prediction-error-signal

Mission Impossible

2009-08-02T02:26:00.013-04:00

A friend of mine (if I may say so, seeing that we have never actually met) provided a link for this a while ago in a comment to an older post. But since none of my 5 regular readers (“friends”) has any reason to go through the comments of old posts, I thought I’d post this here to give it the proper exposure that this record deserves. Thus, barely 2 months later I spring into action with cat-like reflexes to continue my quest to worship/post/rip-off the entire Workshed catalogue.

I have no info about this band beyond what you can read on the sleeve. It’s a good record. It’s Workshed. What else do you need to know?

Here goes “the other” WSR #8 (and here the other, in case you missed it).

Mission Impossible

and now to something completely different...

2009-08-01T01:20:00.021-04:00

I know it's pretty shallow, but a pretty important part of going to HC shows was always to check out the merch, and particularly to see whether the band had some decent t-shirts. Most of the times I would make a beeline to the merch table (“what they are not set up yet?”) and scoop out the shirts and what other stuff they may have hawked off. I never really collected t-shirts, but I loved them enough (and I still had enough disposable income at that time in my life when I would regularly go to shows) that at some point I amassed a pretty neat collection. My spending habit would have been even worse if it wasn’t for the fact that I am a pretty big guy and most bands never bothered to print XXL shirts for their tours, or had sold all 3 of them in Italy by the time they got to our neck of the woods. So oftentimes bands were inadvertently looking out for my meager student budget by coming to town with a box of nothing but “M”s and “S”s, taking any decision as to whether to have lunch the next day or a nice new t-shirt out of my hands.

However, as everybody knows of course t-shirt sizes vary considerably and if I really liked a band, or if the design of the shirt was really great, physical limitations were often redefined: “Well, maybe I can fit in that “L”… What do you say? They still might shrink? But not too much, right?"

This type of denial led me to buy a couple of shirts that I wore only once or twice before having to admit to myself that it really wasn’t meant to be (Slapshot or Gorilla Biscuits come to mind, and a couple of other US HC bands that were fronted by guys that were a big “M” themselves at best). And I mean, did the tour-shirts for GO! really have to come in that god-awful orange? (“Aww, what the heck, I’ll buy one anyway, I’m sure one day I’ll have pants that go with that color…”).

More often than not I’d sit in the back of the car on our way home and an otherwise perfect concert experience would be tainted by the sting of having to watch my friends try on their new shirts, while all I got were 2 lousy 7”s that I could have gotten at some other show, too (“Yeah, Majority of One they were OK, but I already have so many navy blue shirts…I mean, if you think that looks good…”).

On the other hand, sometimes having spent 3 hours in the car to see what turned out to be a completely forgettable live show might still have been made worthwhile if the merch was good (“at least they had great shirts…”). Then I’d proudly wear my new acquisition in school the next day and any cognitive dissonance about the trip and amount of money spent would quickly be dissolved by revisionist story telling about the awesome show everyone else had missed.

Anyway, below are a few of my favorite early 90’s tour-shirts that have survived throughout the years. All of these are still proudly worn.

Steel Pole Bathtub

Quicksand

Quicksand

Holy Rollers

NFAA

Up-front

OK, this last one is not in here because it is one of my favorite shirts, but rather belongs in the "what were they thinking?" category. While the front is actually quite nice and simple, the drawing on the back is not suited to recruit anyone into the HC (or SE) movement. With the exception of the guy in the yellow shirt in the back, every stick figure in this drawing looks sad, even the ones with the empty heads that are facing away. Particularly the guy ("girl", "it?" What's with the towel-shaped head appendages?), who gets kicked in the head, really doesn't look like he (it?) is getting ready to "break down some walls". But that might be difficult with a broken wrist anyway... At least they all have prominent "Xs" on their hands, that should make them feel better.
And BTW, Up front live was also quite forgettable... So to some extent this is really an adequate depiction of the show that I attended. And I bought the shirt of course before the band had played....

Pittbull

2009-06-12T18:50:00.009-04:00

Note the second “t”…

This is another band that I loved back in the day and have recently rediscovered, but don’t know squat about. When I clicked around a bit to find some info about the band I didn’t get very far, which is probably due to the fact that “Pittbull” (even with the extra “t” and combinations of other hardcore-specific words) is not a good search term to google. Plus I get bored easily. So you’ll have to do with a link to the grainy images on LastFM and the tidbit that they were from Detroit, which is somewhat fitting because they remind me a lot of a metal-influenced version of Negative Approach. The main reason for that comparison is the unearthly growl that the singer has, which reminds me a lot of N.A.’s John Brannon (who on a completely unrelated side note is currently fronting another great dirty rock band called Easy Action).

While unsuccessfully combing the internets for some more info on this here little band I saw that you can also dl this and all other Pittbull releases on the fantastic Zer blog. Those later records are actually all really good, too, and maybe in some aspects even better than this self-titled debut, but for sentimental reasons I still like this release (1991 on Nemesis) best and I don’t find myself listening to those other records as often.

You can also still buy a “best of” (no, actually it’s called “the very worst of Pittbull”, ha, ha, so clever, what will they think of next?) from surpriseattackrecords.

Pittbull

VA – Look at all the children now

2009-04-30T00:43:00.011-04:00

If you don’t know it already, I am a real sucker for NYHC. Between this compilation here and Blackout’s “Where the wild things are” all the great Non-Revelation bands of the golden age of NYHC are covered. While “Where the wild things are” showcased mostly the harder and/or more metal-sounding bands like Sheer Terror, Maximum Penalty, or Uppercut, “Look at all the children now” leans more towards the “alternative” side of the spectrum. Maybe I am saying this mostly because this record was released by Sam McPheeters of Born Against fame on his Evacuate Records (EVAC #1, 1990), and some of the bands featured here were part of the ABC No Rio scene. But while most of the songs thankfully are not of the “you, me, youth crew” variety (with the exception of Team Effort’s cheesy “t.e.”), most of the songs are actually also not particularly politically charged.

(UPDATE: Looks like you can't trust everything you read on the internet... Apparently, Sam McPheeters did not release this record, but rather another Sam, Sam Fisher (or "Sam Evac" , which you know, makes sense... but who's keeping score, anyway, huh?)

