SHINDIG PUNK ROCK RADIO was a radio show that I listened to religiously during my freshman year in high school in Rhode Island. The was broadcast on WRIU from the University of Rhode Island by men definitely too old to still be students there. I started listening around 1994, midway though SHINDIG's ten year run. It was hosted by Liam Lunchtray and Kevin Shindig, along with a rotating cast of goofballs such as Richard "Chicago" Borges, "Father" Mike, members of the FIDs and many others.
For me at 12 years old, discovering their world of punk rock, cheesy humor and nerdy obsessions with things like The Misfits, Kiss, Star Wars and Coca-Cola gave me hope for life after 15.
I started calling in and making requests and comments every week with my friends from junior high and soon I was friends with guys from SHINDIG. This led to hanging out with them, appearing on the show and going to see the F.I.D.s way more times than would be considered logical.
I went to quite a few other shows with Liam and Kevin- Billy Childish, Guitar Wolf, The Pist, The Misfits (after which there was drunken party at my Mom's house while she was out of town. Sorry, Mom). They also introduced me to tons of great music. Their playlists ran the gamut from East Bay pop-punk and early youth-crew straight edge to snotty garage and more East Bay pop punk. And a smattering of crust and thrash, Kiss and tons of rediculous promotional carts.
I started compiling a downloadable "Ultimate Shindig mixtape" awhile ago without considering two things: 1. Legal downloadable MP3s are rather difficult to find these days. Most of the links for Mp3s on google take you porn or gambling sites run by Chechnian gangsters. 2. The guys from Shindig are big enough nerds that they must have audio record of their 10 year broadcast somewhere online. And lo and behold, many early SHINDIG show are available for download now on MYSPACE. Most of these are from a period before I started listening (I was probably still listening to Stone Temple Pilots or something). I still have a box of poor quality Shindig tapes from the 95-96 period in basement somewhere that I may unearth at some point. Until then, here's a list of some of my favorite songs from Shindig (notice the conspicuous absence of KISS from this list) some of which are downloadable and some of which you will have to do the legwork yourself to make your DIY SHINDIG mixtape. But really, any SHINDIG tape without usage of the words "Gonad", "Mothereffer" or "Toolhole" is severely lacking.

Jawbreaker- Busy (an obvious choice)
Sewer Trout- President of the Anarchist Club (severly underrated jokey East Bay pop punk)
Freestone- Bummer Bitch. (story here)
Spitboy- The Threat (Lesbian Feminist rage never sounded so good)
G/I/Z/M- Endless Blockades for the Pussyfooter (There's is nothing I can say about this song, so I'll take a moment for an aside about G/I/Z/M. Yours and my friend Sharkey told me that when he was in Japan touring with 9 Shocks Terror kids in the hardcore scene would not talk to him about G/I/Z/M. Apparently Sakevi is so down with the Yakuza and such a violent psycho himself that if you so much as mention their name (not even in a negative sense) you will get the shit kicked out of you. Sharkey tells me that Sakevi owns a store near Shinjuku station and sells the only official G/I/Z/M t-shirts for like 50 US a pop. Another store in another city was selling bootleg shirts and had their store smashed up along thier faces, I believe is the going rumour amongst "Jiggers".)
Registrators- No Situation (More Japanese fun. I was looking for "Pogo Machine", but this had to do)
Iconoclast- I like you less than apple pie (A classic. Compare this raging slab of discontent to the eyeliner-wearing MTV pin-up boys they call "emo" these days)
Assfactor 4- Sometimes I suck (more ripping proto-emo-core)
DYS-Wolf packk (Don't Ya Gimme no Shit!)
Crucifix- Another mouth to feed
Hey Shadow- The Humpers (Here Montreal's The Humpers effortlessly conjure up their world of Leather Jackets, Poutine, and being Dopesick on St. Cathrine)
Fifteen- Petroleum Distillation , Inspiration (live) (Real Audio files) (I list these two but I could have put basically anything pre-LUCKY. I think Shindig was single-handedly responsible for my adolescent obsession with Fifteen.)
Homomilitia- Multinational (I wish I could have found an Mp3 of this. Truly fucked up, distorted crust-core from Poland about the evils of Coke and McDonalds. I think)
Born Against-9 Years Later (Real Audio File) (If listening to Born Against doesn't make you feel like you are 16 again and really need to go overthrow the government, you are officially dead)
The Queers- Wimpy Drives thru Harlem (On the SHINDIG myspace page Liam comment "Why did we ever like the Queers?". This may be a valid question if you are referring to "Don't Back Down" or something, but I don't see what's not to love about this infantile, racist pile of post-proto-punk from the Granite State. Now why we ever liked The Donnas is another matter)
J Church- Your Shirt (actually, I don't like this song! But they certainly do. I was looking for the song "Racked", which is the best hangover song ever written)
Judge- New York Crew (Oh, Yes)
New Bomb Turks- I Wanna Sleep in Your Arms (just a streaming clip, sorry)(NBT's bring their over-caffeinated (or possibly methinated?) brand of garage core to a classsic Modern Lovers song. Indispensable)
and of course...
SAVE THE CHILDREN! (a spoken word message from Sam McPheeters and some other dude from the Vermiform records "Feer of Smell" comp. You really must listen to this. It will change your life. "Learn the Ancient Ways!")
"Preposterous Tales in the Pub With Ken MacKenzie" I couldn't find the Mp3, but here's a transcript of the lyrics to give an idea of what we're dealing with. Imagine it sung/spoken in a cockney accent accompanied by cheesy casio and the ambiance of a British Pub...

