I don’t know what this is tbh
In the bleak, jagged dysfunction of our modern era it feels like things slip through the cracks of my mind almost immediately after experiencing them so here I am, attempting a running public journal for myself– a “live” journal, if you will. Maybe some of this will turn into longer form writing but I mainly want to get back into the practice of writing so I can slow atrophy a bit and not worry about whether it has any greater purpose. A bit masturbatory? Yes, probably.
I think part of the inspiration for this was reading Sam McPheeters’s book Mutations, a sort of anti-memoir by the former Born Against frontman where he attempts to reckon with his history as a consumer, participant and documentarian of hardcore punk. Hardcore has always been more interesting to me from an anthropological perspective than as a listener and McPheeters’s book reaffirmed for me that I have little interest in the bulk of the music from the scene but the politics, feuds and (de)evolution of it are endlessly fascinating.
Like so many of the musical movements of the ’70s and ’80s, hardcore spent as much time arguing with itself about what it was as it spent producing art. Unlike so many of its predecessors and contemporaries (No Wave in particular), though, hardcore never seemed to go away– it’s once again arguably even having a moment. But for pioneer-historians like McPheeters that’s not necessarily a good thing. McPheeters effectively argues that hardcore was creatively bankrupt by the time he even tapped into it– in 1984, when he was 15 and bought a Dead Kennedys tape– and yet it saw a greater resurgence in the second half of the ’80s as McPheeters himself and other young devotees pushed hardcore towards a more tribal splintering of regional and political factions, only to be pushed out themselves as a more violent, bro-focused form of hardcore took over and became fully mainstream and conservative.
Mutations is compelling reading, to be sure, but like McPheeters’s relationship with hardcore reading it was something I hated doing as much as I enjoyed it. The book boldly eschews any kind of structure, chronological or otherwise, as McPheeters shifts between personal writing, profiles, reviews, scene reports, interviews and debates. McPheeters himself is a confounding personality– dogmatic to a fault yet cynical of peers who he feels refuse to change, be they iconic zine pioneer Aaron Cometbus or late Maximum RocknRoll founder Tim Yohannan, McPheeters is deeply obnoxious and in some instances arguably cruel, as when he won’t stop pushing a former bandmate to revisit a shameful moment from their past. But that obnoxious obstinance is also what makes McPheeters so suited to the task of examining hardcore’s real legacy.
Upfront about his almost religious devotion to hardcore and his inevitable falling out from said religion, McPheeters treats Mutations like the footnotes a monk might have left behind in an illuminated manuscript. Freed from the obligations of making a structured narrative, like Steven Blush’s equally (albeit differently) flawed history American Hardcore, McPheeters can meander through subjects both obvious (the corruption of hardcore via Youth of Today, the rise of mainstream interests post-Green Day, the collateral damage of punk’s reckless flirting with Nazi symbols and imagery) and unexpected (a reappraisal of avant-pop curios Flying Lizards, a visit to sift through the ruins of a bankrupt vinyl manufacturing facility, a tribute to the glory days of Muzak), prompting the reader to pick up the threads if they want to explore in more depth. The whole experience feels like a frenzied conversation with a slightly drunk friend of a friend at a party, where the highs and lows leave you questioning whether you hate the person you just met or want to hang out with them more. I’m honestly still not sure what the answer is regarding McPheeters and that’s probably the reaction he was hoping for– it’s not about liking or not liking him or his book but having a visceral response, good or bad, to everything inside.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the book is at its best when McPheeters is engaged in conversation with people who mirror him in some ways, like his conversation with Cometbus wherein they both look back on their careers and their roles in what McPheeters calls hardcore and Cometbus calls underground music. It’s easy to see that while McPheeters and Cometbus respect one another, there is also an edge to their relationship– Cometbus, as his preferred genre name suggests, has a more flexible and wide view of the scene while McPheeters has an obsessive need to endlessly analyze and catalog culture with strict barriers between worlds he feels shouldn’t commingle. McPheeters also struggles to truly escape the past while Cometbus comes across as being more at peace with it.
It’s that need to reckon with the past and legacy that is at the heart of the best section of Mutations, wherein McPheeters makes a visit to Michigan to profile Crucifucks’ frontman Doc Dart (now going by the ominous and enigmatic name 26), whose post punk career has lately involved alarming his neighbors with anti-government signs in the wake of 9/11, prompting threats against him from said neighbors as well as by various government agencies and local authorities. Though the profile is partially about what it means to be anti-authority in the post-9/11 era, it’s mostly about McPheeters seeing a version of himself (and other aging punks) that could have been if he had been even more dogmatic and even more broken.
