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hardcore records on ebay — aggregated and examined
Doug Moody. Oh Doug Moody… The Roger Corman of American Hardcore. On the wikipedia entry for Mystic Records you’ll find the following information:
Mystic was founded by Doug Moody who wanted it to be a platform for America’s youth to voice their opinions musically. The label attracted Hardcore Thrash and Speed Metal (a term Moody is credited with coining) bands. In its heyday (between 1983 and 1985), Mystic released over 100 different records with several hundred artists. Moody was assisted in his efforts by Philco Raves (who assisted in recording and production) Bill Karras (sales and distribution) and Mark Wilkins aka Mystic Mark, (Record and Tour Promotion)…
There’s no doubt this was written by one of the people it mentions, but it’s at least somewhat informational. Now way back a while ago I’d heard Doug had a career in the recording industry prior to Mystic, and after some internet clicks, I found a record of that on this blog: Selections From The Punk Vault. If you scroll to the bottom and read through the comments you can see Moody and a couple of his associates chime in and give the full picture of how the Mystic empire came to be. I’m not going to excerpt it at length here, but suffice it to say, the dude was in the music industry working with everything, from Classical, to Gospel, to Doo-Wop, it’s insane that for some of us he’s most known not for the dozens of Gold records of 50’s and 60’s artists that he A&R’d, but for releasing records like this comp: We Got Power.
In practice this is probably the best Mystic compilation and, in the classic Mystic style it’s seriously filled to the edge of the record with songs; 40 to be exact. One big difference is that it’s got a lot more “big names” than most other releases on Mystic. As explained through the comments in the above link, the folks at Mystic did not start a punk label because they were a part of the scene, they were just looking for a niche. When you look back at the insanely large 80’s Mystic Catalog it becomes obvious that it was just about producing a product quick and cheap for basically, any hardcore band (so it seems). The same way Roger Corman was basically just throwing together whatever he could on a limited budget looking for a returned. Quality and ability generally don’t seem to be concerns once you start to sample the Mystic back catalog. It’s like a hardcore junksale. If you wanna get down on your hands and knees you might find something cool, but it ain’t gonna be much. Still it’s hard to argue with this particular tracklist:
1. THE AUTHORITIES “I Hate Cops” / 2. THE NIP DRIVERS “Tang” / 3. JFA “Middle America” / 4. DR. KNOW “Savior” / 5.WHITE FLAG “Celabate” / 6. WHITE CROSS “Nuke Attack” / 7. FUCK-UPS “Bacon and Eggs” / 8. PUTRID GIRLS “1 2 3 4″ / 9. ILL REPUTE “Count the Odds” / 10. STALAG 13 “Selfish” / 11. REBEL TRUTH “Monkey’s Paw” / 12. WILLFUL NEGLECT “E.M.S. & D.” / 13. TAR BABIES “Confused” / 14. MECHT MENSCH “Might Makes Right” / 15. GRAVEN IMAGE “My World” / 16. THE VACANT “Caught by the Mafia” / 17. ADRENALIN OD “World War 4″ / 18. THE CLONES “Conform to the Norm” / 19. THE BIG BOYS “Brick Walls” / 20. SIN 34 “Not” / 21. MINUTEMEN “Party With Me Punker” / 22. DAYGLO ABORTIONS “Scared of people” / 23. CAUSTIC CAUSE “Look to the Left” / 24. DON’T NO “Blind Ambition” / 25. S.V.D.B. “Flames of Hell” / 26. PATRIOTS “Cavity” / 27. HATED PRINCIPLES “Survival At All Costs” / 28. CRANKSHAFT “New Wave Homos” / 29. URBAN ASSAULT (S.F.) “Night on the Town” / 30.URBAN ASSULT (Tahoe) “Rock’n'Roll Burnout” / 31. 7 SECONDS “Wasted Life Ain’t No Crime” / 32. JACK SHIT “Follow the Leader” / 33. ATHEISTS “Music I Can’t Stand” / 34. ROMULANS “Judgement Day” / 35. NO LABELS “Ego” / 36. ARMED RESPONSE “Too Gross for Comfort” / 37. DERANGED DICTION “Crooning” / 38. FALSE CONFESSION / 39. MANIMALS “Things Under My Bed” / 40. RED CROSS “Pseudo Intellectual”
Note - if you’re a little uptight about your hardcore, and don’t wanna get kinda touchy feely, DO NOT READ THIS POST. Instead, look at this: CLICK
Some of the most intense and difficult conversations I’ve had about punk and hardcore and other signifiers like “post” and “emo” have stemmed from Moss Icon. They were a great band in their day. I know because they have one of the telling marks of great bands: that all of their imitators horribly SUCK. It’s not that you can never imitate great bands. The number of wonderful Discharge or Minor Threat imitations that the years have given us aer numerous, and plentiful. But sometimes there are bands that no matter how many people attempt to liberally borrow from them, are always done no justice by the gesture.
