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A Burn 7″ on pink? File Under:

• Records I Need Again, Please Trade Me One
• AJ’s Favorite 7″
• Sick Drumming, Weird Guitars

The Burn 7″ is one of the most indisputably brilliant Revelation releases, as I hope you know. It succeeds on every level, and only uptight jerks who don’t appreciate its subtleties have trouble appreciating it. What I always heard was that the riffs were conceived in an effort to make them unplayable on guitar by anyone but Gavin Van Vlack. No idea of the validity of that, but it’s a fine story. Alan Cage’s muscular snare roll leads the charge into the opening track, Shall Be Judged, one of the better late 80s/early 90’s vegetarian songs. Gavin’s guitar works kind of a post crossover, chorus dipped end of the 80’s in NYC approach. Like Prong and Helmet were happening and being metal influenced didn’t really mean sounding like Slayer or having guitar solos anymore*. Cage and Van Vlack really break the 90’s wide open about 40 seconds into things. It’s a new world, a new New York, and everything has more groove, and weirder chords, but holy fucking hell does that first break down hit you like ten tons of bricks. For all the mainstream praise that say, Helmet got for doing some weird Alt-Metal off timey heaviness, they never came close to anything this primal but at the same time complex. This is a great moment in 90’s hardcore, and in some ways, one of the last important moments for NYHC.

You can still see what a seismic change it was when suddenly Revelation dropped Burn, Quicksand, Supertouch’s lp, Inside Out, on everyone ears. Suddenly everything was extremely serious (including musicianship), real polished, and a bit more “industry”. Compare to the beautiful shitiness of the No For An Answer 7″ and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Back to Shall Be Judged, it has all the hallmarks of the 90’s, right down to a weird dissonant plucked part, a talking part, and a cool down part. This is a great song, because Burn is a great band, with an amazing frontman (Chaka Malik), but the number of horrible revisitations of its formula that happened in the 90’s, (thankfully for the most part when I was too young to be going to shows), is infinite.

The other tracks — Godhead, Drown, and Out Of Time, all expand on the musical themes established in Shall Be Judged. Godhead digs into the groove and breaks the 3 minute mark as it condemns organized religion in a way that I might describe as quaintly 90’s (but I feel kind of like a dick doing it). Drown has some more mellowed out and reflective moments with Malik declaring he’s “drowning in a sea of emotion”. Out of Time is a hair lower than the other 3 tracks in that it’s not the anthematic stone cold classic that they are, but it’s still a good weird groovy hardcore song. Following this Burn did a demo recording titled New Morality, presumably to shop to a bigger label that was a tape trading standard for years, its since been issued as a 7″ on Revelation. They imploded a little while after that and never made the sprawling epic lp they should have. There was a couple of brief reunions in ‘97, and ‘02, the later of which yielded a 6 song 12″ that had a few new cuts, and a couple of older, “lost classics” revisited on it, that’s not as bad as some people would try and tell you. But all of that aside, none of that shines as brightly as their 12 minutes of power here on their first 7″.

Back when this record came out, people bought records still and so there are 1000 pressed on pink like this one, and a few thousand more on the much more common black vinyl.

*(Who the fuck decided to dispose of guitar solos in the 90s?)

So can you believe right after the week I was sick, shit got hectic at my work (happens like twice a year)??? Anyhow I’m gonna try and double up on a couple posts when I can for the next few days, but either way you’ll forgive me because I got a HOT TIP for you.

I found someone with a GRIP of sealed[?] HR - It’s About Luv 12 inchers - original Olive Tree press. Now in case you’re lost here wondering why I’m trying to foist a bad reggae record on you, just chill. This is the record HR made right after the original dissolution of the Bad Brains, and then released on his own label in ‘84. He also released the first Beefeater 12″, a band that only Sami Reiss and James Ritter listen to now in 2009. Unlike every other HR record clogging the dollar bins of America though, It’s About Luv is only HALF reggae. The second half in fact… the B-Side. The A-side is in the vein of the Bad Brains songs you like for the most part, and serves as a sufficient missing link between Rock For Light and I Against I. For $10 a new copy of this (original pressing, not the repress on SST) is worth it for sure. In fact I’d probably rather listen to this than the soulful funk metal that takes up most of the space on I Against I. There I said it.

