Search Results for Ian mccaleb

Even the most suspicious observer would have to admit that integrity is not entirely unknown in rock’n’roll. The ability to maintain a principled posture toward the business of making music for any appreciable length of time, however, presents a challenge that few bands have ever proven equal to. Yet those are the shoes in which…

One of America’s longest-running hardcore shows, Washington DC’s Government Issue is a multi-faceted band that has been widely underrated, despite a large and noteworthy catalogue that dates back to 1981. Following an early release on Dischord (the ten-song Legless Bull 7-inch, later compiled on Four Old 7″s), the band — which initially included bassist Brian…

For all the stylistic presumptions that have arisen about the sound of the scene, some of the bands on Washington DC’s Dischord Records would sooner experiment than go along with the generic ‘core. In the case of the Holy Rollers, this proved to be a worthwhile endeavor. The trio’s first album, As Is, can’t be…

Top Scale Speed, the first missile from Washington DC’s Branch Manager, is too cheeky for a 7-inch record; the trio tries to bite off more than it can give back. Singer/guitarist Ron Winters squashes the unpredictability of Bad Brain H.R. and the brash, ersatz insecurity of Armed Forces-era Elvis Costello together for an untidy but…

Articles of Faith gave singer/guitarist Vic Bondi — a Chicago punk luminary and an articulate thinker more than willing to speak his mind — a podium from which to spout his vision, and spout he does on the Bob Mould-produced (and released) Give Thanks. The quintet wastes no time in cutting to the core of…

With hardcore just as stagnant in Washington DC as it was everywhere else in 1984, the appearance of 9353 came as quite a jolt. Although the band wasn’t first-rate — Jason Carmer’s delay-driven guitar serves as only a decorative ornament, and the rhythm section is rarely more than competent — To Whom It May Consume…

Jah Wobble (John Wardle) was a close friend and confidant of John Lydon when he was still Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols were on the fast road to hell in a handbasket. When the singer ankled the group in 1978, he, Wobble and ex-Clash guitarist Keith Levene formed Public Image Limited, where the budding…

No Trend clunked around Washington DC in the ’80s, releasing a number of wildly inconsistent records in the process. The Teen Love EP, a fun four-song 12-inch, has the off-kilter and terrific “Mass Sterilization Caused by Venereal Disease,” a Flipperesque pandemonium feast punctuated by the simple lyrics of the title. What follows is the bumbling…

Although some may view Boston’s O Positive as nothing more than generic college-radio pop, the Boston group’s talent and potential exceed that of many similar bands. Unfortunately, the quintet has yet to make the most of its abilities on record. Only Breathing is a promising debut. Drummer Alex Lob and bassist David Ingham unite to…

Crazy times and the enormous reach of rock’n’roll have made the challenge of turning conscious weirdness into a commercial property increasingly difficult, one that few neophytes are equal to. As arbiters of grebo, the dirty, ugly Bykers, a post-pop-culture quartet from Leicester, cross leather-clad Mad Max apocalyptics with late-’60s London people’s-band values to forge a…

Imagine for a moment what the Replacements would sound like nowadays if Bob Stinson were still in the band, and Paul Westerberg had increased his drinking tenfold. They might sound a bit like the Oysters, a Boston-based one-album cult wonder. Green Eggs and Ham is a delightful alcohol-soaked platter; a mesh of sloppy playing, incompetent…

Had Raleigh, North Carolina’s Finger managed to break free of the anonymity it endured throughout a three-year career, the quartet would undoubtedly have stood tall in the sea of dreck. Finger (the American album reprises five cuts from the British seven-songer) is worth searching for, worth owning and doubly worth preserving. Led by singer/guitarist Brad…

The six long songs on the self-released Turmoil in the Toybox find this Austin quartet toiling through the same bleary guitar-slog as retro bashers like Thee Hypnotics, only with no sense of style or evident enthusiasm for the form beyond its option of velvet-trousered indulgence, as well as a weak but obvious U2 imitation (“Star-Crossed…

The well-traveled Simon Bonney has changed his tune. The former lead vocalist of Crime and the City Solution (a band joined in the mid-’80s by two ex-members of Australia’s grating and innovative Birthday Party) has reinvented himself so effectively that listeners unfamiliar with his extensive back catalogue are bound to think him a product of…

The product of a city with a tremendous underground musical heritage, this Boston trio plays a hybrid of common punk and ’70s heavy-guitar rock, but writes surprisingly sensitive songs with memorable hooks and singalong choruses. On Rock Starve, the Bags demonstrate a singular ability to analyze and describe relationships and emotions with searing but subtle…

For better and worse, GG Allin was a legend. Until he finally bit the big one on June 29, 1993, this self-immolating jockstrap-clad mace-spraying dung-flinging aberration survived his own berserk reputation (not to mention his recklessly self-destructive instincts) to become the worst nightmare the Dead Boys and Iggy never had. Allin was a relentlessly obnoxious,…

For mindless, directionless energy in service less seriously of music than cheerful mass-market multi-media-twiddling, Green Jelly (formerly Green Jellö) takes the Twinkie. Led by Bill Manspeaker (aka Moronic Dicktator), the colorful band of Buffalo expatriates, which has often been described as Gwar for the kiddie-set, is a mere approximation of that far-funnier band’s over-the-top lyrical…

Boston’s SS Decontrol was, to some minds, the most important New England hardcore band of the early ’80s. With its now quaint cover shot of shiny-headed little punks charging the Massachusetts State House and such blistering, simple rockers as “How Much Art,” The Kids Will Have Their Say was a pivotal event in Boston hardcore…

Although probably better known for his stints in Washington DC’s Dag Nasty and California’s All, Dave Smalley began his career in Boston, with a hardcore band ironically named for the city’s Department of Youth Services. On Wolfpack, as DYS expounds the judgmentally self-righteous straight-edge ethos (no drugs, no drink) that became popular in both Boston…