Case In Point = Moss Icon. This is probably one of the first bands that you could classify as “emo-core”, they have a lot of sonic similarities to groups like Rites Of Spring & Ignition, later Articles Of Faith even. They grew up and entered the scene in Annapolis Maryland, near Washington DC, but removed far enough that at best you could call it a satellite. Annapolis is a weird town I visited a few times growing up. It’s home to the Naval Academy, and by my personal recollection, numerous antique shops. There’s something positively isolated about the approach to their music and delivery, and I think it coresponds in some way to the fact that they were an Annapolis band. I can’t explain it but I sense it there. Maybe I only feel this way because I know more about the band and their location. In interviews members talk about their lack of interest in many of the DC bands. They liked Void, and Beefeater, but felt indifferent towards Embrace and Marginal Man.
One reason Moss Icon has proven so inimitable for this might be that vocalist John Vance was a perma-stoned literature/poetry freak, and while his stream of consciousness yell/talk/shout style was earnest, and has been imitated by boatloads of horrible “emo” and “screamo” bands, he seemed to have some place in an actual literary and philosophical tradition. I feel kind of stupid bringing this up because:
- Even though I write on this blog 5 days a week, I rarely read anything, and when I do, I prefer escapism.
- This is a Blog about hardcore, punk, trading records, stage dives, leather jackets… not college term papers.
However, I think that this is important to understanding why Moss Icon worked, and above all they were a good hardcore band on this record. Whereas your average band imitating this style of vocal basically delivered a high school/coffee house level poetry reading riddled with disjointed imagery about ex girlfriends and distant parents, Vance was able to evoke imagery of solitude and nature. He is probably one of the only singers I’ve ever heard that could effectively empathize with, ahem, The Plight of the Native American. He could also relate, brilliantly, feelings of suburban anomie, and anxiety like no other. He quoted Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a distinguished philosopher and poet whom I know nothing about.
In some ways Vance is an American/Americanized answer to Ian Curtis. It’s filtering the same kind of sentiments of disconnection and melancholy through a different but similar cultural starting point. As a band Moss Icon has similarities to Joy Division too. While they don’t particularly sound alike, and are coming from different moments in history there’s a connection, especially as Moss Icon developed an approach of dirging, echoy repetition in their career. The first real example of that comes on this record, with the song “I’m Back Sleeping Or Fucking Or Something”. As the bass drones on one riff and the drums skitter and bang behind it, Vance rants a semi abstract tale of childhood, painful and agonizing in his delivery. Guitarist Tonie Joy squalls feedback between massive power chords and has a pretty good sense of when to play and when to hang back. You know that pretentious ol’ “he knows what NOT to play”. It’s a panic attack with a drum beat maybe.
Elsewhere the record finds the band less chaotic, but just as effective. The other 3 songs, all have a more typically hardcore tempos and composition, but with more intricate guitar playing, which is why they often get compared to the Rites Of Spring lp, although Joy is adamant that he had not really listened to them at the time. Some of the influence then, can at least be pinned on their peers The Hated, who in turn were sort of what would happen if Husker Du weren’t popular nationally, and got really into Simon and Garfunkel. Back to Moss Icon though, what sets this apart and makes it superior from Rites Of Spring to me, is that there’s still the anger and frustration of Hardcore’s past noticeable in the music (at least at this stage of the Moss Icon catalog). Rites Of Spring spent so much of themselves trying to escape the machismo that they felt was “ruining the scene”, that I believe they lost a lot of the anger too.
