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Maybe I will have a Nervous Breakdown about someone getting this Nervous Breakdown for an old song…

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.

Pretty good for 1 year of releases. Shit-fi has called the opening drum beat to Realities of War “the shot heard round the world”. As far as Hardcore goes, thats’ pretty true.

VOID LIVE @ THE 930 CLUB BOOT
So anyways, if you’ve hung around hardcore for even a minute you’ve probably heard someone expound on the virtues of Void. Void are on of the first true originals of the hardcore era. Unlike say, Black Flag or the Bad Brains, they didn’t originate via the aftershocks of 70’s punk/wave/whatever. They were influenced by the bands that came from those aftershocks, and as much by the aforementioned punk bands, as by more rock/metal acts like the ever popular Motorhead and Venom (how often do I ref these 2 on here…). They began sometime in 1981, as this is when their first demo (basically a 20+ song live in studio slop-fest), is dated, but they didn’t rise to prominence until arguably the height of the HC era, 1982/83. This prominence came via a handful of appearances on comps like Flex Your Head and Charred Remains, and of course their split LP with fellow DC area band The Faith. But part of their infamy back in their day was the result of their now legendary live performances, which are sadly in this day and age, very under represented on tape and video trade lists.

I wouldn’t argue that Void’s studio material is irrelevant. On the contrary their split with The Faith is one of the most important documents of its time. With so many bands in DC and surrounding areas content to mimic the Minor Threat formula, and mining the same few records for inspiration, Void were obviously one of the few to find their own way. Singer John Weifenbach growls, screams, and grunts his way through esoteric adolescent gore fantasies and LSD-magnified rage-outs. The rhythm section of Chris Stover and Sean Finnigan (R.I.P.) wobbles and swerves its way in and out of the tempos that anyone else would play with pedestrian indifference. Guitar player Bubba Dupree mangles his chorus tinged metal influenced playing with violent abandon. His amp bleeds high squealing feedback, strings bend disgustingly out of tune, and the sounds bash and crash together in and out of time to produce a sound that never had an equal then or now. Everyone knows this though. All that’s been written of Void has said as much, and now more than ever they get their due from people outside the punk scene as well as in it. But what frequently is hard to account for is the live shows discussed in various hardcore oral histories, which are said to be the very same qualities amplified a hundred times over. More chaos. More feedback. More hard-core.

There’s only one live Void live bootleg that I know of: this is it. I have a tape and video of 2 other late period live sets, but this one seems to be from their peak. After the 12″ had come out, but when they had just started testing out new songs for their misunderstood “Potion For Bad Dreams” lp. While there are no Potion songs on this bootleg, I happen to own a tape of the complete show that night, and they did play a couple. That aside though, if you’ve ever read about Void shows and wondered if it’s really as good as everyone says it was, well this answers the question. It’s obviously, a resounding yes.

Opening with the classic Who Are You it becomes obvious what the audience was in store for that night. Dupree’s guitar sounds cavernous and gigantic. Thick, saturated… like there’s an actual physical weight to the sound waves. The opening crashes of cymbal and bass accents against the guitar hit recklessly before the group hurtles into the verse. Already they’re dogging in and out of time, frantic and out of control. Feedback from the mics and instruments washes in and out, the vocals fight against any natural rhythm, and the guitar still bears down on everything fighting for total supremacy. There’s something about the live performances of some bands that just can’t be caught in the studio. It’s a different frame of mind, a different experience,  a completely different kind of energy, and for a band like Void, it’s a world of difference. When they play Ask Them Why in this set the beginning collapses into an almost formless mix of sounds before emerging back into focus at the start of the verse. Part of the mess is the sound of the music’s sound, being displaced by the movement of the band members and the audience (no doubt they’re crowding the stage). Strums and hits and squeaks move out of phase for a quarter of a second and it conveys to the listener a sense of movement and kinetic energy that I don’t think could be accurately duplicated in a recording studio, outside of essentially filling the room with a rabid audience.

Everything that makes Void a special band is amplified in these songs. I think it could actually be the definitive Void document in its unabridged form. I understand the gravity of that statement, and it’s not meant to diminish their other work in any way, but rather to emphasize how insane and out of control this performance actually sounds.

Today reader I give you an original 1983 pressing of the long forgot Malefice “Overboard” E.P. You’d be forgiven for not knowing who Malefice are, though if you ask the right people, you’re sure to hear about their wild live performances and formidable stage presence when they had occasion to play the DC area in the early 80’s.

