* - Asterisk means I already had a good mp3 copy of this album, but threw up a few words anyway in the name of having an internet-based chronicle of all my legally-purchased, store-bought music

- Beavis Having Rad Times means that this CD's purchase was directly or indirectly influenced by the Beavis & Butthead television show

H

Hellfueled - Volume One (2005, Nuclear Blast) - The song "Let Me Out" from this popped up on a primitive version of Pandora, and I really dug it for some reason and eventually bought the CD and man... These dudes really like Ozzy Osbourne. Like in a scary, demented way, where they've probably had to fight back dark urges to hatch plots that involve murdering him and wearing his skin. It's Ozzy-sounding music done in an Ozzy-esque fashion with Ozzy vocals and Ozzy guitars with hints of Ozzy in the background Ozzy. And man, it gets old fast.

Helmet - Meantime (1992, Interscope) - I've always wanted really badly to get into Helmet, but I've never realy been able to commit to it. Like you're a kid and you hear the one song with the weird, kind of stopping-and-starting guitar riff and the dude kinda sing-talking over it, and it's cool and heavy in kind of a stealthy way that you don't notice at first. Then you get the Cd, and you hear that song, and it's super cool, and then the rest sound exactly like it, and it gets kinda boring, and then when they actually do something different, it's not as good, so you don't know how to react. "Unsung" is still cool, though.

Helmet - Betty (1994, Interscope) - Getting this back in the day was kinda neat, because it's got that song from the Crow soundtrack on there, but it's different, (as in even the spelling is changed from Milktoast to Milquetoast) and it's way better without all the weird squishy noises and producers trying to make it more "alternative" or whatever. Then, you get past that, and it turns into the standard Helmet CD, which is good, but never as good as you were hoping it would be.

High Strung / One Reason - Another Bridge Burned split CD (2000, self-released, I think?) - This is another CD from the local shows, and I remember being kinda blindsided by this at first, because it sounded way different from previous recorded material. One Reason were the local heroes who kind of emerged from another band called Fake after Joe started playing in hardcore/metal bands and Wes pretty much reverted to being a preppie, (that was the best when that happened, because dudes like that would rip the patches off their backpacks, start wearing collared shirts and sensible shoes and getting Republican haircuts, but their parents would refuse to spend the cash for a full wardrobe replacement, so they'd still be running around in big stovepipe-ass leg skater pants, like a big scarlet letter "P" for ex-punks) and they were almost always the headliners for the local shows, partially because Ginger's parents owned the frame shop the venue was in the back of, and partially because they were almost always better than anyone else who played there. Highstrung were from Memphis, I think? I don't know anything about them. Anyway, the Highstrung tape and One Reason Cd I had before this had Highstrung as a pretty regular pop punk band and One Reason doing kind of a "punk band dabbling in emo but still not yet willing to let go and fully commit to indie rock" thing, yet on this, both bands are like "BLLLEEEEAAAARRRGGHHH" and it really fucked me up, because neither one even sounded like that at the show where I bought this.

Hirax - Not Dead Yet (1987, Metal Blade - I have the 2005 Thrash Corner reissue / this consists of Raging Violence and Hate, Fear, and Power from 1985 and 1986) - The beginning of this is great, because it's the most jarring thing ever, just a dude in a scary monster voice without any music behind it, all "YOOOOOUUUU MUST GO DOWN TO THE DEMONS! AND WHEN YOU GET THERE, YOU'LL BE IN HEEELLLLL!" And then the songs starts, and it's all crazy and heavy and the dude is just singing his ass off, like if King Diamond only did the big soaring parts, but also had some bass in his voice, and you're like "YYEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAHHH" and then, I dunno, it just gets grating as hell after a minute. Which is probably why most of the songs on here are like two minutes long; these dudes are hell of smart.

