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I’m backdating this as a Metal Monday posting but it’s really like Thursday here…

I found a nice bunch of death metal demos here. A couple of serious classic status.  I just finished recording a death metal record for my friend and so I’ve been really brutally oriented lately. Anyway here’s a list of the good shit; alphabetically:

• Crematory “Wrath From The Unknown” cs (1991):
  • Crematory were a lesser band in the Swedish cannon, managing one mlp and a few demo tapes over a couple years, Wrath From the Unknown being the 3rd of 4 demos. They never quite distinguished themselves from some of the bigger bands, but they played the Swedish style of DM quite well and some of them went on to be in lineups of Regurgitate, Afflicted, and Nasum.  I generally feel like this is their best release, outclassing the Denial mlp a bit and being the best of their demos as well.
• Dismember “Reborn in Blasphemy” cs (1990):
  • Ah Dismember, my favorite of the Swedes. Their simple brutality colored with dark melodies is fully-formed for the first time on this tape which basically serves as a teaser for their debut lp “Like An Ever-Flowing Stream”. Their two previous demos, though good, don’t really show the Dismember sound as many of those songs sort of became shared songs with Carnage. So when this demo kicks off with the band’s theme song Dismembered, it must have shocked a few people. It’s a beautiful and sinister melody that plays over the detuned chords. An instant classic.
• Morpheus - “Accelerated Decrepitude” cs 1991:
  • The only non-Swedes on the list here, Morpheus (later becoming Morpheus Descends) were a brutal New York based band, that still haven’t quite got their due (IMO). This is their first demo, which was also issued as a double 7″ on Seraphic Decay under a different title (”Adipocere”). I’ve heard these dudes were serious about their drug consumption, and took to smoking dust in graveyards while listening to Soulside Journey on a boombox. That should give you an idea what to expect from this musically.
• Nihilist - “Only Shreds Remain” cs (1989):
  • As you might know, Nihilist is the band that eventually became Entombed, and about half the songs on Entombed’s debut lp “Left Hand Path” come from Nihilist’s demo recordings. Only Shreds remain contains two songs later to be re-recorded for this album (”Abnormally Deceased” and “Revel In Flesh), as well as the exclusive “True Face Of Evil”. Similar to Reborn In Blasphemy, this is the first Nihilist tape to really have the full formed Nihilist/Entombed sound. Their previous tape almost sounded like a more detuned Kreator, but here is the first appearance of LG Petrov’s signature death growl.

Stuart Schrader of www.Shit-Fi.com returns with a write up of the alltime classic Jezus and the Gospelfuckers demo tape.  Read on!

Jezus and the Gospelfuckers’ cassette, released in 1982, offers everything the discerning punk of today could desire: over-the-top Discharge-influenced lead-driven raging hardcore, song titles like “Kill the Police” and “Live Fast Die Young,” a crucifix-ejaculating skeleton crucified on a penis as a logo, a cassette-only release of course, and, the name, oh, that name!

As is rarely the case today, the music matches the reputation (and vice versa). J&TGF were a rowdy group of nihilistic leather-jacketed misanthropes who drugged, fucked, robbed, and stabbed their way from the ho-hum closing days of the 70s punk scene into the 80s and the by-the-throat musical inferno that exploded after Stoke-on-Trent’s shot heard ‘round the world, “Realities of War.” Yes, J&TGF’s anti-everything stance may not have neatly fit in with the politically engaged Dutch punks of the late 70s, but the music they played circa 1979 was above-average snotty pogo punk. Then, they heard Discharge and their attitude found its sound. But J&TGF were no clones. They used their own rabid energy and formidable musical chops to produce a sound no other band has quite matched. It is metallic insofar as, unlike so much hardcore, it does not eschew lead guitar. In fact, the lead guitar is wild, aggressive, and nonstop. It feels less like an indulgent, boring, predictable rocknroll solo (which is what hardcore meant to decry by avoiding solos altogether) than a Gatling gun stuck on kill. The nine songs on the tape are distinct, memorable, and drenched in adrenaline (or is it amphetamine?).