Roots is a bizarre dubbed out intro track with HR wordlessly moaning like some kind of reggae ghost. I totally don’t know where he’s coming from, but it’s actually better than most of the real reggae songs he puts together which are like 4th teir Bob Marley ripoffs. Fear not though, after a minute the dexterous guitar ripping of local DC legend David Byers (R.I.P.) kicks off It’ll Be Alright which is a fucking great song. It reminds me a little bit of Let Me Help from I Against I in the semi-sung/subdued delivery, but the riffing and drumming are total high energy and tuneful. By the way Earl Hudson is on the kit here so you know things are top notch. It’ll Be Alright only lasts about a minute and change, and then it’s onto We’re Gonna Get You. This one takes essentially the same approach as the previous track. Fast ripping Bad Brains style hardcore, with slightly more soulful vocals, honestly though, this could fit in pretty easily on Rock For Light. I think the song is about HR’s battles with police over Marijuana possession as the bridge has some kind of spoken re-enactment of the police shaking him down. From here things bridge into Heaven Forbid which is a bit more rocked out and mid tempo. It’s a bit weirder and sounds transitional, but it’s not too long, and still not as funky as the worst cuts on I Against I. There’s room in this one for an extended David Byers shred session which is pretty cool, although he doesn’t have quite the ear that Dr. Know does, even if more technically proficient. Closing out the side is Let’s Have a Revolution which starts with some dialogue re-enacting some court proceedings. The song is another mid-paced rocker, albeit with some bubbly horns thrown in that kinda get things dangerously close to ska territory. As bad as that sounds it’s actually a pretty good song and still keeps a pretty good clip. There’s a surprisingly good cover of this song on a 2 song tour single that Sam Mcpheters’ Wrangler Brutes self-released around 2004. If you can find a copy of that it’s a good listen.

Anyway as stated before the B-side is the start of HR’s forgettable and shockingly prolific reggae career, that is until the last song which is a live track called Free Your Mind that as far as I can tell was never released as a studio recording. Despite the muddy live recording, this is sort of the best track on the album. It begins with crowd chatter and an amped up HR screaming “are you ready?!” at the crowd. The song begins similar to the Bad Brains Supertouch and has a great Dr. Know style riff, with a machine-gun drum roll for a chorus. By the way what was with hardcore bands in the 80’s always including a live cut at the end of their lps? Totally weird practice. 

So anyway as stated this webstore seems to have a whole stack of these, and for $10 I think it’s well worth your time. Also the cover is cool as hell with a shot of HR in full milatary fatigues and huge thick dreads flying everywhere.

Dudes, ladies, doggs… I’ve been sick since Monday, with one of those ill February style cough/cold/rip-your-skull-apart type sicknesses. I feel disgusting. As such, blogging has been forgone in favor of sleeping, and medicinal regimens.

However: this is the Hardcore Torpedo Mega-Bonzer that simply cannot be passed on:

Fix “Vengence” and Necros “Sex Drive” together in one lot.

The buy it now price: “$8,000″.

Well say what you will here but even if that’s high now, eventually it won’t be. For the unaware, Sex Drive was pressed in a quantity of 100 copies as Touch and Go records #1, with Vengeance following in a quantity of 200 as Touch and Go records #2. Both are 2 of the earliest examples of hardcore bands cut to vinyl. These are probably the 2 most valuable and sought after USHC rarities at least insofar as regular releases go.

