Your Pain Ends Here, On the Internet

Magnicdide obliterate ten short bursts of eastern Asia inspired grind on their "S/T" cassette tape. They are often touted as the Malaysian answer to 324 and that's a pretty fair assessment. Both bands have shared the stage several times in the geographical region and have a similar sound, however, 324 is more punk and crust sounding and Magnicide is has a more buzzsaw metal sound even if their riffs are hardcore punk as fuck. Gruff vocals over violently fast blast beats exceeding obscene speeds, though that description does glue them to a 324 reference. One would have a hard time saying they don't sound 324 but I would prefer to just use that as a base reference for Magnicide. I also hear traces of American hardcore in their sound. They utilize some New York style beatdowns a couple times and that shit fills me with energy and the desire to get into a pit.I'm actually REALLY curious to find out how many of the three guys in the band actively listen to American hardcore on the reg. Each of the ten tracks grinds in your fucking head with little variation of speed. This band adheres to Rule 324 just like other truly good bands. One of the few true hallmarks of a great metal/punk band.There are moments of start/stop grinding but it achieves a great effect instead of a pace impediment. This S/T tape is a precursor to their longer, more 324 influenced full length I've talked about before. I personally love being able to see a band's sound evolve, and you absolutely see that when comparing the two tapes. The songs on "Rise to the Annihilation" are generally longer with a more 324 feel to them. Straight up they sound 100% more like 324 on the follow up to this amazing tape. Listen and compare for yourself.

"Exceeding boundaries of mankind analogy"

Life Aquatic: With Love Garden Sounds

Any large, or at least moderately sized, city needs at least one good and reliable record shop. Where would a music scene come from if there was no place to sell old records to new people or to pick up the newest release at? Even if CD sales have hit rock bottom, vinyl sales have been at a steady increase despite the fact underground vinyl "sales" have remained relatively unchanged due to it never dying, but that's a whole different story. The internet has truly been a blessing from Merlin to any and all music fans making it stupid easy to track down any and all songs from any and all bands to ever exist. This constant streaming flow of information, music and art allows any and everyone to download until they are content, but there is a key element missing in only downloading music. Beyond not seeing the bands live which is a fucking travesty, you miss out on what those bands are about. Without holding a physical copy in your hands how will you really know what the album artwork looks close up?  How will you read the lyric sheet and figure out what the band is saying and truly stands for? Digital files are all just bits of binary information, not beautiful multi-coloured slabs of splattered wax of all sorts of shapes and sizes and what's the beauty in just having gigs of information?
 During the time I spent in Lawrence, Kansas I came upon a couple of local record stores. Kief's was originally located downtown and has moved to the outskirts for a bigger space as the dude owning it also owns a car/home stereo store. The only other shop I found was Love Garden Sounds. They were originally located up above the Toy Store(yes that's what it's called and what it is) up through a hallway covered in band stickers, show flyers and old 33/45 record covers. Once you walked inside it was just wall to wall records of all genres. They have since moved to a larger, more obvious location with big glass windows couple blocks up the street. Many people are still confused about this as they've had loyal customers from all over the lesser KC area and beyond for the last 15 years. As a result they still receive phone calls, e-mails, etc. asking where they are located or if they are still open.
 Love Garden has DVDs and VHS tapes, a cassette rack, used CDs and all the vinyl you could search through as it's an always changing selection. I personally love digging through the used tapes, used 7" rack and the New Arrivals bin. I have found some true gems in those last two spots; "World Extermination" by Insect Warfare, "Anticapital" by Assuck(didn't buy it because it had a $30 price tag), "Violent Noise Party" 7" comp., "Bullet" 7" by the Misfits and an old school pressing of "Vol. 4" by Black Sabbath, amongst the hundreds of other records I bought there. Even for being full of indie rock lovers, hipsters, jazz heads and just good old fashion rockers, the staff knows their shit for the most part and are all very nice and welcoming to talk about whatever genre you're into and help you find something new to listen to. The only negative thing I can say about this shop is the hesitancy the owner has for ordering vinyl for me(others as well). I've tried ordering several different records through them, and the only ones they were willing to get were the first two Krallice LPs from Profound Lore/Gilead Media. They carry Relapse, Southern Lord, Hydra Head and some other high profile labels and will order from them, but I could not for the life of me get Kelly(owner) to get the Magrudergrind LP from Six Weeks or "Abuse" by Wormrot from TvG Records even after explaining I don't have a bank account and it's very hard for me to order things online. He kept saying how obscure those bands are and how hard they are to find, which is bullshit because I could provide exact links to order from I just needed a middle man. I didn't even mind paying the extra cash it would take! Most of the employees would gladly take my requests, but only to be shot down before any ordering took place. Anyway, the city is full of young hipsters, yuppies and indie rockers so most of the music selection is geared towards them. However, there are plenty of high profile metal, punk and hardcore labels and bands to be found especially in the dollar 7" bin and New Arrivals. I can not count how many times I made the "OMFG they have this!?!!?" face digging in the New Arrivals bin. You just really have to be ready to spend time searching for hidden gems, which in itself is part of the magic of visiting record stores. Spending hours on your knees supported only by a hard concrete floor, digging through literally tons of wax finding those rare glimpses of golden vinyl nuggets. That's the true magic. The last bit of true magic for this shop is the in house cats they have. I love the cats dearly and they love me, and everyone else back. I can spend an hour just petting a cat laying on my backpack. But please respect the shop and don't let the cats out if you get the chance to visit.

