Alberta Canada’s Trashed Ambulance has unveiled the new standalone single “Cyntax Error,” which follows on the heels of the band’s third LP, 2022’s critically celebrated ‘Future Considerations.’
The single is a loving tribute to Thousand Islands Records label co-owner and label manager Cynthia Charpentier, in honor of her recent birthday. The band says, “When a great friend/mom-ager turns 40, you have to make sure she feels the love. This song is an ode to Cynthia for always kicking ass and taking names while being the best gal East of the Saskatchewan River!”
Cyntax Error Written by Josh Hauta, Jason Ezeard, and Riley Bourne Guitar/Vocals – Josh Hauta Bass/Vocals – Jason Ezeard Drum/Vocals – Riley Bourne Additional Vocals – Casey Lewis Recorded at Echo Base Studio in Calgary, Alberta Recorded, engineered, and produced by Casey Lewis. Mixed and mastered by Casey Lewis.
Inspired by the likes of Pulley, Face to Face, and The Flatliners, Trashed Ambulance continues to churn out gloriously angry yet hopeful punk anthems! Formed in 2014, Trashed Ambulance has survived a plethora of member changes and hangovers to continue forging ahead as a reputable option in the Central Alberta punk scene.
With a handful of EPs, LPs, CDs, and cassettes already under their belt, the boys hit Echo Base Studio in Calgary to work with Casey Lewis (Belvedere) on their most recent LP ‘Future Considerations.’ To date, the band has shared the stage with such punk juggernauts as Face to Face, Belvedere, Voodoo Glowskulls, The Real McKenzies, The Murderburgers, and Ten Foot Pole and have even made an appearance at Pouzza Fest – Montreal’s annual premiere punk fest.
The guys already have some Western Canadian tour dates lined up and plan on terrorizing as many pubs, curling rinks, and bowling alleys as they can play this year.
Berlin skate punker’s Hit The Dirt have released a lyric video for their song “<3 Social Chlamedia”. The track appeared on their Six Pack EP that was released earlier this year via High End Denim Records.
The band had this to say about the song: “<3 Social Chlamedia is a song about how our phones, social media and the modern digital world in general has taken over our lives. From the moment we wake up until the moment we go to sleep, we are mostly addicted to this crazy digital world inside of our phones.”
SLUDGEWORTH, CHICAGO PUNK PIONEERS, TO RELEASE ’95 COMPILATION, LOSERS OF THE YEAR, ON VINYL FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME
For the uninitiated,Sludgeworth are Chicago punk pioneers from the 1980’s that released a posthumous collection/discography album on Lookout Records back in the day — and it sold tens of thousands of copies, which was impressive for a defunct band. With members of Screeching Weasel, they had obvious leanings towards melodic punk, but they also had a quintessential Midwest sound mixed in with some post-punk. Think Naked Raygun and Fugazi.
And now, for the first time ever, Red Scare Industries is releasing Sludgeworth’s first and only LP, Losers of the Year, on vinyl and streaming services. The CD/digital version is getting two previously unreleased tracks: “To Be The Same” and “Here For A While.”
The reissue also comes with live photos from back in the day and liner notes featuring contributions from Naked Raygun’s Jeff Pezzati, Rise Against’s Joe Principe, Mikey Erg, Dillinger Four’s Patrick Costello, and more. It comes out on Friday, December 9 (pre-order).
