Reviews

Color and Time Tonight

Kill the Hippies Special Master cassette

Not to be confused with the 1978 DEADBEATS album, or the 2013 Kill the Hippies! Kill Yourself compilation, this group comes from Cleveland and has been making music since the early ’90s. This version of the band features the paired-down threesome of Morte Treehorn on guitar and vocals, P.P. Envy on bass and vocals, and Joey Pepperoni on drums, and while they’ve been at it for a minute, there’s still plenty of energy on the table here. The falsetto on “Single Prayer System” reminds of something the ADICTS might have done, while other tracks bring to mind local forefathers DEVO, and the alternating male/female vocals provide a nice variety throughout. “Defective” slaps the hardest, and reminds of any charging GBH track. There’s a pretty straightforward cover of “New England,” which kind of comes out of nowhere, but has a funny spoken word opener “Well, I live in Ohio so why should I care? / But I just happen to like it there / So I guess I’m just a square.” I haven’t gone through KILL THE HIPPIES’ whole catalog, but I like what I hear. And don’t be fooled, no part of this is promoting violence. Listen up!

Positive Thinking The Power of Positive Thinking cassette

Given this band’s name and the artwork for this release, I couldn’t help but be a bit concerned when dropping this cassette into my tape deck. The modern trend of hip hardcore bands claiming to be “psychedelic” and repurposing ’60s-style art gave me pause. Add in the through-the-roof cheesiness factor of straight-up naming a band POSITIVE THINKING, and I was doubly on guard. As a straightedge punk with a love for ’60s psychedelic rock, surely one can understand my apprehension at this point. Lo and behold, my concerns were completely unwarranted. POSITIVE THINKING absolutely rips! A timeless approach to hardcore punk. There are moments that sound just like second-tier ’80s hardcore acts like 76% UNCERTAIN. Occasionally, the overly positive aspect present in eyeroll-worthy youth crew lyrics comes through a bit, but those moments are short-lived, and the band just as quickly moves on to topics of self-deprecation, disdain for society, gripes on the health care system, etc. I will say, if you are interested in getting a copy of The Power of Positive Thinking on cassette (which you should be), be sure to do so through the label that released this, as the band is charging a whopping $12 plus $6 shipping for a cassette online, with it being $10 for the digital recording only. Yikes! I absolutely recognize that everything is wildly expensive in the modern day and that I probably still way undercharge for releases on my labels, but $12 just feels offensively expensive for a cassette, especially when the label is charging $7 (debatably still too much).

TV Drugs FFO: Everything Terrible / Instant Tenders cassette

TV DRUGS is a Cleveland hardcore band, playing fun shit with a lot of personality and being weird while also laying down a formidable thrashing. This tape collects their two releases to date (shout-out to Robert Collins, who already reviewed one of them), and captures fifteen tracks of unhinged hardcore. I’m always a fan of the Doc Dart vocal approach of coloring outside the lines, and this rad singer does that a lot. The band seems to have gone quiet for a little while now, and it’d be cool if they resurface at some point with a proper full-length.

 

Wild Wings Foil Landscape LP

This ham-fisted Ohio power trio rocks big and burly, with elements of hard rockers like MOUNTAIN and PINK FAIRIES. They also have an early ’80s punk vibe sounding like ZERO BOYS or GEZA X. You can tell they rock hard in a live setting, as the sweat and hair would be flying gratuitously. Pick it up. Smells not included.