Sanktio - "Ei Toimi Enää" CDEP 2001
Growing up in Socal, I was no stranger to the "beach punk" sound (whether the bands resided in Huntington Beach or Huntington Park, they were fairly communal in emotive chord choices). I've never been a Bad Religion sorta guy, but I've also never been entirely immune to rare songs in the style creeping into my ears and ticklin' muh stapes. It was serendipity when Sami Kettunen asked me to do artwork for a Finnish group inspired by that scene (Finns really do surf by the way). They just needed a cover, and would handle the rest of the layout themselves...which I shouldn't have let them do, though I can't talk too much shit as...just...look...at those...football extremities. I think I was going for a Pushead rag doll thing, and instead had a mindfart of apocalyptic proportions. But anyway, I get my artist's copy, throw it on out of morbid curiosity, and LOVED it! It was melodic...of course...clean cut...of course...primed for a Vans sponsorship...of course...but it just grabbed me, the posi vibe, the blistering soul in the vocals, the not-too-irritatingly-Epitaph-production, it held my fullest attention because it was fucking BEAUTIFUL! It still is, so if anyone's down for a reissue, I'm down to dramatically overhaul the visuals! Fave Trax: "Pilvenpiirtäjä" and "Sä Et Tuu".
"Spectrum" #1 1998 & "Even When It Makes No Sense" Broken Flag Pamphlet 1985
EYE NOISE! Broken Flag's short anthology of manifestos looks like it was cloned on a photocopier from the early 1970s. The hieroglyphs that haven't completely eroded away will show you singular paragraphs on wokeness, Paul Lemos' dissatisfaction with a stagnating cassette culture (W-O-W, even back then!), and a semi-thesis inspired by the misadventures of Syd Barrett. None of it seems too pretentious, with the overall vibe of the contributors coming off as more restless than self-righteous.
Spectrum was a wholly traditional music zine with a "desktop publishing" layout (it's as '90s as the interviewees, e s p e c i a l l y t h e f o r m a t t i n g e r r o r s). Knowledgable reviews and lengthy dialogs with Malignant Records, Megaptera, MZ.412, The Protagonist, Sanctum, and Hazard. Again, thankfully, there's no discernible elitism from the editor or his subjects (this scene has always been rife with "people" who think they're genetically superior for liking glorified horror movie soundtracks), with good ol' fashioned enthusiasm taking precedent over being an egotistical bore.
Fight illiteracy and record-nazis...
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