Happy Holidays + Natural Law Tour + Katorga Works News

Excelsior! Adam here, wishing everyone a happy holiday, as well as to update you all on the going ons around here. The blog will be a little dead for a few weeks, as both Colman and I will be on the Natural Law RSWFY2K10 Winter Tour, Colman as guitarist, me as merch girl. Other ICDT powerhouses, such as Asa or Trey or Catherine may post something, but Colmy and I won't have regular internet access. If you're too lazy to click on the link above, here is the most up-to-date itinerary for RSWKY2K10:

-12/28 in New Brunswick, NJ @ Ask A Punk w/ Sick Charade, Less Life + more TBA
-12/29 in Fairfax, VA @ CandleHaus w/ Lotus Fucker and the Feed
-12/30 in Greensboro, NC @ CFBG's w/ Thieves, Burma, Dystrophy
-12/31 in Tampa, FL @ the Skate Park w/ Feralis and Centuries
-1/1 in Tampa, FL @ Unit 19 w/ Nazi Dust, Panzram, Vicious Bricks
-1/2 in Gainesville, FL @ Tha Halal Cart (911 SE 4th St) w/ Nazi Dust, Heroindod, Time to Destroy
-1/3 in Nashville, TN @ DAY OFF AT MORT TANNEY'S MANSION
-1/4 in Dayton, OH @ 214 Shroyer Rd. w/ Vermin Rites, Picked Clean + more TBA
-1/5 in Pittsburgh, PA @ Helter Skelter w/ Drug Lust, Lifeloss, Swamps, Code Orange Kids
-1/6 in Washington, D.C. @ Hole in the Sky w/ State Violence, D.O.C., Secret Police, Byrds of Paradise

If any of these shows are happening in your city, come out and say hi, ya turkey! Natural Law is sick and will have their Slump 7", a repress with a new cover of their Spring Trash demo, as well as a new demo of some of their new, superior material. Additionally, we will also be carrying the Katorga Works distro around with us, including a meager repress of the Merchandise - Gone Are The Silk Gardens Of Youth cassette.

On the Kaverka Derks front, here is our release schedule:

KW-005: Whirl - Distressor 12" EP
KW-006: Weed Hounds LP
KW-007: Rational Animals LP
KW-008: Merchandise - Schoolyard 7" single
KW-009: ( ) - False Xmas 12" single

+ a few other exciting things we can't announce right now!

Numbers lie, however, and the Whirl and Weed Hounds stuff won't be out until Spring, while the Rational Animals LP and the singles from Merchandise and ( ) might be out as early as the end of January. I've heard the two singles and all I can say is that they're SICK. I expect nothing less from Will and co. over in the Rational Animals camp, either. A true heavy metal band.

Here is a new Merchandise video (a selection from the Gone tape) to tide you over until the new Merchy single.

Merchandise - Everyman from Id House Vid. Group on Vimeo.

See you in a few weeks!

AMENDMENT: We will also have our TOP ALBUMS OF 2010 lists up when we get back. It will be late, so I guess it's even less relevant, but whatever!

Neon Blud - B Girls 12"

Artist: Neon Blud

Album: B Girls 12"

Release: 2010

Label: Drugged Conscience

Tracklist:

1. Bleed Blud

2. Untitled

3. Untitled

Released a few months ago, Neon Blud's new 12" marks a new era for the band. With the addition of second guitarist D. Vassalotti, the band has progressed in leaps and bounds. B Girls is a vast improvement over its predecessor, the Whipps cassette, in literally every single way imaginable.

While the influence is still present, Neon Blud relies less on Sonic Youth-worship than on that tape. Instead, the band opens up their aural palette to include a variety of newer influences. None of this is more evident than on the first eight minutes of the sole A-side track of "Bleed Blud," which is comprised of an instrumental section that reminds me of a way less technically-proficient Amon Düül II warming up at practice with a This Heat cover. SHAZAM.

While it might not do it for some, I find this section to be particularly engaging. Don't fret, however, as the precise cacophony eventually breaks into a solid riff and eventually becomes what is classic Neon Blud. If it wasn't obvious at first, this section will make it apparent that the recording quality is exponentially better than Whipps. The band is far more confident about they wants and they certainly achieve it with this sound.

In addition to superior song structure and better recording quality, one should also take note of Sam's vocals. She's grown far more confident since her days with Body Rot and even the earlier Neon Blud material. This makes her delivery of the band's accounts of social and emotional morbidity far more effective. It also helps that the lyrics have veered (somewhat) away from immediate shock and into a more subtle and, ultimately, more disconcerting territory. I mean, the lyrical content of Whipps wasn't SHOCKING, but it certainly wasn't subtle!

