A Handful of Dust: Punch in the Face - Live at Radio K (2004)

Friday, March 25, 2011

Punch in the Face - Live at Radio K (2004)

The last of my trifecta of introductory posts about Chicago. Switching from something older to something more contemporary. I know most people that are going to check this thing out are going to know Punch In The Face, but for those not familiar, please don't let the name discourage you. Hell, if I didn't already know this band, I would probably just assume it was some small town beat down hardcore bands. You know, the ones that only play the local VFW hall, their shirts have lots of guns, and all their songs are about unity, brotherhood, and betrayal. That in itself is something worth having a discussion about, but I could care less about the hypocritical ways of those bands.

Moving on, Punch in the Face was a Chicago super group of sorts that only recently broke up. They released a couple of 7inches, an LP, and various tracks on various compilations. Their sound falls somewhere between early Boston hardcore and Poison Idea. This radio session specifically falls in between their two early 7inches, S/T and Dumb Hardcore, and the LP, At War With Everybody. Therefore, you get a mix of the early faster songs, a couple of the compilation songs, and the slower, groovier LP songs. In fact, since this was three years before the LP, some of those tracks have different names. Neat! I really don't know what else to say about how pivotal this band was for me, in the respect of getting me into some of the more obscure older USHC bands, but that they are truly missed by the Chicago hardcore punk community. My only hope is that they pull a Repos and get back together under a differentish name.

Oh, I have no album art for this. I don't know if it was actually ever released as a concrete piece of media, so that is that. To make up for it, there is a video of a couple of their songs from their Madison Fest of 08 set.