Fu Manchu have never been shy about their punker origins, but so far as I know, this 2010 release of Virulence‘s If This Isn’t a Dream… 1985-1989 (review here), is the earliest document of it. Southern Lord released the 20-track collection, has trimmed it down for the digital version to If This Isn’t a Dream on its own, the 1988 recording featuring eight songs which are presented here as two side-long tracks. On the original CD version, live cuts and demos followed, so it was a bit more comprehensive. But what’s streaming above is enough to get the point across, so if you hear it and must know more, know that more is there to be known.

Some 40 years later, the crunch and SoCal hardcore-inspired aggro vibes are both quaint and of continued relevance. “Dead Weight” leads off and is one of just two songs to feature here in more than one version, alongside “Wrapped Up,” which follows. What’s funny about that is you think, “Whoa, this is pretty raw,” listening to them the first time — “Dead Weight” is a four-and-a-half-minute shove but twists into this angular riff in its back half like something prescient of Neurosis‘ Souls at Zero, while “Wrapped Up” builds on that churn to hone a downtrodden lumber — and they come back around on what sounds like a cleaned-up version of a microcassette, and blah blah context happens. But any way you go, from raw to rawer to the 52-second live take on Void‘s “My Rules” — just about rawest — the Reagan-era teen angst retains the force of its delivery, and although Fu Manchu would become a different kind of band, some of those origins and some of their signature tonality can be heard in If This Isn’t a Dream.

The band, Virulence, was the lineup of guitarist Scott Hill, bassist Greg McCaughey, and drummer Ruben Romano — who would go on to found Fu Manchu (at some point, Mark Abshire got in there too) — with Ken Pucci on vocals. Awkward. I’m not sure who came aboard when, but the question also arises of how far you need to go back, like does it need to count when they’re fifth graders? It’s fair to call Virulence of their era, if by that you mean a few years behind what C.O.C. were doing on the other side of the country and what SST Records had pumped out earlier in the decade from Black Flag, Bl’Ast, and the willfully slow Saint Vitus. The latter of course would go on to define no small part of the course of American doom, and Virulence would seem to have internalized a malleability of tempo as well, as shifts throughout the nine-minute “The Curse” — which caps If This Isn’t a Dream-proper — or the shove nestling into a groove that is “Spilling it Out” earlier on demonstrate. There won’t be a ton of surprises for those who’ve made the plunge into Southern California’s hardcore of the day, but if you’re a fan of the style, Virulence‘s material retains more than just academic value as context for (most of; again, ouch) the members’ next group.

But I have to admit that if the question is whether or not I’d be writing about If This Isn’t a Dream… 1985-1989 had 80 percent of the band not gone on to become one of the most crucial heavy rock acts of their or any other generation, I would probably have to say no. That’s not to rag on it at all, I’ve just never been that into hardcore, much to my social deficit (the hardcore kids always seemed to be having so much fun; I just couldn’t get there). So for me, what I dig into when it comes to If This Isn’t a Dream is the barebones sound, the unbridled bootleg scathe in a live track like “Empty Head,” or the sense of space that ends up in the closing demo “Fatal Crash.” Would you call that crossover? Is it metal? Is it punk? Arthouse hardcore? You could ask the same questions about “No Fun” (not a Stooges cover) here and taking into account the plod of “Blank Stare” and the feedback-and-thud intro in which the entire first half of the seven-minute “Kindergarten” is mired, the answer isn’t so clearly one thing or the other.

If this was a demo or a first-EP-on-Bandcamp or whatever it might be coming my way in 2026, the rough, dated recording sound aside, there’s just about no way I wouldn’t say there was potential in the mix of sounds taking place. No, I’m not saying I’d be like, “Oh, this band is gonna ditch the singer and become Fu Manchu.” That’s not it. But, taking the If This Isn’t a Dream tracks specifically — the first eight songs of the total 20-track/79-minute CD complete with liner notes which would’ve been so helpful writing this that are in storage with the rest of most of my collection; so much plastic, just sitting there — it’s not hard to hear how Virulence might have moved forward on their own course toward something else.

Consider a couple of the names dropped above; Neurosis and Corrosion of Conformity. Both of those bands started out in a place not entirely dissimilar from Virulence and went in different directions, each defining a respective genre between post-metal and Southern heavy rock. Fu Manchu‘s contributions to fuzz would likewise serve as an influence that continues to spread, and maybe that turn or evolution would have happened had they kept the original name as well, but it’s moot at this point. In 1990, Fu Manchu would release their first 7″ — reissued by the band’s At the Dojo label in 2015 as a 10″ — and begin their own, ongoing progression.