As cassette-only releases from the 80s go, this one is in the mid-range of rarity. Its sheer brilliance meant that word spread quickly and the band was able to distribute a lot of copies. But it is a cassette, so probably many fewer remain in existence than if it had been a record. The original is easy to spot because it has labels stuck on it. The j-card insert is nothing fancy, with the song titles, that logo, and the member names. For around 20 years, this cassette had the distinction of being considered by the cognoscenti the best hardcore recording never to be released on vinyl. A few years back, it was reissued on vinyl (and CD) as a split with Agent Orange (reissuing their two EPs), perhaps the only band that could be considered to have topped J&TGF at their own game—except it was pretty much the same band with some new members. Agent Orange, of course, recorded a new version of J&TGF’s anthem “Kill the Police,” though I think I prefer the slowed-down barbiturate swagger of the original. Anyway, the split LP includes a booklet with cool photos and perhaps the single greatest piece of writing about hardcore punk ever, the bands’ biography. The LP also includes a couple bonus tracks by Agent Orange and Genocide Express. If the madness of seeking out original cassettes from the 80s has not yet infected your cortex, this reissue should be relatively easy to track down. But this cassette is about as close as you can get to that bygone era, and the music it contains seems to me a pretty good justification for continued fetishization of something most would today find repulsive and frightening if encountered on the backstreets.

(This eBay seller is also auctioning some other essential 80s hardcore records, including Shotgun Solution’s lone EP, which is Southern Europe’s answer to J&TGF/Agent Orange and one of the most over-the-top records ever.) [editor’s note: there are 2 copies of the Shotgun Solution 7″ on ebay right now. wtf?]

Jezus and the Gospelfuckers demo tape

Gloomy doomy crusty…

It was the best of times…it was the blurst of times. It was 2002, or actually it was 2001, which soon became 2002 when I first heard this weird dude Greg from Cape Cod had a new band with Justin from Down But Not Out, and 2 other guys I didn’t know. I could have never guessed the number of times I would end up seeing this band over the next 3 years, but I thought their name, Mental, was really cool.

I got the first tape they did from Greg at a show and when I took it home I was pretty sure it was recorded on a boombox. “I think they’d be good if they recorded in a studio, but I can’t hear any of the songs on this“. The titles were stuff like “Fuck Responsibility” and “High School Sucks” which seemed cool considering how over-serious most hardcore bands were at the time. So in the spring of 2002 when I heard they were going to the local Dead Air Studios, I was eager to see how things would turn out.

I rode out with some friends on night in May ‘02 to do the crew backup vocals on Mental’s first studio recorded demo (affectionately known as demo 2).  When we got there, they were finishing up guitar tracks. I recall thinking it would be a late night because they hadn’t even started the vocals yet, one of the many times in my life I’ve been so very wrong. Greg laid the vocals down for 9 songs in probably 40 minutes. Mostly first takes as I remember it, and he sounded great. Brash, angry, youthful and confident. The tunes sounded great too. I was shocked actually, at how awesome it sounded for such a young band. I knew this would be a new favorite. It sounded a lot like old New York hardcore bands, maybe with some other stuff thrown in, or perhaps just the hindsight the 90’s provided. I’ve never quite put my finger on it, but it sort of always reminded me of the first Sick Of It All 7″. Maybe with some Straight Ahead and Token Entry too. It didn’t really sound like one thing or a particular band to me, I just thought it was good, and at the time it pretty much stood alone. Logos for straight edge hardcore bands had got really scratchy and lyrics quite serious and wordy. When Mental came along they had big cartoon letters and seemed like they were having fun on their recordings (even moreso live). It kind of just took an unnecessary chip off the shoulder of Hardcore for a little while, without ever being too jokey or goofy. It’s not really easy to walk that line, and it was sort of how I knew they were something special. A breath of fresh (”fresh”) air.

I went to the recording for their 7″ later that year, again at Dead Air and I remember being at least a little surprised how much more they had their shit together already. They did 11 songs in a day I think. There might have been an extra half day to finish up vocals and do the mix, but I still remember being in awe at how fast the band had moved, even though they were releasing a 7″ they had enough material laid down to make a 12″. All of my bands up to that point had struggled just to get demos together. After demanding that someone yell “bust!” prior to a breakdown in one song, it was put on me to be the one to do it, although I think someone from the band could have done it better.

