Manface, pt. 1

Manface
Playing God (off Cuando Ilega El Tiempo Todo Cambia, Acts of Sabotage/Our Struggle split release, 1996)

Here is the second installment (after the Und Keiner Weint Uns Nach Comp.) of the Austrian band posts. This, of course, is Manface, the band yours truly was in in the 1990s. Jan (guit, voc), Martin (dr.) and me (bass) first started out with a different singer named Patrick under various different names (some of you may still remember Stalefish). After some years Patrick left us so we continued as Manface. A good friend of ours, Jörg, later became the second guitarist, and with the addition of him (he now plays in Graumahd) we really kicked off, so to speak.

Manface was quite a weird bunch of people that had a lot in common musically, but then started to drift apart after the years progressed. After we've had some releases under our belt, things started to go a bit weird, we didn't all get a long too much anymore at the time. We did a small tour through Austria and Germany, and then played our last show with Stack and Seein' Red on the 30th of December 1998 at the E.K.H. in Vienna, without really knowing it would be our last.

The following song is off the dreadfully produced and awfully designed LP Cuando Ilega El Tiempo Todo Cambia. Don't ask me why there's a spanish title. You'll note that there's no picture of the Cover. The reason is that I myself don't even own a copy anymore, only a testpressing. The cover itself is also nothing I'd be too proud to show off. But a quick Google-search shows up a surprisingly high number of places you can still get that record from. If you're lucky you'll catch a link with the cover..

Playing God is one of the best songs we did, it's full of different parts and just keeps on going. Just imagine this one being played live.

Manface - Playing God

This post goes out to Danny (Breathe/H-Street/Nothing Gold Can Stay) by the way, who turns 30 today and has always supported Manface right from the early days. Happy Birtday!

Sleepytime Trio

Sleepytime Trio
Not Without My (Swimmies) (off Songs and Stories 7", Whirled Records 1996)

Nice and easy - this song is what the mid-nineties sounded like. Bit of screamie, bit of quiet, bit of rock, bit of backing vocals. All there!



Sleepytime Trio - Not Without My (Swimmies)

Drift

Drift
# 8 (off their 7", Great American Steak Religion 1994)

This one blew a lot of people's minds, especially paired with the GASR release that followed it, the more known Union Of Uranus double-7". Drift came out before though and this thing was unlike any of the other stuff that was out there at the time. Not crust, not metal, not emo....but definetly hardcore.

GASR was an amazing label that not only put out highly influential bands but also slipped its records in very tasteful and clever packaging. Of course GASR lives on as Feral Ward now. Hello Yannick!

Has this 7" one been re-released anywhere by the way?





Drift - # 8

Kurt

Kurt
The Wait (off Kurt, X-Mist Records, 1996)

Often called Germany's answer to Shotmaker, and you can see why. The bass features very prominently, and the songs are full of power and drive. Never dull, always exciting and in your face. I loved them because you could sense how much they enjoy playing the music...they could shut up as well and have instrumental songs, something I've always valued in a band. A killer-live band, I'm sure, albeit they never made it down to Vienna.

The first LP as such is out of print, but you can get a double-vinyl repress together with second LP at X-Mist.



Kurt - The Wait

-info post-

INFO POST
a.k.a. another large post, WTF?!

One week in, and I feel there has to be one for taking stock, as it were. I'd like to touch upon file-quality and what's still to come in the future on senfedge. But also, there's the technical (well, sort of) part:

orange-clicky-icon

So far I only have about one subscriber to this thing, and that's me. I know people are coming here (and thanks to all of you!), but I would really like to get some sort of feedback via comments (thanks for those so far, you rule!) and equally desirably, by having an army of subscribers.

If you don't know how it works, check out the wikipedia-entry. Don't be scared that it's too geeky, it's not at all. It's really just like bookmarking, but the point is that you'll have one place, or list, where you can see if there's a new post on a webpage (blog) or not. You can do it via firefox (clicky on the orange-rss-icon) in the URL-bar or on this page, or with any newsreader (I use bloglines, a free online-service. It's actually my home-page now with which I catch up with all sorts of blogs).

quali'y

Nice one, so that's the organisational shit out of the way. I'd like to say something on the quality of the mp3-files. I know they're not perfect and that most of the time you can hear the hiss and noise from the vinyl itself. I'm quite sure there's a way you can silence those, but to be brutally honest, I don't have the time for that. Let's hope you all don't mind!

Staying with the quality of the songs (this is a question to you actually): Quite simply...is the qual alright? Let me know if it's too quiet and I'll try to improve it. Bitrate OK , too?

coming up

Now to the fun part, what are you going to be able to expect from senfedge in the future? Well, obviously, more of mid-90s shit like I've blogged here just this past week. It's all over the shop genre-wise and I know that, but that's the beauty of senfedge. I hate pigeon-holes, and so should you!

As far as the highlights are concerned though, take a note of this. First there's the Austrian thing of course. More Manface, early Valina, H-Street demo tape, etc. to name but a few. Speaking of tapes, once I've figured out how to plug in tapes there's a real beauty coming up too: a live-tape I recorded at the mAKE-uP show in Prague in 98 or something. It's really good quality and I know a few people that are dying to hear that tape!

thanks

So yea, these are some of the highlights and other info things. Please feel free to leave a comment, and thanks for reading this.