I first discovered them a few thanksgivings back, perusing the used 7″s at a store near my parent’s house in Northern Virginia. The cover had a skeleton in the DRI-guy pose, the back, had the same skeleton (who wears a leather jacket), playing from an evil looking organ (note: there is no organ on the actual record), while a few dozen other punk rock skeletons mosh and stage dive together below him. The label, DSI, I knew for releasing both United Mutation 7″s, and the pentagrams drawn various places on the release had me pretty sure this record could not suck. I must say I have wonderful instincts.

Malefice came from the ashes of another Northern Virgina band, Media Disease, who were a straight forward thrash group that often gigged with United Mutation in their formative days. Malefice took their place as partners in gigging and they played house parties and clubs together for a couple years,  at one point even sharing a drummer.  If you’ve ever heard the unreleased Void lp this is not too far from it. If you’ve ever disparaged said lp: fuck you.

Malefice isn’t quite as metallic as Void’s lost Potion of Bad Dreams, but they’re drinking from the same well. They’re a bit speedier, and the vocals are a little more unhinged, but the guitar work is also a little less flashy and more tame. You won’t find the lost Void record by picking up the Malefice 7″, but if you’re a fan of the 80’s pscyho-core style, you should dig this. If I had to pinpoint this I’d say take some Void, some UM, and a bit of Venom or maybe 7″ era Obsessed and you’re pretty close to what this sounds like.

Side A features the track Carrion which opens up with one of those chorus-drenched feedback messes that devil-punk bands like so much (see Void, Die Kreuzen, The Scam). Eventually things congeal for a slow crawling intro and then launch into the main riff, a buzzy speed metal type part with dive bombs and scrappy solos added as seasoning. The lyrics concern some vaguely occultish stuff, but the vocals are delivered total hardcore style which sounds cool and raw.  You get a pretty gratuitous solo about 3/4ths of the way through that sounds a little more wild because there’s no second guitar to back it, just the bass.

Side B has 2 tracks the first of which is Lost Sheep. Lost Sheep opens up with another tremolo style metal riff and then breaks out with a little more rockin’ type lick as the main riff, comparable to something you might hear on the first Bathory album like Necromancy or Sacrifice, again the vocals are what keeps it footed in the hardcore realm. The last song “Overboard” is the best I think. It has a pretty good descending metal-punk riff and probably the best vocal performance of the 3. The singer just does his best to totally let loose, especially in the choruses “I’m at the edge/and outta breath”. Some pretty smoking solos get laid down in this one too.

There’s 2 pressings of this 7″. This is the original 1983 edition in a folded sleeve that has lyrics on the inside. It should also have an Amoeba Man 1 page comic that advertises other releases on DSI including the ELUSIVE “Mutopia” tape comp — IF ANYONE HAS THIS TO DUB OR AN ORIGINAL TO TRADE PLEASE CONTACT ME I WILL MAKE YOU A GOOD DEAL. The second pressing comes in a glued sleeve and all copies are on blue vinyl. It’s also got an extra song from this session added to it and is much easier to find. In fact it’s not uncommon for unplayed-stock copies to turn up here and there.

After this Malefice never had another record but they did record several sessions which were comped onto an lp called Lotus Blossom in 1990 by the infamous Lost and Found. It’s packaged to look like a singular album, but it actually spans ‘82-’85  (as I recall) and is pretty similar to this E.P. Stock copies of this are findable on ebay from time to time, and are recommended. Interest in Malefice is growing so now is the time to track this  record down as it still can be had for under $30.

Malefice “Overboard” E.P.

Nothing on earth is more volatile and threatening than a screaming woman. I’m quite sure that this is why, when you get one with a killer voice in a hardcore band, it’s always a homerun. Right up there at the top of the heap for female fronted hc bands (and as we all know it’s a boys club here) is Brain Death from Japan and their classic Personal Affair 7″. Musically it’s all straight ahead thrash which is pretty fitting for Japan at the time (’87). Definitely reminds me a bit of a lot of the britcore bands like Heresy, Ripcord, Intense Degree, etc. but there’s plenty of bands from their native land that mined similar territory (S.O.B., Outo, Systematic Death, and many more). There might even be a little D.R.I. in the mix but I guess that’s sort of implied. The guitars have a nice broken up over driven sound, not too much treble or static-y distortion, but nice and crunchy, and the bass is clean but has a lot of body and thickness. Good crash and bang drums that sound very roomy and lively, propel the music well and sound pretty good for the time period, if a tad low in the mix on some songs.