On here you will find several quite well known bands like Rorschach, Citizen's Arrest, GO! and Moondog (Walter Schreifels’ brief project between Gorilla Biscuits and Quicksand), and a bunch of really solid bands like Bad Trip, S.F.A. and Yuppicide that never really got their dues. Finally there are number of lesser known bands like Word Discrimination, Bugout Society, or Team Effort that round out (read “drag down”) this compilation.

Some of these songs weren’t so great to begin with but others really stood the test of time. Anyway, overall it is good non-youth crew NYHC and you should take this opportunity to take a stroll down memory lane.

Look at all the children now

As a side note: I always liked the less raspy, more hardcore voice of Rorschach’s Charles Maggio better on those alternative versions of songs that made it on compilations like the Forever 7” or this one here. I am certainly in the vast minority on this one, but it needed to be said; so there you have it!

Chuck?…NOW!

2009-03-12T23:28:00.015-04:00

From Suburbanvoice Issue 30 (1991) (via Operation Phoenix):

“VOICEBOX - Silence Lies (Workshed): One-off project with Dan O'Mahony (ex-No For An Answer) and Chuck Treece (ex-Underdog) . Bad Brains influenced rock, with surprisingly versatile vocals from Mr. O'Mahony. Powerful and soulful.”

I guess in HC circles this indeed passes as soulful. It’s a little gem of a record that most guys my age probably already know (bring on the reminiscin’…). This is mid-tempo, post-hardcore with a searing guitar and introspective lyrics. And given that it involves Dan O’Mahoney and was released shortly before the 411 LP came out, not surprisingly a lot of the things that I wrote below on the 411 post apply here as well.
I have often heard this derided by hard-line apostles of the SxE church and of the Dan O’Mahoney canon in particular, probably because it is a lot slower and not as “hard” as NFAA (well, probably because it is not NFAA, period).
As much as I like NFAA, and without taking anything away from them, I always liked O’Mahoney’s later bands and projects better. Most of them were musically and lyrically more varied (you know, not so preachy and a bit more personal – “mature” is probably the word I am looking for). This 7" leapfrogs most of these later bands in that regard, too, because it features the great guitar work of Chuck Treece. Anyway, in my opinion these 2 songs here hold up really well, and it’s too bad that this is all that these guys recorded together.
And if you can’t tell by the title of this post, my favorite part is when Dan O' cues Chuck for his guitar solo on "Cold Inside".

So download… NOW!

Can you break through? A SKENE! compilation

2009-02-19T00:07:00.012-05:00

The little that I know about SKENE! records (or learned from various sources on the Interwebs) I have already divulged on the Dog Tired and Shades Apart posts below. This comp came out in 1990 and provides an (incomplete) overview of some of the great emo/punk-rock bands from the Midwest that released 7inches on SKENE!, plus a few bands that were probably included for their value of name recognition (e.g. Green Day and GO!).
The record suffers a bit from the very uneven production of the individual songs. There are also a few filler tracks (the instrumental "Means" by Sticks and Stones or the Beef Trust song), but overall this is a very solid and diverse comp featuring a couple of bands that went on to (much) bigger things (Green Day; Fuel), and some that did not get much recognition, but which actually contribute some of the better songs on this record (Angry Son; Dog Tired; Walt Mink, Gneissmaker). Good stuff and (at the very least) a nice document of the post-hardcore/emo sound of the late 80s.

Can you break through?

Dog Tired - A bone to pick with the world

2009-02-10T00:09:00.011-05:00

A couple of days ago someone (AdamBomb) left me a comment on the Shades Apart - Neon post, mentioning that he had rips of several other SKENE! EPs, which he was willing to share. Today he sent me the links to said records and one of them was for this great 7" by Dog Tired. This came out in 1989 as SKENE! #7 and is one of my all-time favorite emo records. Here are 4 songs that alternate between intense emotion and headbobbing rock, all tied together with a good dose of melody. What I always liked most though was the singer's unique nasal voice and his under the breath delivery - it's very emo, but it fits very well and comes across as sincere (plus you know the standards were different 20 years ago...).
Unfortunately, I have absolutely no background information about this band. They had another 7", which as far as I remember wasn't quite as interesting and varied as this one. In any case, I have been rocking this thing out all day and thought I should share my joy with the 3 other people in the world who might remember this. Big props to AdamBomb for hooking me up with this!

Dog Tired

UPDATE: AdamBomb just started his own blog. So if you are looking for more old SKENE! stuff (I know I am) I suggest to head over there and ask him nicely, maybe he will upload some more stuff - he already started with "The People's Court" and "Awake".
Also, I found the great SKENE! comp "Can you break through" on Soulseek the other day. If I have a few minutes I'll upload that one, too.

7 Inch Boots – Tamped Concrete and 3 Lieder für Bruce Lee

2009-01-25T14:16:00.007-05:00

The great cover of the “Tamped Concrete” 7inch tells you everything you need to know: This is music from skateboarding (or bouncy-ball hopping, or whatever that thing is on the back cover…) straight-edge kids who love Metal and have fun with it. So it is metal-core from a time (1989) before that genre really took off. Plus, for additional novelty these guys are from Germany and that is probably the only reason why I know about them. And now you can, too. 7 Inch Boots were from Mühlheim, a.d. Ruhr, which isn’t too far from where I used to live. If my memory serves me well (and that’s not something that I would rely on) they were associated with, or at least friends with this small collective of people who published a vegan/political/straight-edge fanzine called “Think Again”. The “Think Again” people were a German version of what I imagine the Ebullition people must have been like: All very nice and righteous, and trying to save the planet by not exploiting honeybees and through various other grassroots movements. In any case, I would frequently bump into some of these guys from 7 Inch Boots at shows and I saw them play once or twice (I’d like to say that I saw them open for GO! on their European tour in ’91, but that is probably wrong).

And while this 7inch is very near and dear to my heart and brings back good memories, I am absolutely not posting this for the sentimental value alone. This is really powerful sludgy hardcore.

The second EP “3 Lieder für Bruce Lee” was recorded in 1991, but only released in 1995. Those 3 songs represent a clear progression towards even more sludge and they are more Melvins than hardcore. Not that that is a bad thing, but the intensity of these songs doesn’t reach that of “Tamped Concrete”. Still good, though.

