Dinosaur Jr. - The Lung on The Late Late Show in 2005. Five reasons why it doesn't get any better than this.

I have several ideas for new posts and already started writing some but first I wanted to share this great video and give you five reasons why this is one of my favorite youtube clips.

1. They play my favorite song, 'The Lung' of my favorite Dinosaur album 'You're living all over me'. Such a great song with all the classic Dinosaur Jr. elements, a lot of fuzz and other effects, an awesome J Mascis solo, Lou Barlow's trademark distorted yet melodic bass playing, tight drumming from Murph, the loud-quiet-loud trick, ... It doesn't get any better than this.
2. This is the first song they played in public with the original line up since 1989. I was so excited when I saw it. Coming back with a bang! The next day they played their first show and a short while later they came over to tour Europe. With me front row off course.  Three great albums followed later. 
3. J Mascis looks like a wizard with his long grey hair. A guitar wizard that is.
4. Mascis played a prototype of his signature Fender Jazzmaster that came out a while later. Nobody plays a Jazzmaster like J Mascis.
5. That guitar solo! Really. Listen to it and then rewind back to 2:27 in the video to listen to it again. 

Belgian Nuggets 90s - 00s Vol.1 on Mayway Records: Belpop nostalgia!

The story of the relatively new Belgian recordlabel Mayway Records and the Belgian Nuggets series is an interesting one. It's a Kortrijk based independent label that was started out of sheer passion for all kinds of genres of music. The label bought a huge amount of  promo and demo records from the vaults of our national radio network and decided to release the Belgian Nuggets series with selections of these lost and found gems (next to the other bands they release records for).

I got the Belgian Nuggets Vol. 1 double LP as a gift last christmas and was really excited to put in on my turntable. I discovered some great unknown belpop bands and tracks, took a trip down memory lane and got reacquainted with an old crush.

There's a lot of music on this double LP but I'll talk about my favorite tracks.
I used to be a huge dEUS fan. I loved (and still love) their early work. 'My wife jan', their song on this compilation is a B-track from the 'Little arithmetics' single that I already knew but hadn't heard in a long time. I used to tape trade with a girl in my hometown and she had all the dEUS singles and B-sides and made me a mixtape with these songs. So this song was my first trip down memory lane.

When puberty kicked in I had a crush on a couple of female singers. These crushes were very serious in my eyes. My first crush was Vanessa Paradis but a lot of them followed, including Elsje Helewaut, singer of Elisa Waut, a Bruges based band. I loved her voice. The Elisa Waut song on this compilation took me back to those days. It's a nice dreamy song.

A more recent favorite is de Portables. I got to know them at the beginning of the 2000s and I saw them play some great and often hilarious live shows. All of their records are recommended and their song 'Haut gay' (with the extended outro exclusive for this compilation) is my favorite song on this compilation. Listen to this great song here:

A band I had never heard of is Pop Machine. Their song 'Sage' is a swinging tribute to sixties french singers and music like Françoise Hardy. I love this song. Apparently this was produced by Alex Callier (of Hooverphonic and shitty Belgian tv talent shows...) and some label had pretty big and ambitious plans with it but somehow all of those plans never happened. A shame.

I also like the Volt song 'Rincez-moi'. Volt is an early nineties electropop band with Daan Stuyven, known from Dead Man Ray and his solo project Daan. Great song but I would have loved it if their song 'Train to interzone' was on this compilation, a personal favorite of mine.

There's a lot more to discover on this great compilation. And I stil have to dig in deeper to get to know these bands. I'm looking forward to the next volumes of Belgian Nuggets and some other releases on Mayway Records.
Especially the Definitivos LP that will be released on record store day. I'm very excited about this one as Definitivos are a legendary punk band from my hometown.
Mayway Records already released records by Ugly Papas, JTOTHEC and Gèsman. Some talented local acts that aren't exactly up my ally but are worth getting if they are your thing.

Get to know Mayway Records and their releases here.  Totally recommended!

One off duo projects: Ray & Porcell and Egg Hunt.