"Hello, Ken! Well, here we are again. Another Friday night. I heard someone singing about you on the radio. Well, what can I get you? That's two light bitters then. Before you start, Ken, let's keep it clean.

I went out with a famous DJ's sister's friend,
I was on Crackerjack at the age of ten (oh really?)
And I saw the Sex Pistols play down the Hundred Club (yeah, we all did)
And I spent New Year's Eve at Sensible's Den.

Preposterous tales (now then, now then),
Preposterous tales (now then, now then),
Preposterous tales in the life of Ken Mackenzie,
Preposterous tales (now then, now then),
Preposterous tales (now then, now then),
Preposterous tales in the life of Ken Mackenzie.

Well, you're drinking fast tonight, Ken. Well I've been a bit off my beer since you gave me that homebrew. What did you put inside it? Neat alcohol? I like a strong beer, Ken, but that was ridiculous.

I lost a thousand pounds playing brag last night (come off it, Ken),
I flew to Amsterdam to start a riot (oh really?)
And I once saw the Palace score four goals away from home (oh yeah?)
And I've won every game of Trivial Pursuit I've ever played (you've never played me, Ken)

Preposterous tales (now then, now then),
Preposterous tales (now then, now then),
Preposterous tales in the pub with Ken Mackenzie,
Preposterous tales (now then, now then),
Preposterous tales (now then, now then),
Preposterous tales in the life of Ken Mackenzie.

Same old stories, eh Ken? Ken's drinking heavily again. Nothing changes. Is it my round again? I thought I got the last. How much money did you bring out with you? I've got me cashpoint card if necessary. If necessary?! So come on, let's have some more yarns.

I once ate six Mars bars in half a hour (did you Ken?),
While working on a site I unearthed a bomb (oh didy you Ken?),
And I once had a shower with two American girls,
(What, at the same time, Ken? Ah, that's preposterous!)"

Thank you, SHINDIG, for introducing me to things like this. To quote Billy Madison, "I am now stupider for having heard it."

WHITE ANIMAL INTERNATIONAL HU$TLING

whuchuknoaboutdat? whuchuknoaboutdat?

I've found my first Bolivian black metal band. They are from right here in La Paz. They are named after the most evil and fearful thing in the universe- Dr. Frasier Crane's wife from CHEERS-- LILITH! Downloads from their albums are available here! According to them, Lake Titicaca, which I am heading to tomorrow, has mystic healing properties. Maybe I should pick up one of those dried llama fetuses you can buy in the Witch's Market here before I go, in case any mystical shit goes down.

