Fuck Technology

I have 4 email address's, 2 myspace's and now 2 blog's.
That's just fucking stupid, i would love to delete/not use any of them, but there is work to be done.
In a few hours i am going to pick up my new car. About fucking time.
Sorry for the lack of 5q's, things have been crazy, i am in the process of asking some new people theirs, and i still have some old ones from the zine to post too, so there will be alot more up in the next few days/weeks.
Live in sin!

Sound and Fury 2008

I cant fucking wait, not only(after years of saying ill be there "this July")will i be there and my band be playing at it, but i will get to see pretty much every band i wanted to see (108 confirm now please!) and ill get to hang out with my friends from every corner of the globe.

Its still 3 Months away, but i already cant wait.

Todd Jones (Nails, Betrayed, Blacklisted, Snake Eyes, Internal Affairs, Terror, Carry On, Stand Your Ground)

1- What's going on in your life right now?

I got laid off in September 2006 and haven't worked since. In November i went to Sydney and stayed there for two months and hung out at Maroubra. I came home and have been lounging. I joined Blacklisted on 2nd guitar and have been playing shows with Internal Affairs, booking shows in my hometown, and also planning Sound and Fury 2007. Having a great time.

2- What's the favourite album you have written? Or which one are you most proud of?

Carry On "A Life Less Plagued". I gotta give it up to Terror "Lowest Of The Low", that record kills. I just have more personal attachment to the Carry On album.

3- Favourite songs you have written?

Terror "Not This Time", Carry On "Broken Strings", and there's this new Snake Eyes song i wrote that's pretty ill but we'll have to see how it sounds when it's all recorded. Betrayed "Bring It To Life"is a cool song too.

4- How many hour's a day do you spend on the internet?

25

5- Oxnard or Maroubra?

Any city that has blatant/ignorant localism is good with me . Oxnard just cuz i was born and raised there. NARDCORE FOR LIFE.

Within Blood

I plan on giving this blog a little more of an "Australian" feel, considering thats where i am from and that 99% of people that read this blog probably dont know all that much of what goes on down here.

So to start things off, iam going to talk about one of my favourite ever Australian hardcore bands, who just happen to be playing a reunion this weekend (i'll be there), Within Blood.

Within Blood consisted of Matt Maunder(also from Mindsnare) on Vocals, Dave and Brad(now both in Samsara) on guitars, Llyod on Bass(Guitar in HITLIST, and now Meatlocker) and some dude called Jason on drums. So i guess you could call it an "all star line up", but i would just call it a good fucking band. All these dudes were really could at their respective instrument and word is that they recorded their "First Blood" album live, and in ONE day!, yep tracking and mixing of 10 songs in 1 day!, and when i say live i mean they actually were in the same room and recorded their respective instruments at the same time, something that probably hasent been done very often since the 70's, ha.

I loved everything about Within Blood, their music, lyrics, image and even their promo pics(i cant find any online anywhere though).

Matt once described Within Blood to me as "Mindsnare for boneheads", and i guess thats a pretty good description, they kept things a little more simplier than their mates in Mindsnare, but what they lacked in technicality they made up with well structured HHAARRRDDDD hardcore songs.

Until i can work out how to post songs on here(someone help me out) my description is just going to have to do, think AF "One Voice" era, a little bit of The Mags and a touch of Merauder and your on your way.

Not only were their songs and lyrics awesome, but their live shows were some of the best i have ever seen. Here are a few highlights from the times i have seen them;

- Matt jumping and kicking a short sound lady straight in the face (accident)

- Matt elbowing a guy in the face whilst singing and not missing a word (not an accident)

- Matt headbutting a guy whilst singing and not missing a word (again not an accident)
- Matt coming on stage with a chain saw at their last show at the Arthouse and swinging that fucking thing around like crazy (it was on)

All these points have been about their front man, Matt, but every single time i saw them the whole band was tight as fuck, all 3 guitarists were always spot on and sounding great and the drums were always holding shit down.

Iam siked for Friday night.

My Birthday

(edit- like the bass, my car is going to be black and iam getting the windows tinted)

Yesterday was my birthday, and it turned out being one of the craziest/most stressful days of my 26 years on this planet.

Here's how it went down;

- I bought a brand new car over the phone

- Spent the morning getting quotes on car insurance

- Went into the car dealership to "finalise some paper work" and got suckered into signing on for $1920 worth of bullshit extras that i didnt need

- Once i got home i thought fuck that, and called up and talked a whole load of bullshit to get out of the contract i had signed.

- I then went back in there to make sure the contract was ammended, they treated me a little different this time around, haha, fucking cunts, iam convinced car dealers and real estate agents are the scum of the world, fuck each and every one of them!

- Put my shitbox of a car for sale on some website

- Went to see Souths play like fucking shit with Graham and ended up sitting right next to my cousin ( Graham has season tickets and sits in the same seat every week, so out of a stadium that fits 100 000+ people Graham sits next to my cousin every week! small world!)

- My phone didnt stop ringing the whole game with people that wanted to buy my car, i couldnt believe it who the fuck would want that piece of shit?

- After the game i drive to a dude's work that wanted to buy the car, he comes out and has neck and hand tattoo's and asks me if iam Pete from No Apologies... Turns out he is a straightedge hardcore kid up in Sydney from Adelaide, which is perfect as the car is registered in Adelaide.