In a different piece McPheeters experiments with getting off his anti-depressants to see how it impacts his state of mind and realizes it mostly just makes him even more rage filled, like he was in his youth, and he wonders if that was why he was so bonded to hardcore, but his experience with Dart seems like even more of a wake up call as he is forced to interact not with a hypothetical but with a very real person having what appears to be an extended break from reality that manifests as a hardcore manifesto of sorts, after almost an entire lifetime of pushing boundaries further and further. McPheeters compares Dart to hardcore icons Henry Rollins, Ian Mackaye and Jello Biafra, who all had more “respectable” post-hardcore careers in part because their anger declined as they aged, whereas Dart and McPheeters have “had to work hard to not sustain that anger.” For McPheeters, a willing departure from hardcore and meds seem to have helped, whereas for Dart a focus on mysticism still wasn’t enough to stop him from trolling the neighborhood with signs with hardcore slogans like “9/11 JUSTICE IS SERVED” and “NO CHOICE, ABORTION NOW, INFANTICIDE NOW,” amongst others.
I guess I feel fortunate that I’ve never felt connected to any one scene so much that I’ve had to spend a life wondering if I live up to its expectations or even want to but I can still relate to wondering if adult me even remotely lives up to whatever ideals youthful me imagined for the future. It feels particularly important to sustain some kind of anger giving how things are now but like so many of the figures McPheeters singles out as having moved on from hardcore, I sometimes wonder if my anger reserves are going the way of so many other nonrenewable resources and if maybe there is a more sustainable energy we should seek out instead. On that note of artists miraculously sustaining that anger though…
My Pain and Sadness is Still More Sad and Painful Than Yours
Am I a bad fan for being pessimistic when Mclusky revealed they would be releasing new music? Or is that what Mclusky would, in fact, want from their fans? Either way I apologize to Mclusky. I should know better than to ever doubt you. But perhaps you can forgive me since in the years since you last gifted us new music the bands that came along to rip you off to greater commercial success have already reached points in their life cycles where they’re doing AI collabs with Chris fucking Martin.
I think it says everything that when I sent Mclusky’s new video for “Way of the Exploding Dick Head” to an uninitiated friend they responded with “Song feels kinda like Metz meets Idles” and then I immediately blocked them (just kidding, still love you Tyler). Despite my reflexive recoiling from that comparison, I get it.
Even at their peak of, say, 2002-2006, Mclusky were barely a cult band and their combination of bleak humor and crunchy, thuggish riffage was deeply at odds with an indie culture that was either worshipping day-glo coke synths, heroin chic guitar rock or folksy hootin’ and hollerin’. They were so out of place, in fact, that the one and only time I got to see them live it was as openers for Ash, who may best be remembered as the UK’s response to Green Day. And yet here we are in 2025, with a return that doesn’t just feel righteous but also bizarrely right in time.
Musically, not much has changed with Mclusky. “Way of the Exploding Dickhead” would fit perfectly on The Difference Between Me and You is That I’m Not on Fire, with its jagged, incessant single string guitar hook and stomping bass and gang chant vocals. Mclusky rightfully understand they didn’t really need to change anything because the culture has finally gotten in step with them, and it’s about damn time. Visually, though, the band have made a major leap.
The video for “Way of the Exploding Dickhead” self-deprecatingly mocks the notion of a comeback, as Mclusky train to get into show shape for their return, alongside a gym full of bears, muscle daddies and one token twink. In the past, Mclusky’s videos felt, at best, like an afterthought. In the case of “To Hell with Good Intentions” and “Undress for Success” we got bog standard performance footage while their closest thing to a “hit,” “She Will Only Bring You Happiness” feels like several different video concepts merged together, including an animated sequence, a stop motion sequence and, uh, more performance footage. Meanwhile their most popular video, “Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues,” features some disturbing early viral video creatures otherwise best known for appearing in a series of Quizno’s commercials. The 00’s were a wild time.
A couple decades on, Mclusky seem ready to embrace music videos as another outlet for their puckish cynicism rather than a perhaps label mandated marketing vehicle they want no part of. Working with director Remy Lamont, Mclusky’s new visual style is expectedly cheeky yet unexpectedly bright, a far cry from the smudgy, muted quality of their earlier efforts; it actually fits comfortably alongside the similarly oddball, prankish works of Aube Perrie, the director behind Fontaines D.C.’s “Starburster” and its sly sister work JADE “Angel of My Dreams” both of which play with audience expectations about hero worship, identity and bodies in a similar way, albeit more grotesquely.
