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Here’s what most agree is the hardest to find standard edition of a record on Dangerhouse — Rhino 39 Xerox/No Compromise b/w Prolixin Stomp. Every record on Dangerhouse has a couple of defining aspects that make it special and unique to the others. This one is kind of known for being more hardcore than most of the rest of the lot. Strictly speaking this is probably still “proto-hardcore”, but it takes a faster tempo than most other records/bands from 1979. Kind of sounds like a better version of the Middle Class “Out Of Vogue” 7″ to me. Another interesting fact, and maybe the reason it was actually faster than most of peers, was that Rhino 39 were high school aged at the time of this 7″. Sadly, singer Dave Dacron was actually never able to graduate because he was killed in a car crash a little before graduation. That also ensured that the Rhino 39 legacy ended up rather brief. They did have some demo tracks that have turned up on various anthologies over the years, and also later reformed with a new singer and less intense sound, but the group at their peak (i.e. this record) didn’t really get the chance they should have.

The A-side has a nice 1-2 punch with Xerox (about people with Xerox personalities…”norms”), and then cuts into No Compromise (a little too fast for me to decipher much of the lyrics). Both are done after about 1 minute and are really catchy and tight. The B-Side has a more mid-paced number “The Prolixin Stomp” which is at more of a pogoing speed but is as catchy as they come on Dangerhouse. Maybe this is the best of the Dangerhouse 2nd string.

Class is in session! Below, Cooch breaks down the details that stand out about bootleg copies of United Blood. Don’t be swindled!

DUBIOUS EBAY AUCTIONS - BUYER BEWARE!

For some unknown (and embarrassing, at least to myself) reason I have never owned an original copy of Agnostic Front’s “United Blood” ep. I don’t know why this is, since I’ve had my hands on a good number of copies over the years and I own just about every other early NYHC record. So I decided this year I’m just going to plunk down the cash and buy one regardless of price (within reason). After getting beat on ebay for two bona-fide original copies around $300 within the last couple of months, I noticed a smattering of bootlegs for sale as originals.

I emailed the seller of the first copy, and he insisted it was real even though the cover has two telltale marks of the American made bootleg - the cover is a poor quality repro and the copyright information from the bottom of the back cover has made its way to the bottom of the front cover due to a poor print job (and as a result the repro is missing a bit of empty space over the AF banner that is present on the orig), and from the 2nd picture, the pressing marks do not match the original[1] (the boot has a wider diameter, shallower pressing stamper mark around the center hole, original is smaller and deeper). Anyways this unscrupulous seller (also selling many white power records, go figure) got $282 for this copy, I hope the buyer realized it was a boot upon receiving it and was able to get a refund (probably not).

Boot copy number two came up about a week later (sorry no link, same version as above) and I again emailed the seller to see what he thought, and the guy quickly realized it was a boot and canceled the listing. At least there are some honest people out there.

Currently listed copy #3 - Again this one looked like the shoddy cover bootleg so I emailed the seller. Here’s the back and forth -

Me: can you give me matrix information?
Seller: The matrix reads ; AF-001-A and BIOBH on the printed label side and the other label is black.
Me: Oh, that is a bootleg then, that “BIOBH” is actually the number 31634 and the B label should be white.
Seller: I dunno, the matrix #’s check out. If it is a boot, Its an older one, as these records were all purchased in the early 80’s.

At this point, the seller basically refused to acknowledge that he is selling a bootleg, or at least that he is misleading bidders who might believe it’s original, and thus is going to hose the high bidder for $160+ when the auction ends. Greedy/unscrupulous sellers like this are really what makes ebay a crapshoot to the entry level buyer, unfortunately. This seller also has up a lot of nice early 80’s USHC stuff, but obviously does not know much about the records themselves (many are incorrectly listed in regards to their respective pressings, see Minor Threat and Negative Approach 7″s), so, all I can say is… buyer beware!

