Ritual Howls "into the water"

I cannot stop listening to this #ritualhowls disc. I've been really into the whole darkwave/goth thing lately. I've stopped short of wearing black eyeliner and fishnets, but that's just external. I've been coddling my inner goth with a lot of music in this vein. I discovered this band on a spotify playlist and immediately looked them up on the bandcamp app. This method of finding music has become my new standard. I used to voraciously consume 'zines and published music journals and then kept various lists of albums that intrigued me. That whole thing is antiquated and i sorely miss it. There are no music stores that carry new releases in my hometown of Buffalo anymore. There are some vinyl specialty shops, but I'll be damned if i start collecting a new format. I have a beloved used cd shop called Frizzbe's but that is a different kind of collecting. Finding other people's discarded treasures, it's rare to find new releases there when they are still new. So cd collecting has become streamlined and unromantic. Maybe that's why I'm into the dark romanticism of this music. It's sinister, cavernous, cold and has vampiric sexuality. Maybe it's that Halloween is around the corner and it's aesthetic is permeating everything in my neighborhood. Whatever it is, this cd is really hitting the spot lately.

Dio "sacred heart"

Dungeons & Dragons has been a pretty reoccurring thing in my life. While it's actually been years since I've played the tabletop pencil and dice version it seems that a lot of the people that i resonate with have a history with the game. For years my sons have leafed through my monster manuals as have i. I spent many mornings at my friend's house with graph paper, velvet mystical dice bags and number 2 pencils. My buddy was grounded a whole summer for some reason while we were in 7th grade so i used to sneak over to his house early after his parents went to work. Another guy would show up and the trio of us would slay orcs, fall into spike pits and sexually harass bar maidens. I remember riding our bmx bikes over an hour to a neighboring suburb to the only hobby store we knew that sold dice and modules (adventure story guides). We were "Stranger Things" before it was cool. It was really really uncool as a matter of fact. We listened to this #dio album alot because of me. It spoke to my obsession with swordfight fantasy. D&D, conan and beastmaster movies, "lord of the rings" and this cd paint a pretty accurate picture of my scrawny pimple-faced interests of the time. This is also on my short list of favorite album covers. One i have reproduced in ballpoint pen many times. Dio has remained a constant fixture in my music collection my whole life. The lungs of a dragon in the body of a mystical elf.

The Exploited "let's start a war..."

This is one of my all time favorite album covers.  It's a pretty simple one, it doesn't need to be finely examined for hidden nuances.  It's bold and eye grabbing and has impeccable hand done type font.  While i like #theexploited a lot (their EPs tend to be a more digestible helping) i really love their aesthetic. Giant colorful mohawks, studded leather with protest slogans scrawled on them and skulls all over the place.  The band are like motorhead's uglier younger brother.  Fast and gruff and a great deal more blunt force trauma than Lemmy and Co.  I painted this cover on my biker leather jacket when i was 17.  The jacket i bought after weeks of working at a pizzeria a couple years prior.  I actually miss the jacket alot.  The look would not work for me anymore.  It was fine when it was draped over my skeletal younger self but now i fear i would look like some well fed "sons of anarchy" extra.  The jacket was a badge before it was painted, afterwards it became a confrontational cape.  "Why do you want to start a war?" Was the snarky comment i heard.  I would try to explain the flippant irony of the title and when disregarded i would get confrontational in return. I was quick with that.  As a friend recently pointed out to me: back then teenage angst wasn't marketed through stores at the mall.  You worked hard at being an outsider and thrived on the conflict your wardrobe evoked.  It was a narrower world back then.  And while I miss the romanticism of fist fighting jocks and preppies every week i am also thankful that the wide world is more apparent and while being a punk rocker today means your clothing is more expensive and you arent much more popular with the atheletic community at least the motive is generally more understood by all.  Well it feels that way to me.  I keep wondering if today's political climate will provide punk with a generation of new disciples.  The cold war and teenage hormonal imbalances were a perfect storm for my friends and i to embrace Watty shouting these protest songs at us.

The Trans Megetti "fading left to completely on"

One of my favorite things to do when i travel is visit record stores. That activity is only rivaled by eating local and exotic foods.  I've got quite a few souvenirs from my travels by way of CDs.  I picked up this #transmegetti disc the first time my old indie rock band played North Hampton in Massachusetts. That same day we had eaten at a vegan/vegetarian restaurant called Grasshoppers (that type of restaurant was still a novelty 17 years ago)  we played at an art space called The Flywheel (a place we played at a few times over the years) with a band called The Warren Commission (who we became pretty tight with and had invited to back to Buffalo to olay a couple of times) the guitarist of that band ended up mastering our full length album.  I can remember all if these details but i cannot remember the name of the store where i purchased this disc. I remember it was near the main square of town.  I remember i overheard locals talking about sightings of J. Mascis from Dinosaur Jr. And people from Sonic Youth (all of whom apparently lived there).  This disc is chaotic indie rock with a post punk vibe.  I had read reviews of them in fanzines and their name had been scrawled into my sketchbooks so i recognized the moniker and had never seen the cd back home so i snatched it up as an adventure treasure.  Upon re listening to this it makes me smile.  It really encapsulates the kind of stuff i was buying at the turn of the century.  Everyone in the band bought stuff at the store and i remember this disc getting a non-reaction in the van on our way to Hartford Connecticut.   I got internally defensive and this disc kind of became a loved runt for me.  It has made it through many prunes of my collection because of that van ride and my soft spot for it.