But don’t worry, Mclusky and Lamont bring plenty of grotesquerie to their newest collaboration “People Person,” with its depiction of a WeWork-esque space that seems to combine Severance and Battle Royale in one tidy package.
A perfect fit for the song’s lurching, sea sick rhythm and overall air of menace, “People Person” centers Mclusky frontman Andrew Falkous as a perhaps demonic presence egging on a workplace full of people at various stages of destruction, self or otherwise. Though the lyrics simultaneously mock hero worship as well as “parasites and poseurs,” the central lyric concerns how “a lot of people like to be wise after the event,” as if claiming you knew something bad was going to happen after it had already happened gives you any kind of credibility.
In a way, it’s hard not to read that as a dig on the people embracing Mclusky after their first demise and, given the “parasites and poseurs” line, the bands that took their sound and approach and ran with it to greater success. Less riff focused than “Way of the Exploding Dickhead” and far more ominous, “People Person” as both as a musical and visual vehicle suggests that Mclusky don’t intend their return to be a commercially cozy and personally venomous victory lap like their early heroes the Pixies engaged in right around the time Mclusky 1.0 was winding down but as a take no prisoners invasion of a land that should have always been theirs, before self-imposed exile. I, for one, welcome our not-so-new Mclusky overlords.
24 Hour Party People
Like Falkous, I am also not a people person so I was looking forward to staying away from SXSW this year but then I got drawn into it at the last minute anyway, which seems to happen to me and so many other Austin residents every year, whether you want it to or not. While playing for a couple of bands this year I managed to find time to catch a few sets by other acts (by which I mean they were playing the same places we were and there is no such thing as a green room during SXSW). Here are some thoughts on that, as well as the currently raging debate about whether SXSW Music is or is not dead due to a hilariously inept bit of messaging from SXSW and its evil yet utterly incompetent overseers Penske Media.
The most “weird old SXSW still exists (if you know where to look)” experience I had this year was at the Ghouls at the Garage party Alien Snatch Records threw in an automotive shop/junkyard next to a strip club near the St Elmo brewery. As the name suggests, the show focused on garage rock and horror punk, with vets like the Deadites alongside new(er) acts, but the highlight was a surprise reunion set by Austin legends the Hex Dispensers. I’ve never really understood why the Hex Dispensers didn’t get more notice, they’re a perfect mixture of the Murder City Devils and the Misfits, without the baggage of either of those bands. I went into this set thinking it would be fun but rusty so I was pleasantly surprised that it felt like the band never went away at all, even though the members have been separated by half a continent for years now and have been focused on other projects (including the excellent Broadcast-esque Eerie Family).
The set was no frills, with hardly any breaks, just a breakneck blast through the band’s catalog at full volume, all raw, pummeling primitivism and howling vocals that recall The Sonics as much as they recall Danzig. Seeing them perform on the floor of a garage where a campy decoration of a ghoul with a guitar was rocking out behind them only added to the effect. But I couldn’t help but remember when this sort of ramshackle, oddball showcase in an unexpected location was the standard rather than the norm for SXSW.
Austin– still weird, in small doses
Over at Hotel Vegas, closer to the actual epicenter of SXSW, things felt a little more underwhelming creatively, even though the crowds were much larger. As one of the biggest unofficial hubs, Hotel Vegas is typically where more of the national media and crowds are but it was extremely disappointing to see so many of their lineups look basically the same day to day this year. Local chair humping indie sleaze act J’cuuzi in particular seemed to be on almost every single bill and even some of the visiting headliners repeated. This fit what felt like a general vibe of “eh, who cares, let’s just have our friends play as much as they want,” versus what once felt like more curatorial style programming with more diversity between days. This was by no means unique to Hotel Vegas, it’s just that with them historically being one of the hipper venues, their recycling of bills made it even clearer that some kind of threshold had been crossed with SXSW as a whole.
Still, I did catch Sub Pop act Sweeping Promises at Hotel Vegas and was impressed by their blend of Siouxsie and the Banshees drama and Pylon’s wiry yet danceable tension. Live, they’re less restrained than on record, with an intensity that suggested the whole thing could collapse at any moment, even though the members themselves looked calm and collected. Lira Mondal’s vocals in particular are something to behold, powerful and haunting with a dazzling range that never comes across as showy. The outdoor tent at Hotel Vegas can be a huge, daunting stage but they commanded every inch of it.
