A-side “

Review: Classics of Love - "Walking in Shadows"

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Classics of love make a dark day light If you don’t believe the words then just look into their eyes" - Common Rider, 1999 Like a crystal-clear prophecy, self-fulfilled by a resolute thrust of momentum and passion, Jesse Michaels has returned to making music. After five years without a band, Classics of Love has found the former Operation Ivy, Common Rider and Big Rig frontman joining the entire cast of Hard Girls to rip forth a new set of urgently delivered punk, nascent and sprightly, but with 20 years of substantive seasoning underpinning its foundation. As each project Michaels has unveiled throughout the years has sounded considerably different than what preceded it, it should come as no surprise that Classics of Love is no “part two” of any earlier bands. Sure, there are elements of past work in the sound of the present -- the burning exigency of “Don’t Stand Down” smacks slightly of Big Rig while “Slow Car Crash” invokes memories of This is Unity Music outtakes -- but t

Review: The Replacements - "Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash"

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In retrospect, and with their breakup 15 years in the past, it’s much easier to stomach the Replacements’ constant evolution and cycles of stylistic departure. One can only imagine some angsty Midwest teenager finding his new favorite band in 1982’s Stink only to hear a different band entirely upon picking up a copy of Let It Be just two years later. It’s certainly a good thing there weren’t online message boards back then. None of that really matters in this case, though, as Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash is both the Replacements' first album and their best. Sure, albums like Pleased to Meet Me and Tim transcended genres, record labels, and helped birth the fledgling aesthetic of indie rock, but Sorry Ma did more. At a time when “hardcore punk” often meant nothing more than playing as fast and abrasive as possible, the album never sacrificed its pop appeal for throat-searing screams and whiplash speed. While the bulk of the movement was focusing their energy against social

Review: Dos - "Justamente Tres"

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In the expansive stylistic breadth that punk’s attitude and ideology both allows and demands, it’s no surprise that its pioneers are the ones who've seemed to take most advantage and keep pushing its innovation. Whether it be Ian Mackaye’s minimalist baritone approach with the Evens, John Lydon’s foray into musique concrète with Public Image Ltd., or Joe Strummer’s world-music punk with the Mescaleros, it appears the legions that followed the first few waves of punk have been plagued hardest of all with the notion that good music made by punk rockers can somehow be “not punk enough.” Consisting solely of Minutemen bassist Mike Watt and Black Flag bassist Kira Roessler (plus their basses), Dos formed after the death of Minutemen guitarist D. Boon in 1985 as a means for Watt to keep making music and emerge from the depression that ensued upon Boon’s passing. Roessler and Watt married in 1987 and were together until 1994, remaining friends and releasing Justamente Tres in 1996 -- thou

Review: Trencher - "When Dracula Thinks 'Look at Me'"

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When one thinks of oft-imitated bands, the Locust usually isn’t the first one to come to mind. Yet that’s exactly what seems to be dealing a large dose of influence in the direction of London, England’s Trencher. True, Trencher dons infinitely less full-body, skintight nylon suits and operates as a trio sans guitar unlike the full-band, four-piece Locust…but let’s be real: Their ultra-short, noisy blasts of keyboard grind with cringingly creepy lyrical themes (“Horse Race Amputee,” “Erotica of Flies,” “Wounds Cordon Bleu”) roll extremely close in the game of musical marbles to their U.S. tourmates….yeah, the Locust. While this entire review could probably be spent comparing and contrasting the two bands, let’s pretend for a moment that there’s no basis for association and describe Trencher as is. First observation: no guitar. Distorted bass, shrieks and screams abound, and a Casio keyboard help fill in the sound, that succeeds in at least not sounding lacking at all, and fairly convinc

Review: Last Lights - "No Past No Present No Future"

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When Last Lights opened for Four Year Strong at BU Central on December 5th, 2008, the band was celebrating their signing to blossoming punk label Think Fast! just two days prior, and singer Dominic Mallary was as energetic as ever, hurling himself about on the stage, screaming his lungs out and twisting the microphone cord around his neck, as he did nearly every show. A few hours later, his health began rapidly spiraling downwards, as he lost feeling in his legs and eventually convulsed in seizures after being taken to the hospital where he lost consciousness. Some 15 hours after performing what would be his final set, the last lights went out for Dominic Mallary, dying of a brain aneurysm before he could witness the full fruition of all his hard work and talent. Though the band decided not to go on without Dominic, their recent contract with Think Fast! allowed them a proper sendoff, giving widespread release to their entire discography consolidated onto one album. From their initial

Review: Roll Call - "Sotto il suo Cielo"

