bidhardcore.com

Mecht Mensch - “Acceptance” 7″

Here’s some ripshit, 2nd rate but still GREAT early 80’s USHC.  I’ve always dug this 7″ and sadly didn’t buy a copy when it wasn’t worth nothing to nobody. Mecht Mensch released a demo or two (one is a split with the Tar Babies) before they unleashed this little slab. It strikes me as a less severe take on the Die Kruezen lp. Still this is totally psychotic stuff for the early 80s, right up there with United Mutation and the like.

Opening with the title track, you hear stings of a dissonant guitar chord which continues through the song, almost reminding me of No Trend, but also a lot like Die Kruezen. The drums hammer along in classic hardcore fashion and the singer spits it like it’s ‘82 and he’s just waiting for his big chance to open the local Necros show which gives everything a nice tension. It’s not a totally smooth gelling between guitarist and singer, but that makes it better. When the chorus hits things get mean with some really guttural screaming for ‘82/’83, the guitar here takes a descending Ginn style pattern as the drums get a little slower before charging ahead again. “Grinder” starts with a creepy open chord section that kind of makes me think of zombies in a slam pit. The hardcore part comes next, but the slow zombie mosh part is what I like, and what you as a listener remember. When it kicks back in there’s a great reverbed dive-bomb that sounds like a motorcycle engine. Total creep jamming. Land of the Brave has a Dischargy flavor especially with the drummer taking it in the “No TV Sketch” direction. A bit standard compared to the first two songs but a good way to close the side.

Funny I mentioned zombies already because side b opens with a classic 80’s style dirge, entitled “Zombie”. This one’s got all the shit you expect: a crawling pace, tasty reverb effects, growling and moaning. I’ve always thought this was a great one and it’s my favorite cut on the record. Total teenage obnoxiousness proto-noise rock. Speaking of noise-rock… the producer/engineer on this record is none other than Butch Vig. Maybe you’ve heard his band Garbage? Or perhaps you know his work on the albums Nevermind and Siamese Dream. Jimmy Chamberlains drumming notwithstanding, I like this 7″ better than either of those. 

“Whats Right” finishes the record, a bit more standard hardcore, with a little bit of rock soloing even (but just a little). Maybe they should have closed with Zombie, still this is a cool track, the looseness and bad recording almost make it Venom-ish, but not quite. 

Anyway if someone wants to trade this EP, look my way because I actually would really like a copy.  

PS - I’m selling some (mostly) newer records on ebay, you can probably pick something up cheap that you missed the first time around. Lots of BARGAINS.

 [CLICK CLICK CLICK]

Rikk Agnew is the Orange County Hardcore’s original journeyman guitar player, doing time on key recordings by The Adolescents, D.I., Christian Death, and Social Distortion (I think this was brief). The 80’s beachpunk sound owes more to him than arguably anybody else, and at his peak in the early 80’s he tried going solo, cutting the album “All By Myself”.

The opening cut “OC Life” was later re-recorded by D.I. when Agnew was playing with them, but to me this is the superior version, and one of the great Socal punk lp openers. The song is a condemnation of the yuppie culture surrounding the lower portions of California in the early 80s, with the chorus “OC life is not the life for me/stupid little girls/and egotistical boys” set to Agnew’s patented mid-paced surf punk riffs and overlaid with major-key harmonies. Agnew delivers a clean, mostly on-key, vocal that sounds like a more grown up/mature Tony Cadena from the original Adolescents lp. There’s some smooth backing keyboards to accent things as well, and its clear that even though it’s a punk lp Agnew wasn’t afraid to focus his pop sensibilities more than ever before. When the second song, “10″ kicks in with its prominent keyboard stings, it cements what OC Life had already suggested. However, despite the new wave coloring in some passages most of the riffs could fit in with the early Adolescents material, they’ve just had a couple extra coats of sheen applied here; and why not? At the core of most of Agnew’s songs there is a simple Beach Boys type pop-sensibility, it make sense to emphasize it on his solo debut. What are solo records for, if not self indulgence?

How poppy does it get? Check out the song “Everyday” a sugar coated love song, that despite the ridiculously bad love song lyrics, has a great little chorus. With a different kind of production and a publicist I think it could have charted in the 80s. Maybe it could have been sold to a different singer?

I have to admit, I’m personally fascinated and drawn to solo works by people who are previously known as ensemble players. I think there’s something special about hearing what someone can do entirely on their own, especially when they’re used to relying on others. What they focus on in the song writing, what mistakes they make, and what off the wall triumphs come out of their experiments. All By Myself, like most solo lps is uneven to be sure, but it’s a great look into one man’s interests and tastes at a certain point in time. Here those happen to be epic skate punk ragers with echos of Phil Spector style bombast, and a hint of the darkness.

All By Myself has gone in and out of print over the years on Frontier records, but the best way to tell an original pressing is to look for the lyric insert, and to check that the back of the sleeve doesn’t have a printed barcode. This one seems to fit that criteria so bid away.