Pasame La Botella (streaming on radioblogclub here) by Match and Daddy is a bit of reggaeton/soca crossover fun party action from Panama. I heard in the club last night, it can mix into reggaeon, soca and old school ragga sets- expect it from the White Animal soundsystem this summer. I figure if I play it for 9 parties in a row at the tenth people will actually dance to it. (some might even have it on their myspace page next winter- Etta "I wanna be your STD", I'm looking in your direction. Besos)

Last night when I came back to my hotel room here in La Paz, La Virgin de las Sicarios (Our Lady of Assassins) was on cable- sin subtitilos. Watching it in Spanish and only understanding 10 percent of the dialog was a different experience than the first time I watched it in Tucson, Arizona, with translations, in a room full of apathetic teenage junkies. This time, the visual elements stuck out more- how the weird Dr. Who look of HD video brings you into the film and makes it all the more disturbing, the shocking bursts of violence and how they pop off like fireworks as in Breathless or, yes, even Fireworks, the clumsy visual symbols and heavy-handed religious allegories that are obvious even without understanding the verbose dialog.
If you haven't seen Our Lady of Assassins, I recommend it, though I can't claim it will make you sleep well at night (except maybe drifting off mentally repeating the mantra "At least I don't live in Medellín, Columbia"). It is a morality play set in an alternate universe of morality where Uzis, Nikes and sportbikes are more important than human life and where even the "well educated" and religious can buy into the delirious nihilism of complete destruction.
Like the early novels of Brett Easton Ellis, Assassins... takes us behind the scenes of spiritual degradation and casual evil, then hits us with an almost Dosoevskian moral theme. And like most of Easton Ellis, it's also sardonically and misanthropically funny. Even with out verbal reference I found myself laughing at the film´s star Germán Jaramillo looking like a silent-movie straight-man, shrugging as his teenage companion wastes another after another of their fellow Columbians.
The nearest film I can think of to compare it to is City of God because of it's home-grown cast and shocking violence, though with it's bargain basement DV look, Assassins.. is actually the rawer of the two. And considering it's central of image of a sexual relationship between an older man and a teenage boy, the film must be completely unpalatable to a large part of the huge international audience that City of God found.
Perhaps even more shocking than City..´s closing disclosure that it had all been based on a true story is learning that Assassin..'s main character, author Fernando Vallejo, shares a name with the controversial author of the novel La Virgin de los Sicarios. Although both Vallejo and the films director Barbet Schroeder claim that it is largely fiction, one wonders of much of Assassins.. is true and how much of it's reproachable antihero exists in the real Fernando Vallejo.
Moreover, how much of Schroeders motives behind making the movie were moral outrage and how much his own pervy voyeurism. In a great interview from BOMB magazine by Ken Foster, Schroeder is quoted as saying the sexuality in the the film is "by nature and essence, innocent". This is the kind of explanations you might expect from Larry Clark about his kiddie-pornish tendencies, or perhaps more accurately it sounds like NAMBLA apologetics straight out of Hakim Bey. Here's a telling excerpt from the same interview:

bs- (Schroeder) The first person I went to in Medellín when I was about to cast was the person who introduced the real boy to the real writer a few years before I was there. I went to meet him, and said, "Well, do you have another one?" (laughter)

The issues of author/subject and art/reality are adressed directly in Assassins.., and in a postmodern twist they have leapt right off the screen. Schroeder admits that many of his young actors who had been involved in street crime before have taken their paychecks from the film and gotten into more trouble with the law. Like City of God's director Fernando Meirelles (who also experienced his former actors using his studios money to dire results), Schroeder says he can't be forever responsible for his charges. But once Schroeder paid an underage street kid to act out sex acts and street violence, isn't he just as culpable as Asassin's moraly tortured protagonist?

Almost too late, I met Chapa from Tacuman, Argentina (thats not him in the photo, it is Argentine rockers Dragonauta. Chapa is a hard man to find a photo of online) and discovered the Argentine stonerrock scene. Genevieve and I saw Chapa on the subway in Buenos Aires. He was wearing a MonsterMagnet "Spine of God" T-shirt, and Genevieve said in her non-spanish "Me Gusta Monster Magnet.. mi favorita!". It turns out Chapa spoke perfect english and started to tell us about Argentine stonerock.
The first surprising thing he told me is that NATAS (with more info here ), the group who released the awesome desertrock album Del Mar on Man's Ruin records years ago are actually from Argentina. They have since changed their name (due to legal pressure from some white-trash rap-rock band of the same name from the US) to LOS NATAS, and according to Chapa, they have only gotten better, with a sound that has expanded to include doom and pyschadelic elements. There is much audio evidence of this on their website's built-in audio player. Los Natas have kind of become the father figure to an emerging heavy music scene in Ar., playing shows regularly supported by some other up-and-coming acts.
Such as the awesome Dragonauta. Here are some audio and video samples-

