Various

Various: New York Rules [cassette]New York Rules [cassette] (2011)
Burn Books

Reviewer Rating: 3.5

Contributed by: JeloneJelone
(others by this writer | submit your own)
Published on April 8th 2011With vinyl sales on the rise, it looks like cassettes are the new "difficult/retro/obscure format" of choice for music. Cassettes have a much short lifespan (10-30 years, compared to compact discs which are estimated to last up to 200 years. Vinyl can last for decades if you clean it properly). In t.

With vinyl sales on the rise, it looks like cassettes are the new "difficult/retro/obscure format" of choice for music. Cassettes have a much short lifespan (10-30 years, compared to compact discs which are estimated to last up to 200 years. Vinyl can last for decades if you clean it properly). In the case of Burn Books' New York Rules mixtape, audio degradation might be a strength, as the compilation showcases eight skuzzy, fuzzy proto-punk acts. More tape hiss means more noise to dive in.

Pregnant opens the comp with "Toothache" and "Help!", two cuts from their mighty fine self-titled full-length debut from last year. Both songs are in the Stooges vein-loud, brief and fun. Aside from Night Birds, Pregnant is arguably the poppiest act on the tape, relatively speaking. Nomos and Hank Wood & the Hammerheads take things in a much more brutal, lo-fi hardcore direction. Night Birds inject a little bit of Fat Wreck-style pop-punk with their tunes, and they even bump up the production a couple of notches. Nude Beach closes out Side A with a nifty, quasi-psychedelic cover of Alex Chilton's "Hey Little Child".

The B Side's winner is clearly the Men, who do an amazing cover of Devo's "Gates of Steel". That's one of the best Devo tunes and they rock it out nicely. Byrds of Paradise makes a good showing with garage rock numbers "Members" and "Home and Garden", though. Dawn of Humans closes out the tape.

Taken as a whole, New York Rules is a solid introduction to a lot of up-and-coming bands, and even throws in some nice rarities. Now get to work on an eight-track.

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Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not respon sible for them in any way. Seriously.

burnbooks (April 10, 2011)

$7 ppd at http://www.burnbooks.org - got about 100 left.

tapeman (April 10, 2011)

Cassettes last only 30 years? The statement would be correct with the state of the art in 1990s. But in 2010, tape quality has improved drastically. The TDKs, Maxells are today are far more durable and dont have the Tape hiss. The Tape hiss comment means you are still in the past.

CDs last 200 years. I am not sure if scratch proof CDs exists. The last check I found that it was a failed technology. This statement is a joke for 'normal' CDs which experience indicates are highly scratch prone. Unless they are really keep stored and used very little this statement is not true. CDs material is also more breakable compared to the cassette shell.

Cassettes are the most underrated technology. Yet the newer tapes are better than ever before. Cassettes are also natural medium for those who want to protect their work from mass upload to the Internet (similar to printed books). 95% of MP3 are sourced from CDs and rest copied through digital releases. Cassettes may probably end up be number one weapon to piracy.

Jelone (April 8, 2011)

proto-punk = stooges. mc5. anything on crypt records. anything that still has a sliver of a blues influence and is a little slower than what we traditionally associate with punk. Or would you prefer I call it post-hardcore since it's more contemporary than emo, hardcore, post-punk, punk, proto-punk, AND big band jazz?

I'm sorry if I was off-base about the Fat Wreck comparison. I just... I just don't know what to believe anymore. I AM SO SORRY.

hobbzoid (April 8, 2011)

I have this. I think it should be noted that the $7 for this is a steal. The package here is awesome. It comes in a printed envelope with this huge newsprint poster inside. Everything is real slick but DIY and very "cool mailorder shit" so I can highly recommend this. It's fucking rad.

Night Birds and Fat style have nothing in common.

This rocks.

Douglas_is_rad (April 8, 2011)

Decades for vinyl is a vast underestimation. My parents have some records that were pressed in the 1930s that still play fine (minus some surface noise) as of this past December.

scientistrock (April 8, 2011)

I think we can all agree that punk has, at this point, existed already, which brings up the question, how can a band formed after the existence of "punk" be "proto-punk?"

SurfAndDestroyLBI (April 8, 2011)

Since when do Night Birds play "Fat Wreck-style pop-punk"?