The B-Side of the record is more straightforward and is made up of two untitled songs that, along with the "song" section of "Bleed Blud," constitute what is the best material from Neon Blud. I enjoyed Whipps upon my first few listens, quite a bit actually, but I soon forgot about it. I've had this material with me for months now and I've only grown to love it more with time. I really wish I could have seen them play this material live, but they had actually already "moved on" from this and were playing an all-new, unfamiliar set. Bastards! Still bitter about that one...

With Whipps, Neon Blud certainly divided fans of their past bands with what they were doing. B Girls won't change that, but I think that it's a better introduction to the band and is far more representative of what the band is doing these days. For those not especially moved by Whipps, I beg you to listen to B Girls. It's fantastic.

Download Here

To Buy, PayPal $12.00 to burnxnaples[at]yahoo[dot]com OR $24 for both the Neon Blud 12" and the Merchandise LP.

-Adam

Blitz - Voice Of A Generation

Artist: Blitz
Album: Voice Of A Generation

Release: 1982

Label: No Future

Tracklist:

1. We Are The Boys

2. Time Bomb

3. Voice Of A Generation

4. Bleed

5. I Don't Need You

6. T.O.?

7. Propaganda

8. Criminal Damage

9. Vicious

10. Warriors

11. Nation On Fire

12. Your Revolution

13. Scream

14. 4.Q.

15. Escape

16. Moscow

17. Closedown

Yet again the mighty Blitz have been re-captured in the imagination of today's punk. Yet again have another contemporary hardcore band graced on-lookers and listeners by charging through a Blitz anthem. I was lucky to see The Rival Mob do this Saturday with their rendition of "We Are The Boys"; truly we are.

Voice Of A Generation is the first Blitz LP. It is an elegant mixture of gritty, street punk and the chorus-ridden, pop-sensitive licks that mark the band's middle and New Wave periods. In some ways Blitz are a characteristic punk band: lyrically, thematically and certainly in turns of sound and style. Yet their proficiency at crafting mind-controlling, catchy songs enabled them to gain relative success in the mainstream, even spending some time on the pop charts with various singles and LPs. "We Are The Boys", "Never Surrender", "Warriors", "Criminal Damage", "Voice of A Generation" and other songs all attest to the youthfulness and the rebelliousness of this music. At various points Blitz even experiment with dub interludes, but this only serves to solidify the band as comfortable innovators. The songs themselves can appeal to most anyone.

After "New Age" Alan "Nidge" Miller ceased to write songs for Blitz. Thus Second Empire Justice, the band's second LP, has an entirely different feel. The songs on Voice Of A Generation on through "New Age" maintain that wonderful harmony between protest song and pop anthem.

"Nation On Fire" may be my favorite song on the record. It's a dry, rough and angry testament to the restlessness of summer and invokes Watts Riots or 1960s Chicago. Pure punk gem.

Download Here

-Colman

Barbecue Bob - Chocolate To The Bone

Artist: Barbecue Bob

Album: Chocolate To The Bone

Release: 1992 (Recorded 1927? 1931?)

Label: Yazoo

Tracklist:

1. Motherless Child Blues

2. Spider And The Fly

3. Yo Yo Blues

4. Mississippi Heavy Water Blues

5. California Blues

6. She's Coming

7. Barbecue Blues

8. When The Saints Go Marching In

9. Ease It To Me Blues

10. Poor Boy A Long Ways From Home

11. Diddle-Da-Diddle

12. Going Up The Country

13. Atlanta Moon

14. Good Time Rounder

15. It's Just Too Bad

16. Twistin' Your Stuff

17. Chocolate To The Bone

18. Black Skunk Blues

19. Jacksonville Blues

20. She Shook Her Gun

Growing up, my mother would listen almost exclusively to old blues, jazz, and hard funk. I remember being relatively ambivalent to most of it at a very young age until puberty cruelly bestowed a permanent state of awkwardness upon me. Fortunately, with mutated voice and unfortunate facial hair came a new found interest in music, particularly all the stuff my parent's had listened to growing up.

One summer day, as I was digging through my mother's collection, I stumbled upon a CD with a cover of a man dressed in all-white bearing a shit-eating grin with the name Barbecue Bob. I laughed. I figured it would be horrible, but I tried it out anyway. As always, my first impression was horribly wrong! As it turned out, Barbecue Bob (a.k.a. Robert Hicks) was an essential figure in Atlanta blues and it wasn't hard to see why.

Fulfilling almost every stereotype you can think of for old bluesmen, BBQ Bobby lived fast and died young (before the age of 30!), all while singing tales of lost love, dying family, a bunch of nasty shit he wants to do to/for women (seriously, why are old bluesmen so filthy???), and just sorrow and misery, in general. Some might find some of it sophomoric, but the way in which Hicks combines local folklore with sexual humor is extremely effective and, ultimately, smacks of undying defeat. It's pretty compelling stuff and it perfectly compliments his masterful 12-string bottleneck guitar playing.

This is one of my favorite old blues collections and I can't recommend it enough.

Download Here

Buy Here

-Adam