Hate Your Friends No. 9

Fistful of Dave
Hate Your Friends

I’ve changes this up a bit. I’ve moved to using two weeks of my Friends Mix to get a better list, removing the artist that appear every week. Also makes it a bit easier to keep up with.

Every week Apple Music makes a Friends Mix. Each week I will make off the cuff “reviews” of the songs in this list. As Apple Music likes to put the same bands on the list often, so I will skip some of the tracks.

Wiper “Over the Edge” Early Wipers is essential punk, that doesn’t really sound like anyone else. Listened to it all.

Chavez “Pentagram Ring” 90s rock, somewhere between noise rock and classic rock. Could use more hooks. Listened to it all.

Sebadoh “Hoppin’ Up and Down” One of the not so great songs on III. Listened to it all.

Brainiac “Flash Ram” Robot rock, just listen to Brainiac. Listened to it all.

Jesus Lizard “Puss” Never did much for me, this is apparently still true. Listened to it all.

Cola “Tracing Hallmarks” Sounds kind of like Silkworm meets Spoon. It’s pleasant enough but nothing that ropes me in. Listened to 1:29.

Upright Forms “Heaven Knows” Upbeat pretty good 90s indie punk. Listened to all of it.

Avail “On the Nod” 90s punk/hardcore. It’s fine. Listened to it all.

Samiam “Clean” If you don’t know take melodic West Coast punk/hardcore and mash it with DC melodic punk/hardcore. I prefer “Billy” and “ Listened to all of it.

Screeching Weasel “Someplace Else” Yeah Ben Weasel, all I can think of the “punk king” wearing a Celtic Frost shirt. I do like the second two records, this being one. Listened to it all.

Suicidal Tendencies “Institutionalized” I never need to hear this again. Listen to the rest of the record instead. 28 seconds.

D.O.A. “The Prisoner” Early D.O.A. Is great. Stay away from that later stuff. Listened to it all.

Gray Matter “Thog” 90s Discord, slower melodic and great songs. Weird fucking cover art. Listened to it all.

SNFU “The Devil’s Voice” If you like 80s hardcore and don’t like the first two SNFU albums there is something wrong with you. Listened to it all.

Voxtrot “Fast Asleep” Always thought this was post punk. guess not, jangly indie rock. Listened to a minute and five seconds.

The Allman Brothers Band “Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More” Time has not softened my disdain for this hippy jam bullshit. 30 seconds.

Built to Spill “Dystopian Dream Girl” What’s not to love, if Dino Jr was from the Pacific Northwest. Listened to it all.

Die Kreuzen “Among the Ruins” The greatest band from Wisconsin. They go more Killing Joke/Bauhaus here. Listened to it all.

Mudhoney “Running Loaded” I really want to love Mudhoney, then I go listen to Green River instead. Listened to it all.

Jawbox “Green Glass” DC goes to the majors. All of Jawbox’s albums are great. A streamlined Fugazi? Listened to it all.

Girls Against Boys “Cruise Your New Baby Fly Self” Slowly warming up to this after 30 years. Listened to it all.

Treepeople “Clouds and Faces” What Doug Marstch did before Built to Spill, more punk and out of control. All of it is worth your time. Listened to it all.

Jawbreaker “Shield Your Eyes” Still a pass. 32 seconds.

Big Boys “We Got Soul” I’d really like to say I like them. Annoying funk punk. 57 seconds.

Shiner “Cake” A band you might think I’d like. Nope. 52 seconds.

Silkworm “Grotto of Miracles” Why does everyone like this boring, morose shit? 33 seconds.

Amebix “Arise!” Kind of like an AnarchoPunk Venom. Their comeback album “Sonic Mass” is what to listen to though. Listened to it all.

Articles of Faith “Buried Alive” Best hardcore band out of Chicago, ferocious and melodic. Listened to it all.

Dag Nasty “Values Here” Kings of melodic hardcore, first two albums are essential. Listened to it all.

