D.I. - The Suburbia Sessions 1983 DVD
MVD Visual

I think it may have been the movie, Suburbia, that first turned me on to D.I. when I was a young teenager. The song they performed in that movie, “Richard Hung Himself” is one of the all time punk rock classics. I’d soon find out that D.I. spawned from the Adolescents, a band I had already loved at the time (we’re talking about nearly 25 years ago), and it made sense to me that I found D.I. so appealing as they had a similar style. D.I. went on to release a handful of very good records during the 1980s and are still active today (with Casey Royer being the only original member left).

This DVD was recorded by Flipside back in 1983 at one of the band’s practices. It was shot on one camera and because of the controlled environment, it was well lit and the picture quality was a lot better than some of the other flipside videos that have been released. The sound was really good as well making this one of the best flipside related videos on a DVD to date. It was a ten song set with many of the tracks being from their first record (later reissued at Team Goon) which was just about to be released at the time.

The disc runs about an hour long between the set and the bonus interview footage recorded at the same time. The video is full frame as it originally was shot. The audio has two options: stereo and 5.1 surround with the stereo track sounding a bit better. If you are a D.I. fan, this is a pretty great piece of early footage that warrants the purchase price and hopefully this will mean more old Flipside videos being released in the future.

For those of you who are familiar with the old (and great) band, Middle Class, you’ll be happy to know in September Frontier Records will be reissuing their early material. For you record collectors out there, Frontier Records has available some original sealed copies of Homeland, the band’s only full length release. These were unearthed from storage of the owner of Pulse Records who put out that record 25 years ago! They are selling them for an extremely fair price too so do yourself a favor and grab one before they are all snatched up and you are stuck buying it from some pimp on ebay.

The series of Unrest Records Dayglo Abortions reissues continues with all the later releases that until now were never released on vinyl. As far as the music goes, these albums were really hit or miss, sadly with the emphasis on miss.

Dayglo Abortions - Two Dogs Fucking

This was the album that followed Here Today Guano Tomorrow. That album definitely showed the band going in a more metal direction and this album lived up to my fears that they’d take it too far. The songs pale in comparison to anything they did until this point, and a lot of the stuff just came off sounding like retarded metal with adolescent humor trying to save it. There’s a couple of decent songs on it but even the vocals didn’t really sound the same as the previous albums.

Dayglo Abortions - Little Man in the Canoe

This Dayglo album was a bit of a return to form for the band. It sounds more like something between the Feed Us a Fetus and Here Today… . They ditched a lot of the adolescent metal baggage that plagued them on the album before this and it turned out to work for them as it’s a pretty solid album overall. Of all the “newer” Dayglow Abortions albums, this is easily the one you want to own. This also came on white vinyl as you can see in the photo.

Dayglo Abortions - Death Race 2000

Another in the line of never before on vinyl releases, Death Race 2000 unfortunately doesn’t pick up where the previous album left off. In fact it really seems to pick up where Two Dogs Fucking left off. The songs are once again more metal and the vocals sound different again. It’s almost as if there were two versions of the band taking turns releasing albums. The songs are more generic sounding than anything in their past, and nothing really stood out for me on this gray vinyl record.

Dayglo Abortions - Fin.

Judging by the title, I’m assuming this was the final release ever for the Dayglo Abortions. Instead of following the pattern of good/bad, this one just continued where Death Race 2000 left off. The songs were pretty generic and way too metal for their own good. Whatever magic they had early on in their career (and boy did they have magic!) was long gone by this point and you’d be hard pressed to know it was the same band that put out such classic records back in the old days. It wasn’t a very good note to end on but at least they called it a day eventually.

All of these records can be purchased directly from Unrest Records or should be able to be picked up from the usual shops/mailorders that carry punk records. I’m pretty sure they did color vinyl for most of these reissues (though most of mine were black) so it’s worth ordering direct if that is the only place to get the colors.

Lydia Lunch - Video Hysterie: 1978 - 2006 DVD
MVD Visual

Lydia Lunch has been an icon in the underground culture for three decades now. She has had a very long and diverse career that took her from punk rock singer to artist, to poet, to author, to film star, to “celebrity crush” of a teenage MXV, to so much more, the woman has done it all like no other before or likely after. Whether working alone or collaborating with any number of people, she’s consistently put out interesting and original material in every medium she’s put her hands in. What’s even more amazing is she is still at it today and shows no signs of ever quitting.

This DVD compiles live footage from various projects in the long career of Miss Lunch. It starts off with the legendary Teenage Jesus and the Jerks and goes on to 8 Eyed Spy, then is followed by lots of collaborations that spanned the course of another two decades. The one project I was always a big fan of which wasn’t represented at all here was her work with Clint Ruin (aka: Foetus) under the name Stinkfist. Most of the projects only feature one live song but the really early stuff has anywhere from two - six live songs which was a pretty amazing inclusion considering those shows were almost 30 years ago.

Video quality varies by clip and ranges from very good to excellent with a few of them being shot on just one camera. All the footage is full frame. The audio has two options: stereo and 5.1 surround with the nod going to the 5.1 mode which filled the room up nicely. Bonus materials include a view various interview clips and a really cool photo gallery featuring some really great photos of Lydia. Total run time of the main feature is around 80 minutes.

Since I have been a fan of Lydia Lunch for more than 2/3 of her career, I was pretty excited to check this disc out when I received it in the mail. It is a cool document that shows a good slice of her long and varied career and will enjoy repeated viewings and a permanent place in The Punk Vault.

Related links:

Buy the DVD from amazon.com

Lydia Lunch official website

My two favorite ladies in CA - Lisa and Betty of Frontier Records once again sent over the latest batch of new color vinyl releases of three of my favorite punk rock albums from “back in the day”. They are as follows…

Adolescents - LP (aka: the blue album) on opaque pink vinyl

Circle Jerks - Group Sex LP on opaque yellow vinyl

Suicidal Tendencies - LP on opaque yellow vinyl

All three of these colored vinyl beauties are available in limited quantities and can be acquired straight from the Frontier Records website. Tell the ladies that MXV sent you if you stop by. Thanks as always to Lisa and Betty for sending them over!