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Here’s another pick for Michigan:

The Dogs - “Slash Your Face” . Strictly speaking, this is not a hardcore record, and I think if you want to totally split hairs they may have already been transplanted to California by this time, but I think you could fairly apply the term Detroit-proto-hardcore to the title track by this beloved early American DIY outfit. Greg Ginn talked about The Dogs as being one of his influences for the Black Flag DIY aesthetic and for that they deserve a pat on the back, but for the song Slash Your Face, they deserve a place in a museum. Slash Your Face the 7″ was recorded live at a gig and edited to sound basically like a studio release. The band released it on their own label and by the 90’s it was a sought after collectible by the KBD set. Honestly, (and I am speaking from the heart when I say this), this is the best song to ever be associated with the Killed By Death tag. It has all the ferocity of the faster Stooges tracks like Search and Destroy, I Got A Right, and 1970, and all the heaviness of Chiswick era Motorhead wrapped in one.

Slash Your Face the song opens with the same type of snare roll a hundred other hardcore bands used later on to start songs. It drops into a power riff that sounds like a fight that’s about to start. It’s just thuggish and mean. Uninviting even. When things pick up to full speed for the main verse it’s even less inviting. I just sort of automatically picture a violent slam pit full of 70’s rockers in leather and denim beating the hell out of each other to this song. Beer bottles and chains and boots all in a mess of sweat. I doubt it was as good as what I’m seeing in my minds eye, but who knows (”scientists don’t even know”). Maybe it’s the straight forward violence in the lyrics where the singer repeatedly threatens to slash the listeners face, “I gotta/I’m gonna, slash your face, slash your face”, t0 say nothing of the unleashed howls during a couple of quick drum breaks. The song runs at a clip a little faster than Nervous Breakdown, but not quite where the Circle Jerks would be in 1980, which I guess makes this single fit right into 1978. The middle portion gives way to some guitar and bass soloing thta betrays their roots in Fast Eddie Clarke/Lemmy, but it also never loses the speed aspect or sinks under its own weight.

The other 2 songs, while still great, don’t quite match the mindfuck of Slash Your Face. Fed Up is a great rockin’ stomper and Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl is a cover of the well known track by The Barbarians. All of ‘em are good to pogo around your bed room to, but when rock ‘n roll is really dead and gone and only history buffs are still listening to records with guitars, they’ll still be studying Slash Your Face.