Big Drill Car “Freedom of Choice” A big yawn of a cover, listened to “Album/CD/Cassette Type Thing” instead. 41 seconds.

Finom “Hungry” Pleasant 90 type indie rock with a motorik beat. Listened to all of it.

Kim Deal “Coast” Embarrassingly bad, stop the horns for the love of all that is good. 33 seconds.

This is Lorelei “Perfect Hand” It’s so easy to make awful electronic music. 23 seconds.

Soul Asylum “Beggars and Choosers” One of my favorite albums. So great before “Runaway Train. Listened to all of it.

Julian Cope “My Nation Underground” Where’s that skip button, shitty white guy funk. 13 seconds.

Hate Your Friends No. 9

Man vs Machine No. 2

Still looking for an image. Better first half of the list this week.

Every week Apple Music makes a New Music Mix for users. Each week I will make off the cuff “reviews” of the songs the algorithm “thinks” I will like. I can manipulate this list much easier than the friends list by what I listen to. That being said it loves feeding me Black and Death Metal which for the most part isn’t my thing.

Jack White “What’s the Rumpus?” While not a pastiche of himself it’s close. It’s listenable but unremarkable. Listened to it all.

Dinosaur Jr “Whenever Your Ready” The AC/DC or Slayer of 80s indie rock? Quality reproductions of past glory that don’t get near the heights of the classics. Listened to all of it.

Guided By Voices “Serine King” I wish Apple Music would stop feeding me GBV. This song is pretty good but I have all I need. Listened to all of it.

Loma “Pink Sky” Slinky slightly creepy and laid back. Kind of like Blonde Redhead with more 60s French pop thrown in. Listened to and bought the album, more of a US Broadcast. Listened to all of it.

Water From Your Eyes “Tired of Being Alone” First clunker of the week, modern indie rock aping the 70s California thing fronted by a woman that can’t sing. 36 seconds.

J.R.C.G. “Dogear” Beak> meets Girls Against Boys. Not sure what I think, need to revisit. Listened to the entire album and bought it. Great stuff, unique. Listened to it all.

1349 “The God Devourer” Long time tradition Black Metal vets, it’s fine but not good enough to buy. Listened to it all.

Ripped to Shreds “Perverting the Funeral Rights…” Things I hate about modern metal is that it’s so mechanical and artificial sounding. Death/Grind Grind/Death. 44 seconds.

Nachtmystium “Predator Phoenix” Dull black n roll. 42 seconds.

Loudblast “From Beyond II (The Return)” The music I like, kind of a melodic metallic hardcore, the vocals are that over the top how low can I go growling crap. Listened to it all.

Fulci “Human Scalp” More of the low growling vocals, this time over paint by numbers death metal. 32 seconds.

Mayhemic “Triumph Portrit” Sometime I think metal has completely run out of ideas. 50 seconds.

Dark Angel “The Shadows” The electronic music taking a known band name to cash in. Apple needs to fix this. 22 seconds.

Ceremony of Silence “King of the Mountain” A rip off of early Mastodon but a bit more Death Metal. 55 seconds.

Aeternus “Fire Pendulum” This seems to be a former metal band doing awful EDM. 26 seconds.

Holocausto “Seres Inertes” Kind of entertaining retro thrash. Listened to all of it.

Black Lava “Colour of Death” It’s got to be a drum machine Black metal. Listened to 2 minutes and three seconds.

Swervedriver “Butterfly” Left overs from 99th Dream, probably better than anything that made the record. Listened to all of it.

Swami John Reis “Ketchup, Mustard, and Relish” I want to love this, but I heard this hundreds of time from John Reis. Well done but not needed. Listened to all of it.

X “Ruby Church” X with all the edges sanded down. 1:00.

Ron Keel “Hollywood” Excruciating pop metal country cross over. 27 seconds.

Sacri Monti “Desirable Sequel” I was intrigued by the song, then it started for real. 1:09.