Masskontroll

Masskontroll
split 8" flexi with Battle of Disarm (Consensus Reality # 6, 1995)

Right, CRUST now. Masskontroll were one of the many bands out Portland, and I admit perhaps not the primest of examples from the 90s-crust-foliage. But I chose to add these 3 songs because I believe the 8" flexi is rather hard to find nowadays. Gotta love the solo-intros and the "rooooah!" yelps.

Note that "Monument" is an anti-architects song...watch out Frank Lloyd Wright, you conformist bastard.

The BOD-side is nothing to write home about, unfortunately.



Tracks:
Masskontroll - Monument
Masskontroll - Blight
Masskontroll - Oblivion

The Delta 72

The Delta 72
Scratch (off The Soul Of A New Machine, Touch & Go Records, 1997)

Excuse the lengthy post yesterday, it shan't happen again.

So without further ado I bring you one of my favorite songs of all time, Scratch by Delta 72. They were a blues-y kind of band from Philadelphia that released stuff on Dischord, Kill Rock Stars and Touch & Go. The singles, and in particular TSOANM album are highly recommended. I don't even have The R&B Of Membership, best get that one from somewhere.

I also show off my D72 t-shirt that a Chadds Ford, PA resident gave me around that time. Thanks Blair, I still wear it!




The Delta 72 - Scratch

Und Keiner Weint Uns Nach Comp.

Und Keiner Weint Uns Nach Compilation 7" (Hammerwerk # 2)

An incredibly great idea: 4 bands hang out at the local squat (EKH - Ernst Kirchweger Haus, visit them for info) for a weekend in spring 1996. They hang out in the recording studio. A guy named Thymon smokes one rollie-cigaretter after the other, scratches his head (that consists of one solid dreadlock) and records those handful of idiots.

It's actually astonishing how different each band's songs sound; Falltime stands out in terms of sound, Käthecore sounds like it was recorded with tin-cans. Similar effect on side B with Manface and Konstrukt, two of the best bands out of Vienna at the time, if I say so myself. This recording is special, I love it.

The label on side 1 shows a map of where the EKH is.





Songs:
Falltime - Keyvan
Käthecore - Placenta/Mensch Wird Sein
Manface - Hiding Behind The Cross
Konstrukt - Sansibar/Nicht Ich Selbst/Kreuzverächter

Assfactor 4

Assfactor 4
Thanks Kelly/Mr. McCheekbone (off NGR 10, Old Glory Records)

This band was a gem - and everything that emo was all about, plus some more: fast, a bit hectic, franctic screams, sloppy at times but really tight too (if that makes any sense). But what A4 also did was put clever and fun lyrics into the game. A4 were quite geeky and really kick-ass. That's what a good part of emo was all about to me, actually.

These two tracks are off their 7" called "smoked out" on Old Glory Records, it's from 1994.



Assfactor 4 - Thanks Kelly/Mr. McCheekbone

welcome

Welcome to Senfedge!

It's 2007 and we don't care. The truth of the matter is that we just want to continue like we had done so for the past year or so (is it 28 years already?) because we haven't done much wrong, have we? I'm sure good things happened to you all, and I'm equally sure that life was rather shit for all you as well, one day this, the other day that. That's the way the cookie crumbles!

In light of this, I have made no new years resolutions. At least not actively. Because what I'm doing right now is write the first post to a brand-new blog...and that's something I wasn't doing last year. Go figure.

Senfedge was created because of two things: 1.) Lovely flatmate K got us a very kick-ass present for the household, a USB-Turntable. The first thing I did with it was rip a 7" compilation from 1996 with my old band on it, and I shared the stuff with my friends here in Vienna, Austria. Most of them didn't have that vinyl, and - we are now at reason 2.) they asked me to rip more obscure Austrian hardcore-punk stuff that some of them may or may not have.

This I am now going to do. But I actually wanted to do a bit more; I would like to post records that I so loved "back in the day" (ugh), to make mp3-files that not only I can enjoy on my ipod, but also any fool out there on the interweb. That means YOU or your buddies.

If you want a check-list of what senfedge is about, here goes:
- updates once or twice a week. Just subscribe to this blog via any old newsreader you might use, it's the simplest way of hearing about new posts. If you're new to RSS/XML, I can recommend a web-based compiler like bloglines.
- I dislike dropping bandnames, but to give you a rough idea of what I will post I'll tell you a few buzzwords that should help: HeartattaCk, Delta 72, Profane Existance, K Recs, Hoover, Kidney Room, Skuld, GASR, Plot, Sned, alsfuoduflshdfkln. See, I got frustrated. But if you know, you know.
- Austrian stuff will also be posted, of course, in an effort to have some sort of archive sooner or later. Nah, strike that last bit, that's far too ambitous ;) - but you get the idea!
- I will either post one song or a full album or 7" or whatever. But most posts will be just one song.
- if you don't like a song, just don't listen to it. If you like it, spazz out!
- get in touch with me by leaving a comment.

So yea, that should be it.

Let me know come to the first post here, the premiere, if you will:

Dub Narcotic Sound System - Fuck Shit Up (DBN 102, K Recs)

This is real easy. A kick-ass song that should be the anthem not just for the new year but for, like, evah! I reviewed this 7" for the fabulous Cracked zine with the word "Exactly".



So: download this song, but make it fucked up.