The RadioActivist

It seems like it’s getting harder and harder to celebrate good driving music with the awareness of our rising global temperatures, smoggy cities and decreasing supply of fossil fuels. But with a new CD player in my car and a copy of Burning Streets’ debut Is It in Black and White, there really couldn't be a better combination. With their noted admiration of the Clash, it seems likely that Burning Streets took their name from one of Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros’ best songs off their final release, Streetcore. Said admiration is also embedded in the album’s lyrics as the opener “Kiss the World Goodbye” suggests, “The future is unwritten, true hearts never die / But if you've lost all your passion, kiss the world goodbye." Musically, Boston’s Burning Streets don’t so much resemble the Clash as they do melodic street punk neighbors like Far from Finished, the Ducky Boys and Street Dogs. The Bouncing Souls catch a namedrop on “13 Hours” and would also seem to serve as an inf

There’s no way you could possibly take enough drugs to make this album good. There’s no way you could possibly take enough drugs to make this album tolerable There’s no way you could possibly take enough drugs to make this album. …Unless your name is Joe Newman, and in 1987 you decided to throw together a chaotic spattering of spastic Casio melodies, schizophrenic children’s vocals, and drum machine cadences under the guise of the Rudy Schwartz Project and call it Bowling for Applicances. The only noteworthy effort to legitimize this sonic earfuck in its press material is that allegedly Jello Biafra is a fan. This isn’t actually a huge surprise as it seems Jello isn’t a hard sell as long as an artist is strange and doesn't follow some set of rules. The vaguely similar Casio-punk of the late, great Wesley Willis is an example of music that Biafra not only endorsed but released on his Alternative Tentacles label. But where Willis lacked the complex compositions of the Rudy Schwartz P

Back in September, the Framed and Banner Pilot shared a release show at the 7th Street Entry in downtown Minneapolis, as Banner Pilot had just dropped Collapser and the Framed were promoting Angels and the Knives They Carry. In between sets, a small group of friends was gathered outside, remarking on their disbelief that recent Fat Wreck signees Banner Pilot were playing before the Framed, whom they had never before heard. I’m guessing they were out-of-towners, because it seems unlikely that multiple people in the Minneapolis punk scene wouldn’t have heard of the Framed, a band that’s been building a faithful following for the better part of 10 years, and who are referred to as “the mighty Framed” by Patrick Costello on Dillinger Four’s First Avenue Live album. Angels and the Knives They Carry is a healthy dose of Midwest pop-punk, polished street sonatas, and rock 'n’ roll rowdiness. Guitarist Matt Benson has some of the best chops in town, and isn't afraid to show them off on

Even without excessive hyperbole, there are a few ways that parallels can be drawn between Choking Victim and Wu-Tang Clan. Superficially, they both emerged from the NYC area in the 1990s, and musically, they separately created styles that would be as influential in sound as in imagery and subject matter. But whether it’s the hardcore Kung Fu hip-hop of RZA and company or the Crack Rock Steady of Stza and associates, both acts’ members would go on to spawn a virtual franchise of additional projects and offshoots built on the success of their full-length debut. While Enter the 36 Chambers was followed by such offspring as Only Built 4 Cuban Linx..., Tical, and Liquid Swords, what followed No Gods, No Managers and the break-up of Choking Victim saw the eventual formation of a multitude of projects including, but not limited to, Leftover Crack, InDK, Crack Rock Steady 7, Public Serpents, Morning Glory, Piss Shit Fuck, American Distress and our subject here, the Star Fucking Hipsters. When

What do you get when you cross one of the lamest and most played-out formats available (live CD + DVD) with one of the most entertaining live acts in recent years? Well, not a bad release in this case. The DVD is certainly the more fun part, capturing visually what can only be described as the world’s foremost gypsy punk ensemble in their natural environment: a sweaty, liquored-up NYC club filled to capacity. That club is Irving Plaza, and for two nights in 2007, Gogol Bordello played passionate sets of their trademark Balkan/Ukrainian/dub/punk hybrid comprising their previous two releases and the then-new Super Taranta!. With an arsenal of cameras and more flashing lights than Battling Seizure Robots, the feel of the moment translates remarkably well through the TV screen. Among the highlights include vocalist Eugene Hutz climbing a stairway of amps into the balcony to give a female fan some affection, washboard instrumentals and the bongo drummer (?) coming out front and center to to

Top 5 reasons Mr. T and his hip-hop album Mr. T’s Commandments deserves a review on Punknews: 5. Ice T, the Original Gangster/Cop Killer/Cop on Law and Order, ghostwrote all the raps for Mr. T’s Commandments. 4. Bad Attitude Baracus: straight-edge by day, face pounder by night. Perhaps the surrogate role model for Elgin James? 3. Like Sid Vicious, Joe Strummer and John Doe, he’s known only by his punk name. Err, stage name. 2. He’s got a fucking Mohawk for crying out loud. 1. Without Mr. T, there could be no Mr. T Experience. And that, of course, would be a terrible shame. The review itself: The album pretty much sucks. There are seven songs of horrible '80s sound effects and cheesy hip-hop verses covering everything from “Don’t Talk to Strangers” to “No Dope No Drugs.” Sure, there are plenty of amusing moments (“Mr. T, Mr. T (He Was Made For Love)) and inspiring lessons that rival even the most optimistic posi-core (“You Got to Go Through It”), but with song lengths eclipsing the