Stratovarious “Heroes” i was hopeing for a power metal cover of Bowie’s “Heroes” for a good laugh. No such luck. 1:32.

dirt “Wreckage” Metal is dead. 23 seconds.

Radon “Azufee” Not sure what this is supposed to be but it’s terrible. 46 seconds.

Man vs Machine No. 2

Man vs Machine No. 1

A new take on my “Hate Your Friends” series. I’ve not found a suitable image.

Every week Apple Music makes a New Music Mix for users. Each week I will make off the cuff “reviews” of the songs the algorithm “thinks” I will like. I can manipulate this list much easier than the friends list by what I listen to. That being said it loves feeding me Black and Death Metal which for the most part isn’t my thing.

Deep Purple “Light it Up” Deep Purple’s expiration date was somewhere in 1984/85. 52 seconds.

UK “Light it Up” Not the prog band. Electronic music scammers love to use old band names to drum up cash. How Apple hasn’t fixed this is beyond me. 2 seconds.

Voxtrot “Esprit de Cœur” Usually my friends list and new music list don’t cross over. The is terrible, seems to be attempting to sound like poppy Eurythmics. 22 seconds

Redd Kross “I’ll Take Your Word for It” Why does Apple Music recommend albums that are already in my collection? It knows what’s in there. Anyway this is great, if you dig power-pop, punk, bubblegum. Great songs. Listened to all of it.

Fantasy of a broken heart “Loss” A nice updated 70s bubblegum track, then the lead vocals start. 52 seconds.

Sex Week “Kid Muscle” Sounds like a twee take on early Low, but not nearly as good. 54 seconds.

Kim Gordon “ECRP” Same problem as recent Low. Music is some kind of poor hip-hop backing track. 1:32.

Les Savy Fav “Mischief Night” another repeat from “Hate Your Friends”, still don’t like it. 57 seconds.

Karate “Mystery Man” i don’t remember Karate sounding like The Hold Steady. Unlistenable. 37 seconds.

Wormwitch “Inner War” Here comes the metal. Black Metal. Nothing you haven’t heard a billion times if you’ve heard Black Metal. Why has Metal got so boring. 53 seconds.

Tribulation “Tainted Skys” Tribulation went down the we’ll be the goth/black metal Ghost a while ago. It’s fine. Listened to all of it.

Extinction AD “Epidemic of Mutation” The most robotic shitty drums I’ve heard in a while. Sounds like a d level The Haunted. 41 seconds.

Scald “Ancient Doom Metal “ Bad Viking Candlemass like doom. 33 seconds after I skipped the intro.

Hyperdontia “irrevocable Disaster” Grind I guess. So boring. Metal is in a sorry state in 2024. 18 secondsl.

Jesters of Destiny “If You Want To” Goofball 80s weirdo crossover band but this is from 1988 and sounds like a shitty band trying to cop Blue Oyster Cult. Odd. 1:04.

True Black Dawn “Fish, Sin and Soma” At least the title is interesting. Listened to 5 seconds.

Baphomet “Crimson Abyss” starts with the guttural bleaaarrrrrrrrggggghh thing, pass. Listened to a minute and three seconds.

Wraith “Asylum” Ed Repka rip off cover, if you understand that you know what this sounds like. 30 seconds.

IRONFLAME “Blood and Honor” Starts with an AC/DC Thunderstruck thing then goes into boring power metal. A dime a dozen. 1:20.

The Hard-Ons “Buzz Buzz Buzz” I loved the Hard-Ons. No idea what the hell this is but it doesn’t sound like the Hard-Ons. 1:18.

The Effigies “Sortie” No clue if this has anything to do with the Chicago punk band, I can’t find any connection. Regardless it’s bad. 59 seconds.

Nap Eyes “Passageway” Ughh I’d rather have more shitty metal. Modern twee folk? 28 seconds.

The Shivas “Hellbound” I think, judging by the cover, that this is supposed to be psychedelic. Sounds like the Sundays without the songs. 1:21.