In the way of Sex Drive, a tradition of mediocrity was established early on for generic and unimaginative hardcore. While this record holds serious historical significance, the songs themselves are as undistinguished and interchangeable as those by the Violent Apathy’s and 5150’s of the world. The Necros did go on to complete some better recordings, and were a pretty big punk band in their heyday, but if not for this being the first touch and go release, and being pressed in such a minuscule quantity, it would not be a big deal. Police Brutality appeared on some later releases though, re-recorded and sounding pretty hard.

In the way of Vengeance (b/w In This Town) though, you have a stone cold classic. How classic? Arguably THE best hardcore  7″/45/single/EP  ever, or at the very least the best Hardcore song (I might give NA “best EP”), but you wouldn’t have a difficult argument to make either way. Legend has it that Tom “Pig Champion” Roberts of Poison Idea actually followed the Fix’s tour itinerary in the late 80’s stopping at all the record stores in each town hoping to find a copy of the single. The song Vengeance is one of the best songs ever to come out of the Hardcore era.  It buzzes with the electricity of The Stooges or Motorhead’s finest moments, but at about double speed, it has a ferocious and unhinged vocal, and the musicianship is on fire in the best way, perfectly walking the line between skill and recklessness. The recording is completely thuggish and brutal; shockingly thick for 1981. Such a bright start for a genre, even the Fix themselves never managed to top it. The b-side while not quite as immediate is still a real scorcher. The delivery and style are similar, muscular jockish proto punks going at warp speed, like if the Dictators took a toxic amount of speed on their best night. Here is a record that sells well into the quadruple digits on the 2nd hand market, but is worth EVERY PENNY the collector scum pay for it. There are not a lot of records I can honestly say that about. Here is a record that makes the most introverted humans burst into spontaneous air guitar solos, stage dive fantasies, and bedroom slam pits. If you really want to understand me and why I’m obsessed with the music I am, why I play in the bands I do, you can get it all here. When I hear Vengeance I’m Alex hearing the 9th by ol’ Ludwig van. My heart’s stopping and my soul is spinning. It’s probably the greatest song I’ve ever heard. I got a reissue though, I’m not dropping 8 grand on it.

I was going to make some mention of the panic that went up about Touch and Go, going out of business this week, but they’re actually just shutting down their distribution arm it looks like, so they’ll still be keeping their old shit in press, and releasing another Shellac lp in 4 or 5 years. Mr. Rusk, please, if you see this, we need to talk about the Negative Approach discography, some overhauling is needed, and if you don’t want to do it, I’ll do it free of charge. I would like to thank you though, for finally issuing the Fix Discography in 2007.

I am no skinhead, that much is obvious, and while Cocksparrer is no hardcore band, they are one of the finest and most accessible punk bands ever. But pertaining to the site here, their ‘77 single Runnin’ Riot (maybe their first bonafide anthem), is such a flawless cut of proto hardcore. It’s a little Chuck Berry’d/Angus Young’d/Steve Jones’d out, but add a little speed and this is as good as the best numbers by any top tier early 80’s HC band, except that the vocals are delivered in the way of actual singing. It’s got such a massive million dollar chorus it’s just impossible not to get swept up by it, a perfect combo of tuneful chords and generalized teenage rebellion. The way it hangs for a couple seconds before driving back into the verse is a great tension builder too, and after the second time through you get that amazingly weird and great solo, that starts way out in left field.

Sister Suzie backs this one and it’s a more conventional pub rocker. Could be a Sex Pistols song, but it’s a bit too well written to really fit them. It reminds me a lot of Slade or something actually. I think Bon Scott could have recording a really killer vocal for this, and in fact it may be one of the bigger tragedies of his untimely demise that he was not able to. The riff is actually really similar to Pure Hell’s punkified version of Lee Hazelwood’s “These Boots” (as sung by Nancy Sinatra)… kinda funny I guess. Good jam, but a sleazy bar rockin’ sex jam can only get you so far when stacked up against one of the greatest British rebellion songs of all time (fuck off Lennon, but R.I.P. Harrison).