So he is going to drive it back there, plus he is a mechanic so he knows whats up in case he runs into trouble on the drive. Again, wtf? what are the chances of a edge hardcore kid who is from Adelaide but in Sydney, replying to my post on some car website.

- Sold him the car for cheap

- Went to a shopping centre car park to meet up with a young dude ( and 6 or so of his friends)

Driving there i kind of got myself ready thinking that these dudes could be pissed cause they had driven out there late at night and the car was already sold. Plus it was a dark car park with no one around. I jump out, but the dudes are all cool, but then we hear yelling.

- Some dude is attempting bash a middle aged nerdy looking guy, so we run over and i tell him if he really wants to fight someone he can fight me and shape up, he dosent take up the offer, haha.

- The other dude offers me money for helping him out, i decline.

What a birthday.

Martin Stewart (Terror, Donnybrook!, L.I.O.N, Snake Eyes, Piece By Piece, Wings, Beer & Sport, Lonewolf)

1- You have played/are playing in a fuck load of bands, did you grow up with instruments in the house or is music something you got into later on in life?

I grew up in music loving family. Nobody actually played any instruments, they all just loved to listen and be a part of the music. I never even touched an instrument until I was in about the 8th grade and some friends of mine wanted to start a band asked me to play bass. I bought a bass from the pawn shop that week and just started listening to songs I liked and trying to copy what I thought the song sounded like. The first song I ever learned to play was "London Dungeon" by The Misifts. After that I moved to guitar and would sit in my room after High School listening to Earth Crisis "Destroy The Machines" from start to finish learning to play every song.

2- I recently watched a youtube video of Terror playing on the Firestorm Tour and it looked as though at any minute instruments were to be put down and fists were to be raised, as something was going on with the security, has this happened? and if so does Terror have a 1 in , all in code of ethics? haha!

Nothing serious happened on that tour at all with bouncers at any of the clubs. It has absolutely happened in the past though with Terror and other bands I've been a part of. I'm trying to keep a new level of cool over myself when situations like that start to break out these days. I can't be dropping my guitar and jumping off stage throwing punches anymore. I can't afford to end up and jail and I have no health insurance so I definitely can't afford to end up in the hospital, from self inflicted injuries of course. I don't know it all and I can only speak for myself, but when someone puts their hands on you in a threatening manner you want to return the aggression. I'm not saying that anytime a bouncer touches you or gets in your face you should smash him and his whole team out and shut the show down. There's a time and place for everything. Sometimes you should brush things off and other times you should make things happen. But like I said, I don't know it all so I can't tell you when to make what decision. I just know how I feel myself and how I need to react. I've worked security before and I well know that there's a respectful and non-offensive way to take control of a situation. Most bouncers though are just knuckleheads that probably got bullied as kids and just lose control when they have that position of power. Hardcore is hardcore and in my opinion it was truly never meant to be bound by anyones rules, even the club the gig's taking place at. BUT if we as "hardcore kids" are going to accept that the gig is going to be in a certain place then we also have to accept that we may have to compromise a little to avoid a total disaster. I could easily go around the world to every club and have it out with every bouncer we encounter, but then who would let us play their club after that? What would happen? What venue would be willing to host a hardcore show? So who really knows what to do. Fuck it, smash out anyone you want I guess. I'll just do me.

3- You're on tour 10 months out of the year, how do you do it and maintain, 1- a relationship at home and 2- your sanity?

I have a long distance relationship. Bi-coastal and international. I live in California and she leaves clear on the other side of the continent in Quebec City, Canada. Being on tour so much actually helps out with amount of time we spend together. Any time the band gets near the eastern half of the continent she'll come down and meet with us and tour with us a bit. She's a true road dog. I even brought her to Europe with us once. As far as my sanity, are any of us who are involved in this hardcore thing truly sane in the first place? I really don't think so. I've wanted to travel the entire world since I was a kid and now I'm able to do that all while playing sweet gigs and making great international friends like yourself along the way. I love this life.

4- You are one of the not many (that i know of) African American guys in a touring hardcore band, are there many brothers over there into the core?

There's a few that I can think of off hand. 2 parts of Trash Talk are "brothas". Rashod the drummer of Bracewar too. There's a few of us here and there. We're definitely the minority though. When you come from an African American family you can easily understand how not a lot of us will end up migrating towards hardcore. Living with a Black family is truly a different world. Me and the 3 dudes I mentioned are planning to start an all Black band. Expect to be shocked.

5- The Damned, The Shamed... Give us an exclusive low down, what should we expect?

New Terror record due out this summer of '08 on Century Media Records. Expect some people to love it and some people to hate it, the same old story and cycle of every band and record. We recorded an album that we think is awesome and that has so far had nothing but positive feed back from all the dudes that we care about. A step up from the last record and all that typical stuff. There's a couple of shredding guitar solos this time around which I think is great. A couple of songs will probably surprise some people but most of them will make you want to mosh the world in my opinion. What it comes down to is that people just need to listen to it and decide for themselves. But either way, we're going to continue doing what we do. While those people out there that hate us are doing their usual talking, we'll be over in Australia gigging with you and the rest of our friends and partying at the beach with jellyfish. While the nerds are at the computer typing away, we'll be in Russia or maybe Brazil playing a sweet gig for people that truly care. I love you Pete, no homo, and your band. You're a solid dude. Mosh the world.