Chronicity on Obscurist Press Records - '06

Here's a single from the band Chronicity, courtesy my friend Amy, and a pile of singles from Obscurist Press Records she gave me after a bowery show. Never came across these guys before today and up to this point, the Obscurist singles have been pretty punk, even hardcore. This one takes a post punk, slightly minimal approach to the similar politically charged material. Recorded in '06, it's got a bare bones Gang of Four sound but with this Pete's lyric content you almost overlook the instrumentation entirely because the lyrics absolutely take center stage cleverly strung together.
The problem with specific political bands like this is that you end up preaching to the converted....which is fine, I don't see why there's some kind of pressure to change anything. They want to rock, and why not rock about something that means something to these guys. Well then they might as well be singing about nothing? I don't know the answers to this stuff...it's a very specific genre/audience and I personally have never been able to sort out these questions
It's novel to hear this kind of direct protest post punk coming out of the UK.

The first track, 'War on the Poor' just goes to show things are fucked up everywhere...the govt's of the world do messed up things...that's pretty much a fact everywhere. I still get a little nostalgic for thinking 'fuck yea!' for every injustice, in high school when you first start to really question every idea. Now I just think, 'There is some serious bullshit going on and why aren't I doing anything about it?' What's the point of this stupid blog anyway? Why am I listening to pointless songs about girls and rock and roll?
I can't fault them for trying, if anything I get depressed, not by the content but because I don't feel like I can do anything about it. The greatest scam the powers that be pulled is making politics so boring you can't be bothered to even care about it.

The next one, 'Wealth and Hell Being', has got a nice Shellac groove going with a super crunch treble distortion, the bursts of melody. Pete's got a spoken word type delivery on this one about everything from obesity to climate change. It's a little bit Dead Kennedys with (believe it) more personal despair than Blank Dogs on some days. Almost goth in it's nihilism, but June of 44 and Shellac in delivery.

Then as much as they go for specific jugulars, they get abstract with B-Side's 'Banned from the Academy', I mean....who can't relate to public school and that whole disaster. The real problem there is I can't think of how it would be a good experience. If it's not the institution being shitty, then it's the people you go there with. It's always some version of hell when you're in the middle of it. The stuttered guitars on extra rapid fire, repeated angular basslines, the bass strummed in moments of low power chords and the guitar answering back in high bent distortion squeals. The snare hitting on every spoken syllable, the melody built around disparate instrumental phrases, which fit Pete's jabbing vocal style, which now I'm thinking has a huge relation to 'Tourist' or 'Love like Anthrax' from Gang of Four. Instead of feeling completely helpless this track in the end seems to be celibrating DIY, naming spaces like ABC no RIO and that's a welcome glimmer of hope.
Academy Fight song is mentioned, but he's a pacifist.

The next one, Elvis Prison Guard, has a funny line about Johnny Cash and I have to play that off this title...I guess their could have been a weird rivalry between those two... Johnny Cash obviously coming out on top, the Folsom Prison album, being thrown in jail himself, ....while Elvis joined the army.
If shellac went into specifics it might sound a little like this.
It's definitely post punk, the very definitiion of that sound. The drum track vs guitar vs bass. They are all on their own separate paths and then rearrange the whole thing to match each other rhythmically. It's not lost on me that this anti-establishment music is so completely lock step fascist.
Another contradiction: you get out your frustration at this system through music and then what? Is it better to hold it in and let the repression build to the breaking point? Are they working against exactly the ideas they're trying to change? I don't want to be so critical but this sentiment leads you to question everything, including their own tracks. So they succeeded in a weird defeatist way? They probably have me exactly where they wanted.

This mathy, science sleeve should be covered with xerox cut outs of cops beating protestors or someone burning themselves alive...instead they try to get me with math equations? Another thing that bores me to death.

Still available from Obscurist Press Records

Fiya on Obscurist Press Records

What we have here on this FIYA single is a classic example of the 5 song punk EP with loose your voice lyrics a little flat, recorded maybe separately....just barely getting louder than the distortion of guitar and bass. These guys are full of politics, and they're angry.

The slightly askew linocut sleeve and the fuzzy typewriter xerox lyric book insert that I'll be damned if I can follow just pulled the entire thing together perfectly already. But the line from Ryan in the liner notes hit home why 7"'s are so freaking amazing and stay incredibly relevant. I thnk his sentiment is true almost 10 years later: "I'm putting out this 7" and trying to document other local projects that'd otherwise be just suburban legends."
The sad thing, just a little, for me is I would have killed for this single in high school. In the pre-internet days any little piece of indie hardcore like this was few and far between, it would have been cherished. To even see that email address on the reverse of the sleeve got me a little teary eyed. It's so easy these days... does a 7" single still preserve, just a little bit, how important this sound and these bands were?
I think I associate this sound and energy with that powerlessness you feel growing up. Sure, now it probably doesn't seem so bad, in fact, looking back I was a priviledged little bastard when you think about where you could have been born into the world. If my biggest problem was our asshole drummer who wanted to go play with someone else...then you can see how no one under 21 is taken seriously. I understand that. That being said, you still have those feelings probably anywhere irregardless of geography, it doesn't take much to feel pissed off wherever you are at that age.
The purity of their sentiment is what gets me every time. There were no expectations, no one to judge but themselves. It was a whole new world of music everyday. Guys, I want you to know there are people out there still listening, and I'm so glad you documented your own scene...of Gainsville in all places. Sometimes a single like this even says: it doesn't matter what part of the country you come from, it's all fucked up. The sounds of Gainsville are as relevant as the sound from anywhere. It's the kind of band...and I sincerely mean this as a compliment....that could start at any moment, in any town...and could we use more bands like this?

Hell yes.

Is it important that they find a way to stand out in this copycat genre?

It doesn't matter.
My only regret is all the bands we came up with in my days of not knowing any better never went this far. To tour and press a 7"? Not only would it have seemed impossible, it wasn't even a thought. We needed a Fiya to expose us to that possibility.

Recorded in 2002 I think it's going to be tough tracking this down, but hey it's worth a shot emailing obscurist (at) hotmail...although a hotmail address is not very promising, and the bands site seems to be down as well...but Ryan did his job. I have to thank my friend Amy for bringing me a stack of stuff from her friends over there at Obscurist Press.

Fiya's full length is still available over there, check it out.