Sunflower Bean “Shake” Stoner grunge? Poop. 52 seconds.

Orden Ogan “Prince Of Sorrow” Why is most power metal not powerful? 18 seconds.

Man vs Machine No. 1

Hate Your Friends No. 8

Fistful of Dave
Hate Your Friends

Spurred to do this again. We’ll give it a try.

Every week Apple Music makes a Friends Mix. Each week I will make off the cuff “reviews” of the songs in this list. As Apple Music likes to put the same bands on the list often, so I will skip some of the tracks.

Les Savy Fav “Void Moon” I try liking this band every once in a while. Nothing once again. Like a pop-punk version of Fugazi. 40 seconds.

Alan Sparhawk “Can U Hear” All the bullshit vocoder electronic stuff that was on the recent Low albums. Sounds like a hip-hop backing track. 40 seconds.

Polvo “The Purple Bear” North Carolina’s Sonic Youth? Even more atonal. This is a wobbly one. Love it. Listened to it all.

Drive Like Jehu “Super Unison” You should own both Drive Like Jehu albums. Angular and powerful 90s DC like post-hardcore. Listened to it all.

Lungfish “Seek Sound Shelter” See previous Hate My Friends post. Skipped.

Soul Side “Pocket Hurts” Influenced slightly by Fugazi. They’ve got their own spin on it, so more than a clone. They turned into Girls Against Boys, well some of the members. Listened to it all.

Arcwelder “The Carpal Tunnel Song” I listened to them a ton in the 90s, still great. What if you took Husker Du “Flip Your Wig” and mixed in some Big Black, you get Arcwelder. Listened to it all.

Sebadoh “Mystery Man” Bakesale is the best Sebadoh record by a mile. Fully realized and nothing that seems like a joke song. Not the best song on the record. Listened to all of it.

The Breeders “Forced to Drive” As I just told someone all you need from The Breeders is “Safari” ep, “Pod”, and “Last Splash”. It’s fine. Listened to a a minute fourth-eight.

Husker Du “Don’t Want to Know if You’re Lonely” One of the greatest songs ever recorded. A Grant Hart jam. Listened to all of it.

Wipers “Someplace Else” Not familiar with later Wipers. Not as urgent but still sounds like the Wipers. Will have to investigate. Not as good as the early stuff, a little too alt-rock. Listened to it all.

Hum “Why I Like Robins” My Bloody Valentine playing Slayer? The other way around? Regardless, fucking great. How to be heavy without being heavy metal. Listened to all of it.

Unwound “Kantina” I try and I try. Nothing that makes it stick for me. They fit in that Fugazi / Drive Like Jehu sound. Listened to it all.

Crooked Fingers “Big Darkness” Archers of Loaf are one of my favorite bands. This is what Eric Bachman did after the band originally spit. I dig the first two albums but this ventures into Springsteen territory. Listened to it all.

Portastatic “Sour Shores” Mac from Superchunk. I’d rather listen to Superchunk. Listened to 59 seconds.

Voxtrot “Fast Asleep” Always thought this was post punk. guess not, jangly indie rock. Listened to a minute and five seconds.

Built to Spill “Hindsight” You don’t need any Built to Spill after “Ancient Melodies of the Future”. This is from after that. 30 seconds.

Versing “By Design” Decent 90s Sonic Youth worship. Listened to it all.

David Nance “Negative Boogie” New to me. I kind of like it and hate it at the same time. It wore out it’s welcome. Definitely unique. 1:25.

Guided by Voices “Romeo Surgen” Not sure who’s still buying GBV, but it sure seems to have run it course. 53 seconds.

Cocteau Twins “Garlands” One of the parents of shoegaze. Kind of like the dreamy Cure stuff but with a drum machine, Listened to it all.

Metallica “The Wait” From the last great thing Metallica did. A great cover of the Killing Joke song. Listened to it all.

7 Seconds “It All Makes Less Sense Now” When they decided to be U2. Kevin isn’t much of a singer, better as a shouter. 1:15.