Once their 7″ came out it seemed like things never stopped for Mental. The record came out in the winter of 2003, but by summer 2003 they’d recorded a demo of the absurd side project Dumptruck, and another E.P. to be out by the year’s end. Tours and endlessly colorful t-shirts followed, as well as a couple more records. The first time I saw the whole USA from the window of a van was with Mental, lifting guitar cabinets and drums on a nightly basis. I guess it’s weird to write about stuff that is so recent, but it was good times, even when it wasn’t good times, and I still play these tapes (and 7″) pretty often.

What a strange collection of items this seller has. Mint in package water pistols, creepy 3 for a dollar bendy monsters from the 70s, and some OG demo tape type items. ***THIS JUST IN***: seller is Blaine from The Accused, which explains a bit.

Of interest:

An original Brotherhood demo tape. I believe this is the second Brotherhood demo (the one featuring Ron Guardipee on vocals) and the one that was recycled into the band’s 7″, some of their comp tracks, and eventually the Words Run Thick As Blood anthology on Crucial Response. I heard tell of a little beef between the Brotherhood and Crucial Response camps over owed money, that supposedly ended in a shake-down during a Sunn tour sometime in the last few years. I kinda picture it going down like that part in The Princess Bride when Andre The Giant’s character is standing in front of the castle wearing that same hooded robe that Sunn wears, and shouting ominous things. If it wasn’t that way, I don’t even want to know how it was. Personally if I was one of those Sunn dudes, I’d be wearing that thing everywhere. Down to the convenience mart, to the dentist, wherever.
Yes, if you haven’t caught on, Brotherhood is technically pre-Sunn, pre-Burning Witch, pre-Goat Snake, and who could forget, pre-Engine Kid. Also (and much cooler), post-False Liberty. But truthfully the most interesting aspect of Brotherhood to me is the song The Deal. This is a perfect and, somewhat strange (for its day) hardcore song. It begins with a fairly speedy blasting section, like a revved up SS Decontrol, only to cut to a surprisingly slow moshy section about ten seconds later, before diving right back into the speed. In some ways it predicts the territory that would be increasingly mined by the likes of Infest, and their numerous followers, in subsequent years. I’m not suggesting Infest borrowed a formula here, but just that this is an interesting precursor to one of their trademarks. If anything Brotherhood were probably trying to borrow more than a little from DYS, as well as SS Decontrol on this song. Well at any rate I love it very much.

Also of interest: Northwest Hardcore and More. But what is the “more” you ask? it’s hard to say for sure because this seller’s listings are so sub-par, but The Melvins, Wermacht, the Accused, False Liberty, Spastic Blur, and of course MR. BUNGLE are all in there. Seriously if this guy gets $10 for such a crap listing I’ll be surprised. Seems cool for all you tape buyers out there.

Even though it’s not Monday I can’t not mention that he’s selling a Cannibal Corpse demo as well, although I have no way of verifying if it’s original. There’s a mediocre lot of Accused recordstoo. No Return Of Martha Splatterhead in there unfortunately.

Today’s post is sort of a clearing house for the other most interesting tapes I spotted on ebay this week. As a result, none of the tapes have anything to do with eachother, they’re about as unrelated as could be.

Firstly is this Gai “Damnation” tape from Japan. It’s not really clear even after consulting a few heads, whether this was released before or after the group had already disbanded, but it is considered to be official, and judging by the fact that the seller is auctioning a legit copy of Stalin “Trash” (among other gems) I would expect it to be an authentic original. Gai are one of the template for so many noize-core groups there after, and sadly, so many embarrassing myspace only punk bands. If you want to know about fuzzed out, dumbed down, noized up Japanese punk, check out www.shit-fi.com. There’s a great series that walks you through the essentials, and has some good downloads.

