Monday, December 26, 2016

DC's MISLED YOUTH and IRON CAGES come to Florida!

To end of the year, Sick Of Talk will be playing at The Bunker in Ybor with two bands visiting from Washington, D.C., Misled Youth and Iron Cages on Friday December 30th. With Transitions Art Gallery closing it's doors over the summer, Tampa has been in a dire search of a new regular punk and hardcore venue. The Bunker has hosted a few shows so far and all have gone well, so come out and make this one even better than the rest! There is still room for one more band to hop on in the next day or so, leave a comment or shoot me an email if you are interested.



Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Ego Trip - Together In The Mind 7"


Finally! I have been seeking out the Ego Trip 7" since around this time last year when I uploaded the Beyond Reason 7" and Notes From The South Comp and I finally got my hands on a copy to upload for you all. Big thanks to my friend Bobby J for biting the bullet and getting a discogs account to pick up some old South Florida hardcore (maybe I'll get a discogs... eventually... nahhh) including this 7".


Another Youth Bus Records release, put out in 1991. The record comes with a pretty awesome lyric booklet that I have also included in the download. Two page spread with photo and lyrics for each song. Rich Thurston (Culture, Timescape Zero, etc.) played in this band. Though released in '91 I definitely hear a lot of late 80's hardcore influence on this record. Can't say how happy I am to finally be able to hear and share this. Please enjoy!

d/l here:
Ego Trip - Together In The Mind

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Exact Change tapes available at Arrow's Aim and Steelworker Records

I'm pleased to share that both Arrow's Aim Records in Gainesville and Steelworker Records in Tampa now carry all three Sick of Talk releases as well as Crisis Unit (ECR 003) and Hit List (ECR 004) live tapes. Look for both stores to carry future releases on the label, and if you go and anything is out of stock, let either us or them know so we can supply more copies. Below you can find all relevant information for these stores - the best two record stores in Florida.




Arrow's Aim Records

Located at 10 N Main St.
Gainesville, FL 32601

(352) 371-2121
Open every day 12 - 8 PM

Arrow's Aim Website
Vinyl Rites Website (affiliated label)






Steelworker Records

Located at 708 W Dr M.L.K. Jr Blvd
Tampa, FL 33603

(813) 666-4933
Closed Mondays
Open Tuesday - Saturday 12 - 7 PM
and Sunday 12 - 5 PM


Steelworker Records Website
Wohrt Records Website (affiliated label) 

Thursday, September 22, 2016

Exact Change Fanzine Archive: Harm Reduction Records Interview (2013)

This interview is with Jami Morgan, drummer and vocalist of Code Orange and co-founder of Harm Reduction Records. Again, this interview was conducted in the Summer of 2013, in the parking lot of Backbooth in Orlando after Code Orange's show with Madball. Originally supposed to appear in the unpublished Listen Magazine #3, this interview took place before Harm Reduction had formally put out any releases. Thanks to Jami for his time and enduring generosity and Christian Costello for again helping me record the interview. Though a bit dated, I didn't want to see this one fall through the cracks.

Exact Change: The last 4-way split that Code Orange Kids contributed to gave a softer, dreamier track. What can we expect on the next release seeing as it's a heavier track with harder hitting bands... Hounds of Hate, Heartless*...

Jami: It's nothing similar to that song. I don't think we'll ever do a song similar to that song. We try to do different things to stay interesting and have fun. It's a heavy song, it's in the vein of what our next record is going to be like... It'll probably come out before our next record, so it'll give a preview of that.

Exact Change: I've heard of Heartless and Hounds of Hate, but I haven't heard about the other band on the split, Killer of Sheep. Could you talk about them a little bit?

Jami: They're just a punk rock band from Pittsburgh with a bunch of guys who were in bands in the early 2000's, some of them were in bands in the 80's and 90's, they've been around forever. They don't tour a lot, but they play local a lot, so we thought why not.

Exact Change: Seeing Axis on the roster of releases got me excited since they're a Florida hardcore band. How'd you hear about them and decide about doing a release with them?

