Netpunk July 1999

 

By the time you read this, the war in Kosovo may be over, though as of this writing it sure doesn’t look like it. This month, in addition to the usual jumble of punk sites, I have some interesting anti-war sites for you to check out. I’m assuming that these will stay up even if the conflict is over, but if they aren’t, I guess you’ll just have to deal with it.

The first site, run by the Committee Against US Intervention, has a site at http://www.antiwar.com/ . You’ll find the latest news from the war, from the perspective of people who don’t want the US there. You’ll also find a lot of commentary, editorials, cartoons, and letters about the issue. An excellent way to educate yourself about some of the reasons against action.

Another interesting and informative site is the Free Serbia site at http://freehosting.at.webjump.com/am/aman-bre-webjump/e-index.html . This site keeps you up to date on what’s happening, from an insider’s perspective, as it is being updated by people in Belgrade. The politics behind this site are interesting: the pro-democracy authors are against US intervention and policies of President Milosevic. Definitely worth your time.

Also covering the war in Kosovo, as well as other world events is Z magazine. Z magazine’s website gives you daily critiques, columns, etc from leading social commentators and more. Visit Z at http://www.lbbs.org/ .

The final war site is the Alert! homepage at http://www.alert.org.yu/ . This page is a collection of anti-intervention links, and also maintains a web-ring of anti-intervention sites. Visit here as a jumping off point for more information than you can read.

Okay, enough about the real world. It’s now time to retreat into our virtual world of punk rock websites and other cool shit, where bombs raining down on civilian’s heads don’t mean a thing and nazis’ shooting up schools only happen in video games. Yep, it’s time for the NetPunkRockRoundUp (I just made that up… catchy or what?).

I’ve mentioned mp3.com before (http://www.mp3.com/) as a place to find free CD-quality music files. I explored it further, however, when I got an e-mail from John of the band Rocket City Riot. His band has sound files up on mp3.com, and it got me interested on how you get your music up there. It’s actually very easy – all you do is sign-up and upload your songs.

If your band has a recording, you can sign up for a free account at mp3.com and put the songs online. You keep all rights to the songs, though you have to give them permission to put them on compilation CDs if they want. You can even sign up for a deal where they’ll put out CDs for you, and sell them for whatever price you set (over a certain amount, but it’s low) and give you 50 percent of the proceeds. If you’re in a band, you owe it to yourself to check it out. I put some Haggis songs up, which you can find at http://www.mp3.com/haggis/ .

Rocket City Riot also put up some files, found at http://www.mp3.com/rocketcityriot/ and are selling their CD at mp3.com for only $4.99. After you check them out there, you should go to their homepage at http://fly.hiwaay.net/~jmking/ and see what they’re all about. They have a few pictures and a news page. Not a heck of a lot here, but you still might want to visit. The other cool thing about this band is that they recorded their entire CD using their home computer. The computer they used was a Pentium-166MMX with 32-megs of RAM – not exactly a powerhouse. DIY, baby!

I got e-mail from Dante of Sewage wanting me to check out their site. They have a couple of sound files whose quality was pretty bad, but from what I can tell they sound kinda like a New Yawk version of GBH. Lots of pictures here, mostly of their spiky hair singer. This site could use a lot of work. More text, less pictures, and some decent sound files. You can see what I’m talking about yourself at http://www.users.interport.net/~dante/sewage.html .

Another band page is that of Mrs. Krabappel at http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Stadium/7264/ . This band has a couple of photos, a bunch of lyrics, and some song files. Unfortunately, the backgrounds screw things up so that you can’t read the page, and overall there isn’t much here. Another good example of a web page that needs some serious attention.

Now a couple of record label pages. Slap Happy Records has put together an excellent site for their label. Sample sound files of their releases, a what’s new section, reviews, and pages for the bands that are on the label. My only criticism is that there is not enough to read here. Still, it is easy to look and easy to find your way around. More punk sites should be put together like this. Slap Happy is at http://www.surf.to/slaphappy/ .

The other page is that of Track Star Records. You’ll find it at http://www.trackstarrecords.com/ . Track Star is a label and distro that carries a bit of hardcore stuff. Their website is slick, and they have an interesting page about their releases and some cool pictures, but, unfortunately, they don’t have any sound files.

Disjointed Thoughts, Paranoia? is a webzine that features mostly rants of it’s author. Some of the rants are stupid, but some are insightful and interesting. DTP also has columns, some interviews, and reviews, as well as a message board dedicated to the discussion of evil. I still find the rants, which seem to be updated every couple of weeks, the most interesting. DTP is at http://www.angelfire.com/oh2/dtp/enter.html .

Another ‘zine of sorts is Live Yoghurt, which is a bunch of rants by this 30-year old British guy. Sometimes he’s silly, sometimes zany, but there is always a bit of fun, and occasionally a bit of truth, to what he has to say. Live Yoghurt is at http://www.angelfire.com/biz2/LiveYoghurt/main.html .

The Punk and Art Page (http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Square/1380/) is another punk site, but this one has a bit of a twist. Their main focus is putting up artwork by punks like YOU. If you draw, paint, etc. you should get in touch and get them some samples to stick on the site. They also have punk photos, writing, message boards, and the other usual page stuff, but the artwork is the coolest part of this site.

Another page of punk artwork is at http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Exhibit/1662/ . Ryan does some pretty cool black and white artwork. You can check out samples on his page and maybe get him to do something for your ‘zine or band or whatever.

Okay, that’s quite enough for this month. A reminder that I’ve changed my address to netpunk@diehippiedie.com and my columns are now online at http://www.diehippiedie.com/netpunk/ . If you use my old address, however, I’ll still get it. Working at an ISP has its privileges. And, as always, you can send me snail mail at POB 8059; Santa Cruz CA 95061.