Next on the list: a Half-Off “Who Writes Your Rules” demo. Billy Rubin was the original ex-straight edge agitator, except he was never smart enough to make the kind of name and career for himself that Sam Mcpheters did. In fact I’d say he was a bit of a dunce, and an average hard core vocalist at best. Half-off is a thoroughly so-so band, but this demo is not bad, maybe better than their lp (with such ugly cover art) on New Beginning. Maybe if the drumming had not been so terrible, and the guitars a little more in tune, I’d cut the album a little more slack. Eventually the guitarist took his own life, and the remaining members formed Haywire, which kind of mixed a muscular post-Flag Rollins Band/Bl’ast rock, with heady Dan O’ type pseudo philosophical lyrics. I always wanted it to be good, but like Half-Off, my feeling is that it never sparked and caught fire.

Continuing on the “has nothing to do with the one before it” line: a Merauder demo for you! Truthfully my interest in NYHC stops before Merauder came on the scene by a year or two. But for post-Madball, post-Vulgar Display of Power, post-Obituary, dusted, gang related NYHC groups, there really is no other. Wait, that’s wrong. The scene in NY was choked with others in the mid-90s, but Merauder are considered one of the lasting greats. For me, it’s too hard. It’s just too hard. But for my friend Rob Buschgans, it’s just right,  and when he says “Hardest Out”, he’s speaking the truth. This demo is infamous because it predates the line-up on their “classic” Master Killer lp, and instead has a very scary dude, by the name of Minus on vocals (not that Jorge, the singer on that album isn’t also extremely scary).

Last up, another “completely unrelated” item, by a band who would probably be bummed to know they were getting mentioned right after Merauder, (but, if I ever cared less…): Midnight (PDX) - demo. This is not to be confused with the superior Midnight from Ohio who have been making records for the past few years. No, this is from Portland OR’s fertile crusty HC scene of the early 00’s. Though it’s one of the lesser-known releases of the time period, I expect that it’s going to be more and more sought after as time goes on, and had this demo been followed by a record, it would have most likely been one that was well liked. Anyhow, I guess the hook on this is it features the guitarist/main vocalist of From Ashes Rise, and I think at least one member of Lebenden Toten as well. The sound is pretty much like From Ashes Rise/HHIG/Tragedy - that epic/arena Crust sound. Maybe it’s a little more metallic, but the biggest difference I guess is the female vocals (though you probably wouldn’t know if no one told you - they’re very burley).

So ends this week of tapes, with the seemingly solid (on Tuesday) concept, fraying into a scatter-shot mess by Friday. Nonetheless, I’ll be back after the weekend, and it shall be business as usual.

I am running a tad later than normal today, but here’s 2 more cool tapes to scope out.  First a real quick one, is this Sex Pistols ”Heyday” cassette on Tony Wilson’s Factory Records. I’m not like a huge Sex Pistols fan or anything (who is?), but this tape comps a bunch of interviews, which are probably more interesting than their songs, and as is customery with Factory in its own heyday, the packaging is cool as hell. It’s a low number in the Factory catalog too (Fact.30).

 The same seller is also offering a Charred Remains tape comp, which is a little weird. To be exact it’s a “promotional version” with no cover, but including the booklet for the comp. To my knowledge most copies do come with this large booklet, despite the description here, so you may be able to obtain a first generation copy of this for less than normal. Version Sound put out a couple of these 60 min. tape only compilations back in the early 80s and filled them up with tons of midwest and east coast USHC. One thing that’s sort of invaluable in these comps existing is finding out about less known bands along with hearing fairly raw offerings by the more known groups on them. Lineup on this one is:

• Articles Of Faith (one of their best sessions, like 5 songs!)
• Die Kreuzen (might pre-date their 7″)
• District Tradition (so unremarkable… kind of like a 3rd rate TSOL)
• Dogs Of War (typical Americanized Discharge influence… pretty good)
• Double O (much better than their 7″ on R&B, might be from their demo)
• Husker Du (live track - sounds like their live lp)
• Misguided (this track is always better than I remember the band being)
• Personality Crisis (never liked this… sounds like rock guys trying to be punk)
• Rebel Truth (sing-songy nursery rhyme HC, almost bad religion-ish)
• Sin 34 (could be the same as Rebel Truth w/ Female vocals, solid thrash)
• Toxic Reasons (classic track, kinda puts the last few bands in their place) 
• UXB (like a bootleg Youth Brigade Cali)
• Violent Apathy (surprisingly good considering their rep as one of the worst)
• Void (a couple tracks from the Condensed Flesh session; CLASSIC)
• 5051 (I guess about as good as Rebel Truth)