Hello - just a little foreword here, my daily schedule is in the process of a revamp, and as such, I’m still figuring out when I can hit the blog scene. For the time being I’ll hit it whenever I can, and hopefully I will get a routine down. Also, for the time being, if you want to read my thoughts on home recording once a month, check out the Basement Screams column in MRR. This is strictly for the amateur lo-fi/no-fi/beginner crowd. I will not be reviewing the latest guitar center gear, nor will I be giving you tips on the safest way to dumpster dive.

For now - Pick Your King on clear

It’s a classic but also a starting point for one of the most prolific and important music careers of the last 30 years. Jamming it now as I type it’s still a shocker how stripped to the bone everything is. One guitar track without much distortion on one side, a fuzzed out bass on the other, a meaty snare drum behind them, and hoarse shouts in the middle. Riffs are just a few chords crashing into each other, Discharge style simplicity and speed, with the snot nosed obnoxiousness of early Black Flag. 13 songs that just blow by in their speed and simplicity but already have the beginnings of Poison Idea’s tuneful and “song-oriented” approach that eventually came into full bloom later. Observe “Pure Hate” which injects some mid-paced rock ‘n roll tendencies into their otherwise thrashed out tendencies, or the noodling goof-off verse of “Reggae (I Hate)” (one of the best song titles ever). Don’t be fooled though, there’s plenty of 30-60 second string grating throat shredding slammers like Think Twice, Thing Called Progress, or Cult Band.

The original pressing of Pick Your King is on clear vinyl, and comes in a white sleeve. The sleeve itself is one of the best examples of the hardcore “found art” aesthetic. One side has Elvis, the other Christ, and both pose the challenge “Pick Your King”.

ANGRY SAMOANS - INSIDE MY BRAIN

Man these days there’s an endless glut of snotty 2 chord clean guitar hardcore/punk bands that go for the irreverent perfection of the first 2 Angry Samoans 12″s, and unfortunately they basically all miss the point. Still this will not tarnish the sugar coated greatness of Inside My Brain. On this original version (pre-bonus trax) Metal Mike and company take the seeds of early LA HC & Punk but fit them to their already existing 60’s punk fixations. It wasn’t just biting off bits of the Damned, the Ramones, and the Dickies that formed the basis for their sound, but also but also all that inept suburban garage rock found on the Nuggets compilations. In this way, despite all the “fucks” in the songs, the Samoans had a secret pop edge that few bands at the time could match, and few of their imitators since have really been able to grasp. The Right Side Of My Mind, Gimme Sopor, You Stupid Asshole, Get Off The Air — these songs never leave you once you hear ‘em. Gold plated million dollar choruses, it’s too bad they made a stack of bad records after the early 80’s because it’s the only thing that can dim the radiance of these jams. Really not too much to say about this one other than that. It would make could cruising music for spring if the weather didn’t seem intent on staying below freezing at least 4 days a week where I live. Maybe I can pogo to stay warm.

“Brutal” is an adjective that folks throw around wily nily these days. It’s no big deal to a lot of people. Brutal this, BRUTAL that, FUCKIN’ BRUTAL SLUDGE RIFFS BRO, etc. It’s really overused y’know? Brutality, when it’s real, is something that’s primitive and savage. It feels violent at its core, no matter what “it” happens to be (a song, a word, a building). It’s governed by something that’s neither modern, nor refined, nor civilized.

Showing or suggesting a disposition to be violently destructive without scruple or restraint.

Follow me?

YDI - A Place In The Sun (1983).

The cover is a black and white shot with a coarse film grain. The scene is a WWI battlefield littered with dead bodies. One is being picked at by a wolf. Might be a dog actually.

A Place In The Sun opens with a distorted guitar line, much like you’re used to, but also not at all like you’re used to. It sounds like the band was using an older amplifier that didn’t have an actual distortion channel to record with. They compensated for this by cranking the gain knob to its loudest volume, but finding this was still not distorted enough, elected to record the guitar with the mixer actually peaking into the red so as to further distort the sound. It produces something much thicker, much more abrasive, than anything I’ve ever heard. Like Blue Cheer - “Vincebus Eruptum” trying to kill you.  It’s a unique, uncivilized sound, with serious weight and presence. The drums and bass come in bashing in a way that almost equals the guitar sound. Reckless and LOUD. 

When vocalist Jackal makes his entrance it’s clear that he’s on par with the rest of the racket. He snarls and intimidates and growls and howls and seethes all the way through each song. His teeth sound clenched and his sanity questionable. Thuggish doesn’t even begin to describe it. Unsafe might would be an understatement. A Place In The Sun is of the same tradition as No Policy, and Can’t Tell No One. Though it may not have been as ground breaking or historically important, it’s every bit as good. This is the sound of real violent youth in a post apocalyptic world. This music is physical. It crashes against your body with measurable and seismic force. Wood breaking glass. Metal striking concrete. Bricks hitting bones.

