Friday Evening Mass Playlist 7/1/11 The Ruby Room, Oakland, CA

Om - At Giza
Black Sabbath - Fairies Wear Boots
Danava - Quiet Babies Astray in a Manger
Parchman Farm - Mirror Spirit
Witch - Changing
US Christmas - Scalphunters
The Sword - Lawless Lands
Pentagram - When The Screams Come
the Melvins - A History of Bad Men
Kylesa - Only One
Electric Wizard - Satanic Rites of Count Drugula
Mastodon - March of the Fire Ants
Ghost - Con Clavi Con Dio
Saviours - We Roam
In Solitude - The World, The Flesh, The Devil
Christian Mistress - Desert Rose
High On Fire - Speedwolf
Legend - The Destroyer
Orange Goblin - Hand of Doom
Red Fang - Prehistoric Dog
Weedeater - God Luck and Good Speed
Across Tundras - Hijo de Desierto
Dead Meadow - Babbling Flower
Floor - Return To Zero
Blood Ceremony - I'm Coming With You
Witch Mountain - Wing of the Lord
Norrsken - Armageddon
Sleep - Dragonaut
Witchcraft - Wooden Cross
Danzig - Tired of Being Alive
The Cult - Firewoman
Heart - Crazy On You
Judas Priest - Living After Midnight
The Damned Things - We Have A Situation Here
Annihilation Time - Bad Reputation
Turbonegro - Sell Your Body to the Night
Def Leppard - Photograph
Queens of the Stone Age - Little Sister
Blue Oyster Cult - Burnin For You
High On Fire - Snakes for the Divine
Graveyard - Hisingen Blues

The Love Below: Southern California's Dirty Secret

Depending on who you ask (and their answer is usually biased by whichever coast they reside closest to), hardcore as we know it began in 1976 when both Bad Brains from Washington D.C. and The Middle Class from Orange County, CA released their debut 7 inches (Pay To Cum and Out of Vogue respectively). If my math is correct, and may be wrong because math was never my strongsuit, hardcore as an offshoot of punk has been pummeling the world for thirty-five years. That's a long fucking time. Over the last three and a half decades, the world as we know it has changed several times over due to wars, politicians, social acceptances, and technology. As the world has turned, hardcore has done its best to provide an unabridged, unbridled narrative on the bare bones of the world seen through the eyes of the young and outcast. The result has been a legacy of records that capture positive, negative, violent, and insightful feelings unlike any other genre of music has been capable of doing.

While we as world are all still incredibly fucked in 2011, it is rather easy to participate in hardcore these days. The internet has made this vast country a much smaller place, allowing bands to book tours easier and kids to make friends or talk shit via websites. Communities and parents have started to see that punk and hardcore can be a positive thing in the lives of their children, and all ages venues in unconventional places have started to spring up and thrive in ways they never have before. Real venues and clubs see a young subculture with money and have been much more open to booking hardcore shows and bands. These are all good things. But there's a problem...

For the most part, bands have gotten stagnant. Kids have seen bands rise out of the hardcore scene and to mainstream success and have now started bands with the hopes of becoming full time rockers. This notion was ridiculous to think about in the 80s, and really even in the 90s. Conversely, there's a side of the scene so concerned with keeping hardcore hardcore that they can't move beyond the basic musical formulas laid out before them; making entire careers out of raping nostalgia and manufacturing emotions and situations that are completely impossible to recreate in 2011 due to times changing. It's kind of disheartening to see what was once a genre so on the cutting edge, driven on "not giving a fuck" and "fucking shit up" become a just another "look" for teenagers to pick up on.

The Love Below are a rare band of dudes trying to make the most noise and lay waste to whatever is in their way. They have no aspirations of headlining the Warped Tour, nor are they so stuck in mentalities of decades gone by that they are unable to progess. The Love Below play doomy, filthy, sleazy hardcore that at times evoke aspects of bands like Neurosis, Charles Bronson, Black Flag, and His Hero Is Gone. Frontman Jerry Woolbright is an old friend and partying pal, and he and I recently caught up regarding all things TLB.

FF: How long has The Love Below been around, and what lead to you guys starting the band?

JW: We've been jamming since mid 2008, I believe. Greg and myself were in a band called Neon Claws that had fizzled out after 3 shows. I was tired of being in bands with people who weren't really dedicated to things like touring or recording. Anthony and I had been friends for a long while. I was a ginormous fan and friend of his band Motherspeed, and I've always really respected how fucking hard the guy works on his bands. It just made sense to pool our efforts to do something cool together as friends, and see if it goes anywhere. Low and behold, its 2011 and I couldn't be happier with where we are right now.

