Issue 10

A step-by-step guide for making your own self-hosted band website, geared toward punks with zero knowledge about code or making websites....

We made to TEN issues of The Counterforce in print form! The latest zine compiles everything on the site since the last issue: PERSONA Southeast Asia tour zine haul, The Counterforce Crossword, How To build your own band website, Broke Ass Comic Zone, interview with Ergot + all the usual reviews and columns. Taylor, who has done the layout for all 10 of these issues, made a special cover for this one. Download the PDF for printing here and view more issues on The Counterforce Zines page. Also ...

The first and only time I ever used the DICE app was to go to a show in New York City. It was the only way to get a ticket to a show I was traveling many hours and crossing an international border to attend. The only way to buy a ticket was by installing the app on a mobile phone – a deranged, dystopic idea. To purchase a ticket for this hardcore punk show, I needed not only a credit card, but a decently-new mobile phone running an OS made by Apple or Google. I needed my phone to be working at t...

Like RUDIMENTARY PENI if they were from Catalonia. Four dreary, driving, a bit spooky, songs. Recorded at home (with a drum machine I think?). More people should just sit down and make music like this. At home, all written, recorded, produced in one room, maybe in one afternoon. I really like it. I hope we get more from GUL. Cassette released on Atemptat Sonor, listen here: https://bandwagon.fm/69b2b1ebb92ab6bcbd1651e1 GUL - DemoBandwagon.fm...

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Across 1. What many punks have on their bodies. 10. 1920 play by Čapek that coined the word robot. 11. Suffix for the intensification of “funny.” 12. Shoes that have a sports mode. 16. DIY musical gift to make your crush. 17. What you might fold in a protest. 19. What you challenge a skateboarder to do in passing. 21. A group of canine furries, perhaps? 24. US narc cops, for short. 25. First band on the lineup. 27. No ___ Records, pop punk label. 28. National leader targeted by many 80s punk so...

Contributed by Aaron Meyer During my first year as a public school teacher I have faced many headaches: the bureaucracy and over arching shadow of Chicago Public Schools, my students asking me if I am in high school or if I am 80, writing IEPs. HOWEVER, as I sit on my bus to teach another day to middle schoolers I continue to listen over-and-over to the most recent Power Pop masterpiece by Philly rockers THE SMARTHEARTS. I saw them in 2019 in Milwaukee & Chicago and was mesmerized by their rif...

2 zines that I can’t put back on the shelf I’ve been collecting various zines since my friend Will showed me “Drawings in bars” when I was a teen. This past year two that I can’t seem to get enough of are a photo zine by Ivan Hitch and a zine of drawings by Willow Gallagher. Ivan Hitch showcases his perspective as an adventurous young documentarian of Philadelphia. Friends, tags, landscapes and some archival graffiti photos make up this zine. Many names to look forward to like spy one, nemel, ...

Contributed by Arthur Rot In January, I was lucky to join NYC queercore band PERSONA on tour in Asia. (Thank you AJ!!!) Every show was organized by a collective, some active for over 20 years (CRUX). The group effort and longevity of DIY in Asia was a strong antidote to the passing trends, social hierarchies, and self-importance we’re conditioned into in our region of the world. I came back feeling less guarded and more enthusiastic. I met a woman in Tokyo who said that the underground in Asia...

Netherlands metalpunk. Metalpunk in that the drummer is using a double-kick pedal for sure (even some metal blastbeats in the first track). Not so much metalpunk like SACRILEGE or LIFELESS DARK although the tape does close with a cover of "Lifeline", I find the rest of the tape draws from a broader metal influence (maybe later thrash) than just SACRILEGE. It's much more like metal played by punks (one of the best kinds of metal). I wish it was a bit crustier, a bit dirtier, a bit stenchier but t...

First side, THE DISSIDENTS. Earnest political lyrics with a melodic delivery. Contextually you are thinking it's crust, but the songwriting is melodic/melancholic punk. Being from Montreal, I'm thinking of BALLAST and PREYING HANDS. There's a bit of synth sprinkled in which brings to my mind Montreal's defunct FACIALS, but really just their BURNING KITCHEN cover. HEARTSOVER would probably be a better comparison from the early 2010s Squalor scene, but at this point probably only two people readin...

"Do It Yourself Violence". This is a "compilation tape of four DIY powerviolence and d-beat projects" from the Netherlands, I assume. It's a bit of a 4-way split, with 3 songs each from PETER R DE VRIES, AARTxSTAARTJES, CHAŌSMELCK, and KRÄNKER. If I'm following the tracklist correctly, PETER R DE VRIES and AARTxSTAARTJES are the powerviolence bands. I would classify them both firmly as pizzaviolence, a term longtime readers of mine will understand. Both being named after Dutch TV media personali...

KOMATITTE - I looked it up. It sounds like a borrowed word from some language that would put an umlaut on that O or A but it's actually a type of volcanic rock. Your first assumption from the name would be correct though: this is fast Nordic-influenced d-beat hardcore. The guitar is "too loud" (good) and the gruff vocals are low in the mix. I expect no less than 4 guitar cabs on stage for this band for proper face-melting. I am biased against guitar solos but the weird and quick ones they deploy...

Having wrangled enough bands to release 2.5 of 'em myself (plus an incredibly ill-fated 2x CS that will never see the light of day due to the endless call-outs and sexual misconduct that plague hardcore punk, to say nothing of literal conflagration and potent personal shortcomings), I can confidently say putting together a compilation is among the most thankless and unenviable tasks someone in DIY can engage in this side of show promoting. That a few people found it prudent to document a certai...

I caught up with Ergot recently to talk about punk and punk graffiti. Slim: When did you start writing Ergot? Ergot: Started writing Ergot in 2006 in Minneapolis. First crew was called BS (Black Sabbath), which was me and my friends' high school code for smoking weed, then later code for doing graffiti… PEB (Pigs Eye Boys), TKG (The Kind Gents), PTS (Philips Terror Squad/Paint The Streets), were all my original crews with my scummy punk/rocker friends in southside Minneapolis. A bunch of misfi...

The occidental world is so fucked up that it's making the president of Spain seem like a good president. Even if the decisions of this government are pure opportunism, and if it fuels the game of polarization that all right-wing politicians started, the (leftist) international opinion seems pretty good about Pedro Sánchez and his government. But that's what happens when everyone reads the headlines instead of the whole article. Let me say this loud and clear: Spain is not an oasis of the left, ...

A lyrical snippet, before we begin in earnest: "Because you're a fucking retard / shoving shit up your nose / because you're a fucking retard / swiggin' shit down your throat." Let's ignore for a second that this is some of the weakest attempt at flow, rhythm, and rhyme scheme; this is straight edge for the absolute lowest common denominator. Absolutely pathetic. Everyone from Convulse Records to Rage Deposit to the four goons responsible for writing this shit should be embarrassed. I guess it...