Moss Icon eventually took a more reserved approach, but never lost any of their emotional complexity. This 7″ though, often referred to as “Gretta Garbo” for the photo on the cover of the early movie star, or as Hate In Me for the first song on it, is still my favorite. It’s a clash of sloppy hardcore anger, and subtle melody, hoarse screaming, and thoughtful poetry…or something. Look I just think if you ever feel like listening to “emo-core”, this record beats them all. A scant few have been able to tread the line like Moss Icon did. There’s only 500 copies of this record pressed on the band’s own Vermin Scum label, and I suspect it may go for a lower price (under $40) because it has a high starting bid. Usually these top out at $60.
Also I have to give some credit to Zac and Bobby Busch, as the observations in this post are at least partially inspired by a long Moss Icon thread we participated in on a message board.
I’ll try and post about something pertaining to skinheads tomorrow to make up for this.
While lesser bands of the day continue to increase in infamy, get bootlegged, and be sported on shitty looking tshirts by members of bands with names like Social Crisis, Negative Abuse, Ripping Group, Control Unit, etc., The Stains languish in semi-obscurity, known only to collectors and old men. Their s/t 12″ is one of the best examples of why SST is simultaneously the greatest and shittiest label of all time. While new Mojack and Zoogz Rift CDs are still appearing on a weekly basis, Mr. Ginn has records like this deleted from his catalog (to say nothing of The Dicks - Kill From the Heart, and the undoubtedly massive archive of unreleased Black Flag).
The Stains 12″ is one of the earliest recordings of meat and potatoes USHC, created in ‘81, although the band was started allegedly as early as 1976, the album didn’t actually see release until 1983. What a bummer for the band, (they broke up shortly after). You can still taste some of the heavy metal and rock influences that the members would have obviously drawn from, coming up in the original LA Hardcore scene. It’s not that far off a band like The Fix who were making similar sounds during this time, despite no close proximity to The Stains. I gotta mention that for an album recorded by Spot this one has a great sound. Crunchy thick guitar (much thicker than usual), solid drums, and vocals that are, for once, not 10x too loud in the mix. Maybe the fact that personalities like Greg Ginn or Bob Mould weren’t flexing their egos all over the process is the reason this record actually sounds good. I think these guys might have some connection to Overkill L.A. (another great lost SST band), but I’m not entirely certain.
“Mixed Nuts Don’t Crack”, is a really cool, lesser known DCHC compilation dating from 82/83 on Outside records. I think that label was run by people from Nuclear Crayons who are on this compilation, and have 2 other records on Outside. I guess a lot of the bands on here went to one High School, Bethesda Chevy Chase High (or so say those who were around at the time).
The most important thing on this comp in my view, are the United Mutation tracks culled from an ‘82 demo session. All 4 are just thrashing guttural insanity, maybe their most out of control offerings ever in terms of speed and rage. The vocals deliver totally unintelligible nihilism and anger, the music shreds along, occasionally falling apart into an echo’d mess. These tracks are as essential as the deconstructed genius of Void’s Flex Your Head tracks.
Following United Mutation (who are actually on side 2), are Nuclear Crayons, who are at their noisiest on this release, giving a decent approximation of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. I’m not sure how necessary this stuff is really, but it’s kind of cool someone was at least trying it in DC in the early 80’s, I’d imagine they pissed off a lot of punks.
Hate From Ignorance unremarkable closes out this half of the record. Sort of melodic and angular, honestly it’s hard to remember I skip their tracks most of the time. Also-ran status.
Side 1 takes off with the little known Media Disease who played competent, though not particularly distinguished thrashing hardcore. These guys were tight with United Mutation and some of them went on to play with Malefice. They totally should have had a single on DSI although they’re not as psychotic sounding as any of the other bands, they were a Fairfax band. “Redneck Asshole” is a classic 20 second blast of hate. Media Disease knock out 6 songs in probably 4 or 5 minutes on here. These songs and a demo tape were comped on a bootleg double 7″ on Lost and Found in the early 90’s that’s semi cool if you can pick it up for $10>.
Chalk Circle comes next. I’m pretty sure this was an all female band, they play sort of mellow post punk/wave tracks. It’s not particularly interesting and I think my ears are less forgiving because it can’t even make up for that with out and out abrasiveness. What can you do?