Footnotes:

[1]Chalk it up to completely useless nerdery (but moreso being involved in releasing a good amount of records over the past 8-9 years), but you can differentiate pressings of certain records by the impression the pressing machine leaves around the center hole. On the original United Blood, the pressing mark is a small, deep circle about 1″ in diameter, and most other early 80’s NYHC singles have the same marks. I believe they were pressed by a plant called Variety that was located somewhere in the NYC area. Check your Mob 2nd 7″ for reference.

Judgement is my favorite Japanese hardcore band. They ain’t the most obscure, or the oldest, but for my money, they’ve got everything I’m looking for. Powerful growling vocals, huge choruses with Iron Maiden style melodies, and bulldozing double speed Discharge parts. I mean really this is the formula for hundreds of straight ahead hardcore bands from Japan. It’s an institution there. Judgement just has superior song craft to at least 90% of the competition. It’s not something you can really break down beyond that. It’s like… why is Neil Young better than a thousand and one other folky rockers that came out in the 60’s? Because he just is. He has an intangible something. He always plays the right thing at the right time (okay his mid-era lps notwithstanding). Judgement ALWAYS played the right thing at the right time.

The A-side and title track to this single, Process, has a little clean picked guitar part to prefigure the mid-paced main riff the song is built on. It’s the kind of thing that is worthy of AC/DC status; straight power through and through. So simple, so perfect. As soon as you hear it the blood in your veins starts flowing a little quicker. The searing leads that get cut over it hit all the sweetest notes while still managing to sound spontaneously delivered. It sounds like Adrian Smith shooting from the hip. That’s not an exaggeration. It’s a stone cold fact. The vocals pour out in desperation and ferocity every bit on par with singer Nori’s previous band, CRUCK, and the rhythm section is solid as a slab of granite. With basically only one riff, Process reaches the kind of heights that could rally a sports team or a battle field. It just surges with energy and power. If Hillary used this as a campaign song, she’d have got the nomination by now (just kidding we all know presidential elections are fixed). The flip side of the record, The Situation, is every bit as masterful as its counterpart. It kicks into thrash gear after a few seconds in the tradition of Deathside, Poison Arts, and so on. Guitar leads spin out of control over the chorus while back up vocals thicken up Nori’s already muscular delivery. It’s the ideal hardcore song, meeting and exceeding all of the archetypes that come with that. The tempo changes to mid paced before building up to a massive climax of angry shouts and chanting, and finally falling apart under the weight of it all. It feels over before it even started.

The problem with the Process single is its long out of print, and hard as hell to find, because it was a gig-only release. In other words, you could only purchase it at Judgement shows during the 90’s (they’re sadly defunct now). Only 1,000 or so were produced (although a lot of people think 500)  and not that many made it out of Japan for obvious reasons, making this the most desirable release by the band from a collectors standpoint. It also looks really nice with a high gloss pocket sleeve, full color art, and a cool insert with a drawing by Sugi. As a bonus this copy has a sticker of the insert art too (which my copy is unfortunately missing). Seriously, if you’ve ever been curious about Japanese hardcore, and want to know about the best, Judgement couldn’t be a finer place to start. If you’re into bands like Tragedy, this is where a lot of their sound comes from. I’m pretty sure all 4 of their 7″ singles (the other three are: No Reason Why, Haunt In The Dark, and Night Brings) are easily found on mp3 blogs, and they’re all great. They also a have 4 song, cd only EP (Just Be) that while, not quite as essential, is also excellent.