Honkeyball - Honkeyball EP (1995, Summit/Wonderdrug - I have both the original and the 1998 reissue w/ bonus tracks) - Holy shit, man. During the 1998/99 post-high school era of having internet access and being able to find CDs of bands that were not typically found at the mall, these dudes did endless battle with Sacred Reich, GWAR, and S.O.D. for full control of my heart. This was the best goddamn band that ever recorded goddamn CDs of goddamn music, and I loved them so much, and it always freaked me out that no one I knew had ever heard of them, like even people in a position to know had just seen a review in a zine or something, but never checked them out. I'm bad at describing bands, but everyone who I ever forced to listened to this says they sound like Clutch, which horrifies me, because I've never liked Clutch. I dunno, heavy-ass post-hardcore stuff with a singer who sounds like John Bush, but less metal and more Boston. I always had the 1998 Wonderdrug version of this that had enough bonus tracks to stretch it to a full-length, but around 2006 or so, I found the original Summit Records version (same label, different name) and bought it for no good reason, I guess just because I AM TEH RECARD COLLECTAR or whatever. And after I deprived some kid of the joy of Honkeyball qat used Cd prices, this is one of the CDs the cat peed on, so it smells bad and the bottom corner of the back cover is all discolored now. I shall be damned for my crimes.

Honkeyball - Onetime (1997, Wonderdrug) - This was the first Honkeyball CD I had (after "Dedicated" from the EP was on a compilation CD that came in a copy of Extent zine) and more than any of the others, was the soundtrack to the utter misery of my ill-fated stint at Ole Miss. Toward the end of the period when mp3 players were a $200 thing no one knew about, a Cd burner was even more prohibitively expensive, and we still made mixed tapes, "El Diablo," So-Called Friends," "Bruce Lee," and "Her Cheatin' Heart" were on all of them, and then only because I left out about five other tracks, so as to not fill a whole side with stuff from one CD. This is some Hall of Fame shit right here.

Honkeyball - Down by Three (1998), Wonderdrug) - This is probably my least favorite album by these dudes, which is to say that it still rules, and is more like a 9 being compared to a couple of 10s. It's a bummer that these broke up when they did, because they were a severely Boston-sounding band who wrote seemingly half their songs about local crime, about five minutes before Hollywood flooded the market with movies about Marky Mark or Ben Affleck fighting crime in Boston. These dudes could have been a dark and gritty Kenny Loggins for the 2000s, doing every movie soundtrack and making a billion dollars, but this is the darkest timeline, so it didn't happen.

Hot Water Music - Finding the Rhythms (1995, No Idea) - I don't think Hot Water Music is a band that you'd call a "guilty pleasure," but they really don't fit in with my usual tastes at all, so maybe I'd feel guilty if I ever hing out with some metalheads? I dunno. But the first punk CD I bought at my first show (compilation disc inside a copy of the No Idea zine) had "Floor" on it as the first track, and it was awesome, and I've liked these dudes ever since. And man, it's funny to go back to their earlier stuff, because now, they're known for having a raspy-voiced singer, but back in the day, homey was absolutely slobbery sounding. Like Captain Caveman with a hint of a lisp, like there should have been spit and cookie crumbs all over the wall of the recording booth after he finished his tracks. The fact that most of the band already had mountain man beards at this point, a decade-plus before hipsters and duck-call millionaires ruined the look for real mountain men, so it really hammered home the idea that Chuck Ragan was some maniac who wandered in out of the bog.

Hot Water Music - Forever and Counting (1997, Doghouse) - The cover of this lists them as "The Hot Water Music Band," with "the" and "band" in absolutely tiny letters, because this was when a major label signed another band by the same name and tried to sue these dudes pantsless. In the end, these dudes won, and False Hot Water Music had to change their name to Hot Water, and faded into the mists of time. Anyway, I'm not expert, but I'm pretty sure "Man the Change" is the Hot Water Music equivalent of "Ace of Spades," because I literally saw two different bands cover it in the same night.

Hot Water Music - Moonpies for Misfits (1999, No Idea) - I'm gonna be real with you, I got this in a cheap Cd mail order binge with this and like four other full-length CDs, so it kind of got lost in the shuffle, I've only spun it a couple times, and I can't remember a damn thing about it. Just gonna take this time to mention that "Fuel for the Hate Game" was the first CD I bought of these dudes and probably remains my favorite record of theirs, but a dude from the internet offered to trade me two Sick of it All CDs and something else I can't remember for it, and that was a heck of a deal, so I don't have a physical copy of that one anymore. Also, while that dude did actually send me those SOIA CDs, I'm still gonna kick his ass if I'm ever in Florida for some reason and magically remember what he looks like. I dunno, just early 2000s IRC chat room drama best left unspoken of. I wonder if No Idea still only wants $6 (postage paid) for that CD.