Chew on song titles like “Out For Blood”, “Mad At The World”, “Get Up and Fight”, “Not Shit” — YDI (I should have mentioned before that’s pronounced WHY DIE?) are as blunt as a baseball bat, and as capable of inducing trauma. It’s 1983, you’re standing up front, Jackal is wearing a studded leather vest and a Damaged t-shirt swinging a mic at you. There’s a good chance you’ll leave missing teeth or with glass stuck in your scalp.

Brutal.

For its day, The Zero Boys “Vicious Circle” lpis a bit of a curiosity. A lot of the songs are bouncy Middle Class style thrashers that are just tuneful enough to stick to your ribs, but there’s also a fair amount of rockin’ mid-paced material that really sounds a lot like Leave Home/Rocket to Russia Ramones with big 60’s melodies and crunchy guitars. Actually the guitars on this one have that unmistakable early 80’s stereo chorus. I read that Vicious Circle was basically recorded live, and so in place of a 2nd guitar track I’d assume they just had the guitar player do his thing in stereo through a chorus pedal.  Despite that dated piece though, this one’s pretty timeless. One of my favorite Midwest (Indiana) HC/punk lps that there ever was.

The title track opens things up in a swirl of dizzy call responses and it’s over in under a minute, which segues into the first mega-classic jam Amphetamine Addiction. This one has that great Ramones style that I mentioned before. Catchy and memorable til the last, this song will be bouncing around your skull til you die after you hear it. Definitely not a drug glorifying song, which I suppose was the style at the time, but it’s so energizing it’s like a virtual amphetamine shot in your arm. Next is New Generation, then Dirty Alleys Dirty Minds, and then my fav track on the A-side Civilization’s Dying - a classic anthem for the 80s, or now. This song is just such an expertly crafted piece of pop injected punk (the good kind we like, not the bad kind on your tv), it’s almost hard to describe. The chorus is solid gold, it ought to have been honored by some official body of musical achievement. It’s a peace song I guess. The opening lyrics: “Civilization’s dying/and no one’s realizing/The position of hate stuck inside the gun ” are a decent summation of that. This is probably the best, and most recognized Zero Boys song, not to down play their many other great songs. Closing out the side they revisit “Livin’ In The 80’s” from their giga-rare single, and then do “Drug Free Youth”, which predates the Abused song of the same name and actually was the reason I purchased this lp in the first place.

The B-side while not quite as perfect still has a fair share of hits, and probably leans a little more towards the hardcore side of the Zero Boys’ sound. Down The Drain, Outta Style, and You Can Touch Me last about a minute and change each. Forced Entry has a good call-response and is a tad longer. Hightime returns to the mid-paced rock side of things with vocals by I think the guitar player. This one’s a totally under rated NY/Detroit style rocker, there’s even a “Hey Ho Let’s Go” thrown into the lyrics. Not sure where it fits in with Drug Free Youth but it woulda made a great single A-side for its pogo-a-bility. Charlie’s Place is a second teir jam, but that’s still pretty good if it’s the Zero Boys. Trying Harder is the big Rock N Roll closer running at 3 minutes, and even more Ramonesy than than anything else on the lp. It’s definitely teir one sugary punk though.

Original pressings of Vicious Circle are on Nimrod records, and supposedly were kind of hard to find even back when they hit the streets. There were several represses, first on Toxic Shock, then Bitzcore, then Lookout, and most recently Secretly Canadian (who also released the odds and ends anthology The History Of The Zero Boys). This is one of the original Nimrod pressings, and it’ll probably run about $100, maybe a little more or less, but it looks pretty clean in the pictures.

Battalion Of Saints - “Second Coming” lp

Here’s a platter of crucial early 80’s San Diego punk. Similar to a lot of other big USHC bands from this time period but distinguished by the batshit crazy vocal attack of George Anthony, who comes shrieking like a coked up maniac (probably was) on the opener, My Mind’s Diseased. It’s probably the best track on the album, and it’s surely his best cut vocally, but let that not diminish your view of the rest of this rock solid classic. If you care for the likes of Government Warning or Direct Control these days, you ought to know this one, because it’s basically the template for what they’ve been doing (hardcorepunkmetal). Yes the music has a bit of heavy metal color to it, but with a limited amount of technical prowess, esepecially from the drummer who often employs the well liked “D-Beat”. Actually this lp is a lot like what the post Discharge band Broken Bones really ended up sounding like. Only I happen to think this is a bit more ripping and rocked out. Less stiff, you know?

Holy Vision has some cool shredding and soloing from guitarist Chris Smith (not the same as Integrity/Inmates/Keelhaul member Chris Smith), dipping between the flashy showoff heavy metal side, and the string grating random noise hardcore side. No More Lies opens with the riff from (I think) some early Motorhead song, before busting into another call response style hardcore attack that should fill your meat and potatoes fix quite well. Actually a lot of the songs kind of combine the speed and thickness of classic Motorhead, with the kind of American beach punk feel of The Adolecents and all that. The album even closes with a fairly good cover of Motorhead’s “Ace Of Spades”, and I don’t take Motorhead covers lightly.

The cover is some awesome Mad Marc Rude work with the classic “skeletons emerging from the ruins” theme, found on so many good punk and metal lps.

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.