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Estrogen Highs

I’m short. I’ve been short all of my life, so I’m pretty used to it. But, I would be lying if I said I’ve never dreamt of being taller. I’m not asking for anything extreme like 7 foot, just average, 6 foot would be perfectly acceptable. When I heard Estrogen Highs’ new single “I Wanna Be Tall”, the chorus really hit home with me. It simply states, “I wanna be tall like you”. It’s a great punk rock song that starts out slow with a warm glow of feedback and lonely guitar before it kicks into full assault of fuzzy guitar and pounding drums. Check it out below along with another track from their new album, Irrelevant Future, out now on Trouble In Mind.

Estrogen Highs – I Wanna Be Tall from Irrelevant Future (2012)

Estrogen Highs – Grass of Leaves from Irrelevant Future (2012)

Trouble In Mind

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Sonic Avenues

Sonic Avenues, a punk band out of Montreal, Quebec. Their second album, Television Youth, came out in January on Dirtnap Records. The title track, included below is a great example of their dirty, loud, lo-fi punk rock sound.

Sonic Avenues – Television Youth

Dirtnap

Sonic Avenues

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Bad Sports

I love punk rock. I love everything about it. I enjoy it in almost all of it’s forms. No matter how broad my musical tastes have become with old age, when I hear good punk rock I get really excited. Bad Sports is good punk rock. Hailing from Denton, Texas, they do everything good punk bands do, including tight guitars, snotty vocals, and songs about girls. Bad Sports play with serious energy, their songs are very catchy and have an old school vibe to them, drawing comparisons to bands such as the Buzzcocks. “Can’t Just Be Friends”, the track below, reminds me a lot of the Ramones with a little Hard-Ons mixed in. Yes, I just wrote that. Their 2nd LP Kings of The Weekend just came out and it’s really good, you should go buy it.

Bad Sports – Cant Just Be Friends from Kings of The Weekend (2011)

www.dirtnaprecs.com

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Capsule

Capsule is a three-piece, post hardcore, punk rock band that I stumbled across the other night while searching for music. They play hard and fast, almost as if each member is trying to out do the other. “Neuralize So Numb”, the opening track, clocks in at a blazing 1:05. The song is angry, aggressive, and very catchy. It ends almost as quickly as it starts, and it will punch you in the face, so you have to pay attention. I really like this song, and I hope you enjoy it too.

Capsule – Neuralize So Numb

http://www.myspace.com/capsulefl

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Mind Spiders

Mind Spiders is the new project of Marked Men singer Mark Ryan. Their debut self-titled album is definitely not a Marked Men redo. The punk rock is still there, just now it’s full of reverb and distortion, like mold has grown on it. Along with the fuzz is the sci-fi noises that make the album sound at times like it was intended for a B-movie soundtrack. The song “No Romance” is one of the more punk rock songs on the album. It’s quick song, just under two minutes, but it gives you a small taste of the lo-fi goodness that this album consists of. Thirteen songs in total, including a spaced out version of Little Richard’s “Slippin’ and Slidin”, the album takes a little over 30 minutes to listen to before you start it over again, because it’s so good, you’ll have to play it again.

– By Todd S

No Romance

Mind Spiders Site
Dirtnap Records

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Cap’n Jazz


Cap’n Jazz were such a short-lived band that their entire musical catalog fits on a double album. But what a double album it is – a sloppy, cryptic, energetic, engaging masterpiece – and it’s being reissued by their erstwhile label, Jade Tree, as a double vinyl LP on June 15, 2010. To celebrate, the boys are getting the band back together for a set of reunion shows in select cities, including two sold-out shows in their hometown of Chicago. Cap’n Jazz’s influence extends well beyond those 34 songs. Their musical family tree includes other Monsters of Emo – Make Believe, The Promise Ring, American Football, Owls, Ghosts and Vodka, Joan of Arc and Owen. This is the kinda musical act you make a road trip to see. And, unless they add a Detroit show, I will have one in my future. Or maybe I’ll cash in some SkyMiles so Sean and I can geeeeek out at the LA show, the way we did when we saw The Promise Ring in Austin back in the day.