Hot Water Music - Never Ender (2001, No Idea - I have the fancy two-disc version) - This is a compilation of a whole bunch of compilation/7"/etc. tracks in the same style as Finding the Rhythms, and I'm pretty sure it was done as some sort of celebration of them leaving No Idea and moving on up to record labels that aren't technically major labels, but you can find Offsping CDs they did for Epitaph at Walmart still, so it's at least major label-adjacent. I'm super cool and got the direct mail order version that has a second Cd of demos, as well as a neat plastic insert with a die-cut Hot Water Music logo that slips into the case over the actual booklet. But again, this is the darkest timeline and animals do not respect me, so the cat peed on this one something fierce, and booklet and insert thingy are hideously melded together, like a goddamn nightmare. I'm pretty sure this is the last Cd to get seriously affected by PISS DEBACLE 2017, which mostly just means I'm going to be cut-punchingly furiously when I find more later on.

Hot Water Music - Caution (2002, Epitaph) - For whatever reason, I quit paying attention to what was going on with this band in the late 90s/early 2000s period when they broke up and un-broke up for the first time, so there is still an album or two I've never heard from then. Anyway, I came to this Cd kind of late, and shit was crazy. I dunno if the singer got speech therapy and started gargling a bunch of saltwater and eating a bunch of honey in the years I stopped keeping up with them, but all of a sudden, the dude was actually able to sing. Maybe he really had been a swamp maniac in 1995, and had finally been fixed and/or corrupted by civilization. Who can say?

Hot Water Music - The New What Next (2004, Epitaph) - I think this was their third album for a semi-major, (Epitaph put out A Flight and a Crash, right?) and it's weird to hear the progression of a band who had pictures of themselves playing shows in people's houses in the records moving on up to the big-budget polish of a well-funded operation. And I'm sure the KVLT BLACK METAL ELITE would say otherwise, but it's really not a bad thing at all, as long as the band still sounds like themselves, but with way higher sound fidelity. Anyway, this is probably my second favorite HWM album, which makes it weird that I haven't paid much attention since.

*Huey Lewis and the News - Greatest Hits (2006, Capitol) - As we get older, there comes a time when we have to be honest with ourselves and admit fully that sometimes, the song from the radio that gets stuck in our heads isn't stuck there due to some sort of corporate rock devil formula meant to release endorphins, entrap our consumerized brains, and force us to pay cash for a repeat of that experience. Sometimes, you just like that shit, and you want to listen to "The Power of Love" at your leisure. Now, someone just needs to put out a compilation of every time Kenny Loggins appeared on a movie soundtrack, and I'm set for life.

Hulk Hogan and the Wrestling Boot Band - Hulk Rules (1995, Select) - Haha, sweet Jesus, I wish we could somehow revert to the era before self-awareness existed, so things like this could happen again. This is simultaneously terrible and amazing, a complete transcendence of what we once called music, and even after Hulk Hogan killing multiple major wrestling promotions through power of greed and ego, enabling his vehicularly-homicidal son, having an "oh man, this dude clearly wants to bang his offspring" relationship with his daughter back before Donald and Ivanka brought it into the mainstream, and becoming the biggest star in the field of amateur cuckoldry porn that's also insanely racist, I will never stop loving this CD.

The Hulkster's in the house
Check him out, check him out.
Get up off your seat.
He's got a brand new beat.
When the going gets tough,
The tough get rough.
Hey hey, ho ho, come on, let's go.
Hey hey, ho ho, come on, let's go.
The Hulkster's in the room.
You know he's on the move.
I can feel it in my feet.
We're moving to the beat.
When the going gets tough,
The tough get rough.
Hey hey, ho ho, come on, let's go.
Hey hey, ho ho, come on, let's go.
We're rocking down the house.
The band is playing loud.
We're blowing off the roof.
And we're gonna rock and roll.
When the going gets tough,
The tough get rough.
Hey hey, ho ho, come on, let's go.
Hey hey, ho ho, come on, let's go.
Hey hey, ho ho, come on, let's go.
Hey hey, ho ho, come on, let's go.
Hey hey, ho ho, come on, let's go.
Hey hey, ho ho, come on, let's go.
Hey hey, ho ho, come on, let's go.
Hey hey, ho ho, come on, let's go.