Border Boss

Our final episode before a brief vacation sees us thinking about our waning years of live performances and our waxing years of cheez-it appreciation before diving into the rich universe of california punk and hardcore via the surf 'n sun sounds of Mis'sionnne Vai-jo's own BORDERLINE.

This week talk about hardcore (gaming) and hardcore (manga collecting) hardcore (reality TV) before celebrating the legacy of the late (hardcore) Steve Albini by examining one of the few ZENI GEVA records he had absolutely nothing to do with.

Over the last few months we've brought you the flavors of England, Canada, Ancient Greece, Arrakis, Philadelphia... but there's truly no place like home. So steep yourself a cup of chamomile tea, put on your favorite sweater, snuggle up with the quilt grandma made you, and queue up the void-genital destroying apocalypse grind of Albany NY's CONNIPTION.

This week we taste spicy creams as we ponder the eroding furnace of time and it's early onset effects for those who choose the punk way. We challenge the permanence of recorded interviews and taste the honeyed prog of an aging spaceman. Finally we stare head-on into the burning passion of 4 Buffalonians who truly practice what they preached... why? NO REASON.

This week we get unexpectedly dialed up about Xena Warrior Princess before dialing it down to soberly discuss the late-period youth crew antics of the only band we've ever encountered to feature a prominent BMX theme - Hunterdon County's beloved and clean living sons RAD.

Unfortunately we all survived our hiatus trials and we're here to bring you some Eclipse chat a full week after everyone else has moved on. Don't move on, man... the eclipse won't be back for ages. Stay with it. Stay with it. Anyway here's Philadelphia murder machines STARKWEATHER.

We are off this week, but to fill your holes we offer a free copy of one of our past Patreon exclusives. If you like what you hear, please consider joining our Patreon at Patreon.com/FirstSevenInchClub Welcome to Weeksperts, our attempt to become experts in a week via a weak spurt of research. In this episode, we analyze and master the readily available world of Hot Wheels collecting. Existing patrons, sorry you already heard this one. See you next week!

We love international culture so this week we briefly think about dutch working class music before setting sail for a country we can't sail to - America's own CANADA. There we eat jars of vegan grease while searching for yet another Colo-band, THE SWARM.

This week we IRL check out some hockey and VIRTUAL check out some Sunami. Emboldened by mosh, we openly choose to flaunt the will of god, defying the current dangers of long flimsy suspension bridges to take the Pulaski Skyway right into the guts of NJ. Does the skyway actually take you to Brunswick? What do I look, like Rand McNally? Anyway here's SCARLET LETTER.

We're tired of all this fast punky punk so it's time to come home... Mike's home... where mom still keeps all the ambiguous early 90s post-hardcore in danish cookie tins and old sanka cans. If you're hungry, stop by Connecticut for a nice big plate of ONION.

This week briefly think about trucks before daring the very oceans to contain us as our spirits speed easily over their Atlantean depths on a transcendental mission to observe, but never interfere with, the comings and goings of UK Hardcore lifers BOXED IN.

This week we bust the secrets of the past wide open by exposing the truth about mud floods and substandard death metal before cracking the forbidden seal on the ancient charred fortress lavyrinth YAPHET KOTTO and SUICIDE NATION.

Today we tiptoe carefully around the stresses of the young before examining the young stresses of the old. Explore what it means to pray for a clean death as we embark - for the first time ever - on a tour of the maybe-1993 / maybe-1995 comp WHAT STILL HOLDS TRUE featuring Chokehold, Deadwait, Burst of Silence, and Line Drive.

We are almost timely on a topic for a change but also we are men disaligned with time... chasing the pearls and gold and Citizen watches of yesteryear's opulence while dancing to a drummer that is in no hurry to keep time. Join us this week for CHOKEHOLD.

After putting a thumb on the scale it looks like Albany's own THE JURY finally wins the sick and revolting prize of our attention. I'm sorry, The Jury. Also internet chat, music chat, and taco chat, which we never apologize for.

This week the audience applies a lifehack to get more of what they want but we use a very special First Seven Inch Club counter-hack to give them even less than they deserve as we admire the clear blue ecstasy of bal'mer's own DEEP SLEEP.

We celebrate the 46th Anniversary of the most effective and important crossover event of all time before stepping into the ring with Bakersfield not-crossover melodic hardcore and kettlebell kings LOSER LIFE.

This week we overcome the overwhelming fatigue of a life of listening to records in winter to talk about surgery, audio best practices, and alien mosh parts before doing our best to limit certain words and phrases we are dying to invoke while discussing west coast Prank records cold dead agony machines ARTIMUS PYLE.

Mike takes us even further from the lingering stench of Punk Month with possibly the only Italian metal band on earth that doesn't play romance novel dragon music and we get so deep in the metal weeds that we need help from our friend Shelby.

Punk Month is now as dead as can be so we turn our undivided attention to all other things dead and death related - the death metal quandary of good cop and bad cop, the deathlike sounds of satanic ska, the deadly accuracy of building a life inside the computer world, and the 90s giant pants death-sounds of New Jersey's own AS DARKNESS FALLS.