FF: Aside from the new split with Homewrecker, what else have you put out?

JW: In 2009 we released our demo. It got a pretty good response online around the time that Mike Hellfish (http://www.hellfishfamily.com) started packing them into t-shirt orders at his merch company...we owe that guy big time. Anyway, I guess word of mouth was good enough that it got to Dom from Pulling Teeth, probably because we cited Pulling Teeth as an influence. Who Knows? Anyway, he was stoked on our demo and offered us a home at his A389 Records label which lead to our Reproductive Rights EP in 2010.

FF: You guys have done some US tours. Were those easy to book?

JW: That's definitely an Anthony (guitarist) question. All I can say is that he has a tremendous talent for that sort of thing.

FF: What's the best show The Love Below has ever played?

JW: Without a doubt, it has to be the A389 Records showcase back in January with Haymaker, Dropdead, Rot In Hell, and Integrity, or This Is Hardcore 2010 when we got to share the stage with Ringworm and the Cro Mags. So far though, I really love playing New Jersey and Baltimore.

FF: What's the worst show The Love Below has ever played?

JW: Columbus Ohio at some crust punk house. The kids who ran the house were really fucking rude and acted like they didn't want us there from the get go. They also wouldn't let us drink beer anywhere near their house. Nobody watched us except this dude from Penis Geyser.

FF: Who are some of your favorite bands out right now?

JW: I've been really into this band called Fleeting Joys lately. But as far as current hardcore stuff goes: Product of Waste, those guys are the real deal. The Mistake, Pulling Teeth,Seven Sisters of Sleep, Caulfiend, Beartrap, Children Of God. Also, the new Haymaker band, just put out a 7" on A389called "Survival Prayer" and I've been rocking that when I'm in especially foul moods.

FF: Due to the rise in technology and what can be seen as a decline in the legitimacy of the music industry, being in a subculture related band much easier. How has this helped The Love Below, if it has?

JW: I accept that without the internet, we'd have a much smaller fanbase. And I don't care if people illegally download our music as long as they listen to it. Although it would be an appropriate gesture to support these labels and bands if you truly believe in what they are doing.

FF: Even in the wake of the music industry regressing, a lot of bands in hardcore start up with the intention of making it "big" versus just being a creative/artistic outlet. Has The Love Below encountered this much in your existence?

JW: I have friends in bands like that. They usually wind up doing lame pay to play gigs at shitty bars in LA. I honestly don't know why they make music if that's their only motivation. I really don't encounter a lot of that in hardcore though. You'd have to be really up your own ass to think you're going to make it in that kind of business playing aggressive music. The only people who buy records anymore are country fans. Probably because they are too fucking stupid to use the internet.

FF: I notice that you guys often have trouble booking shows in Southern California. How is it that you've made it across the country and onto A389, but aren't getting recognition at home?

JW: There are local venues who are afraid that their shows won't oversell tickets if they let a "slightly lesser known" band open... Unless the people in said band work at the venue. Then it's a different story. Short form answer: Politics, bro.

FF: What does the rest of 2011 hold for The Love Below?

JW: Other than a handful of California shows in the summer... We're putting the finishing touches on a full length LP titles "Every Tongue Shall Caress", as well as an untitled EP. Can't confirm an actual release date on either at the moment, all I can say with any certainty is "SOON". There has also been talk about doing a short tour in October. We'll just have to see, I guess.

FF: Any last words/parting shots/shout outs???

JW: Just to Mike at Hellfish and Dom at A389. I'd like to encourage anyone with any interest in our band to support these guys and their labels/businesses because they believe in and support us. Without them, we're just four dickheads sweating in a garage with our drunk friends cheering us on.

The Love Below/Homewrecker split recently came out on A389 Records. We highly reccommend copping that not only because the jams are sweet, because it gives us hope that hardcore isn't become what it started out despising.

Set Your Goals Drop the Feel Good Record of the Summer

Ever notice how bands that originally are born as "jokes" or "side projects" more often than not end up blowing up? In the early 2000s, I had more or less bailed on following hardcore in Northern California (because for the most part, it was well on its way to being the void of fun it is now), and for a while, the Bay Area wasn't really churning out even decent bands, much less bands that made any impact across the country. I had heard of Set Your Goals during my time living in Orange County and being out on the road, but the general feedback I got was that they were a fun, melodic band comprised of members of brutal bands that wanted an outlet to blow off steam and have a good time. I saw their name around and that they began to gain momentum and notoriety as the last decade progressed, but they still hadn't really crashed into my world and commanded my attention.