Finishing out Side 1 is a cool band basically no one knows about: Social Suicide. I’m pretty sure the drummer from Youth Brigade DC (Danny Ingram) was in this band. I’ve been trying to find out if they have any recordings besides these songs, because they’re totally great, sounding like a junior Scream. The last song is kinda ska-vibed which is definitely a Scream move to pull, but the first 3 songs are just raging tuneful hardcore punk. First tier kind of stuff, not throw away junk. Really interested in hearing more by this band if anyone knows of anything.
The jacket on this record is extra nice, with a cool tip-on style (like old rock lps), and a black on silver color scheme. There’s 2 inserts, 1 is a lyric book, the other is collages/photos for each band, and contact info. If you ever see a sealed copy, it doesn’t have the inserts in it, the people at outside had to unseal them and put that stuff in.
Let me put it to you like this: I don’t care how uncool Victory records is (extremely), I don’t care about the controversy that has always surrounded the band (plenty), or the horrible tours with horrible bands they went on (Strife I think?). I don’t care about the crappy 90’s looking cover art (eww), I don’t care about the section of their fans that are basketball jersey wearing, plugs in the earlobe douchebags… I don’t care about any of that. The bottom line is Systems Overload will crush you. Every time. This is one of the most brilliant and inspired pieces of “extreme music” ever recorded. Think what you want. I know there’s people too uptight to really sit down with Integrity and give them an honest listen. I know there’s some who don’t go past their first album because it’s not on the worst label of all time, and because of the rule in HC that “first albums always the best”. I’m confident this is the best Integrity album though. It outshines all their previous efforts by leaps and bounds, it set the bar for their next 2 almost as perfect releases, and it should make the pale imitation of the band that has been around since 1998 (’99?) in various forms, downright ashamed.
Systems Overload blends a variety of hardcore, punk and metal sounds into a seamless whole. I know when I’m slipping into the banality of hyperbole, and I know it’s happening now, but there’s no other group that can borrow from the Cro-Mags, Discharge, Metallica, and Entombed (the “classic” releases only by those bands) and make it count like this. It’s a generic list of influences, but upon hearing the album it obviously makes sense. You take that driving British tempo and muscle, temper it through the “behind-the-beat” NYHC crunch, mix in sombre melodies and solos of Burton and Hetfield, and give it the dark horror vibe and deranged delivery of Left Hand Path. It’s amazing working off influences that cast shadows so big can work this well, but the 1-2-3 punch of Incarnate365/No One/Systems Overload ought to be all the proof you need. I don’t know how to explain the kind of power riff that opens Incarnate. It’s so basic and simple… almost triumphant sounding. When the song speeds up and the main verse takes over, guitarist Aaron Melnick lays down a wild run of Kirk Hammett inspired shredding that fights for supremacy with the growling screaming vocals. Everything is emphasized by the juicy drum sound, led by a saturated and booming bass drum (with double kicks used for maximum effectiveness), and a primal echoing “roomy” sound on the kit. No drum triggering in sight. Just “THUD CRACK BOOM”.
With the bombast and in your face metal licks that dominate Incarnate, it’s a bit of a surprise that the next song, No One, is the most no frills hardcore song on the album. At only 45 seconds or so, there’s no time for finger tapping or even a proper breakdown. These 2 songs are a template for the majority of the rest of the album. A handful of the songs work to expand on the kind of meat and potatoes hardcore approach that No One takes, while the others juxtapose guitar acrobatics with slower moody sections and pseudo death metal crunch. A couple of songs, like Armanien Persectution and Salvations Malevolence also find the instrumental sections stretched out, and see diversions into ambient noise which both help to heighten the dark atmosphere as well as break for a couple minutes from the otherwise constant bludgeoning.Systems Overload can never truly get the recognition I want it to have. It’s in every way superior to the plodding, dated sound and style of Integrity’s debut lp “Those Who Fear Tomorrow”, and recorded hundreds of times better. Unfortunately by 1995 Integrity had already eclipsed their achievements with their infamous reputation as trouble makers. They had problems touring because they couldn’t keep a steady lineup and were often getting in fights, and with the rising attitude of 80’s revivalism in hardcore, they were increasingly labeled as “just a metal band”/”not hardcore”/ too thuggish. The record was well recognized at the time, make no mistake, but even if it was superior, in hindsight it wasn’t the career maker that “Those Who Fear Tomorrow” was able to be, (due as much to time and place and attitudes about the band as the songs on it). But where Those Who Fear Tomorrow sounds so stuck in its time and place now, Systems could be a contemporary album, even though its roots are firmly in 80’s hc and metal. For me I think that’s why it endures.The edition I’ve linked is on clear vinyl, it says 100 pressed, but my pressing info says 500. It’s still pretty hard to track down, so grab it if you can.