“This has been in the works for well over 5 years. I know Dan (Sludgeworth singer) from The Methadones records we did. He gave me the green light, but it took ages to track down the audio for this. When I finally had the good sense to contact Chrisser (Appelgren, President/Owner of Lookout Records) he immediately wrote back that he had one last shoe box of tapes, but it was unlikely. Minutes later I got an email that was basically, ‘Ope, I’ll be damned, it’s in here!’ He overnighted me the DAT tape and that was the first promising sign! He’s one of the real heroes of this salvage project. Something else I found out: not easy to transfer a DAT tape these days! I know all sortsa fancy studios, but no one can keep a machine in working order because they’re impossible to maintain. And since THE VERY LAST copy of the master audio were in my hands, I wasn’t about to put it in the mail. Next stroke of luck was that I learned Arik from Creep Records still had a working machine and he hooked me up. He’s hero #2 in this tale! When we were transferring files he was like, ‘Damn, this is good!’ Yet another promising sign! Obviously the art was lost to the winds and there’s literally no band pic or promo shot, so Eric from Wall of Youth had his work cut out for him, but he pulled it off. The final package came out great: we got a buncha live shots and some blurbs from Sludgeworth’s contemporaries. Folks like Jeff from Naked Raygun, Joe from Rise Against, Mikey Erg, Patrick from Dillinger Four, etc. It took some time to cobble together, but I think people will be stoked to finally have a vinyl copy of this.”– Toby, Red Scare
1. Waste It Away 2. Someday 3. Anytime 4. Only One 5. Another Day 6. I Analyze 7. Never Say Never 8. Follow 9. Over And Over 10. She’s Not Disposable 11. Cry Baby 12. Nearest One To Stand Behind 13. Angry Man 14. Two Feet On The Ground 15. You And I 16. To Be The Same* 17. Here For A While* *CD Only Bonus Tracks
Checkout Future Considerations, the third release from Trashed Ambulance. It’s out now on Thousand Island Records. So welcome to 12 punk rock tracks with no shortage of melody and pop songwriting sensibilities.
Hailing from Red Deer, AB, Canada Future Considerations is the first album with the current lineup. According to the bandcamp blurb, it’s ” Inspired by the likes of Pulley, Face to Face, and the Flatliners, Trashed worked with Casey Lewis from Belvedere to bring the world 33 minutes of angry yet hopeful punk anthems!”
This is a solid, well recorded punk rock album. The tracks are mid to uptempo and hover mostly below the three minute mark, as they should. Hit up their bandcamp page and check ’em out. It’s good stuff.
Cheers! Jerry Actually
Tracks:
56 02:04
Menace 02:53
Ecnalubma 01:26
Stalk in the Park (featuring Robbie Morön and Émilie Plamondon) 03:04
Bottleneck (featuring Alex Goldfarb) 02:26
Blip on the Radar 03:33
Gumshoes 02:00
Filtered 03:11
Melting Pot 02:27
Hopeless 02:40
Tyrants 01:54
Next Door to Nothing (featuring Chris Kreuger) 05:34
Street Punk Veterans THE CASUALTIES Unleash Hell On Their THRASH BASH 2022 TOUR!
Los Angeles, CA – The Casualties have long been known for being one of the most raucous and rowdy punk rock bands around today. Their live performances always teeter on the edge of chaos but the band – which consists of vocalist David Rodriguez, Jake Kolatis on guitar, Marc Eggers on drums and Rick Lopez on bass – is somehow able to keep things under just enough control to deliver their anti-fascist, anti-authoritarian, pro-real punk rock message loud and clear!
Fresh off their All Out Tour II, The Casualties are returning to the road for a series of select dates on the east coast. Be sure to catch the band’s special opener for the Canadian leg, power trio Deadwolff!
“fast, snotty old-school melodic hardcore… even if these are middle-aged guys with decades in the game, they still bring that fired-up teenage rage” – Stereogum
“a melodic hardcore ripper that sounds like the exact middle ground between Lifetime and Minor Threat” – Brooklyn Vegan
Today, Beach Rats drop their debut album Rat Beat via Epitaph Records. An impressive lineup of punk rock lifers, the band is comprised of vocalist Ari Katz (Lifetime,) guitarist Pete Steinkopf (Bouncing Souls,) bassist Bryan Keinlen (Bouncing Souls,) guitarist Brian Baker (Bad Religion, Minor Threat) & Danny Windas on drums. Not wanting to take themselves too seriously, the band formed merely over a love of the genre. These are veterans of hardcore punk having fun and trying replicate the feeling and sound of what it was like to make punk music in the 80’s.
