Harsh Distractions - 10/12/10 Playlist

Here is the playlist from tonight's show. Download link is at the bottom of the post.

Chapterhouse – Breather - Whirlpool (intro music)
Population -Waltzing a War - Population Demo
Population - Heaven Can't Help - Population Demo
Superchunk - My Gap Feels Weird - Majesty Shredding
Nomos – Mendicant - Notes From The Acheron [One-Sided 12"]
The Rival Mob - Face to Face with Your Executioner - Hardcore for Hardcore EP
Like Rats – Hunger - 7"
All Pigs Must Die - Die Ignorant - All Pigs Must Die
Sweet Cobra – Matriarch – Mercy
Sweet Cobra – Crusader - Mercy
No Age - Valley Hump Crash - Everything In Between
The Love Language - Summer Dust – Libraries
Wild Nothing - Golden Haze - Golden Haze EP
Owen - Abandoned Bridges - Abandoned Bridges b/w I'm Always in Love
No Joy – Heedless - Ghost Blonde
EUC - Rising Tide - The Prey EP

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Harsh Distractions - 10/5/10 Playlist

It's been a while since I've posted a playlist from my show. I apologize for my laziness, but hopefully now I will be able to stay on top of things. Here is the episode from last Tuesday. If you've paid attention to my radio show or this blog you may notice this episode is only 1 hour long. This is a slight test run for the new format of the show, which will go from being 2 hours to 1 and will broadcast on Sunday evenings from 5-6pm CST instead of Tuesdays starting on October 24th. Big changes are on the horizon and the bright side is that bands will soon be performing live on the show again. I'm incredibly excited about that. Download link is posted below for interested parties. If you're in a band and want your stuff played on my show send me an email and we'll go from there.

Chapterhouse - Breather - Whirlpool (intro)
Ty Segall - Imaginary Person - Melted
EUC - Shattered Glass - The Prey EP
Former Ghosts - Winter's Year - New Love
Toro Y Moi - Blessa - Daytrotter Studio 9/14/2010
La Sera - Never Come Around - "Never Come Around" b/w "Behind Your Eyes"
Craft Spells - Party Talk - Party Talk 7"
Marvelous Darlings - Sleeping Like a Dead Man - Sleeping Like a Dead Man EP
Cülo - I Don't Like Today - Military Trend EP
Bad Banana - Celery - Crushfield
Daytrader - Paper Pusher - Demo
Confines - Downward Harmonization - Withdrawn 7"
The Cobblestones - Anytime - Highlight of Superficial Provocation
Four Eyes - Tough Shit - Four Eyes 7"
The Vaselines - Overweight but Over You - Sex With An X
The Verve - No Knock On My Door - A Northern Soul

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Murder Weapon - Demo 2002

Murder Weapon were a relatively short-lived NYHC style band from Richmond, VA. They only released this demo and an EP on the now defunct Martyr Records entitled Nervous Wreck. The EP was something of a let down because it seemed to lack some of the intensity and fluidity of this demo. It seemed too calculated or edited, whereas this demo is raw and hard and everything a band like this should be. I used to listen to this on repeat on a boombox in my parents basement. Now I can listen to it on my iPod thanks to the wonders of technology!

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Young Moons - Music from the Manor CS

Young Moons is the moniker of Chicago based singer/songwriter MJ Grant. On his first effort, Music from the Manor, Grant brings 4 excellent rootsy, yet jangly acoustic tunes to the table. His voice is intimate and melancholy and lends itself well to the loose bluesy guitar work. This is a perfect listen for a rainy Sunday morning after a long night out. Check it out.

Young Moons - Music from the Manor CS

Pick up the cassette over at Priority Male.

Loose Dudes - Permanent Sex Vacation CS

Permanent Sex Vacation is the raucous follow up to their four song demo. Where the first Loose Dudes recordings had a bit of a polished feel, these songs sound more true to their live show - a raw yet tight blur of aggression and humor that borrows heavily from early 80's west coast punk rock. There are 5 songs on here and each serve as a reminder of why you got into punk in the first place.

Loose Dudes - Permanent Sex Vacation CS

Pick up the tape over at Priority Male.

Joel PPO - Relationship Status CS

On Mother's Day of 2010 members of Running, The Catburglars, The Pagan Blonde, The Plain White T's posted up in a studio and wrote and recorded 4 songs in the span of 4 hours. The result is Joel PPO, a fuzzed out, lo-fi garage punk homage to our brother Joel who went on sabbatical to New York for several months. Lyrics include incriminating details about various friends, inside jokes and generally confusing banter from the mouth of one of the greatest minds of our time, Ben Phillips. However, no one will ever be able to decipher the words because of the layers of static and noise burying the vocals. Check it out and pick up the cassette from Prio Male.