I like COC for a lot of reasons. One is that they have one of the all time coolest skull logos. But probably the number one reason is the Animosity lp. It’s kind of Crossover, but it’s still mostly Hardcore, and has been a standard in my rotation for years. It’s not your usual Crossover fair though, as the metal it crosses itself with seems to be more of the ominous doomy variety than your typical Metallica/Megadeth aping found on most “going metal” records of the 80s.
Side A opens with Loss For Words which begins with a roll across some roto-toms and a quick succession of palm muted 16th notes, immediately telling the listener this will be a progression from previous COC records. After some effective start-stop-start thrashing, the band drop into a heavy mosh riff that sounds like something Suicidal might have written if they were a better band. It’s got the same party-mosh beat that Suicide’s An Alternative cultivated, but with a much more menacing atmosphere and a deeper groove. COC doesn’t sound like speed freaks, they sound like pot-heads, and that’s meant to be a compliment. If there’s any doubt in your mind just wait til they shift down to first gear again to Sabbath type sludge, and a gloriously loose atonal solo, that sounds like the 2nd cousin of a classic Greg Ginn run. If there’s such a thing as Stoner-Thrash, this has to be it. Mike Dean’s vocals howl and growl their way into paranoid, angry oblivion with worlds more expression than previous “singers”, Eric Eycke and Benji Shelton, sounding absolutely sinister and disturbed. If more crossover bands had been able to display the kind of versatility that COC does just in the first 5 minutes of Animosity, maybe it wouldn’t have died such a quick death as a subgenre.Next up is Mad World, a reworking of a song originally on the No Core comp with a more rocked out delivery, and more manic vocals. Guitar player Woody Weatherman (great name!) tears a wild solo sure to make the likes of Bubba Dupree proud (or jealous) and Reed Mullin keeps the pace under control playing a little behind the beat for a more savage feel. Side note: I called Reed’s parents house from the number listed in the No Core comp, and while he was not available at the time, his mom was really nice. Consumed is track 3 and it opens with a heavy call response section between the bass and guitar before taking off with the main riff. Holier and Positive Outlook move things along well with some good gang back-up portions, and mind-melting riffs-a-plenty.
Side B of the album is in some ways an entirely different beast. Specifically, it’s from a very different sounding recording session, and while both sides have a heavy sound, Side-B is much more raw. The drums and vocals particularly have a lot of added distortion, the vocals even sound like they were probably sung through a distortion pedal. It’s sort of crazy to think that think that a record released on Enigma/Death records in 1985, that was trying to appeal to a wider audience would have had this sound for the b-side, but there it is. Things open with the album highlight “Prayer” which has Dean at his most demonic sounding, and one of the most menacing breakdowns ever with Dean and some backup shouters repeating the line: “Pray, pray, pray for power” against a riff half way between Pentagram and Discharge. The next song, “Intervention”, starts with some unaccompanied growls and rasps, sounding like someone spitting blood up, and then enters into a circular noodling bassline which eventually gives way to the full band. Most of the songs on this side sound like they were probably written before the songs on the A-side as they are a little bit simpler, and dirtier in their presentation. It makes me wonder if there might be an entire lp’s worth of tunes from this session. Kiss Of Death and Hungry Child flesh out this distort-o nightmare version of COC, and definitely cement Animosity, Side-B, as their most crazy sounding material. The album closes with an instrumental title track, a heavy dirging jam on a couple of sludgy endless riffs. It’s a good way to finish things out.
Reviews from the time tend to complain about the more metallic and “heavy” elements that COC introduced on this album, and I’m sure there are some purists today who still feel their best work is their first lp, Eye For An Eye. Looking retrospectively at their career and where this album fit into the larger hardcore and metal landscapes though, I’m fairly certain that this is their best work, and their most original work. Eye For An Eye is a good hardcore album, but Animosity is just a great album. You could call it hardcore or cross over, or maybe even metal, but I just know it’s extremely ferocious and brutalizing.By the way an added bonus to this album is that it features early Pushead art from before he’d developed his, at this point, extremely tired, dotted skulls+ swirly backgrounds aesthetic. Instead you get an angry bearded man, and some torn up pages from a calander? Hey, I just know it looks cool.