“You’re gonna get authentic punk and hardcore from BEACH RATS because we are all from the 80’s,” Bryan Kienlen comments. “It’s literally taking it back to some of our biggest influences like Negative Approach and Poison Idea, and of course, Minor Threat.”
Beach Rats came to be as each member found themselves settled in the beach community of Asbury Park, New Jersey. The crew started up when Pete, Bryan and Ari performed punk covers together for the first time at the funeral for Vision front man, Dave Franklin. After releasing an EP in 2018 and performing a slew of high-energy shows, the global pandemic gave the band a reason to get back to recording. The majority of the songs on Rat Beat were conceptualized and rehearsed in the basement of Brian Baker’s home and then tracked by Eric Bennett at Lakehouse Studios in only one day.
Baker recalls, “We’d go down in the basement, put on masks, open the windows and we could play – within CDC guidelines! We couldn’t go to dinner at each other’s houses but we could practice.”
From the kick-off of “Bikes Out” and “Dress for Sick Sesh” to the roughshod melodicism of “Clorox Boys” or “Heavy Conversation” Rat Beat is an in-the moment snapshot of the five members’ distinct styles with no self-editing or second guessing. “The song ‘Summer’s End’ sums up a lot of what was going on for us when we were recording,” admits Ari Katz. “It was the end of the season which coincided with a lot of things that were ending in my life. It was fun to weave in that kind of imagery. Closing the beach, the town, switching over from the summer people to the faces you see in the winter and how that mirrors what was going on personally. In that sort of in-the-moment-ness of BEACH RATS, there’s an undeniable honesty.”
Handheld are a friendly looking punk band from Kitchener, Ontario. When I saw their picture I thought to myself, “They seem fine”. After seeing the music video for “Leaving Candyland,” off their forthcoming album, that feeling only intensified. Before we get into the music, the band, and the history of Kitchener formerly being called Berlin before anti-German sentiment during World War I resulted in changing the name to a former British field marshal (we might not actually get to that part), let’s talk about this amazing music video in greater detail.
Both the song and the video pay homage to the peerless John Candy, who is a Canadian treasure of the highest order. If you don’t love John Candy, then you’re a bad person who hates punk, and must only be here for those stupid Google ads about that company who makes tech fiber cargo shorts with knife holsters. This video brings back to life many of John Candy’s best roles, with the band dressing up as Barf from Spaceballs, Uncle Buck, Del from Planes, Train, and Automobiles, and more. Famous scenes from these seminal films are reenacted, but with guitars. It’s well done, and a lot of fun to watch. The song itself is catchy early Fat style punk that should appeal to anyone who snowboarded with blue hair in the 90s. In particular I hear the first two Strung Out albums, but with some Blink 182 in there as well. It’s got the young goofiness of the latter, but also there are multiple kick drums firing off at rapid speed the whole time, bits of metallic noodling, and tons of dudes going, “Aaahhhh, laaahhh”. I think if you like either of those bands, you’ll like this record too. It’s got a lot of good things going for it. John Candy for one, it’s a comeback album (their first in 14 years, which I love), and they’re from non-Toronto Ontario, which has churned out some of the best punk rock the world has ever known.
These guys seem like they’re having a good time and actually like each other, which is something that always translates well into the music. Look at Oasis for example, they’re terrible. I bet catching Handheld live in their hometown, especially after a long hiatus, is not a bad way to spend a night out in Kitchener.
Man, Scott Radinsky is an interesting guy. The level of success he’s achieved in both professional athletics and punk rock is unparalleled. It’s especially impressive when you factor in that his punk career not only includes being in a hardcore band that put out a record on Mystic in the 80s, but also in Pulley who were at the top tier of the 90s Fat/Epitaph melodic punk boom.