Medley from their split with Abdullah
Dragonauta- Hijo Del Diablo
Dragonauta- the Superchrist
TOMEGAPENTAGRAM (video)
Dragonauta- Latargo Sabado (video)

Poseidotica, who offer a few very short clips of
paralexis
and tantra

and
Buffalo
Buffallo- Rio Arriba
The Wizard (live Black Sabbath cover, naturally)
Rio Arriba (video)
Playa Tortuga (video)

The Argentine metal, punk and stoner scene is covered by Noiseweb Argentina, and the national and international Metal scene is reveiwed in Jedbangers

I have plans to possibly visit Chapa in Tacuman, so I may have some more inside info soon. Chapa has 4, count em, 4 weblogs (en espanol, claro) sobre musica y vida. Aqui-
Goodbye Sober Days -
Reveiws From Hell -
Modernrockblog -
Killerweblog

Disfruta la rock!

Here's a streaming mix by Dj Monk One off of WBAI. Some great rare funk starting out the set which lead into tons of old school and instrumental hip hop. Awesome except for the DJ host clown who breaks in now and then to say "DJ Monk One on the wheels of steel." Dude, don't say that.

Free up some hard drive space!

I've stumbled across tons of music resources recently while trying to find rare punk mp3s. Here's a truncated listing.

Killed by Death.org- this is a streaming radio page for Killed by Death, the infamous LP series that has rereleased material by literally hundreds of obscure, forgotten, and purposfully buried American punk bands from the late seventies and eighties. The KBD PUNK STREAM plays garage, snotty rock, and sloppy punk, seventy-seven style punk, and idiotic teenage punk from the basements and garages of the past. The KBD HARDCORE STREAM plays 80's thrash, early straight-edge, and rare songs by the legends of hardcore.

The KBD.org links section is stocked with rare punk and miscellaneous Mp3 blogs,-

Something I Learned Today's front page features Tar, the Proletariat, the Beguiled, a Minneapolis area HC comp from the early eighties feauturing Husker Du, and the Chosen Few.

Middle Aged Youth's archives focuses on 80's hardcore like Wolfpack and the great Albany Style hardcore comp, while the metal section includes the original Morbid Angel demo and songs by Injustice, the 80s death metal band of "rappers" Ill Bill and Necro! The Mp3s expire after a while, so get on there soon.

Strange Reaction has a great indexed archive of random punk 7"s, some of which he has no info about besides the liner notes. You might recognize some the names from your local hometown scene when you were 15.

Dressed for the Bomb is a well layed-out blog filled with the rarest of unsung punk and rock.

CRUD CRUD has this to say about itself: "...a tour through the stacks of records, demo tapes, etc. that surround me. No recycled MP3s, CD tracks, or reissues here. Average price paid for the records below is $3. Very few I have spent more than $5 on. You also will get a few book jackets from time to time. I present to you some of my favorites. It keeps the guilt of hording this crud distant." This not so much punk as thrift-store weirdness, exotica, and rarities along with exhaustve articles on each selection and reflections on the joys of finding gold in stacks of worthless records.

Each of these blogs has a links lists of other Mp3 blogs, so that within a few hours you could have a collection of Mp3s of songs that record collectors have spent lifetimes trying accumulate.

Speaking of record collectors, I can't leave out everybody's friend Harry Balls', who has really been putting a lot of work into his Youtube page . There you will find punk, garage, mod, freakbeat, hardcore, soul and psych videos and live performances. I don't even know how he finds all this footage, but it's good to know that non-self-destructive/antisocial pursuits have been occupying at least some of his time down there in Florida.

South of Gilman street is a streaming radio/music database project chronicalling the east bay punk scene of the 80s and 90s. It features a streaming radio station with a request feature. There aren't enough users on there to clog up the works, so that means you can instantly listen to your choice from the discographies of bands like Jawbreaker, Operation Ivy, Crimpshrine, Filth, fifteen, etc.

The Love Song.org has a small batch of music that they consider to make up the development of the "emo" sound- means the list starts strong with artists like Moss Icon, Hated and Iconoclast and ends poorly with drama club anthems by Braid and Promise Ring.

A TUDO DOMINADO is a short digital video film about the Funk scene in the Rio favelas. Cheezy production, a litle too much talk and not enough funk, and blatant overuse of the video "scratching" effect, but it's still well worth a watch if you are interested in the music or the scene.