Million Kids
LA Is Gonna Make You Breathe
Released April 15, 2009
Producer Josh Casper

BC Caldwell – Guitar, Vocals
Kim Masters – Bass, Vocals
Matt Irwin – Drums, Vocals
Josh Casper – Guitar

1. LA IS Gonna Make You Breathe
2. Los Angeles (X cover)
3. Raw
4. Transmit Radio

After years of listening hundreds of albums, and writing hundreds of reviews of bands trying to out-scream each other, it is very refreshing to come across a band that is playing honest to god punk rock. No Cookie Monster vocals, and no fingernails on a chalkboard guitar solos. Just honest music.

If you haven’t given Million Kids a listen yet, check out their Facebook or Reverb Nation pages for a load of good music. And in a business full of egomaniacs, it’s refreshing to go to a show and hang out with a band as cool as Million Kids. Great bunch of people.

If you get the chance, give it a listen.

Rating: *** three out of three stars

On to the story . . .

PART FIVE

The next morning after breakfast I find a way to sneak out of the barrack and head to the barbershop. I explain to the sheriff running the shop that I am a licensed barber and should be working here (at eighteen I went to barber school, graduated, but never worked in a shop). He said that the head barber was being released; I could clean the shop until then.

So, I go back to the fire barrack and wait to be transferred to another barrack. The head of the white car and one of the southsiders come stumbling into the barrack. Apparently they were injured during a fire drill, and the southsider wanted to trade bunks as his ankle swelling up and he didn’t want to climb into bed. The debated for a few minutes then the southsider yells, “Fuck you wood, it’s on!” Before I could figure it out one southsider had tied the door closed and every Hispanic in the place was running up and down the barrack punching white people. At one point there were thirteen guys pounding on the head of the white car. I get slammed against the wall, I start to head to the middle of the barrack, but two white guys pin me back and basically say, “Do you want to die for this asshole?” Food for thought.

Later that evening, once the sheriffs calm the barrack down, they move me to what was called the working dorm. Everybody in this barrack did something, shoeshine, typing, barbers, you name it. We were jumping.

That next morning I start cutting hair. Let me re-word that, I start cutting white people’s hair. Once I started cutting, it turns out I wasn’t all that rusty. I was doing pretty well. I ended up doing a lot of cuts for the Hispanics, and if Bull (the black barber) was busy, I’d cut an occasional black guy.

It was a week or two into my stay that I met a black guy named Roosevelt. When he was first processed through, he was a wreck. He had been a crack-addict for years.

Because of the way he looked, there was no way to gauge Roosevelt’s age. Maybe sixty, maybe twenty-five. Who knows? The weird thing is, everybody knew him and I mean everybody. But no one knew his whole name, just Roosevelt, I never heard if that was his first name or last, just Roosevelt.

Within a couple of days, the black barber at the time snuck Roosevelt into the barbershop and gave him an “Extreme Makeover.” Trimmed the beard, cut his hair and all the barber shops had nail clippers, which you couldn’t have in general population. So, as Roosevelt got his hair cut, he trimmed all his dragon-like finger and toenails.

By the time he walked out of there, he looked like an attorney visiting an inmate, not the inmate.

The one hundred days that I spent with Roosevelt was always entertaining, because Roosevelt didn’t have access to crack, he developed a horrid addiction to caffeine. And because he was picked-up off of the streets he had no money on his books. So, he was always looking for some coffee from somebody. Coffee was bought from the machines or the once a week store. But it wasn’t like we buy coffee; it was purchased as tea bags, for twenty-five cents each. I have always been a major coffee fiend, drinking it heavily since high school, so I would stock up, buying five dollars worth at a time. Then I would kick down a bag a day to Roosevelt.

One day, one of the guys in my barrack needed a haircut (I was the “white” barber) because he was going to get a visit from his fiancée, he wanted to look sharp. I cut his hair and shaved him with the edger; he didn’t have any money on his books. No worries, just pay it forward, he said he’d “hook me up, tomorrow.” The next day, during his shift in the office he nabbed a half a pound of coffee grounds from the sheriff’s stash. This was like gold.

LAST ONE TO DIE is officially out: A discount code was added, when you order at: https://www.createspace.com/3669330 type in FGACJX53 and receive 10% off.