As an interesting side note, the members of 7 Inch Boots would later go on to form Bohren & der Club of Gore (on LastFM). Bohren & der Club of Gore play an ambient, noir jazz, which I have heard described as “music for people for whom the Twin Peaks soundtrack is too hectic”. Yet, the band maintains a distinct dark “metal” aesthetic in their cover art and merchandise. If this kind of “doom jazz” is your thing, too, then you should definitely check them out. Bohren & der Club of Gore (official page). They are still around and apparently doing pretty well.

Anyway, check out these masterpieces of German mosh-core. And if for some strange coincidence you have anything to add about 7 Inch Boots, by all means please do!

7 Inch Boots - 2 EPs

Point Blank

2009-01-04T21:25:00.019-05:00

I had thought about posting these 2 singles for a while, but for one I have been too busy and -more importantly- I don't really know anything about the band, which taken together would make for a very brief, impersonal post. But then today I saw that Buske over at An Attitude Exhumed was looking for these, so I figured 'what the hell, maybe there are other people who will enjoy these, too'. It's fast, pretty straightforward HC on Nemesis records, which should tell you everything you need to know. These 2 records came out in 1990 and 1991 as Nemesis #19 and #33, respectively; with the self-titled 7" that is pictured here being the earlier release. The music was probably a bit harder (bordering on cross-over in the vain of S.O.D.) than most HC that I was listening to at that time, which made this record stand out. Sadly, they also stood out with respect to the tough-guy image that they wanted to portray and some rather politically incorrect lyrics; particularly on "Intro/We don't owe you shit", which rails on people (Hispanics?) collecting welfare for being drunk and having multiple children and every other cliche that they could imagine. MaximumRockNRoll supposedly had a real beef with these guys for this shit. But since I never read MRR, I don't know whether that is true (i.e. if they ever bothered enough).
So while the band's jock attitude might take away a bit of the listening pleasure the music is still quite enjoyable and you will probably want to check it out for the classic "Shit on minitrucks" alone. 'Nuff said.
Oh yeah, the second record (for which I have no picture) is called Blacklisted! We won't be silenced. The Zip file contains the 2 singles separated in 2 folders, plus one extra song "Turning back".

Point Blank

Slapshot - Blast Furnace

2009-01-02T01:24:00.011-05:00

Slapshot need no introduction. They put (Boston) HC “Back on the map”. Starting out with a very Oi-influenced sound they provided a blueprint for many bands that followed, both musically and with respect to the tough guy SxE image that they portrayed.

To me Slapshot are one of the very(!) few bands that actually only got better with time (or at least not worse – which says a lot). Sure, the early classics like "Step on it "and "Sudden Death Overtime" will always have a special place in my heart, but their later records like "16 Valve Hate" or "Digital Warfare" are just awesome in-your face HC, that make you want to smash something or someone.

So if you are a true Slapshot fan and/or some sort of HC completionist, who needs to collect everything, chances are that you already have this album. However, there seem to be few people who actually like this record, including the band itself. Slapshot’s official band page dismisses this EP that was released 1993 on the German “We Bite” label with 2 sentences:

“The band's next album, "Blast Furnace", took about 2 weeks to write and about 3 days to record, and the band members were sick of it before it even came out. However, that was album number one of a three-album deal - that's how the band saw it.”

So what’s wrong with this album? Nothing, I say. It’s just not the typical Slapshot sound that one had gotten to expect and which they seamlessly pick up again on their later releases.

Choke (Jack Kelly) is the only original member on this release, and for lack of better words it is an experimental album on which Slapshot ventures into heavy metal and maybe even grunge (it was the time, you know…).

The sound is rather slow and pounding in both drums and guitar riffs. However, it never drags on too much and is mostly quite catchy. “Wired” is a real stomper with a glam-rock beat, but also some Nine-inch Nails-inspired whirring sound effects. The song “Another Mistake” is an updated heavy version of “The same mistake”, which was originally included on “Step on it”. The title song Blast Furnace is one of my favorite Slapshot songs. It’s got all the aggression and intensity that you want in your Slapshot songs, but has a lot of things going on to keep it interesting.

Overall, the sound of this EP reminds me in many parts of Prong’s sound at that time (ca. Beg to Differ). Finally, the abundant sound samples (at least for a HC band) and movie excerpts that lead in and out of most of the songs add to the “experimental” feel of the record.

I like that kind of stuff, but clearly it’s not for everyone, particularly if you have strong preconceptions as to what a classic HC band has to sound like.

Blast Furnance

Sideshow - S/T

2008-11-27T01:00:00.012-05:00

Back when “emo” wasn’t a four-letter word, Sideshow played some of the best posthardcore (punk) rock around.

Bass player/vocalist Bernie McGinn runs (ran?) Caulfield Records, which released most of the Sideshow recordings. I don’t know much about Sideshow other than that they introduced me to Caulfield Records, which was hugely influential for the Midwest Indie Rock scene, releasing a string of criminally under-appreciated records. However, the great “Built on a weak spot” had a really nice post with much more info and some additional tracks from various other Sideshow releases a while ago. So you should definitely go there and get what you are missing here.

Sideshow has a very unique and interesting sound (otherwise I would not post it here), but they are also very much a child of their time (which for me being musically imprinted on late 80s - early 90s bands is also a good thing). To me the obvious comparisons for Sideshow are Rain (La Vache Qui Rit), Rites of Spring, One Last Wish, Policy of 3 and a couple of other bands that embody the early Dischord sound.

In any case, this, their first LP, does neither sound dated nor like an imitation of any of the aforementioned bands. Their sound is a bit less angular, and if anything I enjoy them much more than say Rites of Spring, which get all the credit as pioneers of the genre.

Sideshow

UPDATE: Now with more Lip read confusion (their 2nd full length)

This one’s for Phil…

2008-11-26T00:48:00.005-05:00

so he doesn’t have to crawl up into his attic and keep rummaging for this lost gem anymore. The missing link from the early (read “good”) period of Shades Apart, this EP came out in 1992 on Sunspot Records, in between their self-titled debut and the “Neon” EP. As such it’s exactly like you would expect and everything that I wrote below about these other two releases applies to this one as well. Great melodic punk rock in the tradition of Dag Nasty and preceding similar acts like Sense Field or Farside.
I found this on Soulseek a while ago and finally came around to post it here. The way the tracks were labeled indicates to me that they were bonus tracks on the CD reissue of the self-titled LP but I don’t know and neither do I particularly care.

