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Pen Cap Chew Issue #6

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the world's unoffical noise and DIY newsletter
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Are Hardcore and religon
Connected?

Plus more @#*% inside!!!!!! Inside
2: are hardcore and religon connected?
3: the end of the world as we know it...
4: the drug problem solved Bible thumpin' mosher boys...
Usually, when the average church goer thinks of hardcore, they thinks of riots, crude
sterotypes of kids with bad british accents, mohawks, leather jackets, and of course the moshpit
Usually punks take the other side and think anyone Christan, Jewish or Moslem has to wear
ties and be conservetive jackasses and be geeks. So, it may seem that hardcore and religon
are two seprate camps, each against the other. But as people who hate each other are, they
are often wuite wrong and one sided, to say notheing of confused. Many Cathloic newsletters
find all popular music offensive. Well, I have not met one punk who likes Green Day, so they
agree there, and there is another obstacle.
Then there are the skinheads. They all wear their Nazi shirts and
worship Hitler and apparently, they are accecpeted as punks by people who are on
'the other side'. This is where punk's tarnished reputation comes from ( of course, police riots donhelp). The reputations that we're all addicts, we all want a big war, we abuse children, whatever.Techurch mixes up the skinheads many times and we get hit.
I think pretty much everyone will get my drift when I say that punks are more victims
then they are agressors. How would you feel if whole entire gropus of people would be out to get youven though they do not even have the slighest clue what a punk record sounds like. Then the policedprtments started to run you in for wearing a Black Flag shirt. Mike Watt had to go to court four ims,had his SST store searched down (without a warrent, I might say), and police always gave him fnnyloos. He won all four times in court, each with a smile and a handshake from the judge and finaly, hat udge said to the Torrence county police department, " Stop Harrassing this man, I don't wat to ut upwith your crusade against a kind of music."
So, the same was with Cathloics. They were burned, beaten, stoned (with rocks) persecuted, exiled, tever. Then they became the agressors. Hardcore never took it that far, we punks are still victims u the people who took over probably were not purist Cathloics. The same went for the Jews. They wrefaed with tons of religous peresecution, ranging from the beliefs that Jews were satan worshiper, t th Holocaust (caused by the punk's worst enemy, the Nazi). It is quite fitting to believe thatwe al fae a world often against us and religon and punk are two things to reside in.
The former manager of Corrision of Conformiy is now graduating from a class in Theology and Speech. would like to become a minister and maybe a little more after a while. However, he doesn't considrhs former lifestyle one lived in sin. I agree with his statment that," Hardcore is to afflict thecofotable and comfort the afflicted. Religon is the same way." It is. I have to agree. Hardcore's urpse s to point out those who are just sitting pretty and attack them. Then it finds the rejected perecutd, angry, sad, and lets them have the first shot at the people who are sitting pretty, whodo no payany attention to the suffering. Religon is quite the same. Those who are poor, sick, wek, unhppy, o angry will be comforted. Those who are fine and dandy have to help the afflicted or py the pice.
However, with hardcore, the leaders are the bands. With religon the leader is the priest (or whoeveeads the procedings in the house of worship), second the the god you worship. They all tell you th aues to believe in. Ah, but here comes another contrast. Punks have their own values, and they veemlnly follow them. The church teaches you the values to believe in. But they both preach ethics, fte difiernt (not opposing ethics, but diffirent ones), intergrity, self respect, and that old saing,"wha's always right is not always popular and what's always popular isn't right." The End of msic
1994 was the end of the sweet times where music and intergrity were having a strong relationship, tend of the Democrats having a chance, the beggining of conservetives getting the best of you. So, ehve to trace where everything started, prospred and ended. If you subscribe to the belief that "Tos wo don't know history are doomed to repeat it," you will understand why. If we remind ourselvestha peple like Micheal Jackson were once idols, it won't happen again.That's why you need to know,so Iwon' have to put up with Paula Abdual and Janet Jackson.
In 1988, Bad Religon released Suffer possiably the most influental ablum to date. It revived many ple's hopes in hardcore, and inspired many people to start bands. It didn't sell millions of copies in't make any top ten lists in Spin or Rolling Stone, didn't have millions of trendies wearing thirshrts, and did not pay enough to pay bills for Bad Religon. But it had intergrity, bite, emotion an soe real good songs. But, in that same year, Guns N' Roses put out Appetite For Destruction , sexst, erriable record with lots of guitar solos. Without Suffer to counteract it, we'd all be ditbags