So after consulting with resident former skin Cooch, I was able to determine that only Spanish and Portuguese come with this sweet picture sleeve, and as such, you’re gonna pay out the nose for one.

I guess the main attractions here are exclusive tracks by Bastard and Cruck, but there’s also Mad Conflux, Bad Smells, Pile Driver. I wish more bands did little tour only samplers like this. Only like… not bogus amazing core bands that need another product for their package tour. Just cool bands that I like that need another product for their cool package tour of raging music. Good poorly drawn skull-beast art here. Not too much to say so just take it all in.

Dude another Seraphic Decay post? YES. (I hope I haven’t done this one before. I don’t really trust the search.) One of the finest and most desirable SD releases Mortician - Brutally Mutilated 7″. This is as low brow as music can get. There’s no way you can explain this to your parents, your girlfriend, your co-workers. You are a fucking freak if you dig this pile of excrement. The cones on your speakers will actually start to emanate the smell of wet garbage. Believe me, I know; I own this classic slab.

Listening to brutal death metal, grindcore, and other such harsh musics is what I think being a drug addict is like. I’ve never been a drug addict but I’ve heard about that shit. The first time it’s disorienting but something brings you back for a second fix, and then a third, and then you’ve got a taste for the foul stuff. Pretty soon the only people you talk to are other crackheads about the last hit you had: “dude the Traumatic - “The Process of Raping a Rancid Cadaver” demo…” (yes this is a real demo). In a word this is the most degraded catagory of music available on earth. Absolutely the lowest. However, there is something to be said for such a thing.

The incredible paradox of most death metal bands is that they are absolutely the most micro niche-specific music ever, but unlike say, “Noise”, “Lofi Black Metal”, “Hardcore”, etc. they generally require hours of practice and high levels of skill to perform. In that way I expect the late John Peel, was right in comparing the early offerings of bands like Carcass to “Free Jazz”. As they say, Jazz is made for other Jazz musicians, in that way it’s kind of vulgar and excessive, and a record like Mortician’s “Brutally Mutilated” is much the same. Virtually no one outside of genre followers can appreciate what’s on display on this record. A side note here, the level of skill is actually fairly low for a death metal record, which maybe actually insulates it more from the understanding of outsiders. At least on some level even the most uninitiated have to admit that “Left Hand Path”has skillful performances, whether they can appreciate the sound or not. The skill level on Brutally Mutilated though, probably gets up to a 4 on a scale of 1-10. Sloppy performances, simple riffs, and the band is never all that in sync. To me this makes for a better listen. It’s the difference between a CGI monster and a make-up and corn syrup job in a horror movie.

Speaking of horror movies - that’s basically as deep as it gets with Mortician. The alpha and omega of their influences. If the song titles “Mortician” and “Brutally Mutilated” didn’t flesh that out enough for you, just refer to “Necro Cannibal”. For early death metal and grind this is a pretty great single. The vocals aren’t so deep that they lose the flavor, the drums actually sound great (big boomy bass drum, very uncommon for this style), the guitars are nice and thick and not too treble-ful. A genre classic to be sure. Oh for those in the know, this is actually when the band still recorded w/ a live drummer (Matt Sicher R.I.P.).

Like I said before this is one of the more desirable Seraphic Decay items, though it comes up frequently, this was one of the bands that actually “made it” (you know… in the scene), so a lot of people want it. I’ve seen a lot on blue vinyl, some with different color covers (mine is tan). I know there’s black vinyl too. 

ps. This post shoulda gone up yesterday sorrrrry.

