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What’s to say when talking about the most important records in your life? When I was 17, I got my brain ripped out by Infest’s “Slave” lp, and when they picked it up off the floor and stuck it back in a bunch of the wires were crossed. After that it was a long chain of events that got me to here. Siege, Deep Wound, Drop Dead, Citizen’s Arrest, Voorhees, No Comment, Crossed Out, Negative FX. It was before everything was a click away on Soulseek, and so it took about a year of borrowing, and scouring to hear most of it, but I feel like Slave was the first time really thrashy brutal hardcore left a lasting effect on me.I’ve already kind of done an entry on this album, because I did an entry on the abridged version of it - the Machismo 7″. Slave is the same recording, but with 8 additional songs and was released in Europe on Off The Disk.  It was Highly Collectible (™ B. Mastrobuono) and hard to get even when it was released, and now with the revived interest in this sort of hardcore, it’s become all the more valuable and high priced. I picked up most of my copies of this lp in the early 2000’s when interest was relatively low, although a couple years ago I paid an exorbitant amount for a pink vinyl copy of which there’s supposed to be less than 50. After that, the next rarest version is allegedly the one I’ve linked here, which is a different color on each side of the record. I’ve seen a few different variations, but this one is blue and sea foam looking. Who knows if the price will ever drop on this stuff again? Might as well pay up now, you couldn’t do it for a better album. Even the repress with alternate cover art is fetching some loot these days after all.

I love C.I.A.’s - God Guts Guns 7″. I love it so much, that I would say it’s probably my favorite record from Connecticut ever, except for maybe the first Youth of Today record, (and a big influence on my guitar playing and songwriting). It’s close though. God Guts Guns is, as far as I can tell, perfect tuneful early 80’s hardcore. It’s everything I love about early Minor Threat, 7 Seconds,  Scream, Articles Of Faith, Husker Du, and as good as any of them honestly. I hate to pull the “if they were from” card, but seriously, if this record had come out of DC, everyone would know it.

The record opens up with a quick 5-second burst called Who Cares that’s not much more than one chord and a couple drum hits, at which point the real show begins with the song Death. Death sets the tone for where the rest of the record goes, speedy, tuneful guitar lines that ascend and descend scales a couple times each measure, good clean shouts, and ripping loose rock solos. The solos tend to start as scrappy rock n roll leads but at some point they collapse into a mess of hardcore squeals. Actually if you slowed the tempo a bit the songs could easily fit as KBD-style proto hardcore which is maybe what keeps them sounding so catchy. Actually they sound like a slightly less Rock n’ Roll version of The Worst at their normal speed if that makes much sense.

My favorite C.I.A. song is Commie Control, which has a great call-response style verse that is built around a fast succession of snare rolls, before breaking into a steady hardcore beat. The best part is the middle section which is kind of a melodic, slow motion skank part. I don’t know exactly how to describe it, but it just sounds great in the middle of the song before breaking back into the main riff.

Cash-wise these things have been gaining in ebay price over the past couple years, and I yearn for the days when they were going for much less. Regardless it couldn’t happen to a more deserving release, and it’s been booted a couple times, released on a semi-legit cd on lost and found once, and will sooner or later get the shitty GTA treatment (bad artwork, dumb title, and probably padded out with a few practice tapes no one needed to hear). Regardless if you look around you can find the songs easily, and if you want to own one like this one,  make sure it’s the 6 track version on Shmegma and it has a folding sleeve. FYI they also have a s/t lp which isn’t as furious but is still alright, and songs on the Nice and Loud, Connecticut Fun, and Die Jerry Die comps.

Double post today since I vacationed for a couple days…Unit Pride’s 7″ fits the characterization of “second rate but still straight” perfectly. They can’t really stack up to heavy hitters like UC, Youth Of Today, etc. from the ‘88 class of straight edge hardcore, but they still deliver everything you need. Fast catchy riffs give way to crew back ups and some solid mosh parts. The lyrics are about as sesame street posi-core as could be possible (”friendship means the world to meee”), but the songs keep a fast clip and the vocals are rough enough that it never leaves me feeling too silly. All the other tell tale late 80’s low rent edge core characteristics are here too. Drums that sound like buckets and boxes, clean bass, mosquito-buzz guitars. Arguably this is one of the first records of note from the genre that wasn’t influenced by early 80’s bands like Minor Threat, SSD, etc., and instead was modeled on (then) current bands like Youth Of Today and Gorilla Biscuits. Obviously when this kind of thing starts happening, it tends to signal that a particular musical strain is plateauing, and though the well was probably dry by the time this 7″ actually came out, it still offers some memorable riffs and sing alongs.Track 2 is Wide Awake and I think this song is the best on the record. Its got the most urgent delivery, the hardest sounding riff, and probably the best breakdown, which is really all you should be looking for in something like this. There’s nothing to intellectualize, and you can’t justify this to the Brooklyn crowd. It’s like trying to sell a Kung-Fu movie to a serious movie critic. “Well the part where the hero fights with one hand tied behind his back on a roof-top has some awesome jumpkicks”.  In some ways this endears the style more to me. No jerk-off who has to use annoying/pathetic qualifiers like “raw”, “inept”, “blown out”, “psych-punk”, “later-flag”, “monster-riff”, is going to be able to rub their stink on this wonderful little slab. No, songs like Think About It are only for people like me, who can differentiate pressings of the Side By Side 7″, and who have a collection of live sets from WNYU’s Crucial Chaos, which Unit Pride performed on btw. And speaking of pressings, you’ll notice this is the original pressing on Step Forward records.

I am back - and reunited w/ my internet access. I gotta post this right now. Honestly if I’d not just dropped a sizable amount on a couple of records I’d probably be buying 2 or 3 of these. Original Kevin Crowly and Sean Taggert shit ain’t easy to come by.