Queen "flash gordon soundtrack"

I first saw the movie Flash Gordon around 1982 on cable t.v.  i had already become a young sci-fi fan through the first two Star Wars movies and television programs Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rodgers.  So this movie was definitely in my wheelhouse back then.  Even at that age i recognized that the songs in the movie were something i was drawn to, that  it was rock and synthesizer scores and not orchestral arrangements stuck out to me. "Flash! Aah-ah! He saved everyone of us!" Would get stuck in my head like a commercial jingle.  I don't listen to a lot of soundtracks.  In fact i believe i only own five of them and am intimately familiar with them (besides this one they are: Peter Gabriel's soundtrack to "the passion of christ" [a movie I've never seen] , "until the end of the world", "singles" and "grease"). I've re watched this movie a few times over the years and am always impressed by the lavish set designs and costumes.  Sure a chunk of the movie is corny and dumb but the sensual aspects are still intriguing even beyond my nostalgic affinity.  I really like #queen and this isn't even my favorite album of theirs but it is one that conjures up memories my parents tactile suede furniture in greens and golds, for some reason it makes me think of winter olympic games and my sister and i laying folding chairs down and pretending they were bobsleds. The cd is loaded with random memories from my childhood.  It takes on a second soundtrack, it becomes the soundtrack of fifth grade for me.  My oldest is in fifth grade and this parallel makes me wonder if any music is going to make him think of our family home when he is in his mid-forties.

Milf "ha ha bus"

I have curly hair. Not cool curly hair, i have shitty useless curly hair (ok HAD shitty useless curly hair). I've always hated my mop.  When i tried growing it out when i was a metal head teenager it grew wide not long, when i was heavy into punk rock when i was a little older i had a shitty curly mohawk. By the time i had reached my early twenties i had given up on it. I started shaving my head. I've had brief relapses when I've given my stupid hair another chance only to regret it and shave it again. It wasn't a popular hairstyle in the early nineties, in fact it was widely interpreted as a racist "skinhead" badge. And quite often i was accused of being one of those douche bags.
I loved the Buffalo indie band #milf. I had their seven inch singles and this their debut album of loud, catchy shoegaze rock was in heavy rotation on my stereo and i put their songs on plenty of mix tapes. They were playing a gig at the now defunct Asbury Alley and i was pretty amped to go. It was not a heavily attended show but i stood front and center when they performed so the music would overwhelm me. Their singer/guitarist walked off the stage during their set and stood in front of me shouting the lyics in my face. OI was totally confused, it really felt aggressive and i didnt understand why he had done this. I kind of just stood there shifting my weight from foot to foot waiting for a cue as to how i was supposed to respond. He continued shouting what i assume were lyrics at me and hitting me with spittle. Eventually he walked back on stage and the band abruptly finished their set.  It should be noted that the singer was a black guy. I felt distressed about what had just happened so i approached the drummer who was still packing his lit and asked what was up and he told me to "get lost". Well it had turned out someone had written some racist graffiti in the bathroom about the band and given my affinity for shorn follicles they had assumed i was the bigoted dickbag. It had kind of pissed me off that they had made that assumption and i wrote a scathing review of the event in a local 'zine. I just realised that was some white privilege shit on my part. Now I'm bummed. Stupid hair.

Agnostic Front "victim in pain"

One of the most taste defining releases of my young music obsessing life was a free cassette sampler i got from the record label Combat/Combat Core records.  The cassette's A-side was from the label's tjrash metal roster and introduced me to a ton of cool bands.  The B-side was hardcore and crossover bands which was an exciting new take on the metal i was listening to up to this point.  I believe i eventually purchased albums by every band on this tape (well done Combat...well done indeed). The first thing i bought that got me super excited was #agnosticfront "victim in pain". It sounded nothing lile the acrobatic thrash metal i had adored up to this point, it was raw and simple and dangerous. The band performed like they were threatening me.  It was a "join us or get stomped" creed and i wanted in.  My old hesher friends weren't into this stuff but the punk rock kids i started skateboarding with totally dug it.  Looking back i realise i was a kind of "crossover" kid.  I still loved my metal and the aesthic of nihilistic thrash but also loved the heart and soul of punk and early hardcore.  I had friends in both camps but those friends were mutually exclusive of each other.  I didn't hang with all of them at any given time. While i enjoyed some of the cloak and dagger of juggling groups if friends and it was like living a split personality were i got to shift gears and explore different aspects of myself i didnt fully appreciate it because i was a young and dumb teenager.  The band just played at a small club here in Buffalo. I didnt get to go, i had already attended three concerts over the previous two weeks and couldnt fit another tuesday show into my life.  While thinking about going i realised the band was still involved in my life as duplicity.  My seperate life of doom metal, punk and rock shows from my dad life.  I really hope i can someday fold these two aspects together though.  But really what kid wants to bring his dad to a show? Coolness suicide. I hope it reconciles though, it'd warm my heart to see these boys immersed in music. Paradoxically I'd love it to be music that wants them to tell me to fuck off.