Alllllllright. So if you’re straight edge, you’ve probably had a Turning Point phase at some point, and you probably know this 7″ (the one linked here is 1st press w/ both inserts). All these people love the Turning Point lp, it’s this big time straight edge hardcore centerpiece. Not me. That thing SUCKS. The vocals are wimpy and whiny. The music is over produced. There’s weird proto-90’s-emo parts.  Clean guitars (a travesty on a sxe hc record), slap bass (I want to know WHO OK’d this), and worst of all, vague “poetic” lyrics, all permeate the half an hour of garbage known as “It’s Always Darkest Before The Dawn” (this is one of the stupidest album titles ever).  Everything about this record is the ruin of a straight edge hardcore band. As I’ve said before, all you need is:

• a good singer with a raw voice
• good mosh parts (+a good intro)
• at least one good tshirt design (or generally cool graphics — see record cover)

7″ era Turning Point has all of this ON LOCK. Unlike their stupid lp (to say nothing of that godawful split 7″), Skip’s voice is a throaty growl, like a deeper SSD or something. I guess it’s pretty similar to Confront or Brotherhood, very burly.  Everything is delivered with maximum intensity, authority, and plenty of youthful anger. There’s no warbling, no whining, nothing attempting to be “sensitive”. The music takes a similar approach. Right from the get-go, To Lose breaks out with a nice slow intro that commands people open up the dance floor. There’s no choice. A quick bass break leads to the main section of the song with lots of harsh barking, thick backups, and catchy riffs. To Lose is the archetypal straight edge song where-in the singer is lamenting the loss of a friend to drug abuse. “It hurts/to see you hurt yourself/but you’ve stopped listening and I can’t help”. What more can you ask for?

I gotta point out how GOOD I think this record sounds in the recording. The snare sound is exemplary. Very snappy, but very deep. It reminds me a lot of the snare on Danzig 1 which is the ultimate muscular drum sound. The bass drum also doesn’t suffer from the typical “overly clicky” problems you’d expect from a cheap recording by a young band, but instead it’s got a nice, full boomy sound. Seriously, at a time when Don Fury was botching every drum recording in the tri-state area, Turning Point struck gold. Those bass to snare drum hits that kick off some of the songs on here, like for instance, The Few and The Proud, are part of what make this record so heavy and memorable. It’s like someone chopping down a tree — a satisfying ‘CRACK’. The guitar sound is similarly thick as opposed to many other bands of the day who were stuck with thin bumble-bee sounds that engineers would try and cover up with chorus or echo. I haven’t got any idea what gear was used but it sounds as good as a Marshall amp. Another important thing about the guitar: frequent use of divebombs. There’s nothing cooler than a divebomb going into a crucial mosh part. There just isn’t, it’s not up for debate. The bass guitar is, I guess, unremarkable but that also means there’s nothing wrong with it, which is definitely good.

Yes this is the best Turning Point release, and it’s definitely my favorite of the late 80’s second tier sxe bands, along with Confront. If you’re playing straight edge hardcore, please, do what works, and stay true to the style. Sound like this record. There’s nothing innovative about adding crappy Fugazi parts to your music like Turning Point did later on. No musical ability or artistic vision please! Only hard riffs and good yelling.

 Metal Monday vol. 20:

You could say this is maybe a sequel to last week’s Metal Monday posting - a sealed copy of Death’s “Scream Bloody Gore” (original Combat pressing). While this doesn’t have the distinction of being the first commonly accepted death metal release, it’s a much more fully formed take on the style than the first Possessed which still has a lot more thrash-metal in it. Personally I’ve always been more of a Scream Bloody Gore man than a 7 Churches one.

Looking at the foreboding cover art for the first time, (I don’t exactly recall when), and seeing this over the top rendition of some kind of zombie temple and just knowing right then it would be the musical equivalent to a horror movie. It’s probably my favorite piece of Ed Repka art ever. Such a perfect summation of what the band is all about, and what they sounded like. When Infernal Death kicks off with the crunching intro and the first word out of Chuck Schuldiner’s throat is a lengthy “DIIIIIIIIE”, well that pretty much sums it up. The band is Death and this is Death metal.