Joel PPO - Relationship Status Cassette

The Alright Alreadies - S/T CS

Right out of the gate, The Alright Alreadies established themselves as an excellent 4 piece, all-girl punk band. Then seemingly as quickly as they began, they rearranged their line up, slowed it down a bit and started borrowing more influence from 60's girl groups and surf-rock than Screeching Weasel. As a fan of their early material, I was skeptical of their shift in direction, but these songs are so catchy and well written it's hard not to get psyched about what they are doing. Maggie and Meg's vocals compliment each other wonderfully to create the layered vocal harmonies necessary for this style of summery garage-pop and the recording is lo-fi and natural without sounding muddled and shitty. Check out this cassette and pick it up from our friends at Priority Male.


The Alright Alreadies - S/T CS

Buy the cassette from my dude at Priority Male

Wound Up - 7" and Unreleased LP

In 2002-2003 I was in a hardcore band with several of my childhood friends called Time to Die. We didn't know how to write music or play very well, but we had a good time practicing and playing shows. We went on a poorly planned tour out to California that resulted in us breaking up while we were in LA. It was inevitable. We only released a demo, no one knew us outside of Chicago and even then, I'm sure a lot of people didn't know or care who we were. It was a bad idea from the get go.

After Time to Die broke up Donny and Matt (the singer and bass player) started a straight forward, 80's style punk/hc band with Tim (the guitar player of Unit Pride), Mark (the drummer of Punch in the Face) and Neal (who currently sings for No Class) called Wound Up. They recorded 3 songs for the Hysteria comp which were later released as a 7" by the mighty Painkiller Records and 7 songs for an LP slated to come out on Manic Ride/Deadalive Records. After recording the LP, Manic Ride folded, the band disbanded shortly thereafter and as such, only a handful of people have these songs. Since they might not ever see a proper release it only seems fair to post them here so anyone can check them out. Wound Up was a great band who unfortunately broke up a bit too soon.

Wound Up - 7" and Unreleased LP

Weekend Nachos - Bleed EP

The other day I woke up to an email from blogger regarding a post on my blog that allegedly infringed upon the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. I took it with a grain of salt and assumed it was justified because even though I try to primarily post out of print and old records, a lot of major labels tend to get upset when you go around sharing records for free even though they let them go out of print. I'm a rational person and I understand these matters from a variety of angles, but if a record isn't even available to purchase anymore and technically out of print (i.e. Hum's Downward is Heavenward), why shouldn't people be able to access it somewhere else?

However, I didn't receive the email about Hum, CNN, Casual or any of the other major label records I've posted in here. Rather, it was about these two Weekend Nachos songs they personally made available via their MySpace and on message boards that I merely reposted. The link on my blog goes directly to the mediafire link they put up prior to the release of Unforgiveable. This was back in April of 2009. Though they didn't (and don't) really need my help promoting their band, they are my friends and I was psyched on the record they were about to release so I posted the two songs and a short interview with John. Though in the grand scheme nothing happened other than blogger setting the post back to "draft" status of which I was easily able to republish, it was still a curious and annoying situation.

With that said, here is their brand new EP Bleed, ripped from the original master copy straight from the band. Don't bother with the other horrible sounding version floating around, this one sounds awesome and heavy as it was intended. 2 songs in 14 minutes complete with drawn out, sprawling, heavy riffs, periodic fast parts and the occasional NYHC groove ala Madball. It's a bit of a departure from everything else they've done, but it's as well thought out and intense as anything they've done.

Buy the record and attend their record release show on July 18th if you live in the Chicago area.

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V/A - Summer Goth: For the dark days of Summer.

Inspired by my friend Joel's mix, I figured I'd try my hand at a Summer Goth compilation. Enjoy or not as you see fit.






1. Bauhaus - She's in Parties
2. The Boys Next Door - Somebody's Watching
3. Gene Loves Jezebel - The Immigrant
4. Killing Joke - Complications
5. Have a Nice Life - Hunter
6. Dead Can Dance - The Trial
7. The Cure - Play for Today
8. Siouxsie and the Banshees - Cities in Dust
9. This Mortal Coil - Mr. Somewhere
10. Cocteau Twins - Cicely
11. Zola Jesus - Odessa
12. AA - Suicide Fever
13. Silk Flowers - Flash ofLight
14. Alien Sex Fiend - I'm Her Frankenstein
15. Psychic TV - The Orchids
16. Kate Bush - Cloudbusting

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