bidhardcore.com

I guess technically this should be on bid-proto-hardcore dot com. Once again we’ve got a seller with a bunch of clothing for sale, and a couple of interesting vinyl items. Most desirable is a decent looking copy of Crime “Hot Wire My Heart” backed with “Baby You’re So Repulsive”, their first release from 1976. I was struck with how memorable the Crime aesthetic was even before I’d actually heard their music. They have a big bold logo, they always look cool in promo photos, often in matching get-ups, and their promotional flyers always had cool looking pop-art type imagery. Something has been made of them being an early example of D.I.Y. type approach in punk music (Hotwire is a self financed/released single), and that’s worth at least a mention, but desirable records it does not necessarily make. The sound of Crime is interesting, it kicks up a mid-tempo rocking feel, not far off a solid glam band, maybe like one of those James Williamson era Stooges bootlegs, but even more rickety and loose, and with a sharp sardonic vocal delivery that’s altogether meaner than Iggs even at his most pissed. There’s something else I can’t quite put my finger on that makes the sound of Crime compelling though. Maybe it’s how it sounds like they don’t even care that the recording sounds like little more than a few mics standing in the middle of the racket, or the way the guitars seem to be getting bashed in and out of tune at various times. There’s just an intangible something about Crime that makes them cool as hell. If you’ve never checked out Crime you oughta be able to find the San Francisco’s Doomed anthology, or download their 3 singles (although the third sucks by all accounts) off any number of mp3 blogs.

1 more jam you might want up here is is this Major Conflict 7″. This is an early NYHC entry, and certainly an “also-ran”, famed partially for the fact that the group featured members of Urban Waste, and also for the movie and book, based in part on one of the member’s experiences in the band “A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints”. For NYHC trivialists, the 2nd Raw Deal demo (which was never officially released when the band was around, but is where their comp tracks come from, and was used to submit to In Effect to get signed) has a cover of the song Outgroup, which Raw Deal and later Killing Time later sometimes performed live. Anyhow, I can’t say this record is great, but it does have some cool parts. There’s only 3 songs, and they’re a little on the long side, and more tuneful and “rockin” than the sound Urban Waste were known for, but some people, including my associate AJ find the record, and it’s bizarre lyrics about walking down the street and being king of the jungle, to be endearing. Mad At The World records did a CD reissue of this 7″ along with an unreleased 12″ E.P. and some live material maybe 2-3 years back if you’re interested, but you could always just buy this very E.P.

OOPS — I almost didn’t notice this Accused/Rejectors split 12″the first Accused record (as noted), and I think (?) their only with their original singer before Blaine from the Fartz joined. I just learned he was also the singer on the 10-Minute Warning demo which is an exceptional tape trade obscurity. Can one of you hardcorepunkmetalfreaks get on reissuing that? The last song on my copy cuts off. Totally classic thrash, although it’s hard to tell the condition of the record from the photo.