Dude Danger

Crawlpappy

2008-09-27T23:41:00.047-04:00

huge
burly
tattoed
pappy
huge
burly
obtuse
pappy
I've been pappied
the indignity of it all

Alice Donut, “Crawlpappy” (Mule, 1990)

Crawlpappy is another sad example of a band that got love and respect by everyone who knew them, but who ultimately did not get the widespread recognition that they deserved.

This is particularly difficult to understand when you look at the list of other bands that one-time members of Crawlpappy were involved in at one time or another: Agnostic front, Absolution, Alice Donut, Helmet, Raw Deal. One would think that the fame of those bands would have rubbed off a bit more.

Musically, this evokes Sheer Terror (with whom they had a fantastic split single) and Prong circa “Beg to differ”. Sometimes grooving, sometimes sludgy, hard-rock, post-hardcore –NYHC meets Detroit Rock–… I don’t know, something like that. Good crunching guitars and nice drumming, plus the charismatic gravelly voice of Brian Childers who died much too early in November 2007, apparently of kidney failure.

“Deluxe” is quite good and I was happy to see that record pop up on a couple of other blogs recently. Copies of that you can probably still pick up for cheap through Amazon. But for me the self-titled 12” that was released on Blackout! Records and which was produced by Don Fury is really where it is at. For good measures I have also included 2 songs from a compilation (“Mentally broken Vol. 3”).

The files got a little too large for Mediafire, so I split it into 2 folders:

Crawlpappy – ST

Crawlpappy - Deluxe

Jones Vey - Radio Wave

2008-09-20T15:23:00.022-04:00

As a general rule I hate live recordings. But this is an absolute exception. Not only is the sound quality excellent (the songs were recorded in Feb. and Oct. 1990 for 2 radio stations in Massachusetts) but also does it showcase the bundled energy and anger that is Vic Bondi (AOF; Alloy; most recently Report Suspicious Activity; plus a couple of others) in a way that the band's studio albums rarely achieve. As a result this is not only a good live representation of Jones Very, but in many respects even better than their studio albums, particularly the later “New Life for Lies” (1992, Jade Tree), which is a little flat at times. This one also has Kenny Chambers from the Moving Targets on the other guitar, so that's obviously another plus, too.

In brief, guitars are crunching and Bondi is screaming; that's all you really need to know.

Radio Wave features songs from all their other releases, the 2 LPs (“New Life for Lies” and the first LP “Words and Days”) and an EP that also was released on Jade Tree (Trains of thought).

All these releases and particularly “Words and Days” are long OOP, but apparently Vic Bondi himself was so nice to make them available for free download on Last.fm (including this one actually); so check out Jones Very’s whole oeuvre over there.

Radio Wave

Locust Fudge - Royal Flush

2008-09-09T22:31:00.009-04:00

I don’t recall why I bought this when it came out in 1995. I was probably following the recommendation of one of the guys at the awesome local record shop I frequented back then. It surely wasn’t for the horrible cover image of the 2 protagonists. But in all fairness the picture and the title of the record are a tongue-in-cheek self-reference to their earlier album “Flush”( 1993), the cover of which features 2 disheveled dudes sitting on their porch smoking. That picture evokes images of good ol’ boys strumming their banjo and playing bluegrass music. And “Flush” doesn’t stray much from that imagery and delivers acoustic, neo-folk guitar songs.
“Royal Flush” still echoes some of that same feeling, but also represents a clear step forward by adding a piano and some electronic elements and generally speeding things up a bit. Also, Schneider (a.k.a. Dirk Dresselhaus, a.ka. Schneider TM) and Krite (a.k.a. Christopher Uhe) thankfully leave their shirts on for this ironic recreation of the previous cover photo. Musically, this is lo-fi indie rock that occupies the space between Sebadoh, The Notwist, and Iron and Wine, without really sounding like any of these bands. At times the vocals drone on a bit, but for one that’s part of the charm, and in addition there are enough musical gimmicks, little bleeps and blurbs, to keep you occupied. So step right up and give German Volksmusik a chance:

As far as I can tell this is out of print, but you probably will be able to order a cheap copy through the German Amazon (amazon.de) or to buy a copy on e-bay.

Royal Flush

Endpoint: "In a time of hate" and "Catharsis"

2008-09-01T02:25:00.013-04:00

More classic HC!

“Endpoint is/was the largest hardcore band to ever come out of Louisville.” So say both the incredibly well maintained Louisville Hardcore history webpage and the band’s equally lengthy Wikipedia entry. So you know it must be true. I, on the other hand, have never even been to Louisville, so you better get your biographical information for Endpoint from one of those 2 sources. What I can tell you is that both of these records made quite a splash in our little hardcore community halfway ‘round the world in Germany, when they came out in 1990, and 1992, respectively.

“Catharsis” is arguably Endpoint’s masterpiece. Everything is in place; the songs are well structured, and the performance and production is incredibly tight. And on top of all that you have Rob Pennington’s characteristic/charismatic high-pitched singsong, speaking about self improvement and railing against social injustices. I however, always liked the earlier “In a time of hate” better. It’s a bit rougher, musically not as refined and it is definitely not as well produced as “Catharsis”. But, gosh, does it kick ass! Particularly, the song “Model” was probably included on every mixtape that I made for 2 straight years. “In a time of hate” put Conversion Records on the map for me, and for a while I sought out every release from them that I could get my hands on.

Endpoint had a couple of releases before (“If the spirits are willing”), in between (two 7”), and after this (notable: “Idiots” and “After taste”, which is really so-so), but these 2 records here get the most play from me by a mile; it’s not even close…

I suspect there are many people out there who know much more than me about Endpoint (and who may even have been to Louisville...). If that’s the case and you feel like reminiscing, by all means, please leave me a comment!

And yeah, if you take the time to go to either of those pages that I have mentioned above you will see that several members of Endpoint are still making music, and those few bands that I do know are pretty good, too, so check them out!