That all changed in February of 2007 when I saw Walnut Creek's finest with Lifetime and Shook Ones in San Francisco and watched the crowd at Slim's (a club in the City) explode when they took the stage. I hadn't seen a crowd in San Francisco that full of life for a local band since AFI gave up being a hardcore band and started playing mall-goth. Throughout their thirty minute set, kids were diving off of anything that was nailed to the ground, screaming along word for word with every song of the bands set (including a cover of Jawbreaker's "Do You Still Hate Me?" that got yours truly walking on heads), and got the floor moving so much that there wasn't anywhere you could stand without being at risk of losing your beer to a spin-kicking twenty-something. That night, Set Your Goals arguably out-responsed Lifetime, and that statement is coming from a dude who has two Lifetime tattoos. Needless to say, I was instantly a fan of the band, and see them as being one of the most interesting and impactful current Bay Area hardcore bands.

Since that fateful night at Slim's, I made a point to catch them whenever they played around town, and whether it was a headling show, a show where they were supporting someone else, or even when appearing on the annual summer shitshow known as The Van's Warped Tour, Set Your Goals stole the show more often than not. Clearly, there is something about this band that gets that kids pumped up and excited. Set Your Goals are honest, true, and energetic, which are three of the attributes that attracted me to punk and hardcore as a young blood in the first place.



Set Your Goals newest record, Burning At Both Ends, dropped today. Coincidentally, Taking Back Sunday also dropped their new self-titled record today. I bring this up because Taking Back Sunday have reached the heights of stardom playing hardcore influenced melodic punk (not so unlike SYG) and I've heard the two bands lumped together and "written off" or "looked down upon" for not being "hard" or for "being music for teenagers". Both bands probably draw from the same pool of fans, and share the same praises from the yaysayers and criticisms from naysayers. Taking Back Sunday are veterans with a lot to prove to a lot of people, while Set Your Goals represent a new generation of melodic hardcore/pop punk bands, rabid with energy, going for broke with nothing to lose. Attention Taking Back Sunday, welcome to your sundowning years. Set Your Goals are beating you at your own game.

Before I get into the meat and potatos of this review, let's just get a few things out of the way. It's 2011. No one is going to rewrite Start Today, Can I Say, I Don't Wanna Grow Up, or Jersey's Best Dancers again. Holding new bands to the standards of ground-breaking records of days gone by is lazy to me. Tastes can change, and people grow up and move on, but if you can't give a band like Set Your Goals a chance because you can't get over the existence of Gorilla Biscuits or Dag Nasty, you have a problem being boring and unfun. Punk and hardcore are somewhat limited in their genre, and holding new bands to standards that can't and won't be met due to how the times have changed is bullshit. Let yourself have a little fun and give the new kids a chance.

Burning At Both Ends is a great hardcore record with unique pop sensibility and sense of honesty in its music and lyrics that is absent from a lot of their peers. The band manages to blend pop punk accessibility with the tenacity and aggression of hardcore, filling their record with songs that breeze between being capable of modern rock radio airplay and spinkicking/stagediving insanity. Every one of these songs has the potential to be a breakaway single, and they manage to achieve that sweet spot without the use of gimmicks or putting what they hold true to their hearts in the backseat. The first single, "Certain", could hold its own next to anything Blink-182 ever did, and addresses the struggles of being young and in love without sounding forced, melodramatic, or like complete and utter bullshit. "Start The Reactor" is a bouncy homage to growing old and staying punk (something I personally found easy to relate to), and finishes off with one of the gnarliest breakdowns they've ever written. Overall, Set Your Goals has written a record that will ring true with teenagers well into their adult lives, as well as reignite and enkindle that spark hardcore left in the hearts of all of us who are growing old with it.



Burning At Both Ends hasn't left my iTunes or iPhone since I picked it up yesterday, and I look forward to seeing Set Your Goals wreck shop this weekend at the Mountain View stop of the Van's Warped Tour. If you're a young kid and are looking for your generation's Hello Bastards or an old fart looking for a reason to still care, Set Your Goals are waiting to blow you away.