Death Metal music is inherently powered on some kind of anti-pleasure. The riff to Death’s Zombie Ritual is like taking a sip of toxic waste or swamp water (both in ample supply in their home of Florida, Death Metal’s first home), it’s disgusting and poisonous. It’s a whole genre essentially built on that kind of aural sadism. It’s like they were working to shock themselves back to life out of the drab Reagan-ified 80’s suburban hell bands like Death, as well as fellow Floridians Obituary, Morbid Angel, and Amon came from. These bands were almost all made up of teenagers. No doubt bored, and looking at their rather bland selection of possible life paths in a world where the only things that actually made sense were the sound of a BOSS HM-1 pedal, and the plot to Evil Dead II. Chuck Schulinder and Chris Reifert were both 17 when they recorded their Mutilation demo (the 6th Death demo overall), which got them a record deal with Combat, although as this excerpt from a Reifert interview (from metal-rules dot com) shows, they weren’t exactly confident in what these guys were doing:

Combat was supposed to state on the album that Chuck and I played all the music on the album, but they ignored our request, leading to confusion for years. Also, they printed on the inner sleeve: “This album is Don Kaye’s folly”, meaning that Combat saw us as sort of a joke even though they were putting out the album. Death metal had yet to prove itself at the time and Combat were skeptical about the whole thing, I guess. I have only one copy of the vinyl left and on the inner sleeve where the Don Kaye comment is, I scratched it out and wrote ‘fuck you!’ over it with a pen.

 A few years later they had to play catch-up by licensing American pressings of releases on Earache. Dummies.

• Emps and a story about the Bastard - Controled in the Frame 7″ on truepunkmetal blog.
• A detailed G.I.S.M. fan site.
• Djinji Brown from Absolution interview part 1 and part 2. — “I remember I had a cast on my hand because I had broken some knuckles knocking out this nazi skin a couple weeks before. But the show was crazy, the show was nuts. The Beacon Theater with the Cro-Mags in it in 1987…”

The Netherland’s BGK, were one of the more well known European bands of their day. Staunchly DIY, possibly to a fault (admitting in MRR they’d rather keep prices down and lose money on tour, than raise them to break even), and incredibly idealistic and Utopian in their politcs, they still never managed to come off as obnoxious and douchey as MDC or whoever (at least to me). All that aside though, the reason I like BGK is because I find that they were exceptional song writers, especially for a straight up hardcore band, and I think this is perfectly evidenced on their debut lp Jonestown Aloha.

 It’s difficult to be a tuneful and catchy hardcore band without lapsing into overwhelmingly melodic songwriting (as in: Marginal Man, or more kindly, early Husker Du) and thus losing the edge that makes hardcore HARD in the first place, but BGK has a knack for this. Pretty much every song is a hum-able, toe-tapping hit, with the kind of simple and memorable riffs you’d expect from early Minor Threat, The Stains (SST), early Raw Power, etc. Tracks like Police Crimes, Arms Race, Spray Paint, Race Riot, all have instantly hum-able moments, but never tread into territory classifiable as “poppy”. Most of the songs take a pretty basic and fast 4/4 approach to things, but there are a few moodier slow pieces like Soylent Green that still keep the underlying melody, but have a more ominous, melancholy feel. I guess all in all, it’s a clash between the “return to songs” that the original punk bands heralded, and the “noise not music” aesthetic of the initial hardcore explosion. Tuneful noise? For a band where the vocalist only shouts, it’s surprising how many parts of it get lodged into your brain never to leave.

These are my favorite Heresy releases. The Never Healed flexi, and split lp w/ Concrete Sox. Heresy are well known as being part of the britcore explosion that happened in the mid 80’s with bands like Napalm Death, Ripcord… extremely fast bands that were as influenced by USHC as they were by British bands.

