RALEIGH NC HARDCORE PUNK
2010, Sorry State Records
Even waking up with blue paint and Matt Watson's pubic hair on my face after a mind bending 21st birthday about 7 years ago only increased my love for this killer band. I remember working the old pizza spot with Cam, and him telling me "yea we sat around and listened to TSOL and Germs and were like, fuck man lets just write a shit ton of songs this week." Cam's clever crusher drumming lays behind the coolest riffs you wish you made while Will Evans gives you lyrical content about drinking bleach, wishing your parents were dead, and existential meaninglessness. 10/10 for sure.
While I was 19, I was in a kind of shitty band myself, and upon seeing the first SHARDS show, in a brief song break, I remember loudly promising to Cam that I would quit my band and start playing hardcore. I feel like I was actually born the day that Shards played their first show, it blew me against the wall. They wrote these songs so quickly just a couple weeks before their first show, and it was so dialed in and decisive. That amount of assertion came to make me believe I could make hardcore punk like this too. Being buddies with these guys at Pizza University was my first stepping stone into playing hardcore. It's more than the record itself, but it was the characters involved in it as well.
It was after Shards broke up, that their other band (whatever brains) would have a 1am band practice while I ate 6 servings of shroom brownies and a lot of sake on my 25th birthday. That night, while they practiced without stopping, I thought that god was reaching through the ceiling from outer space to kill me while we were on fire in this small corridor. They shot a laser show in their room and set off fog machines while I was lost in my own mind and humping the bass cab. I broke a bunch of their stuff, and tore up someone elses drumset and threw the drums at them while they were practicing. Evan just kept going, I think. Let it be known, that they were COOL WITH IT AND DIDNT GET MAD. Matt Watson saw my mess during the practice and left after their set was run, so he could get married the next day (definitely a fact). Rich Ivey and the others found me with blood on my face face down on the pavement outside and dragged me indoors, and layed me on my side with my backpack as a pillow, so I wouldn't choke on my own vomit. I had no real clue of the destruction until they showed me photos about 2 days later. I broke some dudes shit and paid him for it.
This LP ruined my life and you should let it ruin yours too. 10/10 hardcore punk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Let Will's lyrical content tell you the rest about how to make punk cool again.
Cameron is one of the greatest drummers in Raleigh, currently active in SKEMATA (drums) and DAVIDIANS (vocals). The other dudes were all playing different instruments in WHATEVER BRAINS and I think Evan plays in CRETE.
This LP kills, just like they did live, at every show. Relentless!!!
Love,
-Ira Rogers, Oct 31, 2016
-Ira Rogers, Oct 31, 2016