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Dag Nasty

Among my punk friends your credibility diminishes in direct correlation to each subsequent Dag Nasty album you profess to enjoy. Those punk friends then, according to their criteria, are much more punk than I. “Can I Say” (the beginning and end of Dag Nasty for my punk-er friends) and “Wig Out at Denko’s” stand out as my favorites by far, but “Field Day” played hand in hand with those first two albums on my desert road trips to and from college over the years (Although to this day, I still haven’t ripped it to my computer—that’s changing today though. I mean, come on, the opening lines to the title track are, “Here on the beach I’ve got the sun / I’ve got the surf, I’ve got Mexican food. Life don’t get better than that!).

The shift in sound between “Can I Say” and “Wig Out at Denko’s” occurs mostly in the albums’ tempos and vocal styles. On the second record, the band slows things down a notch and singer Peter Cortner sings more often than he yells on “Wig Out at Denko’s.” The transformation continues on “Field Day.” Basically, the band continued to add more melodic elements to its hardcore sound, thus they’re often cited as one of the bands that influenced later emo bands (I threw up in my mouth a little bit just using that term. Ugh.).

. . . I just axed most of this review. Rehashing the band’s history was boring me, and hell, anyone could find that info online, or listen to the music and make up their own mind on whether or not Dag Nasty is a band they’ll enjoy. It’s sad because this post doesn’t do justice to the band, nor to their influence on my life. It’s close to impossible to talk about bands that mean a lot to me in a space so small (see my Lloyd Cole post as another example). I could organize an entire memoir around these Dag Nasty records. Dag Nasty dominated my stereo when I met Alisa. “Four on the Floor” came out the year of my first radio show. The people and bands I worked with during the first half of this decade were likewise influenced by the band, and I expect the connections I made with Dag Nasty as their soundtrack will last a lifetime.

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Coltrane Motion

There’s something about 3hive’s hard drives and Coltrane Motion. Sam’s crashed three years ago shortly before posting about Chicago’s Coltrane Motion, and mine recently had to be replaced, too, shortly before posting about them. I had intended to also post some photos I took of Coltrane Motion when I saw them in May 2006 while in Chigaco, but I may have to blame a different hard drive crash from last summer for misplacing most of those. Which is rather unfortunate, as they played in an old church, and I got a sweet shot of Michael Bond bouncing under an enormous lighted cross while still trying to keep his mouth at microphone level and not tipping over his laptop stand. Michael, the driving force behind Coltrane Motion, is also a dead-ringer for 3hive’s Sam, but alas, that photographic evidence is also missing. I did find an poor quality shot I took with my phone inside the church, which is below. Sam’s description of Coltrane Motion still holds true, as further demonstrated by their first 7″ release “The Year Without A Summer b/w Maya Blue,” out tomorrow.

Original Post by Sam on 14 Jan 2006:
My hard drive crashed this week which, as reliant as I am on my PowerBook, is like suffering short-term memory loss. One of the few artists I remember having on tap for 3hive is Coltrane Motion, who are members of a Midwest artist-run collective/label called, irony of ironies, datawaslost. These tracks are a good representation of Coltrane Motion’s “sound” — in quotes because they seem to have as many “sounds” as they have songs, due in part to their habit of making their own software and instruments. This makes remembering what I wanted to say about Coltrane Motion even more difficult. Was I pogoing to the urgent dance-punk of “I Guess the Kids Are OK” or singing along to the sizzling crooner pop of “Pi Is Exactly Three”? Cutting rug to the cheeky Beck send-up “Supersexy ’67” or stroking my chin to the backmasked glitch ‘n’ beats of “The End of Every Movie”? Couldn’t tell ya. So I guess I’ll own up to liking all four. And, please, before you start downloading: a moment of silence for my hard drive…

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Awesome Snakes

The Awesome Snakes are Danny and Annie carrying on the legacy on their dear, departed Minneapolis band the Soviettes. Punk rock bass ‘n’ drums that is dirty, obnoxious, in-yer-face insulting, and full of enough attitude to make you feel young again.

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Sylvie

Yes, I was stoked on this song right away. Yes, it reminded me of Jawbox. No, I wasn’t surprised to see that J. Robbins produced the record. No, the Jawbox comparison doesn’t do the band justice. Yes, there’s much more to Sylvie than that. Yes, you can stream the whole record here. Yes, you should. Yes, I’m voting today. Yes, you should vote today. No, I’m not going to tell you who I’m voting for. Yes, I’m tired of hearing about politics, tired of talking about politics, tired of politicking about politics. Yes, I’m glad 3hive just talks about music. Yes, I’m glad I found Sylvie today. Yes, they float my boat.

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