#slowdime

This record politely tells you that it is 45rpms right where it also tells you side 1 and 2. Hear that Bad Manner’s? Maybe you should take note. I guess that’s why you’re called Bad Manners. I like the idea that I’m going into listening to Cromtech and knowing nothing about them except that they are a polite band.

This guitar sounds like a kazoo and I’m nervous that I actually did put it on too fast of a speed! Alex is reassuring me that it’s supposed to sound like this. What. The. Heck. This is like Albert Ayler on a sugar high in another dimension. No thank you.

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

The guitar noise is so stabby. I feel the notes going through my hard skull and into my soft brain and stabbing it.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

There is no track listing and no song names, which is probably for the best for you. I’m not even joking that I feel like I’m getting a real headache and might need advil. I guess I’m supposed to enjoy the speed that a real person is playing this guitar at? A real person making this nightmare brain hurt music. I can not appreciate you. I won’t do it.

I wonder what this sounds like on 33rpm.

Oh thank god, side one is over. Alex just said that he likes side two better. Let me put a cold compress on my forehead before flipping the record.

Does this sound less kazoo stabby or am I just used to it by now? I’m kind of noticing the drums a little more on this side. I think I really am sort of getting used to it. Nowhere near liking it though, let’s keep that clear.

There’s some sort of playful interlude that almost sounds like it could be in one of those really old black and white cartoons. But then it gets painful again, just when you start to relax. Oh wait, it was almost classical there for a second. Now we're back to Albert Ayler the metal version. Oh god when will I get out of this maze!

Alex just told me his favorite song on the album is now playing and he’s tapping his foot and bobbing his head furiously while playing air guitar. What....

Oh my god, I made it. Good night.

October by Abilene (Slowdime, 2000)

There was a disproportionate amount of time spent adding artists to my Launchcast Yahoo! Radio Station profile. I found a lot of bands through that radio station. I'm pretty sure I would add bands that I never ended up listening to or maybe not for a long while. I assume it was mostly to feel like my tastes actually had weight. Eventually, the radio station played a band called Hoover. This was one of those bands that I would not appreciate until a couple years later. I was not used to the way they sang and yelled and felt like it didn't really fit. However, I never discarded them because of it. Hoover had really dug their own weird spacey, dub influenced hole in punk rock. Since I was younger, I tended to lean towards the more cathartic parts but somehow I knew there were layers to the music that I couldn't appreciate until I was older. Either way, I spent every day finding new bands and grabbing as much of their music as I could. Eventually, the craze settled and I began to let it all sink into my skin. I was really interested in what Hardcore For Nerds, a great blogspot dedicated to music, called the Hoover family tree. They began to document every band those members shared. June of 44, Regulator Watts, Crownhate Ruin and then finally there was Abilene.

The way they described the band left me sort of impressionable. There it was again. I had found another weird band that I had hardly seen mentioned anywhere else and it was being talked about as some sort of monolith. Ever since I started crawling the internet for new music, I had run into that feeling. It was kind of addicting.