Stiff Little Fingers
Get A Life
Label: Taang! Records Released: 1994

Jake Burns – vocals/guitar
Bruce Foxton – bass
Dolphin Taylor – drums

1. Get a Life – 5:53
2. Can’t Believe in You – 4:58
3. The Road to Kingdom Come – 3:27
4. Walk Away – 5:20
5. No Laughing Matter – 2:52
6. Harp – 3:49
7. Forensic Evidence – 3:39
8. Baby Blue (What Have They Been Telling You?) – 4:02
9. I Want You – 4:05
10. The Night That the Wall Came Down – 3:51
11. Cold – 4:10
12. When the Stars Fall from the Sky – 3:50
13. What If I Want More – 1:38
14. Silver Lining (Unplugged)
15. Listen (Unplugged)
16. Wasted Life (Unplugged)
17. Smither Jones (Live)
18. Alternative Ulster (Live)

This album is not “punk” in the traditional sense. It’s more a pop-punk album. It may have the punk sentiment, but it’s very polished and produced. Not a bad album in anyway, but if you’re looking to mosh in the living room, this isn’t the album to do it to. The title track is probably the best track on the album.

In 1994 they released Get a Life in the UK, releasing it in the U.S. in 1996 (their sixth album). By the end of 1996 Taylor left due to family commitments. Burns called in Steve Grantley who had played drums for Jake Burns and the Big Wheel in the late 1980s.

If you get the chance to get a copy of this, check them out.

Rating: *** Three out of three stars

On to the story . . .

Over the past few months I’ve been doing my own little “Project Mayhem.” Not blowing anything up or injuring anyone, but in a sort of passive aggressive way, giving out free stuff at a big record shop in Hollywood. I have hundreds of albums, and every once in a while I’ll try to pare it down or search for doubles. If I have a double of a CD or DVD that I have burnt myself I’ll leave it with the magazines in the shop.

With the economy the way it is, it’s my small way of giving people music, and thumbing my nose at the over-priced crap that’s being sold at these shops.

When I go to this store I also load up the trunk with extra blankets and clothes, books and magazines, and my four-year-old son and I distribute these things to the homeless in Hollywood. Occasionally, we’ll leave some of his extra toys at a shelter.

When you’re out of work, you become very aware of how difficult it is to take a step up, and how hard it is for people who have it harder than yourself. So, if you see a crazy guy with his son dumping free CD’s at Amoeba, take some.

LAST ONE TO DIE is officially out: A discount code was added, when you order at: https://www.createspace.com/3669330 type in FGACJX53 and receive 10% off.

Volbeat
Beyond Hell/Above Heaven
Released: November 4, 2010
Producer Jacob Hansen
Rebel Monster Records

Michael Poulsen – vocals, guitar
Thomas Bredahl – guitar
Anders Kjølholm – bass guitar
Jon Larsen – drums, percussion

1. The Mirror and the Ripper
2. Heaven Nor Hell
3. Who They Are
4. Fallen
5. A Better Believer
6. 7 Shots
7. A New Day
8. 16 Dollars
9. A Warrior’s Call
10. Magic Zone
11. Evelyn
12. Being 1
13. Thanks

In case you haven’t heard of Volbeat, they are a band from Copenhagen, Denmark, described as James Hetfield’s favorite band. They are a combination of punk, rockabilly, death metal, and a pinch or Johnny Cash. Confused? Shouldn’t be. This is a great, energetic mix of music.

In a nutshell, the best way to describe this album is to say, this is the album Social Distortion should have made.

Thanks to Steve Karas for getting me a copy of this album.

If you get the chance, give it a listen.

Rating: *** three out of three stars

On to the story . . .

PART FOUR

I wake up to another roll call. This time I’m moving to a cell. I can’t remember where in the jail I moved. I know it wasn’t Charlie or Abel row; those are restricted as the Blood and Crip tiers. I was told I was being moved to a four-man cell. I roll up and follow the guards to my new home; the four-man cell has four guys in it already. Once in the cell I’m told that the new guy sleeps under one of the bunks. Great. After chow I laid out my bedding and started to nod off under the first bunk. An hour or so after lights out, I wake up suddenly to a small mouse sitting on my chest staring at me.

While in this cell I received two visits. First visit was from my brother and my mother. Needless to say, neither was very happy or proud.

Next visit was from my buddy Lance and a friend of his named Todd (I would call him Grape Ape, so I wouldn’t confuse him with the other Todd). A little bit better of a visit. Not that I didn’t want to see family, but the look on their faces reminds you of what a tremendous mistake you’ve made. Lance brought his son’s mother along, but she was wearing shorts, so they denied her visitation privileges.

Just like the other four places I was sleeping in, 3:00 am wake up call. Get in line to catch the chain to Pitchess Detention Center. I don’t remember much about this bus ride. I slept through most of it. I woke up when we were passing Magic Mountain, and thought to myself, “If I escape from this place I’m going to scale the fence and ride the Colossus.”

The whole bus unloads, we strip, spread ‘em, let the sack, feet, then one of the inmates screams as we are bent over “Cough.” Everybody starts coughing the sheriffs lose it “Stop it, stop it now you faggots.” At this early hour of morning it was hard to figure out who shouted “Cough,” I thought it was one of the sheriffs.

