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Somehow I’m falling into a tape theme up in here. I didn’t mean to but scrolling through a bunch of really good records, these 3 cassettes stood out to me. All most definitely originals (I once shared an apartment with 2 Raw Deal demos). I never took the plunge on buying up original demo tapes but they’re undeniably cool, especially when from my favorite demo tape locale, NYC. I mean it’s no secret I can talk about this stuff more than any other microgenre in hardcore. To be totally exact though, one is from Connecticut, and another Long Island, but Raw Deal is undeniably New York City, Yonkers to be exact. Raw Deal took the blueprint that most of them had already laid out in Breakdown, injected a level of percision Breakdown never really seemed to have, and made a hell of a band out of it. The main thing that always struck me as the difference between the two was the much tighter drumming, and guitar playing, everything is more in synch. Don’t take that as a slight to Breakdown, who I honestly prefer, but Raw Deal, and later Killing Time, just come off more palletable. 

From Long Island, comes the classic Beyond “Dew It” demo. You could make a sound arguement for this being better than the No Longer At Ease lp they recorded just a year later. I wouldn’t, but one could. The level of fleeting youthful anger and uncertainty about the future on display is impressive with how clearly it’s articulated, and despite the lyrics getting a little day/way, slow/go, fast/last, the vocal phrasing is surprisingly well thought out, frequently breaking with and going against the flow of the song. Of course focusing on that would say nothing of the music itself which is shockingly well performed and nuanced, coming across in a way similar to Absolution at their best, but sounding completely and altogether different musically. That of course is still leaving out one important fact: Beyond are all highschool aged on this recording. Seasons was written by a bunch of 16 year olds, think about that. I mean REALLY think about that. It’s one thing to hear a band like the Teen Idles and have someone tell you “they’re only 18 on this recording”. It’s not really a surprise. Beyond at 16/17 years of age, not only were worlds more technically skilled than most of their peer group, but had the compositional skills to lay pretty much everyone not named Gavin van Vlack to waste.

Oh and there’s also the Wide Awake - “Hold True” demo, which is their most well known demo tape. Seriously what am I supposed to say about a demo tape that has an X’d up character from Family Circus on it. The 7″ is pretty good late 80s SxE HC cheese, but like the same way Polly-O string cheese is good. It’s not exactly the best idea to try and subsist off it.

More tapes tomorrow?