“In a time of hate”

“Catharsis”

Beyond - No longer at ease + Dew it demo

2008-08-24T02:21:00.022-04:00

A while ago we poured out some love for Beyond over at Zen and the Art of Face Punching in the comment section to one of Blend’s NYHC posts. I figured a full post would eventually follow, but since that hasn’t happened yet I guess I might have to do it myself (someone certainly has to...)

“Generic neo stop & go posi-core, not bad but nothing new at all. [6].”

That’s what FLEX discography has to say about this album. While you can’t argue with the “stop and go posi-core” description, this exhaustive FLEX review fails to acknowledge that the stop and go sound was still pretty novel at the time (1989) when this was released, and –more importantly– that it has rarely been done this nicely, neither before nor after . Musically, Beyond were certainly at the head of their class in 88-89, and that’s saying something for this time in NYHC. Not surprisingly, many of the members went on to “bigger” (more influential) bands. Tom Capone (guitar) played in Quicksand, BOLD, Handsome, Shelter and a couple of other bands. Vic DiCara (bass) was in Inside Out, 108, and Burn amongst others; Alan Cage (drums) was also in Quicksand, and Kevin Egan (voc.) fronted 1.6 Band.

In addition to an enormous amount of song ideas and rhythm changes, that get crammed into each of these songs (and which might get mistaken for “generic neo stop & go posi-core”) there is a lot of youthful energy on this record, which obviously is good in HC. There is a lot more that could be said about this record, both musically as well as with respect to the band’s history (from what I can tell). But it’s getting late and I am not really qualified to say anything about either of these 2 things anyway.

I have to admit though that “No longer at ease” is not an album that I often listen to in its entirety (but those kinds of albums are a rarity anyway…), and the demo songs that were added to the CD reissue, which I am posting here, add very little to the experience. However, there are a few absolute nuggets on this record (Vitality, Effort/Ancient Head, Can’t deny) and overall this LP just doesn’t get the widespread recognition that it deserves. I carefully avoid labeling this record as “underrated”, because I believe that the people who actually do know it give it proper respect.

So if you don’t have this milestone of NYHC already, grab it here:

Beyond: No longer at ease

Shades Apart - Shades Apart

2008-08-19T22:08:00.009-04:00

Experts agree, the earlier Shades Apart releases are their best. After the "Neon" post I have gotten a few requests for their debut album already, so I figured I just might add this one as well. Not much to say about this one that I haven't said in one form or another in the post below already. This one came out in 1988 on Wishingwell Records and is (not surprisingly) a bit harder, faster and generally rougher. But it is already very evident that these guys knew how to write catchy songs and how to play. There are already a lot of great melodies in the vain of early "Dag Nasty" or "Reason to Believe", and the singer Mark V. even reminds me a bit of Peter Cortner of Dag Nasty’s “Wig out at Denko’s” and “Field Day” fame. Anyway, this is good stuff.

Shades Apart - ST

Shades Apart – Neon

2008-08-19T00:42:00.016-04:00

When I went to college I had a friend whose nickname was “Mal”, after Mal Sondock an American DJ who in the early 80s presented the Top 40 pop hits on the regional radio station where we both grew up. Mal was given his moniker by some of his high-school friends to reflect the fact that he used to proselytize about music. Throughout college, he and I used to trade mix-tapes, each of us trying to convert the other to what we were currently into. Mal had extensive knowledge of everything “Industrial” and made me mixes that ranged from scraping noise to ethereal ambient sounds, while I pestered him with The Melvins and straight-up hardcore. I think we both enjoyed making the mixtapes much more than listening to what the other had cooked up. While I enjoyed the process and many of the individual songs on these mixtapes, I can’t recall that either of us ever said “hey can you give me more from artist XYZ?”. There was one exception though. On one of these tapes I had included “Good luck charm” from Shade Apart’s “Neon”, and a couple of days/weeks later Mal comes and asks me to tape the whole album for him. Naturally, I was shocked. As it turned out his girlfriend really liked the song, but since she was a snooty bitch she didn’t ask me herself, but rather sent him to ask me for the record. I know this anticlimactic ending completely ruins the whole story, but it’s the type of stuff that I still remember 15 years later (I guess you had to be there…).

Anyway, I always liked this record, although I have a hard time describing why. The music is the type of post-hardcore that was en-vogue in the early 90s in the wake of the grunge explosion. However, this album takes it a step further, probably because Shades Apart were never typical hardcore to begin with. They released their self-titled debut in 1988 on the classical hardcore label Wishingwell, but even that album is more Descendents or Dag Nasty than Youth of Today.

“Neon” is very moody and melancholically with a couple of ballads (and very opaque post-hardcore lyrics…). But it also has great melodies and riffs that chug along quite nicely, including well accentuated Bad Religion-style dual vocal harmonies. This all comes out very nicely because the whole album is superbly produced. This is probably even more noteworthy because Neon was released on the small label SKENE! Records, a DIY label out of Minneapolis. SKENE! might best be compared to their contemporaries Lookout! Records, and they had a fantastic run of records by bands including (but clearly not limited to) Green Day, Jawbreaker, Phleg Camp and GO!, just to name a few fan favorites. I actually liked some of their other bands that remained obscure even better (If someone has rips of old SKENE! 7”s I would be very thrilled!!). In any case, I can’t remember that any release from the other SKENE! bands ever sounded as crisp and clean as Shades Apart’s Neon.

Shades Apart had 2 more full-lengths on Revelation, which were OK, but not particularly great and veered too much into the Powerpop genre for me. The first of these, “Save it” (1995), gained them quite some exposure because it featured a pretty uninspired and forgettable cover of Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love”. It all just seemed very calculated and Ready-for-College-Radio. In any case it worked, because shortly thereafter they signed with a major (Universal) and released 2 more albums. The song “Stranger by the day” was even featured in one of the American Pie movies. However, by the time of their 2^nd Revelation LP I had already lost all interest in them, but “Neon” has always stayed with me. My personal favorite from this album is the ballad “Good Luck Charm”; it always puts me in a somber mood.

So, if your girlfriend likes Dag Nasty or Farside (or even the later Shades Apart), check this out.

Shades Apart – Neon

Blackspot – Discography?!