People Take Photographs of Things They Can't Forget

Left side of cassette box.

Right side of cassette box.

"Rise of Annihilation" by Magnicide,
re-issue of original Suicidal Tendendies s/t,
HoD discog tape,
4 song EP by Dark Ages

 So I got a real digital camera recently. 3.2 megapixels and 3x zoom, I'm really catching up to the technological world now. First thing I want to use it for is to catalog my physical music collection. All of my vinyl is still boxed away so I broke out my cassette tapes and snapped some pictures. I have maybe a dozen tapes not shown, but they're classic rock or tapes I just don't listen to and still somehow own. These pictures represent tapes I've collected through my time living in Kansas, only a few were bought in Ohio. I got the Death Angel and Misfits tapes for like fifty cents each at a game shop that sold used tapes. I found the Slayer, Metallica and Judas Priest tapes at a yard sale a couple weeks ago, big surprise when I found them. They were in a box with a bunch of country music and bands like Testament, Soundgarden, Accept and Alice In Chains. They tried to sell me Mudvayne CDs when I wanted to pay and leave. Almost all of the others were bought at one of the Lawrence record shops, Love Garden for $1.50 or less. I got a Red Hot Chili Peppers tape, Queen's "Greatest Hits" and a ZZ Top tape all for like two bucks! They even have older music

Three Fugazi tapes, including "13 Songs"
"Hallraker" by the Descendents

related VHS! Too bad I hate Tina Turner.
 I bought the Magnicide tape straight from fucking Malaysia. Took a few weeks to order and a few more weeks to receive in the mail. It was well worth the wait though, that cassette fucking rips! I spent hours playing it on rotation at the bakery I worked at. It's always funny to see co-workers show up at 5 AM to work and you're blasting South-East Asian Grind out of the pastry department. Same with my Hummingbird of Death discography cassette, got it mailed to me from Iowa with the "Goatmeal" 5"(which rules!)  A lot of others were bought when I saw the band play. My Catheter tape was purchased with the same 7", some stickers and fucking awesome night of getting high with Geraldo before going to that 4 AM shift again. I ended up missing all but the last 20 seconds of their set because I woke up

Misfits "Earth A.D",
Catheter/Wojczech split,
Grasseaters 2011 demo

late. I was planning on napping then heading over to the house for the show, but got there late and just spent the night partying. The Grasseaters demo was bought at an outdoor show labeled "All Summer, No Bummer" and it delivered. The clouds were overcast most of the day with very visible lightning and very audible thunder, but it never rained. The weather stayed beautiful, the bands were all good and my friends were all there. Grasseaters are from Omaha, Nebraska so they brought a punch of punks from there with them so it was cool to meet some new crusties.
 I keep all my stuff in a brown tape box a friend gave me, and it was full of tapes! My bro Greg gave me some serious stuff that I listen to all the time. The Suicidal tape and "13 Songs" are the best examples though he gave me some classic thrash that rules (M.O.D. and S.O.D.). Mother fucker even put in an Anni DiFranco tape to throw me off. We had a good laugh and then I sold traded that shit for something good. But I'm super grateful to have the case to utilize as I have some tapes I do not want broken, lost or anything else bad that could happen. Then the obvious fact that I can take lots of tapes with me relatively easy. I wish more cars had tape decks now so I could rock out wherever I go! I could bring mixtapes and shit, and I have tons of tapes not of the fast/loud/short/heavy variety to make everyone happy. And obviously the collection only grows, much like collecting records. Tape collecting is a new thing for me, though I've been buying records for years now, almost a decade. But I know the cassette scene is just as old as DIY music itself. OG punx, grinders, crusties, black metal kvltists and death metal acolytes have all be tape trading and collecting as long as counter culture music has existed. You can't make a mix tape on a 7" unless you're putting out a compilation record, and it's not a mixtape it's a fucking comp your label is selling. Sure, CDs were around in the 80's but they were fucking expensive and no self respecting punk/metal head could afford one. Shit, even Walkman's for tapes were not cheap when first introduced to the market, but whose parents didn't have some sort of audio set up for their old Pink Floyd and Chuck Mangione albums. So it makes sense that tapes became the main food staple of feeding hungry music fans looking for more bands to listen to. What famous band didn't put out demo tapes before stepping up to 7"s?
 In the future I'm going to start taking pictures of my records and posting them with music, and I'm going to go back and add pictures to the records I've already posted. Blog+ has begun.

"Live In Japan" by Judas Priest,
"The Ultra Violence" by Death Angel"
"Live Undead"+ "Season of the Abyss" by Slayer,
"Speak English or Die" by S.O.D.

Obvious tapes are obvious