Interview with Ian Manhire, singer/songwriter in The Retrospects Shock Treatment: So Ian, I'd like to start off with some questions about you if that's ok? What band or musician first inspired you to want to write your own music? Ian Manhire: I can't say for sure. Because I don't totally remember. It would have been at a young age. I took a lot of piano lessons as a kid. I remember in music lessons being less interested in learning the sheet music, and more interested in making up my own songs. I was in bands since a young age. I started playing drums in punk bands as a teenager, but never wrote the songs. Maybe contributed some ideas, as far as collaborative bands go. Through my 20's I continued playing drums in bands. I eventually started playing bass. Then I decided to pick up the guitar and learn how to play. The first band I picked up a guitar and stood behind the microphone was the White Wires. It was the first band I wrote the songs for. I had dabbled with so...

T-Red - Partie 1984-1985 LP (Nausea Records) This Belgian three piece formed in 1981 when the band members where still in high school! As you can see by the title of the record, the band was unfortunately short lived. Before disbanding however, they managed to record a 4-track promo tape called Partie , which is all included here. The fine folks at Nausea decided to include the band's 8 track demo to make this a bonafide full length release, and thank the maker they did! The original band members just uncovered these tracks just a couple of years ago! This is the kind of thing that actually does keep me up at night. The thought that a brilliant band like this exists in obscurity out there somewhere and it just passes me by like a warm breeze in the night. All of the tracks here have been restored and remastered too by the way and they sound great! The demo portion of this release sounds excellent, the production is a tiny bit leaner just because that's how it was originally rec...

Sweet, sweet mother of all things musical and rhythmic, you have heard my desperate pleas! I shall never deny thee for the rest of my days! The ground has opened up in the Netherlands and from the bowels of the underworld, this band was spat forth for this world to marvel. For what I hear before me is one of the most ferocious, bile spewing garage punk bands I have ever heard in my lowly existence. The Etters are mean, they're nasty, and they hate everything there is to do about Christmas! I feel like my soul is not yet worthy to receive a gift such as this band. A Dutch punk rock trio with songs that are as catchy as they are dangerous, sweaty and rude. So what if it's sung entirely in Dutch! I can still feel the attitude you fuckers! I know The Etters are mocking me in that foreign tongue of theirs, I know I'm being spat upon and you know what?? I love it! Fury is a universal language and I hear what The Etters are hurling out, loud and clear, believe you me! I feel it in...

  The Drags Now who in their right mind would put these two mammoth bands against each other, right? I mean, you'd have to be some sort of cruel sadist of some type to do something like that. It's like telling someone they could either have water or oxygen! Besides there would be no real winner if you think about it. It'd be like Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla or Superman Vs Bizarro. We'd just be left with a planet of destruction with the only loser being us. I was lucky enough to be around when both of these bands were at their beginning, and experience them go thru primary 1st stage propulsion, then go into booster separation and achieve orbital status in the heavens above.  Teengenerate  I know everyone who knows even a tiny morsel about underground rock n roll knows about the mighty Teengenerate from Tokyo, Japan and the majestic Drags from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Even though not everyone was around then these bands were demolishing venues and leaving audiences shell sh...

The self proclaimed "dorkwave" band Smart Shoppers came out with their third LP in 2025 and it was one of the most original and entertaining records I listened to last year. Their caffeinated mix of XTC meets The Dickies is loud, bouncy and always obnoxiously poking at your eyeballs. They got the pop hooks, they got the tightly coiled guitar riffs, they got a slide whistle! So call it dorkwave, spazpunk, or jtterrock, Smart Shoppers are here to make sure things stay awkward and eyebrows remain furrowed.  photo by Adam Ziegenhals Shock Treatment: Let’s start out with who’s all currently in Smart Shoppers? Smart Shoppers: Smart Shoppers is and will always be Aaron Smart(Rice) on guitar, Jash Thrift(Stamps) on drums, Norby Shopko (Rev. Norb) on bass, and myself; Joey Shops(Lambert) on vocals and random sounds. ST: How did you guys all meet and decide to form the band? SS: Aaron and Jash are brothers-in-law and most of us have known one another for a couple decades at least. Ther...

I remember four things, right off the top of my head from 1996. I remember collecting Beanie Babies like a fiend with my Mom. We'd drive all around town, from store to store looking for our next beanie fix. I remember playing Mario Kart 64 like a wild eyed maniac, often times shunning food and drink just for the opportunity to play more. I remember being so excited to finally get a Marvel Vs. DC comic book. And I remember buying punk rock records, lot's and lot's of punk records.  I was lucky to have discovered underground punk music just a few years prior. I didn't know if it was because I was at such a formative age in 1996, but I always held the music that came out during that time particularity close to my heart. I think of it as such a golden era for the genera. But I can tell you one thing, out of the three things I mentioned remembering about 1996, the one thing I still do is listen to the records that came out then. I haven't played Mario Kart, read that cra...