Heresy started off ripping things up pretty raw around ‘85 (I think), they had a lot in common with the sound of early SSD, Minor Threat, even the first Youth Of Today record, but rawer recordings, and an unmistakably British sounding vocalist. There’s also something like an early Cryptic Slaughter vibe going on which I guess accounts for how much speed and blasting the songs have and the touch of metal as well. ‘86 saw their first vinyl release, the Never Healed flexi. The sound on this one is a total mess and I love it. Hi-hats and snare are clipping into the red right from the get-go, the guitars sound a bit clean, but have a little bit of echo added and together with the distorted drums give things a big sound, which is emphasized even more by the vocals being a bit buried in the mix. Deathbiter has awesome frantic energy with tons of start/stop cymbal chokes and guitar noise that leads up to a good metallic skank part. At this point the band were a three-piece with their guitar player providing vocals and I have to say, I think they never sounded better than on this record.

In ‘87 their first hard vinyl release came in the form of a split 12″ w/ fellow thrashers Concrete Sox. While they still are ripping pretty hard on this one, the more professional recording is something of a detriment to their sound. The drums have a muscular gated-reverb type sound, the guitars and bass are clear, and the vocals are much more audible, which all goes to make the band sound a bit more ordinary. Also at this point they became a four-piece, adding a stand-alone vocalist into the mix. While he does hold it down pretty well on this recording, I feel this move did contribute to the band’s diminishing returns in the future. This is also the last time they had their original guitarist and I think that ultimately had something to do with it as well. Nonetheless, this is still pretty good straight ahead thrashing hardcore. There’s more in common with the likes of Cryptic Slaughter and DRI at this point, and less straight up hardcore,  but things still move along pretty well, though at nearly 5 minutes, the song Nausea could have used some trimming. BTW I always have liked the colorful sleeve on this record, not exactly sure why, I just think it looks pretty cool.

Following the split lp Heresy did a couple full albums and some E.P.s and comp appearances too, but I honestly just don’t think that stuff has the same power as these earlier recordings. Some of these guys are playing in Geriatric Unit now, a current band based in the UK, which deserves a tip of the hat for sure.

Another day pressed for time… check out more cool looking 80s japanese compilations. why do they always look the best?

Sakevi (see gism post) put together the art for this one and it’s more of his famous collage stuff.  A crucial mix of 1st gen. Japanese punk and hc.

Iconic sleeve on this one with the demonic punk rocker.  Love the g-zet tracks, one of the first punk bands to really go all out in their motorhead worship which happens to sit particularly well with me. bass heavy and driving.

Systematic death just played nyc, rhode island, and portland over the weekend.  I saw them in New York on Friday and they were all power and speed, just drilling through hits from this comp and their records like they hadn’t been broken up for the past 20 years.

Everyone knows Flex Your Head is theDCHC comp with a a yearbook type compilation of the Dischord crew circa ‘81.  There were a couple other compilations from DC that came out around the same time that are also worth taking note of though, one of which is the Bouncing Babies compilation.

Bouncing Babies was issued on Fountain Of Youth records which was for a while kind of the other Dischord as they issued a number of key documents in DC by bands like Government Issue, Black Market Baby, and Artificial Peace. Unfortunately some bad creative decisions and a presumably bad distribution deal with Dutch East India sealed their eventual demise.

When Bouncing Babies was released it was over a year in the works and originally planned as half DCHC bands and half Midwest bands (supplied by Version Sound). The finished product was quite a bit different with all DC area bands, and a number of them having tentative at best connections to punk. Some of the high school kids from a couple years earlier had already outgrown their punk roots and were making “art” musics, others were laying out the foundation of what would be the “Revolution Summer” sound, still others were sticking to their guns with meat and potatoes hc/punk. I haven’t owned a copy of this comp in a while, but I’ll try and run through a breakdown of what’s on it here…

1. DOVE “Ambivalence” — Dove was the band that Double O eventually morphed into and this song is absolutely incredible. I’ve never heard other songs from this session but if they exist I’d really like to. This kind of predicts the super melodic but still fast and aggressive territory Swiz would tread a few years later. Sadly I think they went pop-rock shortly after this. One of the best tracks on the comp.