2008-08-18T00:38:00.007-04:00

This is a weird post, mostly because I have absolutely no info about Blackspot beyond what you can find out yourself with 2 clicks of your mouse (check out their MySpace page). Even more damaging to my credibility as a hardcore nerd is the fact that until relatively recently I did not even know that Blackspot existed. So why do I feel the need to share this with you, you ask? Well, the short and obvious answer is that Blackspot are pretty awesome.

The somewhat longer answer is that I am a big fan of all the bands that came out on Workshed Records in the late 80s and early 90s. This fact might be pretty obvious to you already if you read my posts on Headfirst and 411 below. However, the Workshed catalog is incredibly small (only a total of 10 releases) and when they were still around I never consciously sought out their releases, cross-referencing band- or label-mates. I did stuff like that with “larger” labels like Revelation or Dischord, which quickly built up rather sizable catalogs (or in the case of Dischord had already been around for quite a while before I got into hardcore). In the case of Workshed I just happened to like the bands and I noticed that they were on the same label, but I never really knew anything about the label per se (I am learning about all that stuff just now, and it is really very much internet-filtered, second-hand info). Anyway, when I did the Headfirst post below I also searched for info about Workshed and in that context found a complete list of their small catalog (as I said, 10 releases total, 2 of which were labeled as Workshed #8, because they could not decide which record to release first…). I noticed with some sense of satisfaction that I had all of the records listed there, except for Blackspot’s 7” “Check out the helmet”. In fact, I had never even heard of Blackspot before. As I said, I did not follow Workshed’s releases religiously as I did with other labels, but even if I had, in the dark days before the internet I probably would have never noticed a gap in my collection, because Blackspot’s 7” is one of those 2 records that both are listed as Workshed #8 (damn those hippies…).

Anyway, I spent some time searching for this single and I got real lucky. Someone had posted not only that Workshed 7”, but a lot of (all of?) their other stuff as well. And this is what I am reposting here. I’d like to give due credits, but I honestly could not figure out anymore where I got this from. So, sorry awesome unknown blogger!

The reason why I am posting this now –again, apart from the obvious reason that they rock- is that Blend77 over on “Zen and the Art of Face Punching” just did a post about Hard Stance’s “Face Reality”, which was Workshed #1. And in that context someone casually mentioned that “someone” should do a complete Workshed post, maybe the poor man’s hardcore equivalent of the Hoover-Genealogy, which slowly unfolds on “Hardcore for Nerds”. After I had posted 411 and Headfirst I briefly had that exact thought, with “someone” being me of course. So, although I don’t know whether that actually will ever happen, with this Blackspot post, we are almost one-third of the way already.

You wonder what the music sounds like?
Like the OCHC stuff that Workshed released back in the days; you know, Headfirst, Hard Stance, 411, stuff like that…

And oh yeah, finally, one of the songs is a bold cover of Motorhead’s “Ace of Spades”. Messing with a classic like this usually never works out, but this is surprisingly good. “Ace of spades” appeared on the “Guilty by Association” sampler and the band is listed as “Collateral damage” there As far as I can tell the 2 bands only share one member, but on Blackspot’s MySpace page they even list it as a Blackspot song, so what do I know… nothing. However, if YOU have any more information and anecdotes about this great band, please drop me a line.

Enjoy

Blackspot

Silverfish – Fat Axl

2008-08-06T02:31:00.008-04:00

In keeping with the implicit mission statement of this blog: And now to something completely different - Silverfish from the

I guess this record by default gets branded with the “grunge” label, simply because it came out around “that time” and has some hard-rocking guitars, but also isn’t really punk/hardcore. But Silverfish are clearly settled at the far end of that genre, owing more to hardcore than most of their contemporaries.

“Fat Axl” sounds like the Bastard child of Mudhoney’s “Superfuzz Bigmuff” and Helmet’s “Meantime”. The songs are quite repetitive in parts (like Helmet), and there are shredding distorted guitars, that occasionally venture into some fucked-up blues riffs. That impression is only reinforced by the raw production that makes it sound as if the tracks were recorded through a cell phone. However, this is all made worthwhile by the raging/snarling vocals of singer Lesley Rankine. It’s hard to imagine that very shortly after the demise of Silverfish Lesley fronted a trip-hop project named “Ruby”. There she lends her soulful voice to very mellow, trippy beats.

But this isn’t anything like that at all. Here she screams and curses like a good Riot Grrl should (“why don’t you kill yourself, fucker”).

In parts “Fat Axl” also reminds me a bit of Nation of Ulysses’ first album “13 Point Program to destroy America”, which has the same hectic energy, but “Fat Axl” is less refined, both musically and lyrically. But that doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing. Silverfish just don’t bother with the same sensibilities that the D.C. scenesters do. It might also have to do with the fact that Silverfish were from the UK and that (strangely enough) this record was released on Touch and Go. Whatever the reason (and I basically don’t know anything about the band’s biography), if you like raw female energy and a super fuzzed-out guitar, then this record might be for you.

Silverfish had some EPs before this (collected on “Cockeye”) and a second LP after this (“Organ Fan”, 1992). “Organ Fan” is probably overall the better crafted record. Everything is much more refined, but also much more restrained; and for me the unbridled energy of this record just works better. Plus, I saw them live when they toured in support of this album, so that evokes some special memories.

Silverfish

411 (Four One One) – “This isn’t me” and “Thoughts that feed the fire"

2008-08-04T21:22:00.013-04:00

Very much like the Headfirst 7” posted below, this is another band and record that everyone who grew up with early 90s hardcore already knows and loves. Probably not quite coincidentally this also came out on Workshed Records, which had a short but very successful run. I believe they put out a total of 10 records between 1988 and 1992, but among these are releases by Hard Stance, Carry Nation, Headfirst and this record. The man behind Workshed was Dan O' Mahoney of No For An Answer and Carry Nation fame.

411 was his project after the demise of these bands and it also features Kevin Murphy from Headfirst on guitars. With their debut 7” “Thoughts That Feed The Fire” (or probably better known as “Say it”, which I included here) 411 made a pretty big name for themselves in the hardcore/skate scene.