What makes the Koffin Kats’ latest album good is more what it isn't than what it is. Because though it is a reasonably enjoyable disc by any measure, Forever for Hire isn’t an entirely derivative and formulaic psychobilly album, the likes of which appear all too frequently in punk rock. Hailing from Motor City, Michigan, it makes some sense that the trio wouldn't pepper their compositions with the same surf-styled selections of California psychobilly bands like Tiger Army and Stellar Corpses. In the psychobilly equation, the Koffin Kats clearly put their punk before their rockabilly, blasting thick power chord progressions front and center, while the upright bass of Vic Victor generally takes a backseat, which is appropriate since he’s also handling lead vocal duties. Though Victor does take the same over-the-top, Elvis-impersonating approach as many in the deathpunk/psycho scene, the vocals end up sounding more like NoMeansNo than Nick 13. And while a good chunk of the disc se

Obnoxiously attention-whoring name aside (claimed to be chiefly referencing the 1973 C.I.A. overthrow in Chile), Nine Eleven’s City of Quartz is one of the year’s best new-school hardcore full-lengths. While bands like Bane and Paint It Black spent 2009 releasing EPs and singles, City of Quartz draws from the aforementioned alongside Verse, Have Heart and Modern Life Is War. From the hammering onslaught laid forth by “The New Shame of Punk to Come” to the head-bobbing opening of “White Trash Kids = Redneck Geeks,” Nine Eleven holds little back, if any at all. The French quintet tackles 10 songs plus an untitled bonus song on City of Quartz, which bounds between the 22-second “The Story of Our Life” and the nearly six-minute “The Quik and the Dead.” Throughout, there’s a surprising proficiency of English, demonstrated for example in the balls-out barn-burner “Take to Remake”: “Mirages flower to the beat of hearts / Stirred by the thousand-paged modern tragedy that is hope to which we ar

New York Hardcore outside of Long Island has gotten a bit stale in its evolution towards the "beatdown" variety over the course of the last 10 years or so. While Merauder certainly doesn't eschew any notion of this shift, they do mix in a variety of other genres to keep things interesting between the hammering double-bass breakdowns and deathcore growls of their fourth studio full-length, God Is I. Boasting time-to-time contributors from a bevy of NYHC projects and beyond including First Blood, Agnostic Front, Leeway, Full Contact, Pro-Pain and Ill Niño, Merauder’s approach is uncompromising in the heaviness of their audio assault, with traces of metal (“Hell Captive”), thrash (“Never Surrender”) and even Holy Terror hardcore (“God Is I”). Taking a cue from the Bad Brains, the album’s “Intro” is nine songs deep, while the crushing weight of the disc’s opener “Until” pummels forth with no delay. The band takes a bit of a breather leading into “Ratcatcher,” which serves as

Of all the hundreds of sub-genres in bullet points beneath the bold-faced banner of punk rock, psychobilly has to be one of the most divisive, as well as having some of the most stringent rules for qualification. Think about it: You pretty much have to have an upright bass, matching black leather jackets, greaser hair (or a flat-top mohawk), and write apolitical punk crooners with lyrics that run parallel to B-movie horror plots. So while any band that goes to such lengths will verifiably fit in with the rest of their scene, it makes it that much harder to stand out in the crowd. Consequently, Stellar Corpses’ Welcome to the Nightmare is about what you’d expect from a California psychobilly band. Though it’s the Los Angeles scene that seems to be booming on any given weekend, Stellar Corpses have created a noteworthy buzz even from deep within their haunted Santa Cruz basement base. While most of their songs are fairly standard fare as psychobilly goes (“Teenage Witchcraft,” “Valley of

Following on the heels of their lackluster split with December Peals, German cock-rockers Boozed are back with One Mile for another round of liquor-fueled rock 'n’ roll, though this time they turn up the punk. But will anyone be singing? While the aforementioned split offering left little to desire in the form of Southern rock and AC/DC jocking, One Mile makes significant strides in the right direction. Though the disc’s opening number “Save Me” shows little promise, by the second track, signs of hope begin to emerge. “This Ain’t My City” darts forward with a hurry-up pace and choppy guitar riffs, while the following “You Gotta Go” owes a major debt to the Bronx in its chord pattern, melody and Matt Caughthran-styled yell. Still, there are plenty of the cringeworthy Americana anthems that made their previous release hard to bear, including “One Mile to the Moon,” “Asphalt’s Burning” and “Sexy.” The lyrics don’t translate particularly well either, as the German band sings on “Circus