2. CRIPPLED PILGRAMS “Black & White” — Crippled Pilgrims were sorta easy listening post punk if I remember right. Fountain of Youth did one or two records for them too. Uninteresting.

3. BODY COUNT “Bull in a China Shop” — No joking, this is kind of like early Ska-Core. As you can see this compilation is all over the place from the outset. Seriously this is like Against All Authority or something.

4. LUCKY PIERRE “Looking Back” — Don’t remember anything about this track except how funny the band’s name is. Next.

5. UNDERGROUND SOLDIER “Sunday Slaughter” — Underground Soldier had an lp on some no-name DC label, this song is slower and moody i think. Might have female vocals. I remember being disappointed by this when I heard it because I heard they were hardcore.

6. ARTIFICIAL PEACE “Frustration” — An average offering by a 2nd tier band. Artificial Peace were big in their day in DC, but only had one actual record (a split), and haven’t aged terribly well. Fairly tuneful Minor Threat/Scream style but not quite as good. Eventually became Marginal Man.

7. EXILED “Guilt Trip” — Generic tier 3 DCHC. Right up there with Media Disease and Assault and Battery.

8. SCREAM “Ultra Violence/Screaming” — Hey here’s a jam! I think this is taken from a demo tape. Scream rules hard. I need a copy of their demo actually, I heard it once and it was maybe better than the lp.

9. GLEE CLUB “Disguise (A Lie)” — No idea.

10. BLACK MARKET BABY “Suzie Dear” — Here’s a pretty great Black Market Baby track. I’m not like some people who love every song they ever wrote, but they have some definite hits. Just don’t buy that piece of shit anthology on Dr. Strange. Great power-pop/punk hybrid.

11. REPTILE HOUSE “Talons & Claws” — Reptile House are known for being pre-Samhain. As such they’re kinda goth, and I’m pretty sure they’re on a Sisters Of Mercy vibe, but nowhere near as good. Then again I should revisit this.

12. 9353 “Ten Witches” — Known more for their excessive drug use than their music. Psychedelic-ish post HC noise stuff… I wish they were better though.

13. THE LAST MINUTE “Infinite Regression” — This is actually United Mutation, I forget why they’re under the name The Last Minute on here. Infinite Regression is a classic freak-out track by them, and this version is only available on here. NECESSARY.

14. BEAVER “Punch Him in the Head” — Beaver get filed in the same bin as Exiled, but this song aint bad.

15. ASSAULT & BATTERY “Evidence” — See Beaver description.

16. BRAILLE PARTY “Terrorist” — I seem to remember this song getting kinda ska unfortunately. Braille Party were from Maryland and also released an Lp on Fountain of Youth, which for the most part is pretty good Husker Du style melodic hardcore. Unfortunately there are a few tracks where they experiment with ska on the album, and I think that carries over to this track (at least from memory). Buy the lp if you see it though, it’s pretty cool.

17. VOID “Get Out of My Way” — Arguably the best Void song, this is from what was eventually issued in the 90’s as the “Condensed Flesh” demo. Originally that session was used as the source for a number of comp tracks including this song which just rips, with awesome feedback breaks and classic Weifenbach vocals. This version is a different mix with some added echo effects than the 90’s issuing.

18. GOVERNMENT ISSUE “Dead Dog” — Who the fuck left this song off the GI complete history discs? This is easily one of the best on the comp. GI composed it as a tribute to the Obsessed, and as such, it’s a 4+ minute doomed out dirge in the vein of their classic Sheer Terror. Seriously it’s a lost classic, and I don’t even like GI that much. Maybe I would if they did more tracks like this. If you’ve ever heard the first Upside Down Cross lp w/ J Mascis on drums, that’s what this song is like.

So okay, I admit this isn’t the greatest comp ever, but there’s a few tracks that I think are legitimately essential, and of course if you’re a DCHC completest, you’ve gotta have this.