Hardcore for Nerds

vinylsunday:

oldtobegin:

vinyl sunday: the “dischord rules” edition.
in keeping with their years-long promise to make good, distinctive DC music available across the world at affordable prices, dischord is still remastering and repackaging old records for $10 or $11 a pop (mp3 downloads included). i got this pretty orange-gold vinyl copy of q and not u’s no kill no beep beep - a hugely important record for me - for $11 at permanent records here in chicago.
dischord just announced they’ll be doing similar reissues with a few more fugazi records - end hits and steady diet of nothing. here’s the full list of what they’ve reissued.

I knew Dischord were remastering and reissuing some stuff, but I didn’t realize a) they were doing so much and b) they were doing coloured vinyl*. Aside from Repeater, which I’ve been meaning to get for a while, I’ve now got my eye on Embrace - s/t (red vinyl) and One Last Wish - 1986 (first time issued on vinyl). Lots of Fugazi there too, including Margin Walker “(w/ new art)” out this month… hmmm
* I like when No Idea! do coloured vinyl, because they do it for everything, and it’s nice to get in general, but I’m a little surprised that Dischord are getting into it so heavily (this whole series of reissues is presumably to do with the upturn in vinyl sales, too), not that they never did it before, either. It seems a little like unnecessary commodification.

oldtobegin:

vinyl sunday: the “dischord rules” edition.

in keeping with their years-long promise to make good, distinctive DC music available across the world at affordable prices, dischord is still remastering and repackaging old records for $10 or $11 a pop (mp3 downloads included). i got this pretty orange-gold vinyl copy of q and not u’s no kill no beep beep - a hugely important record for me - for $11 at permanent records here in chicago.

dischord just announced they’ll be doing similar reissues with a few more fugazi records - end hits and steady diet of nothing. here’s the full list of what they’ve reissued.

I knew Dischord were remastering and reissuing some stuff, but I didn’t realize a) they were doing so much and b) they were doing coloured vinyl*. Aside from Repeater, which I’ve been meaning to get for a while, I’ve now got my eye on Embrace - s/t (red vinyl) and One Last Wish - 1986 (first time issued on vinyl). Lots of Fugazi there too, including Margin Walker “(w/ new art)” out this month… hmmm

* I like when No Idea! do coloured vinyl, because they do it for everything, and it’s nice to get in general, but I’m a little surprised that Dischord are getting into it so heavily (this whole series of reissues is presumably to do with the upturn in vinyl sales, too), not that they never did it before, either. It seems a little like unnecessary commodification.

dischord q and not u vinyl sunday

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Meneguar - ‘We Own We Sell’ from The In Hour (Woodsist, 2008)

a perfect encapsulation of the Meneguar/Woods breadth of sound; goes from Q And Not U to Grails in 4:37.

woods q and not u grails

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Q and not U - Different Damage

I’m listening to this and reading David Simon and Ed Burns’ The Corner (actually, no, they each require too much attention), and wondering do a bunch of DC indie kids and ghetto Baltimore - as told by white journalists - really exist in the same world? geographically, they’re both relatively close together on the opposite side of the ocean to me, but conceptually does it even make sense to switch from one to the other? and Different Damage is lyrically challenging with a definite radical, oppositional bent… but how do I link it with the depth of the book and the reach of that bleak, socially cynical scope?

it’s not even my country (though we have essentially the same drug problems in Limerick and Dublin) but the exports of US counterculture far outweigh the significance or ‘value’ to me of Coca-Cola and Nike. different damage for the same wounded world.

q and not u

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Q and not U - ‘Soft Pyramids’ from Different Damage (Dischord Records, 2002)

“To bring this mix back to the - perhaps unlikely – haven of Dischord Records, this is the opening track of Q and Not U’s second album, Different Damage. ‘Soft Pyramids’ begins with a wonderful spoken word intro, “S-O-F/T-P-Y/R-A-M/I-D-S E-V-A/P-O-R/A-T-E in day-light”, and for that alone it is a quintessentially math-rock song. As Mr. Mammoth wrote last year, “q and not u disbanded two years ago, ending a seven year stint as one of the more relevant and original bands to emerge from the d.c. punk scene. though the term “dance-punk” is one often associated with q and not u, the unfortunate connotations and limitations of that genre really can’t explain the band’s rather unique post-hardcore sound”. Like him, the frantic, punky No Kill Beep Beep is my favourite of their albums, but given time, what Different Damage reveals in its subtlety and complexity more than matches up with the quality of their debut. With the band’s re-emergence as a three-piece (following the departure of the bassist on No Kill Beep Beep) on their sophomore release, “a more sober (yet just as disparaging) look at America”,

“the first two songs on Different Damage set the album’s tone, the divide between ferocity and reflection - “soft pyramids” is almost tender, a sweet singalong that is starkly contrasted with its neighbor, the vitriolic “so many calls,” a jittery and sneering attack on our broken healthcare system”

(‘yo, you remember how good q and not u was?’)

Hardcore for Nerds: 21st Century Bites - A Mix

q and not u

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