The Alleycats “Nothing Means Nothing Anymore” b/w “Give Me a Little Pain”is a huge personal favorite in the early US punk/KBD/proto-HC category. Even though it’s considered to be one of the 2nd teir Dangerhouse releases, I’d actually take the song on the A-Side over most other tracks that were released on the label (exceptions being maybe “Solitary Confinement” and “Let’s Get Rid Of NY”). I’ve always loved this obnoxious little riff that has a little ascending bunch of notes that then flip around and come back down. It’s tense but still pretty rockin. The guitar drops out in time for the verse so that main man Randy Stodola can be the focus of the action, while Dianne Chai (a great bassist and a good singer too), and drummer John McCarthy hold the track together. By the way McCarthy is a pro too. In fact in the now classic BreakMyFace.com internet round up of the Dangerhouse label, it’s noted that the band was exceedingly efficient during the recording session, basically just ripping right through the tracks on tape. Stodola stretches and slurs his words like any good punk singer would in ‘78 and builds tension before the songs big rock n roll chorus thats slathered in “whoas”. Stick a good bar rock solo in there in place for the 3rd verse and you’ve got a winner in my book. There’s nothing out of the ordinary for Nothing Means Nothing, it’s by the book, they just happen to nail it.

The flip side is Give Me a Little Pain, which might have actually been a better A-side because it’s a little poppier and thus more catchy. It’s also got some backup singing presumably by Chai, which leaves it kind of sounding like a de-Rockabilly’d X, which is totally awesome in my estimation. If there’s one thing that I get weary of when listening to X it’s John Doe and Billy Zoom’s fucking hotrod slick hair sky blue Cadillac bullshit. But that’s a different post for a different day (and BTW I sitll like X a lot). Sorry to digress.

There’s 2 different sleeve variations of this single, the more common is a live photo with a fold over cover, but this version has a shot of the band hanging out backstage and comes with a 7×7″ square cover.

Charles Bronson - Youth Attack 12″ w/ metal cover

With hindsight I guess it’s kind of easy to shit on Charles Bronson’s “legacy” but I for one find it to be unfair. Sure there were plenty of people into the novelty aspect of the band (the name, the song titles, the samples, and for a lot of posers the song lengths), but start to finish I find that their output holds up quite well. Maybe it’s because this was one of the first really fast type bands I checked out as a teen but I dunno, all the splits are still raging obnoxious blurred speed-HC, the demo and first 7″ are pretty awesome sub-Neos teen scuzz, and their lp, Youth Attack, is IMO the best of this wave of thrashy pv bands (not counting Despise You, who are more like a grind band trying to imitate HC anyway).

I remember around the time I got into hardcore music was when the Charles Bronson lp actually had come out and I remember that it was impossible to find if you were clueless beb. Soon after I found out about the version with the metal sleeve being auctioned here. A few years later the band put video of themselves shooting a hole through one with a shotgun as bonus in their discography. There’s supposed to be 333 of these, but some people say there’s only 100. Whichever is the correct number is irrelevant, it’s a desirable collectible.

Anyway, like I said Youth Attack is one of the best extremely fast HC records of the day (the 90’s). It still sounds like a total blur to me sometimes, where I can only kind of figure out what’s happening. Just frantic dick grinding style riffs with a million mile per hour screaming and shouting coliding with it. Also - this features one of my favorite all time samples where the band called Bulldog Records asking if they had any Charles Bronson stuff in stock (”who?”), and then asking if they had One Life Crew records available (”yea”). Still makes me laugh sometimes. Blew my mind when I was 17 or 18 when I heard them (ohhh my God I can’t believe they did that). I think this plays much better than the Bold phone call on that Slapshot lp. Not much slow stuff going on in the tracks just sort of a constant barrage of blasting then a quick break, then some different blasting, although occasionally there’s time for a mosh part to last 4 or 5 seconds.

I wonder if the actor ever got wind of there being a band named after him…

So I was out on the town last night with some of the guys, and by that I mean we went to get some burgers on a Monday, and Voorhees came up in the Ipod shuffle. We switched off the shuffle and started going through our fav Voorhees jams, you know how it is:

“play this one…”

“which is the one that starts out…”

“what record is Death To Pigs on?”