Jami: That one wasn't really my thing even though I'm super down with them, I think they're awesome, but Patrick just asked me if we would do a split with Self Defense and Axis...I was like yeah, they're fuckin' sick, he showed me some newer songs that were awesome, they were awesome live. I love metalcore in the vein their going for, 90's and early 00's. They sound like Turmoil, it's cool, I like them a lot. That wasn't one of my picks but I'm 100% on board.

Exact Change: The label is described as aiming for "smart metal" for "non-aggressive people", what is it exactly that you're looking for on the label?

Jami: Well, the description was written by Patrick. While I agree with it in a way... when he says "smart metal", I think he meant more that we want to do stuff that's heavy, but that's not excluding in any kind of way in trying to be too over-the-top "smart" or whatever so it's not hardcore, but at the same time gives you a little bit more than an average hardcore band.

I'm an aggressive person, so I don't totally agree with that in itself. We want to put out records that aren't necessarily records that people think are super cool right now but are heavy, you can fuckin' mosh to, but at the same time there's something there more than that. I feel like there was a lot of that in the late 90's and early 2000's and that's not really around much anymore.

We're looking for anything. If something's cool, we'll talk about it and figure out. I want to do what I like, metalcore shit in the good way, not in the shitty way it's used now. He wants to do other types of heavy music, we're just collaborating on different kinds of bands that we like. It's already not turning out originally how we described it. It started off by us seeing other labels and being like, "I think we can put out some cooler bands than this." There's tons of great labels, but not a lot of shit I'm super into.

Exact Change: Is this label more of a priority or a side project to your bands?

Jami: It depends how it goes. The goal is to just get records to sell whatever press that it is over time and try to put out good music that we like, that we can eventually get out to enough people to make our money back. We don't want to sell a bunch of records. It's not our main priority so that means we can put out bands that are cool, bands we actually like, not bands that are gonna put food on our table.

Exact Change: Anything else you want to add?

Jami: Not really. He (Patrick) probably has different opinions on ALL this shit than I do. I don't fuckin' care! I wish we were playing Transitions.

*Question was about a 4-way split scheduled to be released on Harm Reduction Records that never came out, which you can read about on their blog here.

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Exact Change Fanzine Archive: Coke Bust Interview (2013)


This interview is with Nick Tape, the singer of Coke Bust, and was conducted in the Summer of 2013 outside of Transitions Art Gallery shortly after the release of the Confined LP. It was originally intended to appear in Listen Magazine #3 which was never published. Big thanks to Nick for his patience, Nicole Kilbert for the photo, and Christian Costello for recording the interview. Also, R.I.P. to John Stabb who was alive at the time of the interview.

 
Exact Change: First question is, you guys are about to tour pretty extensively with the Confined LP in the US and Europe with a pretty tight schedule at that. For instance you have Iceland one night and Germany the next. 

Nick: Yeah, it’s stupid! 

Exact Change: What kind of preparation went into planning the tour? 

Nick: The tour itself is two months long, but we’ve been planning this tour for about eight months or so. It’s been a lot of work that’s gone into it. We booked all the US shows ourselves. We had some help with the European ones. It’s been a ton of work getting the LP's done in time and all the recordings polished up – well, as polished up as we make them – all the artwork insert layout bullshit... it’s kind of insane actually, the amount of time you spend preparing for the tour exceeds the tour itself. 

Exact Change: Speaking of the record, you guys mentioned it’s recorded on 2 inch tape, analog style. What about that kind of recording process do you find more suitable than digital recording? 

Nick: Well when you record on 2 inch tape, the whole sound come out a whole lot warmer. If you listen to like, a Black Sabbath record, the drums just sound so deep, the low end comes out more full bodied, it has a lot more personality I think. It’s truer to the sound of how we are live than, say, a really clean cut, very polished off Pro Tools recording. The first 7 inch we recorded was recorded digitally, dumped onto cassette tape, then dumped back over to digital. That’s like a fluke, I don’t even know why we did it like that! We were like, “that sounded kind of cool.” We were like “fuck it, man, the next record we do, let’s just do it analog” so that was the Degradation 7”. We did the same thing again for the Vaccine split and the Confined LP as well. 