The revloution truly started in 1991, when dunh-nuh-nuh-chick-chika-chang-chang-dunh-nuh-chicka-chachang started. Yes, the nations youth was listenting to what sounded like music from Mars at the tm."Smells like teen spirt" as it was dubbed had told people, well.. I don't go an issue without sain i. But, my point is that Nirvana started something that might have gotten the wheel turning agan. he heel that every eighteen years or so makes a full revloution. It started at punk in the lateseveties went to stupidity like Loverboy and Quaterflash, techno, metal, and back to punk. I'm taking bout ow the mainstream just repeats itself and it is really boring. All it takes is one or tw bandswho gie this wheel a little push. But, the proverbial wheel doesn't stop at punk like it shuld. Whtney Hoston, Micheal Jackson, the Eagles, Led Zepplin, and Tony Bennet are going up the Bilboard to ten lis. I've said enough times that mainstream toatlly sucks and we should ignore it.
Nobody is doing anything new. It' s that simple. Takes us thirty years to get to from the
Beatles on Ed Sullivan to Green Day. Takes us twenty to get there from the Clash. And I see absloutlno progression whatsoever. None. The only bands doing anyhting new are called weird and stupid by otpeople and only get noticed by a few lucky people. Sonic Youth, Meat Puppets, and Pavement, are heony people who are currently doing anything new or diffirent and here come the mind-closed -likethedoos-on-fort-knox people who think all the bands mentioned suck. Because they can sit around an lisen t all of their favorite bands, who all sound alike. It is just incrediably stupid how safe he laels wnt to be. They are more concerned with something that will make them millions of dollars and nt makig pissed little guys like me happy with something diffirent. It's a sad day in 1994. unk die ( agai), the Republicans come to power( uh-gain), Rush's following doubles, America is glud to som stupid J trial while thousands are facing bigger problems that they could use some help wth. What s worse, e are going in circles and eventually we are going to collapse from our dizzines, fatuige,anger, andstart something new. Somthing diffirent. Bands won't break up over money, but ver the fac that they an only write three chord pop songs and not anyhting formative or interestin. (like the eatles)
I can honestly say that if we don't get up and do something with our lives, something diffirent, sohing cool, something new, and if there are enough bands like that, pop music will die a painful an og overdue death. It's smell will scare any record execs away and they will be stuck with all thee ifirent styles that they will just swallow millions of dollars and start signing people. But onl wethepeople can do it.
It's a golden day when we force them to step down- Lou Koller sick of it all
Solving the drug problem
As I type and you read, there is a plauge running rampant. Not the plauge of AIDS or teen pregancy,t drug addiction. Not addiction itself, but the way we treat it. We tend to pick up those who are no poess the illigeal substances and just put them in jail, let them rot, just go crazy during witdrw.Why do we do this? It is cruel and unusal punishment, which is prohibited by the bill of right. Adics, like alcholics, are not considred doing anything illigeal, as a mattter of fact, they arereffred o as victims. But when on heroin, it's like you have just shot Clinton. You are seen as soe rutless ddict, willing to kill for the drug. It doesn't allow you to function and you are useles. Manytimes hat is the case, but it's another one of these sterotypes. Many heroin addicts do funcion quie well,and often times it's hard to notice, except for the track marks and the fact
that you can nod off in mid sentance when high.
We can't solve this problem by having a war. That's a hideously nhilistic point of view and war acclishes abstloutley nothing. But we are stuck here, with a problem of huge preportions dwelling on u acks and we are trying to stand up straight, hoping the problem will go away. Well, if we legalie veything, and regulate drug usage and sales, we can gain some control of the problem. But what aouttheaddicts?
The first step would have elimanited the problem of kids in the ghetto trying to empower themselven an easy way, with guns and drugs. What they don't know is that the people around them are scaredo eing caught in the crossfire. That's about as bad as living with an addiction. That would be a mjo sep. And all of the kingpins, well, they'll have to find something else to sell.
Still, we have an uphill climb ahead. We have addicts. Millions of them. Okay, find them and ask ihey wish to go through detox at a govrnment center, and Uncle Sam's footing the bill. Then you mak tso that they get enough whatever to kill the co-dependancy. It' a simple concept. Plus, it's an as wy to provide jobs with some secutity. The taxes on the drugs should pay for the centers, the eploee,and finally a little for the government. This way, we shouldn't have money coming from insurnce lanspaying for it.
If we just keep going in the direction we are going in, we have wasted time, money, and wasted manyman lives that will be spared by this system. It's also pointless to have this additude of "Drugs rnt problem" thing. They are and the only reason thast we continue this war is so some white trashina railer somewhere can watch cops.
By legalizing, we can let the addicts hit bottom and realize that they need some help.Then we have let them know where to get it. Put some numbers on the packaging. Chances are it's the most accesabeplace. Lots of things still need to be worked out and people still need convinving that this is mchmore efficent way to rid ourselves of this plauge. Some people blanch at the thought of free nedls ad programs like that. Those are who we have to convince, the ones who think that we should jst lt th AIDS virus spread. Those who think the police are going taken care of. I can't think of asimpl way o do it, but Rome wasn't built in a day




