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Occasionally I find myself struck with intense and/or frightening realizations of reality, and in these times there are only few a records I can listen to where I can get myself back to feeling normal and balanced. For some reason, Integrity is one. They shouldn’t be, due to the dark and intense nature of their sound, but somehow I find them calming.Integrity with the Melnick brothers is an all time favorite of mine, and so below I’ve noted a test pressing of the first full length release of that era: Those Who Fear Tomorrow. In truth I greatly prefer the work they did after this, however, for better or worse, since this is their first album it will always be the undisputed classic for most people. Almost every song starts with an open E-Chord ringing out, and basically every song sounds like it was based on 2 records: Bringin’ It Down & South Of Heaven. It’s cool, but the production is pretty dated, and some of the riffs are too. Starting with the Systems Overload lp I think Integrity became a rawer band, and really became a more interesting hybrid of metal+punk+hardcore. That’s not to diminish this album though, if you want some heavy E-Chord mosh and finger tapped arpeggios, this album’s got that non-stop. Don’t buy the recent reissue on Fractured Transmissions. It sounds like it was mastered off a shitty old DAT with the sound distorted and clipping, and I’m pretty sure none of the band members were paid for it except the singer.Weirdly I own a test press of this album and it doesn’t have Erika labels on it, however this one I’ve found for sale does. I’m not sure what the deal with that is, but I believe it was pressed two or three times by Toybox which may account for there being multiple test presses that look different. Its never been booted to my knowledge so I don’t think that possibility figures into it. Judging by the stickering on the cover this may have come from a band member.

I’m classin’ up the joint here! Stuart Schrader of http://www.shit-fi.com produced an entry for me today on the infamous Chemotherapy 7″. You get not only detailed information about the actual record, but also an explanation of what exactly “shit-fi” is, and for once, some college level writing.

Stuart: German rare punk “jeweler” Ingo Eitelbach’s offerings have not been up to the standards he set at the end of the 90s/beginning of the 00s, when it seemed every sale list he published contained Jackie Shark and the Beach Butchers or Tapeworm. Well, times is tough. Recently, he’s been auctioning a lot of hardcore that no one cares much about, but there are still a few jewels to be found. For example, Chemotherapy.Chemotherapy’s lone 7″ is one of the, if not the, earliest examples of shit-fi American hardcore. By that I mean a hardcore record released with a malicious lack of pretense of “quality” after it was already possible, and preferable, to produce “quality” hardcore records. Gang Green’s earliest recordings were works of accidental genius but there was talent and intention underneath there. In 1983, polished hardcore records and even post-hardcore records were beginning to appear, changing expectations for listeners. (In my opinion, within a year, the US hardcore scene would become a shadow of what it had been in the three years prior.) Chemotherapy’s record is a work of intentional talentless teenaged garbage. They aimed to produce an extremely simple, primitively recorded, tuneless, ugly, offensive hardcore record, and they succeeded. Why? Perhaps to do so was to be punk, to reject what was already becoming hardcore punk dogma (ie, fast, tight, well-recorded and/or innovative, intelligent, lefty). Maybe they were a caricature of hardcore punk. If so, the joke’s on them because lots of people actually like to listen to music this rough and consider it innovative and brilliant in its own way. Still, with a “musical” interpretation of the Pledge of Allegiance as one song and another with lyrics that include a racial and homophobic slur—in reference to the singer’s cell mate after getting busted for underage drinking (uh, yeah, right)—it’s hard not to think that this band still would manage to alienate the alienated. When they sing “all my friends are dead” (their melodic hardcore tune), I can’t help but think that it must’ve been repeated listens to this record that killed them off. Oh yeah, the longest song on the record, at 48 seconds, is the Pledge of Allegiance. I know of two sleeve variations for this record. The rarer one, which I bought some years ago from another German dealer, has no back sleeve. Rather, the band’s address and the members names are typed directly onto the dust sleeve, which is glued to the front of the picture sleeve. (This sleeve could be a fake, but, in my opinion, it’d be a very high-quality fake because it appears accurately aged. It did come from a dealer with a mild “rep,” so maybe my caveat should have emptored.) In fine noncommercial fashion, the front of the sleeve doesn’t say Chemotherapy on it. Though the comic of a character with a Hitler moustache holding a giant syringe is great—if you hate oncologists. Like I said, offensive to the core. My copy did not include an insert, but the copy on auction does. I know of two variations for the insert. The copy of the record in Maximum Rocknroll’s collection has two single-sided sheets as inserts, with lyrics for each side of the record printed on them. With this one-off type of insert and the sleeve that I have, it’s possible the band made other unique variations that have yet to be discovered by collectors. Ingo’s auction copy is presumably the regular-sleeve version, with a normal back listing the song titles and band member and the note “Rights reserved so go ahead and copy it for a friend.” Too bad there’s no photo of the back of the sleeve with the auction.

This record has always been tough to find, and its price has been increasing in recent years as it has become more well-known. I’ve heard that only 300 were pressed, which is plausible but unconfirmed. I doubt many that actually made it into stores were ever purchased. There’s little to recommend the record to the average hardcore punker by looking at it—though the skull/syringes logo is pretty cool. Tim Yohannon’s review in Maximum Rocknroll nailed it back when the record was released: “Totally crude and psychotic garage stuff here. They’ve got amazingly primitive drumming, raw guitars, and lots of super-short outbursts of madness called songs. A delight for NEOS and early HALF-JAPANESE fanatics.” Too true.

One final note, a certain notorious punk detective tracked down a band member a few years ago. The band member was getting ready to move to Uganda to work in microfinance. Because he was leaving the United States, he mailed a box of all of his records to the punk detective in question for free. Talk about a guy who was not in need of microfinance. Here are some excerpts from their conversation:Q: This may seem like a strange question, but I’m trying to locate a member of an old Indiana punk band called Chemotherapy.

A: Wow, Good detective work! Yep that was me, though we recorded the record when I was in high school in Indianapolis. I don’t know if I even have a copy anymore.

[…]

Q: You mentioned that you hadn’t been in contact with the other members for years. All of the other names listed on the record are pseudonyms. Can you tell me the first and last names of the other 3 members?

A: To be honest, I can’t even remember those guys names right now. I’ve been racking my brain and came up empty. Its funny I can picture them, but can’t for the life of me remember their names. I’ll let you know if my memory returns.

I’ve explained my feelings about the Necros before , and they more or less stand as they did then. They just don’t have the pizazz that their more well known peers did. As an example of ‘82-USHC archetypes they work well, and they even have some catchy songs on this 7″, and on their Conquest For Death lp (which I’ve taken a little more of a shine to recently), but they have nothing to really set them apart when compared to bands like Negative Approach, The Fix, or Toxic Reasons. Sorry 80’s hc purists. The Necros may have been cool at the time, but even when I was 19 I knew they were only kind of interesting. I love that the members are all still bitterly bickering over their back catalog though, which remains entirely out of print.

Anyway this is one of the earliest Touch and Go & Dischord rarities, only 100 copies made with this skate photo collage sleeve. How long before it starts breaking $500?

I don’t even know what to say really. Every day is a new miracle on ebay but the fact that these 4 records are all up today is truly one of the highest order. It must be hard times indeed to have to sell records like these, but quite a reward for the lucky buyers. There’s nothing I can even say to do this justice: