#total punk

[dustedmagazine]

Negative Gears—Moraliser (Total Punk)

Negative gearing is a term for an investment where the cost of ownership is more than the rate of return—as might be the case, for instance, if you bought an apartment building that required more money to maintain than it generated in rent. It is, perhaps, the most pointless of capitalist activities, one in which, for all the effort involved, the investor digs him or herself into an ever deeper hole, and it can serve as a metaphor for all kinds of economic struggle. Slightly modified, it is also the name of a kick-ass garage punk band from Australia, whose dire but tuneful racket recalls the epic dystopias of the Wipers and the new wave glamor of Echo & the Bunnymen.

This is Negative Gear’s second full-length, though it’s been half a decade since the self-titled debut (which Maximum Rock ‘N Roll described approvingly as “Six demented screeds bifurcated by one ’80s synth interlude”). That’s a rough five years, including COVID, lock-down, raging forest fires, growing income inequality and an increasing sense of climate doom, and Moraliser reflects the trauma. “I…..hate myself….hate myself,” howls the singer in claustrophobic “Room,” a room which nightmarishly contains only a mirror.

The album really gets going in its mid-section where muscular riffs power through a cavernous, echoing ruin. “Ants” imagines a striver taking in the panoramic views from his apartment, congratulating himself on his success (“I guess some people just can’t handle the unbearable pressure of an upper middle lifestyle”). By the song’s end, though, he’s jumped to his death (“Sixteen stories to paradise”). The narrative is grim, but the music is stirring, anthemic, eruptive, a swell of synth bursting from clanking, chugging post-punk riffs. You can make connections to brute force Aussie punk bands like Eddy Current and Total Control, but there’s a dark romanticism in there that reminds me of Echo & the Bunnymen, too.

“Lifestyle” is the album’s churning vortex, its main riff circling downward like a whitewater eddy. “Always, always, always,” chants the singer in broad, flat Australian vowels, and you can hear him and the whole band scrabbling at the edges of modern life, trying not to go down. “Pills,” which follows, is boxier and more propulsive, chugging maniacally forward on a pick-clanking bassline.

Moraliser is all sinew and effort, bulling forward with doomed energy even as the walls close in. It’s the sound of trying so hard in a system that’s rigged against you, of not going under without a ferocious struggle, the sound, maybe, of negative gears gnashing on their way to the abyss.

Jennifer Kelly

[mymelodic-chapel]

Cherry Cheeks- Cherry Cheeks (Egg Punk, Garage Punk) Released: September 21, 2021 [Total Punk Records] Producer(s): Kyle Harms

[ekkoh]

spiderband + the squinty™

bonus:

[oscorp-lawsuit]

Headcanon that all spider people get what’s called the “Spider-Zoomies” (which is a sudden burst of energy but it’s expressed through Spider-like behavior) except for Miguel because he didn’t get bitten, so every time he makes the mistake of going to HQ in the middle of the night, he gets jump scared by at least one Spider-Man:

Scuttling across the ceiling (Pavitr)

Hissing into the void (Miles)

Bench pressing a building (Peter B)

Jumping fifty feet into the air without warning (Margo)

Building some intricate contraption in complete darkness (Hobie, emphasis on trap)

Running extremely fast without making a sound so you don’t know they’re there until it’s too late (wtf Mayday)

Or crouching into a corner, completely still like a predator watching its prey, and the moment he gets close to them, they whisper “Hey” making him scream so loud that he throws his empanadas in their face (Gwen)

It’s essentially like you’re walking through a building full of eldritch horrors, and you don’t know where any of them are, but they all know exactly where you are, and they win bonus points if they scare the shit out of you. Miguel hates it here.

[sugaronyourtongu3]

Some tv / movie title screens on my CRT tv

[majaurukalo]

Everytime I hear about a school shooting my mind goes to the disabled students, teachers, and personnel who can’t hide as smoothly as others, whose disability doesn’t allow them to be quiet and still, who can’t run…

I mean, obviously it’s a situation no one should be in but I hope there is something in place to help disabled people during a school shooting.

[starquartzzz]

save me animated punks

animated punks

animated punks save me

[jajanvm-imbi]

My two favorite anarchists 🥰🥰

[fidgetspringer-art]

✦ Pink Skies ✦

[spider-chris06]

I can't believe I just realized that GWEN ACTUALLY took the hobie's converse ONLY to impress MILES because he wore the Jordan shoes on his suit, and that she took the shoes RIGHT BEFORE she went to see him (That's why Hobie was surprised to see that she took his shoes)

[dustedmagazine]

Tee Vee Repairman — What’s on TV (Total Punk)

What's On TV? by Tee Vee Repairmann

Tee Vee Repairman makes an old-school garage punk racket, swamping catchy songs in acid baths of dissonance and feedback. Gangly, mop-headed Ishka Edmeades is the band’s sole consistent member, though the group expands to four in the live setting. Like a hundred punk poets before him, he finds existential angst and jubiliant triumph in the most mundane of settings, a bus stop, the checkout line, the street.

What’s on TV? follows 2022’s full-length Waste My Time Watching TV and an earlier EP called Patterns from 2021. Both previous recordings were released first on Edmeades’ own Warttmann, Inc. label. In addition to running a label, he’s been in and out of a number of Sydney bands, including Devo-esque, electro-punk Set-Top Box, synth-aided punk outfit Satanic Togas and Gee-Tee, which is in much the same Ramones/Thunders/Dead Boys vein as Tee Vee Repairman.

“Bus Stop” is the best song here, a snappy, snotty punk anthem, haunted peripherally by a wavery synth/keyboard bit. It’s a nice touch, turning a straight up, guitar-slashing banger into something surreal and out of kilter, like Exploding Hearts with floating anxiety. It’s fitting, too, since the story is one of expectation turning to creeping unease; we’re at the bus stop waiting for something like Godot, who never shows.

Tee Vee Repairman has Jay Reatard’s knack for splicing the giddy fun of garage punk to musings on life’s utter pointlessness. “What’s the Use?” careens like a carnival ride, calliope tootle and all, a sped up clatter of guitars and drums, yet asks why we’re here and when it will stop. “Drowning” chimes and rattles like a non-stop party tune, yet again, Edmeades is waiting for someone. The sonic high point of the tune is when he wails, “I was drowning,” and you want to join in but it seems a little risky.

I can’t wind this down without a nod to the balls-out swagger of “Checkout Line.” The tune’s got a monster riff at its foundation, slightly syncopated, and Edmeades adopts a stuttering, stop-start cadence to deliver the words in time with it. You can hear the Sex Pistol’s guitar blare and the Clash’s anthemry in the cut. There’s even a bass solo. What’s not to love?

Jennifer Kelly

[a-sassy-bench]

hey disabled babes. i promise your disability aids do not ruin your aesthetic. they are an aesthetic. rock them.

.

[zimtlees]

EMOREL MENTIONED ❗❗❗❗💔🖤🫀🦇🩸

"I was running out of ideas when I remembered... 'Hey, there's an emo Orel!' (well, kind of, half and half?) All this while listening to "Cemetery Drive" (by MCR).

And then... I wanted to try some new clothes on him... it all went a bit mental, oh god.

[talkethtothehandeth]

me when I’m in a flare and people say they’re sorry that I’m hurting so much:

[jesterjaxx]

trent and duncan went to one of those local hardcore punk that take place at an abandoned underpass on their first date

IM STUPID I THOUGHT I POSTED THIS AGES AGO SORRY

[tddoodles]

Gwen, but punk, I think?