I can think of a few other people who have had some sort of career in both sport and punk rock, but those who come to mind have only a peripheral or brief affiliation with the former. Ross Knight from Cosmic Psychos won a world championship in weightlifting, Mick Jones reportedly had a tryout with Crystal Palace, Bob Mould wrote scripts for the WCW, and Russ Rankin from Good Riddance is a talent scout for the WHL.
Scott, on the other hand, was a legit Major League Baseball pitcher, most notably for the White Sox and Dodgers. According to his Wikipedia page, his teammates in Chicago called him “Rad” (which is how he will be referred to from this point forward in the review) and he rode his bike to Cominsky Park for games. He later became a fan favorite local hero while in LA.
I like to envision a scenario where Rad is just super focused in the bullpen during a game listening to his Walkman, and Bobby Thigpen walks up and is like, “Hey, Rad. What are you listening to that’s got you so jacked up?”. To which he replies, “RKL” and then stands up and throws a flaming 120 mph fastball into the bullpen catcher’s mitt. The catcher then has to remove his mitt because of the heat. Rad lowers sunglasses onto his face and looks into the camera just as the bassline to “Hangover” starts. Then the White Sox lose the game to the world champion 1991 Minnesota Twins.
There are a lot of different iterations of this. Make up your own! It basically just needs to include Rad, any random Nardcore band, sunglasses, another MLB player of that era (preferably American League for accuracy), a flaming baseball, and the bassline to “Hangover”.
Moving along, Rad put up solid numbers throughout the 90s, despite missing the entirety of the 1994 season winning a battle against Hodgkin’s Disease. His playing career squeezed him out of being in Ten Foot Pole (who his 80s band Scared Straight had morphed into), due to his inability to tour during the MLB season. Rad just went ahead and started a better, more successful melodic punk band, who began a string of well received records on Epitaph in 1996. As his playing career came to a close, Pulley kept active and Rad began a career as a pitching coach for a variety of MLB and minor league squads.
This album is Pulley’s first in six years, and only their second in the last 17. I had to go back and refresh my memory of what the “classic” Pulley records sounded like, but stylistically this one does not seem to stray too far from the winning formula. It’s a strong batch of songs that their fanbase will be stoked on. Rad has the perfect vocals for melodic SoCal punk, similar to contemporaries like Tony Sly. Although I don’t listen to this type of punk very often as a man deep into his forties, I sure as hell did as a teenager deep into his 40s (of Olde English), and that nostalgia will always be there for this sound. If you’ve ever moshed in a pair of Arnettes and would like to revisit that period of your life, then check this one out.
–Zach Akenson
Tracks: 01 Repeat Offender 02 Lonely 03 Wake Up 04 Two Winds 05 Align The Planets 06 Northbound 07 Sad Song 08 Golden Life 09 Frances 10 Dust Off The Dreams 11 Transmigration 12 California
You’re probably like me. You just want a little bit of Ska Punk to listen to. Maybe you want it to be flavored with a delicate hint of Bluebonnets? Why wouldn’t you? Well then dig into this. “With A Vengeance” is the 4th full album from Austin TX band Hans Gruber and the Die Hards, and it’s pretty damn kickass!
Pre-order’s for the 2nd pressing can be found here.
The album opens with a cumbia inspired track, “Nothing Like a Good Old Fashioned Witch Hunt”. The band has this to say about it:
“Nothing Like a Good Old Fashioned Witch Hunt” started as a musical exploration into Kurt’s obsession with the horn heavy Cumbia sounds he was introduced to while living in Texas. Not being one to shy away from cramming several genres together, we also managed to flow through some hardcore and punk rhythms in the piece.
Lyrically, this song represents some stream of consciousness frustrations Kurt had with some of his friends, family and self, that, in retrospect, also reflect some of the more bizarre aspects of modern American culture.
We’d love to tell you the old fashioned 3D effects applied to this music video is about world views and our split nation. But it’s just because we thought it looked cool. Feel free to read into it and give the video some depth and meaning for us.