The LP “This isn’t me” came out in 1991 and took hardcore into a different direction from its traditional sound and content. 411 adopted melody and introspective lyrics over a straight forward, in your face attack. Upon hearing this for the first time I wasn’t even all that impressed with the music, because at that time it just wasn’t hard and fast enough for me. Rather, the music is rocking mid-tempo hardcore, which sounds more like Dag Nasty or early Shelter than any of Dan O’Mahoney’s earlier bands. It’s still very intense and powerful, but it is also very emotional and even quite political music (“Face the flag”, “Those homophobic”); everything held together by Dan O’Mahoney’s commandeering, growling voice. Obviously, I have come around in my opinion on this record (rather quickly actually) and I see this now for the "emo-core" milestone that it is. “This isn't me” are 10 great sing-along, skate-along anthems that will only grow on you with time (but then again, you probably might know that already ^_^ ).

411

Headfirst - 7"s

2008-08-02T02:42:00.010-04:00

I was thinking of future posts for this blog (“future awesomness”, if you will); musical nuggets that would fulfill the following criteria:

It should be something that I really like (which is an obvious criterion),
it should be something that not everybody knows already and that you can get at every corner of the interwebs, and
it should be out of print.

The last 2 criteria kind of go hand in hand, as the really influential records tend to get reissued because there is constant demand for them.

So where does Headfirst fall on this scale? If you were listening to hardcore by the end of the 80s you probably know “Back in control” already.
On the other hand, few people could have been as enamored with these guys as I was, because they don’t seem to get the same due respect that many of their contemporaries do (and I can think of several bands from that era that are famous based on the strength of a single 7” alone, so it could not have been that). Maybe it was because they weren’t from New York, and maybe it was because they did not fit the clichés of what a straight edge band had to be like (check “Self Edge” to see what I mean). Most likely it was because their follow up LP (“The Enemy”) wasn’t really hardcore at all, but rather foreshadowed the post-hardcore era, with great rhythms and chopping guitars, but mostly lacking the aggression that many would expect from “real” hardcore.

In any case, the 4 songs on “Back in control” are “real” hardcore, and I think they are some of the tightest 4 songs ever collected on one 7”. Yes, I love this record that much. There is lots of raw energy, crunching guitars, heavy drumming and great vocal delivery. Most notable for a hardcore record from this time are the many pace changes and mosh parts (and even the odd guitar solo). The highlight of this 7” is probably the title track which is rather slow and heavy (lots of headbanging action here).
Among newer bands Trapped under Ice might have a somewhat similar sound (which is probably why I like them so much). But before you tell me that Trapped under Ice sound so much better, remember that this 7” came out 20 years ago, and I would agree (hope) that there has been some progress in that time. Anyway, this is my attempt to convert some that have not yet heard of Headfirst.

Finally, for good measure I have also thrown in Headfirst’s 2^nd 7” (thanks to Mike for the rip, btw).
This is from the US release on Jester records (1992), which was hand numbered and limited to 550 copies. It had a beautiful pink and black screened cover. The A side “Intervention” is also a great track that sounds very much like the songs found on “The Enemy”. The B-side is a Beatles cover “Come together”. While that has some novelty appeal, this in my opinion is clearly Headfirst’s worst song. It just doesn’t really work. Plus, I remember that at that time when grunge was exploding there were at least other 3 bands (most notably Soundgarden among them) that covered “Come together”.

However, this should not detract from the powerhouse that “Back in control” was. So enjoy:

Headfirst “Back in control” and “Intervention” 7”

Addendum: After I wrote this post (silly me), I went over to Headfirst's MySpace page. There they promise us a complete discography in the near future. However, the last entry on that page is also more than a year old, so this might or might not happen.

Ripcord - Poetic Justice

2008-08-01T01:37:00.006-04:00

I bought my copy of Poetic Justice at the insistence of two of my friends, who were very knowledgeable about hardcore, but also were heavily into the fledging noise-core scene that was making its way over from Great Britain with bands like Heresy, ENT, Electro Hippies, Napalm Death and the like. I had heard them mention Ripcord in the same context and I had heard a few songs from either their first LP “Defiance of Power” or the EP “Harvest Hardcore”, which came out in 1987. I wouldn’t know which one though, because it all sounded the same to me at the time. My young ears had no context for that thrashy and very aggressive music. So naturally, I was very reluctant to buy this supposed masterpiece when the three of us happened to come across this album in some vendor’s record case outside a hardcore show. But my friends assured me that “Poetic Justice” was different from Ripcord’s earlier releases (“slower” is probably what they said) and that I would definitely like it. Eventually, I caved in to peer pressure and spent what little money I had on this LP and probably a couple of 7”s. And how couldn’t I? That cover with the trees looked so peaceful…

When I listened to it the next day I was totally bummed out. This was exactly the type of crap that I had been afraid of. I listened to half of the first side and maybe one or two songs on the flip side – just to be sure that there weren’t any good songs hidden on that side. Then I filed it under “R” and did not listen to it again for several years.

I honestly can’t remember when I took this out again, but I was pleasantly surprised when I did. This was a completely different record that I was listening to. This was great powerful hardcore that sounded like SSD and Attitude Adjustment and maybe a couple of other bands that I had gotten into over the years. Most recently I was reminded of Ripcord when I listened to SSS (Short Sharp Shock – also very much worth checking out!). Anyway, fast forward a couple of more years to the present day and I find myself a Top Listener for Ripcord on Last.FM.

This later fact shows you 2 things: 1) this album is really good and has only grown on me over the years, 2) there aren’t enough listeners for Ripcord out there, if I can make it with my meager number of plays into the Top Listener category.

So download this and spread the word (Trust me, you'll like it, it's slower than their earlier stuff):

“Kill from the Heart” has an excellent biography for Ripcord, which covers everything about the band that I left out here. So you should definitely check it out.l

Future Awesomeness – Part I

2008-07-30T23:05:00.002-04:00

Well, hello and welcome!

At this point in the blog it is very likely that you are only here because Blend77 from the mighty “Zen and the Art of Face Punching” told you to swing by and check out the Underdog post. Because, really, I haven’t even told my wife about my little new hobby yet. I figured I would make some posts, change the layout back and forth, and in the meantime slowly learn about all the fancy buttons that they have here. I figured I would post hard to find and out-of-print records and personal favorites from my heydays as a young hardcore kid – which would mostly cover the late 80s and early 90s.

But then Blend decides he wants to be nice (well, he IS nice) and link straight to my new blog, and he promises “future awesomeness” and other such follies. And here I am like the Emperor with no Clothes on – or maybe just a fig leaf of an Underdog post.