Vocalist Sachi is really what puts things over the top though. Absolutely frantic and awesome, she spits with the same lightspeed type delivery as the rest of the instruments with very few breaks between parts. I can’t imagine songs like this were easy to sing at such a high speed. I guess it’s somewhat novel to hear a woman sing for a band that’s doing such meat and potatoes thrash and just absolutely destroy all the guttural barking male vocalists who’ve sung to the same style of music. Maybe it’s just the slightly higher pitch and different timbre that make it sound more urgent and powerful, or maybe she’s just really good at yelling. More likely it’s both of these things.

 You really shouldn’t have to drop more than $20-30 on one of these and if you like paddle beats and speed with the occasional contrasting Cryptic Slaughter style breakdown or solo, you really can’t go wrong here.

…and now for a quick commercial: I’ve got some items of my own on ebay. Mostly just doubles, or stuff I picked up for trade that just sat around for a while. Have a look and do some bidding: http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZtrem_two

I’m pretty sure the seller here (athenar66) is Jaimie from Midnight*/Boulder, which if you were to be excited by that sort of thing should be exciting. The listings are minimal at best, so I’d guess some low prices are gonna be the final bids. He’s got the rather indispensable Ringworm demo 7″up for sale, which has a different mix than the version you can get on CD with added vocal effects, and with the Night Breed interludes removed. As so many people have wondered, why did they choose NIGHT BREED of all movies to steal the music from? Anyway you cut it though, this is the best Ringworm release. Ringworm is basically the perfect idea for a band if it’s 1991. Take the Raw Deal and Cro-Mags demos, combine with early Possessed and Death, maybe a little old Slayer, blend until it’s at maximum kill-your-mother headbanging potential, listen to 6 times a day.Now I celebrate their entire catalog, and I know this demo doesn’t open with Numb, but it’s pretty obvious the performance on here is just better than their subsequent lp, which they admit to having been a drunken and rushed recording session. It really doesn’t pack the same kind of punch as this demo because it’s got such a cheap production and that’s maybe the biggest travesty of their existence. Sounding much thinner, although to be fair, the 7″ version of this really doesn’t sound that great and is mostly a curiosity, and overall just delivered with less percision and power. Forget about remixing the lp though, Human Furnace traded one of the reels for Kiss memorabilia. :sad slide whistle: I mean no disrespect though, even with its imperfections, The Promise is still perfect, I just like the demo a little better.The sleeve for the record also doubles as issue #5 (I think) of Bloodbook fanzine, which is stapled inside the record sleeve. As I recall it’s borderline illegible due to small print and a questionable computer layout. I think Gehenna is interviewed, and there might be an article by Bobby Corpsegrinder. I think there’s a bunch of “noise” stuff too, like Lockweld covered in it. Not like you care. Definitely one of the less interesting issues of Bloodbook.If you’re so inclined to check out the other auctions here, don’t miss the S.D.S. “Scum Kill System” 7″, easily one of the best metallic hardcore records from Japan ever, or the TKO’s “Don’t Pull the Plug” 7″ which is a little known 90’s Cleveland punk gem. I can’t tell what edition that SOIA 7″ is so proceed w/ caution. Also if your name is Derek Scace, you’re gonna want all those Stiff Little Fingers singles.*Best current metal band in the world.

1993 is typically considered a dark time for Hardcore and Punk, and with good reason, basically everything coming out sucked. Straight Edge bands were playing too slow, Grindcore had already peaked, Ebullition style emo was popular, everyone was drowning themselves in their own white guilt. This was a time when people thought Lifetime “Background” was good and mature (it’s neither, duh). I guess Japan and South America were still holding it down, but in my mind I always think how horrible things were for USHC styled stuff. One of the few killer records for that style actually came out of the UK that year, the Voorhees “Violent” 7″. The record sleeve has a picture of one of the demons from Evil Dead 2 on it, and it’s packed with 10 songs, probably in tribute to the Negative Approach E.P. w/ the Exorcist cover. Pretty much if you combined that record with some of the burlier Boston HC from the same time (SS Decontrol, Siege demo, Impact Unit), and maybe a little early Ripcord and Rupture, you’d get Violent. So yes, it lives up to its name. One of the all time great hardcore/punk vocalists is without a doubt Ian Leck barking it out like a hellspawn of John Brannon and Dean Jones (of ENT). He’s still got it too, 15 years later, playing in a few different bands from the UK over the past few years (most recently Meat Locker). I believe this one was run off in a standard edition of 1,000, with some on red on the band’s own “Armed With Anger” label. Definitely hasn’t been in print since the 90’s  and at some point people are going to realize that it’s a “must own” and start paying real money for them. Til then I’m filing this under “cheap picks”. If you’ve never heard Voorhees this is a great place to start.