Exact Change: Last year you guys recorded a live set on WMUC. Can you talk about that and how it differed from recording in a studio or playing a live show? 

Nick: Yeah, WMUC is the University of Maryland’s radio station. That’s the school that I went to and my older sister went to. My older sister is 4 years older than me and got me into hardcore and punk in the first place. She used to have a radio show at like 3 AM on Sunday mornings. I would be 13 or 14 and call into her radio show and be like *whispers* “Yo Emily, play some Suicidal Tendencies!” I had to whisper ‘cause I was at my parents house and couldn’t wake them up, you know? I always looked up to her a lot, and then when I went to the University of Maryland, I got my own radio show as well. I was always really involved in the station. We actually booked a few shows inside the station itself. It’s like an old famous DCHC venue almost? It's this really tiny radio room that would always do live recordings. Old bands like Minor Threat and The Faith played there, Government Issue as well. We knew they had the capabilities to record live sets. Some of our friends in England were like “If you guys want to do a live 7” we’ll put it out” and we were like “Really?” so everything kind of fell into place. We booked a show around that. We hit up John Stabb and asked if he’d sing a Government Issue song with us if we covered it. He’s a really cool dude, he comes out to all these shows, he’s a supporter of Coke Bust, he was like “Yeah, fuck yeah.” He came out, we did it, he gave a really funny speech before he sang the song, and that was it. We made a special set list for how we wanted the record to sound on side A and side B. 

Exact Change: What are some of your favorite straight edge bands past and present? 

Nick: Well… technically Minor Threat wasn’t a straight edge band, but obviously Minor Threat’s what got me into straight edge. Youth Of Today, Judge… More recently, Blank Stare, Black SS, Positive Reinforcement, Sick Fix, Poison Planet, No Time Left… Lot of cool stuff in Europe, too. Correction, obviously! *shows off Correction shirt* Swedish straight edge band, they’re great. Inherit from England. Seems like there aren’t a whole lot of straight edge bands right now. I’m into all the Revelation Records stuff too. 

Exact Change: You guys have covered Youth Of Today, The Faith, Government Issue… any other covers lined up? 

Nick: We have a million man. Today we did Cock Sparrer, we also know Ramones song. We do Attitude Adjustment sometimes, we did it a couple of nights ago in Gainesville. We’ve done S.O.A., Minor Threat “Bottled Violence”, we did a Pentagram cover, a NOFX cover. We don’t play them all the time but we’ve done a stupid amount of covers. Last Halloween we covered Infest and Chris sang. This year we’re going to do a Ramones cover band. 

Exact Change: In DC, the harDCore scene is thriving. Have you noticed anywhere else that has a hardcore scene that stands out while touring? 

Nick: Every place is different. It’s got it’s own vibe, I respect that. For me personally, all of California has always been really good, especially Southern California, people just go fucking insane. Also San Jose has been really good to us. Boston has always had a really good representation. Florida, not just to jiggle your balls, but Florida has been sick every time. We started playing This Is For You Fest, that was our introduction to Florida. On a more global level, Berlin... Poland; Warsaw, Vratislav. Paris, London. We're excited to go different places and experience everything. We don't book our tours around "oh, this scene is sick", we just want to cover as much ground as possible. Trying to book a South American tour, we want to go down to Brazil...

Random Guy: Do ya'll got a lighter?

Both: No.
 
Exact Change: One more question. A lot of people that don’t drink are soda drinkers. Are you a glass bottle soda drinker, if so, do you have a favorite?