At the far smaller Hole in the Wall I caught the No Sleep No Hunger showcase, an always reliable assemblage of femme and queer oriented indie. The star this year, for me, was New York’s Big Girl, who, like Sweeping Promises, specialize in jittery indie that doesn’t shy away from theatrical elements. Sporting more members than Sweeping Promises, Big Girl make the best of their multi-guitar attack, trading splintery riffs back and forth while the strong rhythm section holds things together. Single “Instructions 2 Say Sorry” is especially strong in this regard, with its snarling dueling guitar licks and explosive breakdown. Live, they even recreate the video’s butt wiggling synchronized dance moves. Fun stuff.
Even with the handful of standout performances I caught it nonetheless felt like things as a whole were pretty quiet and mid. In fairness, people have been saying SXSW has been dead for as long as I can remember but over the past few years, as musicians have started to get queasy about mingling with brands again (particularly brands with heavy connections to the military industrial complex) and as young people seem to grow more reliant on algorithms for musical discovery instead of live experiences, that claim has felt more apt than ever. SXSW claims that the reduction of SXSW Music isn’t really a reduction at all but an opportunity for music to now be more present during the other, technically bigger segments of SXSW but that seems to miss the point altogether. People don’t really want more music during SXSW Interactive– this seems to be true amongst tech bros as much as amongst music fans and students on break– they want a return to the Fader Fort era where music was the event. The problem with that, which I feel SXSW itself would acknowledge given its history of warfare against all things unofficial, is that that era was driven by outside media and tastemakers who either don’t exist anymore or who have mutated into something unrecognizable and less interesting.
Even before the 2020 cancellation, it felt like SXSW was in a tailspin as it focused too much on restricting unofficial events, going so far as to rat musicians out to ICE if they performed on unofficial showcases while also putting pressure on the city to not allow unofficial events without special permitting. SXSW claimed this was for the crowds’ own good, citing things like the 2014 vehicular massacre and Tyler the Creator’s instigation of a riot at a Converse/Thrasher party, also in 2014, as proof that there needed to be more regulation of SXSW by SXSW itself. The pandemic effectively killed off any idea of SXSW Music as a breaking event when it led to SXSW becoming part of the conservative Penske Media empire and as SXSW expands under Penske to include events on other continents like Australia, it seems clear that they want to lean more into the conference end of SXSW’s branding.
For the local venue economy, this is probably all very bleak. Post-2020, SXSW has not been an event that refills the coffers after the bleak post-holiday season and the days of big brand buyouts of every square inch of concrete in Austin are long gone. But one could argue that Austin has too many venues to be sustainable to begin with and maybe some deadwood needs to be cleared. Or maybe this will give a further boost to legitimate independent music festivals in Austin like Levitation, which has been more like “classic” SXSW ever since it shifted to being a multi-venue event rather than an outdoor festival. Or maybe, just maybe, this will weaken SXSW enough that the city can stop catering to its every whim, including the reckless $1.6 billion Austin Convention Center expansion that spurred SXSW’s shortening of SXSW Music in the first place.
Good Night and Good Riddance
I’m going to do my best to not wrap up on such a dire note, so here are some stray remarks on things I have been enjoying
- Alan Davis and Chris Claremont’s run on Excalibur– I’m only at the mid point of the “Cross Time Caper” so far but for my money this is one of the all time great collaborations in comics. While there is still all the soap opera drama you’d expect from Claremont with the strained love triangle between Captain Britain, Meggan and Nightcrawler, Claremont mostly focuses on interdimensional weirdness and magical happenings, allowing Davis to run wild. “Cross Time Caper” in particular is a showcase for Davis as he gets to depict countless versions of the core Excalibur team as well as A-list Marvel characters like the Avengers.
- Paris Texas’s They Left Me with a Gun EP– A quantum leap forward by the heirs to Odd Future. Even with the bizarre Masterpiece Theatre voiceovers, this EP is a blast with no filler. “Mudbone” sounds like a parallel reality where TV on the Radio and MGMT teamed up to do their own twist on Gorillaz.
- Paul Verhoeven’s Flesh & Blood– Randomly put this on the other night and almost turned it off in disgust but I’m glad I stuck with it. Feels a bit like A Clockwork Orange gone medieval. Rutger Hauer is perfectly cast as a vicious mercenary who begins to view himself as some kind warrior saint on a mission from god but Jennifer Jason Leigh arguably steals the film as a maiden in distress who’s far slyer than her captors suspect. Brutal, unyielding and filthy in every sense, it might lack the pulpy look and satirical tone of Verhoeven’s later works but you can still feel his grim cynicism throughout.
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