Fortunately, it was a slow day at work, so I was already half-way into what I figured would someday become my second post – maybe, if I found the time and felt like it, you know, in a couple of days maybe…
But enough of the fake moping and whining. ^_^

Rather step right up and enjoy:

Future Awesomeness – Part II

2008-07-30T22:51:00.009-04:00

Visual Discrimination was a self-proclaimed punk band from Southern California, which may be a bit surprising considering their sound, their appearance and their lyrical content, which all always screamed “straight edge hardcore’ to me. I couldn’t have been all that far off with that impression because Jeff Banks, the guitarist, went on to form “A Chorus of Disapproval”, a band that embodied the militant edge like few others (almost to the point of caricature).

Visual Discrimination’s first release in 1988 was "Step Back and Listen", which also was the first release on the California-based Nemesis label (NEM 001). Nemesis was quite influential in the (straight-edge) hardcore scene on the West Coast in the late 80s and early 90s, and released stuff by A Chorus of Disapproval, Uniform Choice, Vision, and even the first LP and 7” of The Offspring.

“In Vain” was released in 1990 as NEM 13 and was produced by Brett Gurewitz of Bad Religion fame. I am not sure what magic Brett Gurewitz worked at the knobs, but “In Vain” is a marked improvement over “Step Back and Listen” (particularly the drums on that record were just horrible; but overall everything sounds much crisper and cleaner on “In Vain”, plus the songwriting is much improved here).

The 8 songs on this record are:
crawling / 6ft. under / enough said / vain // money is freedom / potential statistic / inevitable / united blood

The always very poignant Flex discography says about this album:
“Fast & powerful hardcore from California; solid stuff but kind of simple and un-original. Strong Agnostic Front influence, apart from that it's the macho/metal/sXe/NYC hardcore sound with some guitar solos. Still OK. [7]”.

Clearly there are worse things than being compared to Agnostic Front. And indeed, VD sound a lot like a California version of the NYHC sound of that era. The AF comparison is also obviously justified because the last song on this album (if you didn’t guess so already) is a cover of AF’s United Blood.

“In Vain” isn’t earth-shattering, and from what I can tell it also didn’t prove to be particularly influential for future generations of hardcore kids (I’m sure most newer artists would instead rather name-check “A Chorus of Disapproval”). However, as the years go on I feel myself drawn back to my early years of hardcore. In that process I sometimes re-discover things and I am surprised how well they still hold up. And “In Vain” definitely falls into that category. It’s fast and powerful, with great riffs and strong vocals. In short: It kicks ass!

So, it’s still OK.

I n Vain

Visual Discrimination’s complete oeuvre was released on one CD as “We got the edge” by Lost and Found Records in 1996. This CD is also out of print, but it might be worth keeping an eye out for, because it is probably easier to find than the original releases (or if you ask nicely, I’ll upload that, too)

Underdog – UPDATE / DISCLAIMER / APOLOGIES:

2008-07-30T22:01:00.011-04:00

Yes, the picture in the inaugural Underdog post (below) shows the original artwork for the release of “The Vanishing Point” on Caroline Records.

Yes, as I state in the post I own both a vinyl copy and a CD version of the record with that artwork.

BUT, unfortunately this and many more records sit in my mother’s basement in Germany waiting for the day that I make enough money to rescue them from the always imminent danger of flooding and to reinstate them to them to their righteous glory. When I moved from Germany to the US 8 years ago I could only take a small number of CDs with me and vinyl was of course completely out of the question. At that time I was also more into other genres of music, so somehow “The Vanishing Point” did not make the cut. In the last 3-4 years I have really kicked myself in the butt for this and other similar decisions. Well, but hindsight is 20/20.

So, to make this long story short(er), when I posted this record I wanted to post it with the original artwork, but all I could find were images of the butt-ugly cover with the blue background that was used for the CD reissue (shown here at the top). Until I found this picture from a recent e-bay auction, where a guy sold this LP. So, my apologies to him for stealing his picture for this post. The CD re-issue came out on a different label, so maybe they had to change the cover art, too, otherwise there is no excuse for this kind of “upgrade”. Anyway, if I ever get my hands on the CD again (got to call my mom…) I’ll post better pictures of the artwork here.

UPDATE: As you can see, my mom came through...

And these are the even better looking pictures from the Demos LP released on Far Out Records:

Underdog - Vanishing Point

2008-07-30T10:53:00.006-04:00

For the inaugural post on this blog I could not think of a better band and record than Underdog's Vanishing Point. This is by no means charting undiscovered musical territory, as this is one of the few bands that everybody loves (Fugazi might be up there, too). And even the few people who don't LOVE Underdog, certainly respect them for what they meant to late 80s New York hardcore. Underdog are also not a band that is particularly hard to track down on the internet. They have a MySpace page and an official band webpage that doesn't seem to get updated very often, but that has all the biographical info that you could wish for, straight from the horses mouth, so to speak. They also have reformed for several one-off gigs and seem to be playing in the New York area in the summer of 2008.

However, while you can still buy t-shirts and stuff from Revelation Records their records are currently out of print, despite having been reissued in various new packages over the years. And that clearly is a situation that needs to be rectified!

There really isn't much that I can say about this record that hasn't been said before. If you like NYHC, you know this album already. If you still like to get to know NYHC, then you definitely need to have this record. This album has great crunching guitars, strong melody and power, and of course the dominating throaty vocals of Richie Birkenhead, who always gets name checked because of his brief stint with Youth of Today, but who more importantly went on to front Into Another, an equally incredible band that defied categories. Finally, the cover art by Matt Solomon that was an unofficial trademark of the band since their first 7" and "Over the Edge" demo days.

I bought Vanishing Point on a whim when it came out on vinyl (as I bought everything on vinyl). But this is one of only a handful of records that I also had to buy as a CD, because I loved it so much that the vinyl started to show the wear and tear.

This came out in 1989 and it still sounds amazing. If you can get it, buy it!

Oh and yeah, this is how you would have gotten it on the original LP, without the tracks added for the reissue (just the way the Baby Jesus would have wanted it).

Underdog - Vanishing Point

Update: Bridge Nine just recently released the Underdog discography. So you should head over there and buy it for a small penny (and that's where the link takes you now...).