Nick: You know, I try not to drink soda in general. I’m more of a food guy than a beverage guy. I’ve always tried to be pretty health conscious, without sounding like a douche. Whenever I go off, I wanna eat like nasty food. I don’t really care about soda, but I am a coffee drinker. We all are, except for Jubert. We’re all different though. James started drinking it in Europe last summer ‘cause he couldn’t poop, he hadn’t pooped in like three days. We were like “Dude, you gotta drink a coffee, it’ll sort you right out.” Ever since he’s been a coffee drinker. Chris has been drinking coffee the longest, he’ll want to stop off in the middle of like, Boca Raton for some bean roasting place and drop $20 on a bag of beans. I’m more of a dude who goes to the grocery store and buy generic pre-ground coffee ‘cause it’s like $3. Tastes like motor oil, that’s what I want. It’s bad that I’m already into that, I feel like when I’m old I’ll just drink straight up melted asphalt. 

Exact Change: Last words? 

Nick: Thanks for caring and showing interest, having good questions – these were sick questions, for real – most interviews are like “How did you guys start? What do you think about straight edge? What’s it like being from D.C.? Minor Threat was from D.C., how about that?” Yeah, how about it. Thanks man!

Friday, April 22, 2016

Select Florida Demos 2009-2012: Thin Line, Faith Addiction and Kickturn

It's near the end of April and I'm finally getting around to posting some downloads. This time around, it's even more Florida bands, but from more recently. I'll give a little information on each band and throw the download links with scans of whatever came packaged with the demo at the bottom. Also, keep an eye on the blog for two cool show announcements next week!

 
Thin Line - Demo

This demo was recorded in 2009, right around when I first started coming to shows. Apparently Thin Line was from Orlando. I actually never saw this band and only even heard about them a week ago when my friend Oliver was giving away some of his old things. He told me this band was from FL so I grabbed the tape out of principle. If you can't tell from the cover, this is a straight edge hardcore band that I would very loosely compare to Righteous Jams or Mental. The lyrics get about as cheesy as they come on the track "Get Involved" (not a Brotherhood cover) but the tape includes a rendition of Use Your Head (which is a Uniform Choice cover) that actually rocks pretty hard. Drummer Tommy currently plays in one of Florida's continually rising star bands, Axis. I was surprised to find their Bandcamp link is still active, so I nabbed the songs from there and threw in the cover and insert scan in the download.

Faith Addiction - Demo 

Faith Addiction was a short lived hardcore band from Tampa. Four songs clocking in at under 2:30 on this sucker. On this demo were all three members of grindcore band Cellgraft plus Justin who sang in Feral Babies on bass. Awesome blown out hardcore that I think would be hugely popular if it came out this year, but sort of flopped when they were around. I remember seeing them open a show in a storage unit in Tampa and just about no one caring or watching. Crazy! They put out a lathe cut 7" a few years after this demo. Only 25 copies were made and I'm pretty sure every single copy is sitting in various Tampa record stores. Even crazier! I highly recommend this, though I had to rip the audio from the cassette so it's not the best quality.

Kickturn - The Demo 2012

Chances are you heard or saw this band when they were around, but I rarely hear them get brought up nowadays. Since members also played in Losin' It I think maybe this demo is just seen as the "other" band, but this demo still holds up to me. Four cool tracks that remind me of stripped down, nuts-and-bolts hardcore in love with Underdog or Token Entry blended with that Florida taste that can't be mistaken. Ian now sings in Day By Day, and with that in mind, you can hear the vocal similarities even though the music varies quite a bit.

That about wraps it up, here's the download links. Enjoy!

d/l here: Thin Line - Demo
d/l more here: Faith Addiction - Demo
d/l even more here: Kickturn - The Demo 2012

Saturday, March 19, 2016

North Carolina's SUBSTANCE comes to Florida!

Apologies for the lack of updates on the blog. It has been a hectic two months, as Exact Change has hit the road in January on the Sick Of Talk 2016 Winter Tour as well as in February on the Hit List/Crisis Unit East Coast Tour. Thanks for everyone who came and saw any of the bands and picked up an ECR release, more Hit List live tapes will be available in the store very soon.

In April, Substance from NC will be coming down and playing through FL for a weekend. Check out the St. Pete show if you are in the area, or see the bottom flyer for information on the whole weekend. See you at the shows!