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Finally! A European punk band that doesn’t feel like they have to sing in awkward, grammatically-massacred English! It’s a breath of fresh air, but alas, it’s also one of the more exciting things about this album. Roll Call hails from Italy and plays a standard style of slow Oi! punk and/or roughed-up rock and roll. Though the first track “Preludio” is an intensity-building angry mob clip like the beginning of Refused’s “Rather Be Dead” or Leftover Crack’s “So You Wanna Be a Cop?”, the album that follows thoroughly lacks the intensity to match. The main problem is with the pacing. Slower songs aren’t inherently bad, but the sluggishness heard here is almost distracting. Songs like “Ricco Annoiato” (or “Bored Rich”) and “Fiero” (“Proud”) aren’t really bad, but with the average song somewhere around four minutes in length, they just spend too much time not really going anywhere. “No Mi Tzicheddi” is the fastest song, and at 3:44, nearly the shortest, which would generally make for the be

Interview: Agnostic Front

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The New York Hardcore institution known as Agnostic Front has been around in consistent form since 1983, making it one of the longest-running hardcore bands that hasn’t splintered into some unrecognizable faction or faux-legacy of reunions and hostile takeovers (see “Dead Kennedys,” “Misfits,” “Gang Green,” etc). Nearly thirty years after their formation, I (GlassPipeMurder) had the chance to sit down with founding guitarist Vinnie Stigma, Joseph James, Mike Gallo, and drummer Pokey Mo, who had just joined Agnostic Front last month. I don’t feel like I pulled any punches in this interview, and the band was very forthcoming, sincere, and appreciative of the interest in Agnostic Front. The band released Warriors in 2007 and talked about the past, present, and future of Agnostic Front backstage before their show at Minneapolis’ Triple Rock Social Club. You can click Read More for the details. How are you guys doing? How does it feel to be alive and on tour in 2009? Vinnie Stigma: Feels gr

Review: Roll the Tanks - "Suffer City"

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First impressions aren’t nearly as important as everyone makes them out to be. If they were, I would be much more smitten over this album than I actually am. And even though (spoiler alert) it’s not bad, my initial enthusiasm faded quickly. With a pretty good band name, cool CD booklet artwork, a clever title take on David Bowie’s “Suffragette City” and a good introductory song chosen randomly by the “shuffle” option on my CD player, this disc seemed to have a lot going for it. But by the end of the cycle, I found myself not only less impressed with Roll the Tanks -- I couldn’t even find the first song I really liked again! Either I was hyping up my own enjoyment, or the rest of the album’s patchiness washed away the early delight. Based on re-listens, I would have to guess it was either “Police Me,” a catchy mid-tempo power-popper of threats to “Crash down on your Crown Vic,” or “Defense Mecca,” a choppy garage tune that must have been the one I liked because I remember muttering some

Review: Gonzales - "Checkmate"

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Contrary to the undiscerning robots of Last.fm, Gonzales is not “a Canadian multi-talented musician known for his MC and electro albums (i.e. "The Entertainist" and "Presidential Suite") and his comical live shows, is able to play the piano, guitar, bass, drums and various brass instruments and [who] in the 1990s, was the leader of the alternative rock band Son before embarking on his solo career.” This Gonzales is a mildly Bronx-y punk-n-roll quartet from Italy. Checkmate is a fluid, ten-song, 30-minute blast of really fast rock and roll, southernized slightly (where the faint Bronx comparisons come in) but whipping by with almost a skatepunk propensity. Either Markey Moon or Mark Simon Hell (whoever is doing the majority of the guitar solos on this album) is ridiculously good and saves this album from the threat of mediocrity. Even though the Italian accents and awkwardly pronounced vocals tend to get in the way, the semi-distorted tone and production/mixing help

Review: Skavesa - "10 Years of Love and Hate"

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Adequate but average ska is one of the most difficult segments of music to assess and write about, I’ve found. By its shear makeup, a run-of-the-mill ska record will almost always be qualitatively better than its punk rock counterpart, but the leisurely pace and homogeneous structures of the former can make it just as shrug-worthy. Italy’s Skavesa` released their first album 10 years ago (hence title) and have moved from a ska-core approach to a more traditional two-tone sound since their inception. Hauling in big-name ska-sicians Vic Ruggiero of the Slackers and King Django of Skinnerbox, Stubborn All-Stars and Murphy’s Law among others to produce the album, Skavesa`’s 10 Years of Love and Hate is observably fueled towards the likeness of its engineers. Even with a smooth rocksteady sound and crystal-clean production, though, it lacks the x-factor that makes good ska great. The ESL lyrics unsurprisingly cannot capture what streetwise poets like Ruggiero add to their music, and the coc