We turn in our dark blue scrubs from L.A. County and put on a pair of baby blue scrubs. From there we marched down to the lower yard at Wayside, the sheriffs refer to this yard as Beirut.

By the time I got to Beirut I had been locked up at County for two weeks.

Once I get to my assigned barrack, I am told to gather around, this guy who is the “head of the wood car” looks like human skull, with blonde stripe running from his bottom lip to his Adam’s apple. He was tattooed all over with various white power slogans and the two lightning bolts. Again we got the speech: “no eating with the toads, no using the shower if there are toads in there. And if shit jumps off, the southsiders got our backs.” Some of us just nod; a few of the others love this.

Within three days we were all marched to main office stripped of the baby blue scrubs and moved into bright orange scrubs. Once fitted with our new gear we were then marched into the second barrack from the mess hall – the fire barrack. Now the fire barrack is the worst place to be. Out in Castaic Lake during the summers there are tons of brush fires and the local fire department can only do so much, so Wayside volunteers its less favorable inmates to join in and fight fires. And when there are no fires they run through the hills doing training exercises, wearing fire gear and carrying hoses.

Like the previous times all the “new” woods are called together, and all the rules are gone over again. The head of the white car in this barrack is borderline retarded, something is just off, and the second in command is a kid who looks fourteen, but says he’s “almost nineteen.” As if the Alka-Seltzer story wasn’t bad enough . . . the head wood says “If you stay in the fire barrack you’ll be given one of these great fireman belt buckles,” he then lifts up his shirt and the head of his penis is sticking out of his pants. All at once everybody lets out a big “Dude, what the fuck?” I head over to the front of the barrack to try and find something to read.

LAST ONE TO DIE is officially out: A discount code was added, when you order at: https://www.createspace.com/3669330 type in FGACJX53 and receive 10% off.

Spacemen 3
The Perfect Prescription
Label: Taang! Records
Released: 1995

Sonic Boom – guitar, tremolo, organ, vocals
Jason – guitar, organ, farsifa, vocals
Bassman – bass vibrations
Rosco – percussion
Alex Green – saxaphone
Mick Manning – Trumpet
Owen John – Violins

1. Take Me to the Other Side
2. Walking With Jesus
3. Ode to Street Hassle
4. Ecstasy Symphony/Transparent Radiation (Flashback)
5. Feel So Good
6. Things’ll Never Be the Same
7. Come Down Easy
8. Call the Doctor
9. Call the Doctors
10. Soul 1
11. That’s Just Fine
12. Starship
13. Live Intro Theme (Xtacy)

I don’t know how to explain this album . . . it’s as if the Doors learned to play better, and their music was more hypnotic, then you’d have Spaceman 3.

Sound of Confusion is the second studio release by influential space rock group Spacemen 3, released in 1987 on Glass Records. It was later re-released in 1995 by Taang! Ensuing reissues on CD included a rotating assembly of bonus tracks, often including two instrumental b-sides to the “Take Me to the Other Side” single: “Soul 1″ (a Stax-like ballad) and “That’s Just Fine.”

If you get the chance to get a copy of this, check them out.

Rating: ** * Two out of three stars

On to the story . . .

Back in June of 2008, my son celebrated his fourth birthday. A few days before the day, I went out and bought a few outfits for him to wear to his party, then let my wife choose what he’d wear on the day of. I bought a Batman shirt, and few others. The last shirt I found was a funny shirt with a drawing of a rock with a Mohawk and spikes, and above it was the wording “Punk Rock.” I thought this was cool, nothing more than that. My wife thought it was funny also and that’s what my son wore to his party.

That September my son started pre-school, it was a very good private school, with strict policies about what the kids wear; no media related clothing (Mickey Mouse, Sponge Bob, etc) and no name-brand logos (Nike, No Fear, etc), which is fine, though sometimes tricky to find such plain clothing.

Anyway, a month into his school year, I was dressing him one day and I pulled out his “punk rock” shirt from his dresser. I figured it’s generic, and it doesn’t support any particular group. He has dinosaur shirts, car shirts, and these have all been deemed acceptable. So, I put it on him. No problem.

He comes home, three hours later with his shirt inside out. I asked my wife “What happened?” It turns out that the shirt made some of the kids and teacher uncomfortable, and they put it inside out and asked that it not be worn again. It cracked me up.

The poor kid is having his clothes banned and he doesn’t even like punk rock. For some reason, since birth my son doesn’t like any music if it’s in English. He loves Arabic music, he requested Umm Kulthum the other day. Turns out he likes a few Enrique Iglesis songs . . . Spanish ones. The boy cracks me up. He speaks some Spanish, some Chinese and some Egyptian dialect. So when we talk I don’t always know what he’s asking for. He has since gotten into some of the Sesame Street songs, and some Wiggles. A few weeks ago I popped on a Lords of The New Church CD, I figured I could ease him into the stuff, he politely asked me to turn it off. Oh well.