Maybe it’s a fan-piece. Being a fan, I’m okay with that. Even if you just chase down (or push play above) on the first eight songs, If This Isn’t a Dream… 1985-1989 speaks both to the time in which it was made and what some of these players would do in years subsequent. Fu Manchu are still punks. Turns out you only ever grow up so much.

Happy New Year 2026. Thanks for reading.

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Hey. Happy New Year 2026. Thanks for reading. Ha.

I’m going to a hockey game with The Patient Mrs. and The Pecan this afternoon, so I’m going to do my best to keep it brief. Kind of an off week this week, but I still posted every day but yesterday. The Pecan has been sleeping until like 9AM, which has allowed for some morning productivity, and I only had Hungarian class twice this week, so that was more time to write as well.

But the hockey game. The New York Sirens play at the Prudential Center in Newark and we’ve been a handful of times now (they also went the day I was in the studio with Solace; I think this will be their third game of the year and my second; we also went at least twice last season) and it’s always fun. The PWHL is building, still adding teams and such — there are four new ones this year — so it’s not super-crowded and it’s not overwhelming to park and it’s a thing you can just go and do and The Pecan is apparently starting to get into it and was pissed when they lost the last game, which feels developmentally appropriate. It’ll be a good time, but I don’t want to be writing this from my seat in the arena, so I’ll wrap it up early.

Next week I’m doing a — wait for it — Suplecs premiere! Yes, I’m stupid stoked and yes I’m going to review the album like two months early. Also look out for poll results basically as soon as I hound Slevin to compile them and then manage to put together a list — so next Friday? All jokes aside, give me some time. I’ll get there as soon as I can.

Quick Zelda update: I quit Majora’s Mask. By far the most fun I had playing it was when I read the guide and The Patient Mrs. handled the controller, and I’d be glad to go through the rest of the game that way, but I honestly don’t think she has time or interest, and I’m not looking to set up a dynamic where I’m waiting for her to play and she’s, I don’t know, paying bills and answering work emails or something entirely more useful, or just dicking around on her phone, reading on her iPad, whatever the case may be. Her time is plenty obligated. I’m not looking to add to that, so Majora’s Mask is out. I’m not saying never, but with that glitch that would’ve made me have to redo the Snowfall dungeon, and maybe Woodfall as well, I just wasn’t that interested. The masks and changing into a Goron, Deku or Zora all had control issues, and of all the Zelda games I’ve dug into at this point, it was the least engaging. It was like they took all the joy out of Ocarina of Time, both in story and gameplay.

I did a full run through A Link to the Past as consolation. Could not tell you the last time I played that without cheat codes, actually getting the pieces of heart from around the world and fully upgrading the Master Sword, etc. It was wonderful. A pain in the ass in parts, but I had put a mod on it so the dialogue was a bit different and some of the art, and crucially, I could turn while dashing, and that was a big quality-of-life boon short of invincibility or infinite hearts. I died 12 times total before beating Ganon, and immediately started A Link Between Worlds, with another of the same kind of graphics mods I’ve been using. It’s set in the same world and is in some ways a sequel, so it seemed fitting. I got the Master Sword yesterday, after doing the first three dungeons, got a bunch of heart pieces, played octorok baseball, and so on. I hit a dead end trying to get a heart piece and admitted defeat last night, tried to set up The Wind Waker again since at some point I apparently deleted the game I had played through twice (which sucks), and got it running only to have it lag beyond the point where I could ignore it and play anyway.

What sucks about that is knowing that my hardware is the problem, but I don’t have $5,000 for a gaming laptop, which somehow is what it would take to run an emulated game that came out on a handheld system 13 years ago. I don’t get that, but I don’t get anything, so there you go.

I also tried to install a Tears of the Kingdom Xmas mod, with a special holiday story and quests and such, but it didn’t work. I put a message in the modder’s Discord and they said they found the problem and were going to work on it over the next couple days. I hope that comes together as I think it would be fun to watch The Pecan play it, let alone play it myself thereafter. Fingers crossed.

Alright, that’s it. Thanks if you’ve added your list to the year-end poll. If not, please do while there’s still time. Sunday I’ll close it? Something like that.

Otherwise, have fun, be safe, hydrate and I’ll see you back here on Monday for more of these shenanigans.

FRM.

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