The Prostate Funeral Politics cassette was one of the highlights of 2020 hardcore: terminal hatred, white hot guitar squall, dim wit agro chanting backed by a hectos drum machine, like Mark N punching on with a punk band, like Jezus and the Gospelfuckers stayed around long enough to get influenced from gabber.
Guffo is the individual responsible for this hate noise, and they self released the tape on their Miracle Cortex label.
We hit them up for some insight into hardcore 2021.
How did you determine when Funeral Politics was finished? Funeral Politics was truly finished when I started driving around and delivering the tapes to letterboxes. It was no longer boxed up aggression and endless hours hunched over a 4 track. Seeing it become physical contraband definitely signified the project's birth. I distributed physical copies for about a week or so before putting it online, which was good because it meant close circles got it first. Prostate is only meant to be a small project for people with similar mindsets.
Do you view your work as contributing to a national political conversation? Are you community minded? Can you share the lyrics for 'Terminate Melbourne'?
No not at all, I don’t see Prostate as contributing to anything really. It’s more so an outlet to counteract the hypersensitive politics and herd mentality that a lot of people cling onto. The song ‘Funeral Politics’ somewhat touches on politics, in the sense that it is centred around belief systems both religious and political, and how they all evidently lead to the same grave. I choose not to subscribe to the notions of community or scenes, they tend to become cesspool environments where people leech off of you and only care about current fads or trends, rather than anything of substance.
- Terminate Melbourne -
This city’s a fucking joke
How do you vermin cope?
A disgusting scene of status and greed
False importance and inflated ego
Your painful death is all I plea
I hate this place
Terminate
But there’s nothing more important
Than your ugly image
Terminate all these things I hate
Terminate Melbourne
Terminate it now!!!
Can you speak of some of your creative rituals and habits? Do you work to a routine, or are you routinely disorganised?
Most ideas for songs begin when I’m at work. It’s easy to get lost in your head when working labour intensive jobs. More often than not I’ll think of the song title or topic of the song first, then rush to the dunny and type out the lyrics on my phone. Then as soon as I get home I start writing music around the lyrics. However sometimes it can be the other way around where the riffs come first. Having said that, there is definitely an element of disorganisation, which I find to be a thriving environment.
Can you share with us a choice band photo / lyrics from hardcore punk history to sum up 2020?
YDI - Mad At The World would be a good song to sum up 2020, and any other year on this earth for that matter. (attached is a photo of bobby soxx to sum up 2020)
YDI - ‘Mad At The World’ Look into my eyes and see
I'm not normal you can believe
Savage fury, uncontrollable rage
I'm gonna put you in the grave
Visions of murder run rampant through my mind
Death to all humankind
I'm mad, mad, mad at the world
No money, no family, no home
no job, no life, no nothing
I'm mad, mad, mad at the world
I'm ugly, I'm poor, I'm awkward, I'm nothing
As part of the new generation of hardcore punk bands, what are the key bands today that you think are worth attention? What do you see the main differences between your experience of this music and the experience of forbears like Nihilistics or Vile?
I’m generally not as enthusiastic on modern bands as I used to be, the only real hardcore band to grab my attention has been Violent Christians from Texas. I think they’ve got a really sincere style and don’t conform to any current gimmick or trend, just straight up aggressive hardcore. Plus I think they’re of similar age if not a bit older which is refreshing to see. As far as Nihilistics and Vile, no one comes close. Hatred and nihilism have always been a constant theme in hardcore, but those themes have become fairly hollow and meaningless in modern hardcore. As well as that, there’s also the hostility and confronting nature both bands had, a trait you rarely see anymore. Most current bands aim to please and facilitate their audience, whereas Nihilistics and Vile would try and agitate and abuse their audience. I think that's a strong element of hardcore that is missing in current bands.
Talk about what's coming up with Miracle Cortex.
The next thing to come out on miracle cortex will be the Execution - Silently It Grows EP. That will be a split release with Hardcore Victim. Then hopefully another Prostate tape and a C.E.O tape, which is the solo project of James Dadd. Apart from releases it’d be good to start putting on gigs for current bands I’m involved with, as well as other close friends doing new bands. Something that doesn’t consist of the same handful of average bands that play all the time.
Check out Miracle Cortex and Prostate here. All images from Guffo, Bobby Sox image stolen from the ether.