Sonic Youth- Goo
June 26, 1990. Geffen Records takes somewhat of a risk and releases "GOO" and in those days, alternve was showing itself to be pretty promising. The first tour Lollaplozza came around, with Nine InhNils and other bands. But when people started to think of Nirvana as alternetive and not the Cure wllthere was a transformation.
The record starts off with the light and misty "Dirty Boots". Probably one of the best songs the Yo Troop have come up with. It has that same style of obscure lyrics, strange guitar parts, and Thuso's laid back voice. But this song has a little something sweet in it that other Youth songs don' hve But I can't quite finger that out.
"Tunic (song for Karen)" is about the Carpenters. I don't like them that much, I find them rather sy. But Kim dedicates a full six minuites to Karen. The lyrics leave much to be desired. They shoul ea little more mysterious, and cryptic. OF course, I rant like that all the time so I should shutup
"Kool Thing" is one of the better songs on here. It has Chuck D come in during a lull in the song ahave a little chat with Kim about women's rights. She's right though about "Male white, corporate prssion" then again, I'm supprised Geffen didn't take it off. But one song Geffen did cut in half as"Mte" It starts off with a three minuite pop theme, but this is Sonic Youth. There's four minuits o nose, sweet noise. There was eleven minuites of it but Geffen shaved that off.
" Disapparerer" or whatever is Turston singing in a drone and a Little guitar noise in the backgrou J. "Mumbles" Mascis does some background vocals here, but that gets mixed up with the noise so muh ou don't know if thats a guitar or not."Mildred Pierce" seems to come out of nowhere, climb, desen, limb to the top, then jump off. Why yes if was an older song. They just never got around to reordng t.
This record lacks spontainty. Goo is worth a listen, but the songs don't really start and end diffitly. They seem to be running in circles. Just chasing the song around, hoping to catch it. Remembe o every song on EVOL or Confusion is Sex would sound like a bunch of diffirent songs squished togthr nd that mixture was really unstable? "Titanimum Expose`" Captures some of that. it ends on gitas rnging and feedbacking, but begins with some strange riff and goes from there.
I think that Geffen and all major labels took a bite out of Sonic Youth' s chemistry and replaced with something a little more stable. The stability faded and is shown for the newer Thurston CD, ado Dirty. But Making records in a corporate
environment can be tense for any band who come from the indie labels. Goo is worth hearing though, w sonic youth CD isn't?

From the desk of HB....
WEll, as to anwser sone of the questions you have presented me, I do review indie and self releases-mail me and we'll get my address out to you. Anyway, it's late. You know my address I




















?? ?? ? s t and is shown for the newer Thurston CD, and on Dirty. But Making records in a corpor
environment can be tense for any band wh? ? " M n y ? 5 G H ? ? ^ w ? ?
 
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