The new Jello Biafra album, free!

The new Jellow Biafra album is available free to download from Amazon. And it's surprisingly heavy/crunchy punk with the same pissed off vocals and lyrics you'd expect from Biafra, that guy hasn't slowed down at all in his 40s: Download from Amazon for free here.

It's a Fucked Up Christmas!

Fucked Up reworked "Do The Know It's Christmas?" and recorded it as a benefit, along with Andrew W.K., Bob Mould, David Cross, Ezra Koenig, GZA, Kevin Drew, Kyp Malone, Tegan and Sara, and Yo La Tengo. It's so much better not having Bono wailing on it...

Dragstrip Riot

"Who are these guys? They're awesome!" a friend recently said during a Dragstrip Riot set. And he was totally right, they are indeed an awesome band. Dragstrip Riot have been around since 2001 blasting out a mix of punk, rockabilly and hard driven rock'n'roll with songs about drivin', drinkin', fightin' and fuckin'. You can almost smell the cigarettes, gasoline and cheap beer as these boys step on stage.

Dragstrip Riot will be playing the 5th Annual Punk Kristmas this Saturday night (December 19th) at The Funhouse in Seattle. Also on the bill are The Them, Sledgeback, The Load Levelers and Neutralboy.

O Pioneers, Damage Done & Requin 2night at Galway Arms

This is easily the best show going on tonight in Seattle:

Brother James!

James Burdyshaw was already an established band guy by the time I got into the music scene in Seattle. He fronted 64 Spiders, who had one 7" out on Daniel House's C/Z Records, as well as two cuts on the legendary late '80s Seattle underground rock compilation "Another Phyrric Victory." He also was in somewhat legendary (in the late '80s Seattle scene) Catt Butt, Yummy, awesome garage punk band The Sinister Six, and he most recently fronted The Bug Nasties. James also has done time on my side of the music community, writing music reviews for both my old mag Tablet and Dawn Anderson's Backfire. Most importantly, he's just one fucking nice guy, he always stops and says hi when he runs into you and often has a great story or two to tell.

These days James is getting together various friends and doing a project he's calling Brother James and The Deciples of Junk. And he's also DJing old rock'n'roll and soul in various venues around town. The shot above of DJ Brother James was when he was spinning at the one year anniversary party for Gainsbourg in Greenwood. Within minute of when James started spinnin', the floor was crowded with people dancin' to the old soul singles he was throwing down. He spins at Studio 66 at the Lo Fi and other nights around town too, check his action out!

The Damage Done at Funhouse last Friday!

Chest tattoos, barefoot singers, fingers pointing in the air, and pure emotional driven melodic hardcore. Each and every time, The Damage Done bring it live. Remember the first time you heard, or better yet saw live, a band like Against Me? That kinda energy and emotion that the band has and the crowd feeds off? Yep, these guys have it, even at the smallest show they win their audience over and they have an every growing group of fans. Seriously one of Seattle's best punk bands these days, don't sleep on these guys!

I'm DJing a great show at Funhouse tonight!

Sadly another great uber-fan and local music supporter died recently before Bob Kondrak. Ben Russell was a kid I was just getting to know, having just hung out talking and drinking with him at a few shows, house parties and Shorty's during this past year. I call Ben and uber-fan because he went out to shows and events almost every night of the week, his support for local music was practically unparalleled. His main haunt was Funhouse, if you've been to a show there in the past month you may have seen the memorial pictorial on one of the tables there. Besides Funhouse I'd see him at house shows, other clubs, at the Pencil Fighting Championships, he came to my photo show opening... the guy was just fantastic at supporting local music and arts events. He died at home pretty suddenly due to complications with his diabetes, taking everyone by surprise. Tonight's show at Funhouse isn't meant to be a sad event though, it's supposed to be a celebration of Ben's life. Most of the bands playing were either friends with him or he was big fans of, Bobcat and I will be DJing, and the money raised at the door will go to his parents to offset their funeral costs.

Not only is it a good cause, all these bands rock. Dragstrip Riot always put on a great show, they'll be doing it acoustically tomorrow night. Smokejumper is an up-and-coming pop punk band featuring many ex-members of the band Dateless. And The Damage Done is what I consider one of the best melodic punk bands in Seattle right now. They will also be collecting blanket and coat donations for the homeless at this show.

Some interesting info on my favorite Bob Kondrak photo

A bunch of people have been coming out of the woodwork the past few days on garage rock forums and Facebook sharing their stories about Kondrak, which is excellent. One woman that knew Bob back in the '70s punk scene gave me some info on that punk kid photo I love:

"In your bottom & favorite BK photo is Nina who was only about 10 years old. I often helped her get home or to someone's house after shows at the Bird, etc. I really wonder what happened to her. I have photos of her dancing on stage with the Boomtown Rats looking so happy. Often she didn't look that happy."

Bob Kondrak's funeral service details

This is a photo of The Buzzbombs that Bob took back in 1999:

I heard back from Bob's son Kuri, the funeral service is open to the public and I'd like to encourage anyone that had a connection with Bob through the music scene to attend. Here are the details:

Bob Kondrak's Memorial Service
2pm on December 12, 2009
At Evergreen Washelli, 11111 Aurora Ave. North

And who knew, in these fancy internet times you can watch a memorial service online. I know Bob had a lot of friends from the Goner, Terminal Boredom and Banana Truffle (old school Usenet) forums where he went by tet68, Bongo White or his real name. If you're not in Seattle, you may want to watch online, here are the details:

WHEN: Live Event Saturday, December 12 2009, 05:00 pm EST

IMPORTANT Please Note: This is Eastern Time (New York Time) please adjust your schedule to be available at the appropriate time.

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE EVENT:
http://RobertJamesKondrak2343.washelli.ezwebcast.com/login/user/user610024/password/24772292fc8e28bb766bf0b0c90c704e

You can upload photos, videos and comments by accessing the event link.
For later viewing of the event, please access the link approximately
24 hours after the event.

The location ends up having a punk rock photo tie in, which is perfect for Kondrak. I'm pretty sure the Evergreen Washelli cemetery was featured in the photo on the cover of the early punk rock single by Solger:

Punk photographer Bob Kondrak passes away

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.