I’m back! Took an additional day to get here, but we got $800 in Delta vouchers to make it worth the while. So on my first day back I’ll share with you one of my favorite little known USHC ragers. Some may consider this blowing up the spot, but frankly, I already own the record.

Sewer Zombies - Reach Out lp is some of the most tasteless, tuneless, hard core music ever made in the United States, and, specifically Florida. Imagine some people from Chrome & No Trend getting together, getting high to a bunch of Finnish hardcore 7″s, and then improvising an lp’s worth of music influenced by that. This is seriously brain damaging. Although there’s only 1 dude playing on the whole recording it’s credited as a full band, and was released on Florida’s Subversive label. The drumming is primal, basic, and loose, and the riffs laid over it are at best semi-coherent. There’s not much of a question that there wasn’t much more than a thumb nail sketch of where the song would go before the recording started. Lyrically take some of the most miserable, sub-Flipper nihilism, and use your imagination to figure out what songs like “They Died With Their Willy Nelson T-Shirts On” and “Executive Execution” might be like. In the future I guarantee people into fringe freak music are going to be after this lp. True outsider hardcore.

I’ve broken my streak. Due to some internet difficulties, yesterday this post didn’t go up, and so it’s going up today instead. Roky Erikson and Motorhead in one day (yesterday). Also J Masics came to the Fucked Up, Sex/Vid, Iron Age show, and was accosted by every Deep Wound and Dinosaur fan in the room.

I’ve hit Cooch up for an entry, we do Painkiller Records together of course, but he does the most, and we’ve played in rock bands too, so without further delay…

CC asked me to do a scab entry or two for him while he’s on vacation, suggesting for this one that I talk about some of the pre-hardcore era Modern Method Records releases. Before making their mark in the hardcore world with the monumental “This Is Boston, Not LA” comp LP, Modern Method put out just under a dozen releases as the in-house
label for Boston’s famous Newbury Comics music retail chain. Just about all of the early releases are “punk” in some sense, ranging from the pop punk stylings of the Gremies and the Future Dads (both featuring legendary Unnatural Axe frontman Rich Parsons) to the power poppy Outlets to the Mission Of Burma-esque Native Tongue. One interesting release is their second compilation LP, “A Wicked Good Time Vol 2″, which features a track by Leper, who many consider to be the first hardcore band in Boston. Most of these early releases can be found cheap, though both Outlets singles, which are excellent, command good money on eBay.

On to the auctions… eBay’s top purveyor of punk vinyl and ephemera, Ryan Richardson, aka ryebread, currently has the Bound & Gagged 12″ for sale (Modern Method #5, from 1980). It’s a four song ep featuring a six piece all-female lineup, doing some quirky post punk weirdness. It’s produced by Cleveland expatriate Robin Amos of The Girls, a pretty cool Boston area post punk band that had the distinction of releasing the only non-Cleveland area record on Hearthan Records (run by Dave Thomas of Pere Ubu). Robin still works at a local record shop in Boston and is a pretty friendly guy based on my interactions with him. Anyways, back to Bound & Gagged - I had a couple copies stashed away thinking it would have taken off in price over the past few years with the recent explosion of crappy hipster noise and synth punk, but it still sells for relatively cheap (typically $20 and under). This record would really appeal to fans of bands like the Raincoats or Kleenex, I suppose a good reissue of the 12″ and their two tracks from “A Wicked Good Time Vol. 1″ might generate some interest in the original product.

For those of you with more refined hardcore tastes, Mr. Ryebread has some other tasty platters up for bid - classic releases by Black Flag, Crucifix, FEAR, Minor Threat, DOA, test pressings of the first Freeze and Meatmen LPs, and more. One interesting record of note on his current auction list is the Human Sufferage self titled lp - a rare and under the radar release from Ohio, ca. 1983 - great midwest HC style.