“With a Vengeance” is the most “Hans Gruber and the Die Hards-y” album we’ve done. Cliche as it is to say, it’s been a weird time getting this out and we can’t be more proud.
~Kurt, Rosey and Chris
The music and lyrical content is diverse. From the highly controversial “No No Bronto”, a ska punk treatise on the non-existence of the Brontosaurus to the sweep arpeggios accompanying the doom metal sounds of “My Friend Chuck”, into the haunting proto-occult wailings of “Vril Society”, each track rings out a distinct piece of the cohesive whole.
The clearly tongue-in-cheek lyrics of “Let’s Drive Everywhere” provided a glimpse into the band’s environmental standpoint. “Squatcore” featuring Omnigone is a shout along punk rock banger extolling the virtues of physical fitness, obviously.
16 tracks in 29 minutes sets for a breakneck pace, punctuated by an interesting theatrical intermission with their cover of Brazil. It’s a fantastic album. I highly encourage you to check it out, if you haven’t already. As a final note, if you have dandruff, you may want to double check that it isn’t actually ghosts and/or demons. Can’t be too safe.
Cheers! Jerry Actually
Tracks: 1. Nothing Like a Good Old Fashioned Witch Hunt 01:59 2. No No Bronto 01:46 3. My Friend Chuck 01:20 4. Vril Society 02:18 5. No Outside Tanks 01:52 6. Time, I Don’t Want It Anymore 01:25 7. Blood on the Walls 00:42 8. Brazil 02:21 9. Let’s Drive Everywhere 01:58 10. An Old Man Like Me 02:17 11. Monster of Walgren Lake 02:26 12. Credit Cards are a Product of Satan 01:33 13. Dandruff 01:21 14. You’re Being Watched 01:49 15. Squatcore feat. Adam Davis 01:14 16. Praise to the Algorithm 02:30
Hans Gruber and the Die Hards is: Chris Thompson – Drums, Vocals, Theremin, Ukulele Rosey Armstrong – Tenor Saxophone, Vocals Kurt Armstrong – Vocals, Bass, Trombone, Kazoo
Additional musicians: Hans Emanuelson – Guitars, Keys, Trumpet, Ukulele, Backing Vocals Nick Tozzo – Timbales, Congas, Triangle, Guira, Shaker, Tambourine on Tracks 1, 8 and 9 Eric Molina – Baritone Saxophone on Track 1 Jose Noriega – Sousaphone on Tracks 2, 8 and 13 Dave Cavallo – Backup Vocals on Tracks 3 and 8 Drew Leclaire – Backup Vocals on Track 8, Theremin on Track 4 Adam Davis – Vocals on Track 15 Co-Produced, Mixed and Recorded by Drew Leclair
Recorded at Studio 8522, Hokus Tracks and Vine Recording. Mixed at Vine Recording.
Mastered by Luis Crivelli
Bio: Menacingly fun, Hans Gruber and the Die Hards brand of punk/ska mashes genres together like a toddler eating chocolate cake – with messy intensity for maximum enjoyment. From Boston hardcore to Colombian cumbia, southern gospel to crossover thrash, their live shows are filled with pits, sock puppets, conga lines and confusion – if you are nihilistic enough to jump in feet first.
Formed in Austin, TX as a four piece in 2014, the band shamelessly embraces change. Over the years they added a full time Saxophone player, as well as parted ways with two of their founding members. Their newest album, “With A Vengeance,” represents the best of times with the former lineup, the struggles of a new era after their departure, and finding a new voice through these very same songs.
Much like their ability to combine musical genres, their lyrics tread a fine line between metaphor, truth, sarcasm and lies, assuming their audiences have the know-how to join them on this magical journey.
Possessed by unbridled joy for music, Hans Gruber and the Die Hards continue to push forward looking for the next venue to haunt as they chant: IT JUST DOESN’T MATTER!