Anyway a while back I wrote about their first 7″, Violent, which is a thrashing HC classic, but the first Voorhees record I actually heard was the What You See Is What You Get 7″, which collects songs from a few different comps or splits on one record, and was made for one of their US tours. It’s also kind of the last really great Voorhees release. Following this there was a turnover in most of the members of the band, and they took on a bit of a different more metal influenced sound. Eventually they did get back to basics and returned to fast hardcore, but it was a bit of a weird trajectory.

At any rate, What You See Is What You Get served as a great introduction to the band. 8 raw throated skull smashers that last about as many minutes when all tallied up. A bit of the old Boston sound (SSD/DYS/NFX — the song Swamped on here even borrows the “Protester” drum beat from Negative FX) and a bit of the old Britcore sound (Heresy/Ripcord/Intense Degree) all crammed into one package. Ian Leck as usual brought the most threatening and throaty delivery to this and the fucking drumming on this (I believe courtesy Michael Gillham) is some of the finest fast skin bashing ever. Jams like Power Trip hurtle their way from one fast part to another, as meat and potatoes as hardcore can get, but that’s the appeal. No melody, no slow stuff, and one single focused emotion, anger. 

This might be kind of a bummer, but my favorite track on this record is actually a cover. In fact it’s one of my all time favorite covers of any band of any genre. The song is “Hinkley Had a Vision” by the Crucifucks, but it’s transformed into the most mean sounding, ‘about-to-snap’ anthem you could imagine. A lot of it is because of the difference in the Crucifucks whiny vocal squeal and Voorhees low growl, but it’s played with more balls out authority in the musical department as well. I’m not actually sure the members of the Crucifucks would approve, I’d wager that Doc Dart would find it to be fascist or something. But when the music cuts out and you’re left with the infamous rant “I wanna take the president/chop off his head/and mail it to them in a garbage bag” in Leck’s thuggish limey bark instead of Dart’s squawk, you feel a surge of sinister power.

 I think the copies with white covers of this record are actually the “tour edition” made in ‘96 (Mister Leck if you still check this blog please confirm). There’s a more common version w/ a black cover. Neither goes for much money so I’d recommend people picking either one before people start to get wise to this band again. One of the best of their decade.

Oh post script, I think all of these guys are still doing music. I know Michael Gillham is doing some sludge punk in the form of Drunk In Hell, and Lecky sings in Meatlocker (did a good lp last year).

Oh one last thing non-Voorhees related: Hatred Surge “Isolated Human” e.p. is out now on Painkiller Records. Grinding violence.

I don’t know what it is, but there’s something that I love about old thrash metal sleeves like nothing else. The combination of poor execution, and ridiculous concept, and all the bright colors and airbrushing too. Many times I’ve bought records for killer sleeves only to have them suck when they hit the stereo back home.

Picked this Virus lp on Metal Works up over the weekend. Pretty good UK thrashing. A bit like the first Onslaught lp, very ignorant with lots of war themes. I expect at least one of these dudes was in a punk band at some point. Very simple, school notebook level art on this one. Totally 2-D.

This Viking Do Or Die lp is an alltime fav that I’ve mentioned before. There was some Dark Angel member involvement and this is almost as good. Lots of good meaty riffs. I think Gene Hoglan may have helped get this band their start, but I’m not entirely sure. The cover looks like it should be some reject power metal band with the terrible logo made of rocks, but this is total Slayer worship.

Love the hell beasts on the cover of Sacrifice’s Torment In Fire. It looks like someone’s high school art project for like a colored pencil unit, which makes sense because on the back of the sleeve none of these dudes look old enough to even vote.

Wehrmacht are a bit more party metal than the rest, as is evidenced by the zombie water skiing on 2 sharks, but at least they’ve got some carnivorous creatures of the deep and a zombie in the mix. I don’t really know how this would work out in real life, I don’t think the zombie would be able to balance and the sharks don’t look to be going that fast. Apparently one of these dudes went on to the band Everclear. Oops.