Rolling Stones “Midnight Rambler” I’m a “greatest hits” Stones fan, This is a “greatest hit”. Listened to it all.

Hate Your Friends No. 8

Hate Your Friends No. 7

Once again it’s been a while. Another attempt to keep a regular cadence for posting here. We’ll see if it sticks.

Every week Apple Music makes a Friends Mix. Each week I will make off the cuff “reviews” of the songs in this list.

Spiritualized “Lay Back In the Sun” A broken record, I should like Spiritualized. I don’t, although this song is really good and probably why I keep trying. Listened to it all.

The New Pornographers “Myriad Harbour” I pretty much am done with them after the first three. This confirms my position. Listened to 10 seconds

Pavement “Stop Breathing” I have a great dislike for them, this doesn’t help. Made it through 25 seconds as I wasn’t paying attention.

Fugazi “Life and Limb” Recently I found all the Fugazi CDs I didn’t have and bought them. This is ok. Listened to all of it.

Frank Black “Don’t Ya Rile ‘Em” I like the first two Frank Black solo albums. This is like if The Beach Boys covered Pixies songs. Listened to all of it.

The Breeders “Opened” I like the Breeders way more than Frank Black solo stuff. Listened to all of it.

Deerhunter “Neither of Us, Uncertainly” Here is a band I actively avoid for no reason. This was pretty good, I guess I should explore. Listened to it all.

Swervedriver “Something Out of Nothing” Somewhere along the line Swervedriver became a favorite band. This is not one of their best. Listened to it all.

Husker Du “Dead Set On Destruction” Fucking great. Really have been into the the last two albums recently. Listened to it all.

Smoking Popes “Gotta Know Right Now” Here’s a band that fell off my listening radar. Still like them but don’t get the urge to listen much. Again not one of their better songs. Listened to it all.

Soul Asylum “Something Out of Nothing” Last good album, yeah they were great before “Run Away Train”. This album was a bit of disappointment after “Hang Time” and this song is one of the lesser efforts. Listened to it all.

Killing Joke “Primitive” Will we get to something I don’t know this week? This is great, the current bands obsessed with “post-punk” have nothing on this. Listened to it all.

The Vibrators “Whips and Furs” More power-pop than punk. Regardless good stuff. Listened to it all.

Protomartyr “Elimination Dance” Another band I should like but it just doesn’t click. Goth-ish (in the classic sense) post-punk. Listened to it all.

Squid “Pearl to Stone” Finally, something I don’t know. Very serious indie rock/post-punk. Pretty bland and nondescript Listened to it all.

Public Body “Break from Life” New Wave disguising itself as post-punk. Sounds like the singer from the previous band. Doesn’t move the needle. Listened to 32 seconds.

The Lemon Twigs “Every Day is the Worst Day of My Life” I really want to like this band. Super 1970’s throw back pop rock. I probably just need to sit down and take a good listen. Listened to it all.

Damien Jurado “James Hoskins” Never cared for his stuff, but this is intriguing but the song goes nowhere. Listened to it all.

Wire “Madman’s Honey” The missing piece of Wire in my collection. I don’t like this electronic period as much as everything else but it’s still good. Listened to all of it.

Sinead O’Connor “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got” I never listened to a whole album of her’s before she passed. Guess I’ve been missing out. Listened to it all.

Burn “Last Great Sea” Youth Crew mosh core goes alt-metal garbage. Maybe listened to 10 seconds.

Drug Church “Foam Pit” Shouty, kind of hardcore indie rock thing that’s popular. It’s ok. Listened to it all.

The Charlatans “Heaven” 1990’s hippy Manchester junk. All I can think of is that dumb white guy dance the singer would do. 30 seconds to write this.

Ozzy Osbourne “One Up the B Side” There’s a reason this didn’t make an album. 30 seconds.

Lungfish “Creation Story” Discord repetition kings. Sounds like Slint, it’s fine. Listened to it all.

Hate Your Friends No. 7