Something I find pretty interesting is side projects in every genre of music. There's something about musicians who go off their regular track and make something next to their current bands that only lasts for one record or even one seven inch.
I would like to write about some duo projects that happened throughout hardcore history. I'm sure there are a lot of solo and duo projects but here are two of them that come to mind and that I have in my record collection:

• Ray & Porcell: Fame/Broken Glass 7 inch (Revelation Records: 23) (1991)

The infamous drum machine record. Hated by many, loved by many. The first Shelter record was already released when Ray Cappo and Porcell recorded these two songs at Don Fury's in 1991. I got this 7 inch really cheap some time ago and listening back to it for this post leaves me with mixed feelings (as I'm sure it does for most people). These songs aren't that bad but the drum machine Porcell used to record them sounds a bit strange to say the least. Honestly: I like the song 'Fame'. It's well written and has interesting lyrics. On 'Broken Glass' the drum machine is way too present which prevents me from getting into the song.

However, the blueprint for future Shelter songs is pretty much here. Which makes it an interesting record to have in your collection. 

• Egg Hunt: Me and you/We all fall down 7 inch (Dischord Records) (1986)

Now this is something completely different. These songs are good, the sound quality is awesome, there's real drums on the record and this is the blueprint for a sound and a scene that was emerging in Washington DC, even though the songs were recorded in England as a one off project.

Ian Mackaye and Jeff Nelson went to the UK to visit Southern Records and got asked by John Loder (Southern Records founder) to record some songs while they were there.

This single can be situated towards the end of Embrace (such an awesome band and record...) and some time before the start of Fugazi. 'Me and you' is a great song but 'We all fall down' has to be one of my favorite Ian Mackaye songs (and I have plenty of those!). He had originally written this song for Embrace but the band turned it down. In my eyes this is a blueprint for Fugazi. It starts off with a great and slightly dubby bass intro (which would be an early Fugazi trademark) followed by a verse and a great chorus which has Ian Mackaye both singing and yelling like only he can. I lost my copy of this 7 inch a while ago and had to buy it again as I love to listen to it on a regular basis.
Highly recommended if you don't already have it!

If you know more of these kind of projects please let me know. I'm always eager to learn more.  There's also a ton of solo projects from people in hardcore bands (or who used to be in hardcore bands). There are tons of them and maybe I'll mention some in a future post. There's Wes Eisold's Cold Cave off course ('Oceans with no end' is one of my favorite songs to dance and sing along to with my son) and so much more.

For now: be sure to check out Glitterer, Ned Russin (of Title Fight)'s solo project. It's awesome.
Go listen here.

My precious Dischord Records shirts and a little note from Jeff Nelson.

It's no secret I'm a big Dischord Records enthusiast. I love every era of this legendary label and a lot of the records they released. Dischord doesn't print shirts for their bands or for the label but Jeff Nelson does make official Dischord shirts through his Pedestrian Press imprint.
At the end of last year I decided to treat myself for the holidays so I ordered two Dischord shirts from Pedestrian Press. They showed up pretty fast and look awesome.
They came with a little note on the invoice from the legendary Jeff Nelson himself, thanking me for the order and wishing me happy holidays.
Being the nerd I am this made me really happy and I keep the invoice and note in my archives.
See the shirts and note below. Go check out Pedestrian Press here.

Welcome to Hello Bastards Zine!

Hello and welcome to yet another new blog.

Some 7 years ago I had plans to start a paper zine called 'Hello Bastards'. I did some pretty cool interviews and articles. I interviewed Dan Yemin for example (of course I had to do a Lifetime interview with a name like 'Hello Bastards Zine'), I also did a cool but short RVIVR interview and a pretty lengthy but really awesome article about the ending of my favorite hometown band Hitch. Mich (the singer of Hitch) wrote a long and great article about his former band.
Most of these interviews ended up in the Mini WAR zine and blog I did together with my friend Kristof for a short time. You can still read them here.

I miss writing so I decided I'd start this blog. I hope I will find the discipline to write stuff from time to time and to not let this page die a slow death. I already have some ideas about posts and interviews so come and check back often.  Posts will of course be mostly about music as I'm a total freak.

See you soon!