LAST ONE TO DIE is officially out: A discount code was added, when you order at: https://www.createspace.com/3669330 type in FGACJX53 and receive 10% off.

Fighting 84
Class Rage
Released: 2011

Brandon – Guitar, Vocals
Joseph – Bass, Backing Vocals
Jeff – Drums, Backing Vocals

1. The Tide Will Turn
2. Vengeance Tonight
3. Never Give In

I found out about this band about six months back. I received an email asking if I wanted their demo. And since I am always on a quest to find the best music around I, of course, said, “Send it!”

This music is hard, fast, and aggressive, not for the faint of heart. Brandon pushes the vocals as far as he can without going the “Cookie Monster” route.

In a nutshell this is old-school American Oi.

If you get the chance, give it a listen.

Rating: ** * two out of three stars

On to the story . . .

PART THREE

After chow, most of us nod out. Come morning we find out that Southsiders have raided the white side of the room at night and stolen the paper-thin Vans clones and left three of the guys without shoes. One of the guys wander over to me, his eyes bloodshot, and asks if I can figure out a way to get them back. About a half an hour later I walk towards the biggest Southsider in the room ask if I could rap with him. He smirks and says “Yeah Wood, what seems to be the problem?” So, I do my best to break it down, be stern, but careful not to turn this into a riot. So I say, “Look, a couple of the white guys had their shoes borrowed in the night.” He gets defensive, “Why you telling me homes?” So, I try to be diplomatic, “Because you look like you have a handle on what’s going on here. If weird shit is happening you would be the guy I’d want to know.” He looks at me a bit, his face is confused, he’s half mad-dogging me, half perplexed. Finally, he says, “I don’t know anything about no fucking shoes.” I say, “Cool enough, let me know if you do.”

The rest of the day the Hispanics and whites didn’t talk at all. One of the black guys started losing his marbles a bit, he trapped a cockroach, ripped out a string from his underwear and tied it around the roach like a leash and walked him around the room saying “Have you met my dog?”

The room was tense all the way up until bedtime. Come morning two pairs of shoes were returned. The third guy was stuck walking around in his socks for the remainder of his stay.

Next morning we are again waken up by a roll call. Some of us are moving to a different room, some catching the chain to Chino.

I am moved into a massive dayroom, almost three times of the last one. And the best news it’s got showers. I immediately head to the shower when I’m cut-off by a fairly large peckerwood white boy. He tells me sternly, “Never take a shower when there are toads or southsiders in there.” I’m a bit clueless, but I’m catching on. So I wait. In jail, the pecking order is whites are always last.

So, as I mill back to the middle of the room a big goofy white boy whistles and shouts, “Woods gather round.” All us white guys take a seat at the lunch tables in the middle of the room. Now, those that have never gone through the prison system may be unaware of this process, well here it goes: each prison, jail, dorm or dayroom has it’s own rep for your race. Woods, Blacks, Paisans and southsiders all have reps. Asians and Middle Easterners have a green light on them – meaning anyone at anytime can beat them down with no repercussions. Also, Paisans and southsiders are both Hispanic, Paisans are usually Mexicans right from over the border, no gang ties, straight old-school Mexican. Southsiders are Americanized Mexicans, gangsters.

So, we are gathered around this goofy wood, and he breaks down the basics: no eating with the blacks, no using the shower if there are blacks in there. Then out of nowhere he starts talking about his incredible oral sex trick he uses, he places a quarter of an Alka-Seltzer on your tongue and go to town. Supposedly the fizz makes the woman’s eyes roll back.

At this point, I stand up and head to the showers. I’ve never liked listening to race stuff, and like even less, idiots. I see a Hispanic by the showers; I tell him I’d spot him if he’d spot me. He nods. I shower and then go find a rack for the night.

I find a metal bunk in the corner of the room. I like this; no one can sneak up on me. I throw my blanket onto the bed and a big black guy comes stomping over, yelling, “What the fuck is you doing wood?” I’m a little lost at this point, so I say, “Trying to sleep.” He continues with the tough guy thing, and says “This is the n@#$er area, wood.” I say “So?” For some reason he hits his brakes and says “You don’t mind sleeping here?” I say, “I don’t care if you don’t.” He smiles, and says, “Welcome to the neighborhood. You a crazy wood.”

LAST ONE TO DIE is officially out: A discount code was added, when you order at: https://www.createspace.com/3669330 type in FGACJX53 and receive 10% off.