Somehow I’m falling into a tape theme up in here. I didn’t mean to but scrolling through a bunch of really good records, these 3 cassettes stood out to me. All most definitely originals (I once shared an apartment with 2 Raw Deal demos). I never took the plunge on buying up original demo tapes but they’re undeniably cool, especially when from my favorite demo tape locale, NYC. I mean it’s no secret I can talk about this stuff more than any other microgenre in hardcore. To be totally exact though, one is from Connecticut, and another Long Island, but Raw Deal is undeniably New York City, Yonkers to be exact. Raw Deal took the blueprint that most of them had already laid out in Breakdown, injected a level of percision Breakdown never really seemed to have, and made a hell of a band out of it. The main thing that always struck me as the difference between the two was the much tighter drumming, and guitar playing, everything is more in synch. Don’t take that as a slight to Breakdown, who I honestly prefer, but Raw Deal, and later Killing Time, just come off more palletable. 

From Long Island, comes the classic Beyond “Dew It” demo. You could make a sound arguement for this being better than the No Longer At Ease lp they recorded just a year later. I wouldn’t, but one could. The level of fleeting youthful anger and uncertainty about the future on display is impressive with how clearly it’s articulated, and despite the lyrics getting a little day/way, slow/go, fast/last, the vocal phrasing is surprisingly well thought out, frequently breaking with and going against the flow of the song. Of course focusing on that would say nothing of the music itself which is shockingly well performed and nuanced, coming across in a way similar to Absolution at their best, but sounding completely and altogether different musically. That of course is still leaving out one important fact: Beyond are all highschool aged on this recording. Seasons was written by a bunch of 16 year olds, think about that. I mean REALLY think about that. It’s one thing to hear a band like the Teen Idles and have someone tell you “they’re only 18 on this recording”. It’s not really a surprise. Beyond at 16/17 years of age, not only were worlds more technically skilled than most of their peer group, but had the compositional skills to lay pretty much everyone not named Gavin van Vlack to waste.

Oh and there’s also the Wide Awake - “Hold True” demo, which is their most well known demo tape. Seriously what am I supposed to say about a demo tape that has an X’d up character from Family Circus on it. The 7″ is pretty good late 80s SxE HC cheese, but like the same way Polly-O string cheese is good. It’s not exactly the best idea to try and subsist off it.

More tapes tomorrow?

Check out this dude selling some original foriegn HC demos. For me the 2 coolest pics are the original Raw Power demo, and this Bastards tape on Propaganda (one side studio, one side live).  Far as I know these are original as could be, and if you’re lucky haven’t been overplayed.  There’s something about the tape aesthetic that is irreplacable. Even though tapes are harder to mass produce than CDs at this point, sound worse than vinyl, or CD, and are easiest to break, bands keep making them. Maybe it’s some kind of OCD thing with how everything fits so nicely into that little plastic case. It’s the ultimate in portability.

belated year end list for 2007:

12”/CD

1. Gauze – 5th cd (don’t have the translated title handy)
2. Black Sabbath w/ Ronnie James Dio – The Dio Years (new songs)
3. Skitkids – Besoket Vid Krubban
4. Iron Lung – Sexless//No Sex
5. Electric Wizard – Witch Cult Today
6. Rampage – Limit Of Destruction
7. California Love – Reaping Whirlwind
8. Invasion – 12”
9. Crow – Hametsu No Haoto
10. Double Negative – The Wonderful and Frightening World…

7”/EP :

1. Framtid/Seein’ Red - split 7”
2. Waste Management – Get Your Mind Right
3. Death Church – Unsilent Hate Anthem
4. Jay Reatard – I Know A Place
5. Iron Age – The Burden Of Empire
6. Wasted Time – No Shore
7. Total Noise Accord -
8. Sex/Vid - Tania
9. Threatener – Bending Of Throats
10. Kvoteringen/Pisschrist – split 7”

REISSUES:

1. Imperialist Pigs - Pork Corkscrew
2. The Stalin - Stop Jap Naked
3. Thergothon - Sog Yogoth demo 12″
4. Talk is Poison - Condensed Humanity
5. Diatribe - demo ‘85 7″
6. Siege - Drop Dead 3rd edition (new song, i gotta include it)
7. Mob 47 - s/t 7 “
8. Despise You - West Side Horizons vinyl
9. The Kids - s/t
10. Deathyell - Morbid Rites

Welcome to another Metal Monday, this being the 5th. First cool thing I spotted for the installment before you, is this original Thergothon demo tape on “Wild Rags”. To be exact, the title of the demo is Yog Sothoth. One of the many rules of Heavy Metal is that if you can’t pronounce something, it’s either taken from an H.P. Lovecraft story, or it’s in a foreign language, (more likely the former though). As I’m not a huge fan, personally I may be wrong, but I recall Yog Sothoth as one of Lovecraft’s “Great Old Ones” who’s since been appropriated into junk like the recent monster movie Cloverfield. Also the frequent appearance of tentacled monsters on Thergothon items tipped me off to this. If you’ve ever read Lovecraft you know that it lumbers along with a sort of grotesque and Gothic fixation on all things unholy and profane. Thergothon really is a band that captures that feeling perfectly with the music on this demo, and their lone album, Stream From the Heavens, which cemented them forevermore as a pioneer of the Funeral Doom genre. The songs move so slowly, that even if it was sped up to double time it would still be slow. The vocals so gutteral it may as well be Cthulu himself speaking to you, and the music so sombre and cold, it feels like it’s coming from that Cyclopian world of misery and doom. It’s very dramatic yes, but also effective, and truly fitting of its title. Really I can’t think of a single band that is more downbeat and dreadful sounding than Thergothon.

Additionally I picked out a couple of Tom Warrior’s better works. First of all there’s this Hellhammer “Apocalyptic Raids” 12″ on Noise. Note that it’s original, not a repress on Combat, or some other bizzaro repress. By many accounts this thing was absolutely reviled by “professional” metal types when it came out. I guess it just took a minute for some people to get it, but boy do they ever now. You can pre-order (i believe on ebay via various distributors) an upcoming, deluxe 3lp boxset of chronicling pretty much all of the known Hellhammer demos, including some not really in circulation. I believe Century Media is at least in part issuing this, so it’s something of a professional production. On the other end of the spectrum you have Thomas Gabriel Ficsher Warrior’s arguably most ambitious, (though no less pretentious - that is always ranked at a 10 out of 10) release, Into The Pandemonium; Celtic Frost’s, 3rd lp (also the original Noise pressing). Now truthfully finding a copy of this album is neither hard, nor a pricey endeavor, but I want to note it because I personally find it to be a compelling and under appreciated album. I can’t say it is the best Celtic Frost album, but I sometimes can say I feel it is my favorite (and I’ve thought about it at great length). I understand it’s an instant turn-off for a lot of people with  this album stating with a cover of Mexican Radio, which I almost don’t consider part of the real album picture, but once Mesmerized kicks in, I think there’s a lot to sink your teeth into. It has a heavy groove, it flirts with melody, but to me anyway, it doesn’t feel like the band losing their sound like you could say they did on Cold Lake. It just brings some of the obvious gothy vibes that are more below the surface on earlier releases, into the light. When I went to see the reunited incarnation of Frost in 2007, they played only one song from this album (Mesmerized), and even after nearly 45 minutes of nothing but material from the first 2 albums, at least half the people watching looked bored or annoyed that they decided to play this number. In fact hardly anyone seems to make mention of how Monotheist, their first release since reuniting, draws as heavily from the goth type atmospherics, and experimental moments on Into the Pandemonium as it does from earlier phases of the band, or for that matter, from groups like Gorgoroth and Satyricon, who themselves were originally followers of Hellhammer and Frost. What I’m trying to say is that anyone who considers Into Pandemonium b-cannon is the kind of person that doesn’t listen to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath because “it’s got too many keyboards on it”. In other words, a fool. Tracks like Mesmerized, and Caress Into Oblivion are where I picture Sheer Terror getting the inspiration to come out and do a number like Roses.