Black Flag’s Damaged lp on Unicorn/MCA (original pressing) is not really a rare record. 5,000 were produced and although a lot ended up in cut out bins, a large number are still in circulation. Still there are few records that are just cooler to own. Everything about this lp is a landmark, but the infamous “As A Parent I Found It An Anti Parent Record” sticker placed over the MCA logo just sends it over the top as far as coolness/collectibility. It’s perfect. Even though its been pointed out there are, musically, some problems with Damaged (the mix is extremely uneven, Rollins delivery being arguably flat, the song TV Party in general), it’s still a flawless record when taken as a whole. The questionable aspects do nothing to dull the full impact of it, and Greg Ginn’s ambitions are fully realized. It was dangerous, inspiring dozens of bands across the country and breaking the minds of every youth that was exposed to it. It’s scuzzy and thuggish and the logical conclusion of Black Flag phase I. It’s one of the most perfectly titled records ever made. It’s everything it ought to be, and everything it had to be to make hardcore matter.
In some ways Damaged is a little too much of an archetype now. It has become the Paranoid of the Black Flag catalog. It gets unfairly dismissed in favor of later releases that contain more experimental, or that are referenced less by outsiders. Do not make this mistake. There’s a reason it’s the Black Flag everyone knows.
Well here’s a real collector favorite. Koro’s - 700 Club. This 7″ was legendary even in the pre Internet days, as one of the speediest and most catchy North American records from the initial Hardcore explosion. This thing clocks 8 songs in 6 minutes or so and has had its status well cemented as a cult classic since it finally saw an official reissue a few years ago. Somewhat reminiscent of early DRI with equally intense vocals, but a little less straight forward. The choruses stick to your ribs a little better and aren’t quite as samey, and there’s a more out of control edge almost approaching a Void kind of franticness. Unlike Void people have made a big deal over the years about how tightly Koro actually perform their songs on this.
But in recent years there’s been a bit of a snag in the mythology. A couple years ago, following the official release of the 7″ on Sorry State records, the world was abuzz when it was announced the long rumored to exist, shelved Koro lp, “Speed Kills” was going to be released. When it finally surfaced, aside from being obviously sourced from a crappy tape (which sometimes helps but in this case didn’t), there were two extremely glaring problems.
1) None of the songs were as good or intense as the 7″ EP. The writing was less inspired, the vocals were flatter, the songs were slower, and that leads to the bigger problem that effects the Koro “legacy” as a whole…
2) A few songs from the 7″ appeared in rerecorded versions, that were NOTICABLY SLOWER than the 7″. But it wasn’t just that they were slower, the vocal delivery was less manic… and there was something with the pitch that seemed wrong. Side by side comparison was the proof in the pudding - the 700 Club 7″ versions of the songs are all one note further up the scale on bass and guitar, which leads one to conclude that the record was artificially sped up to sound faster and more intense. Live sets of the band which began circulating from around the same time (and which have since been issued on a collection CD) served to confirm this.
I still love the Koro 7″, but I can’t really love it in the same way. I’ve been cheated. I’m sure there’s a really bad pun here where I can utilize the title “Speed Kills” (it seems ironically lack of speed killed my love of the band)… So I dunno, where does that leave this thing? Kind of just a $500 Milli Vanilli, but it’s still pretty sick. Note Dr. Cooch says that this clearly has the higher contrast back photo denoting that it’s from the 2nd batch of record sleeves made. The first has more grey in it.
All who know me are aware of my absolute admiration for the music of Infest. For me, only Minor Threat and the Bad Brains ever made more of an impact on my mind. The first time I heard Infest was in art class senior year of high school. My friend James had bought a bootleg CD discography and I popped it in while doing classwork. It was one of those moments of total paradigm shift. I’d seen plenty of shirts and patches with the Infest logo on them, but I really couldn’t have been more blindsided by how they sounded. The singer sounded crazy, like the burliest thing I’ve ever heard, the music was blindingly fast but definitely hardcore, and with constant changes of tempo. Actually it was the tempo changing that stuck out to me early. I’d heard bands play at hi-speed before, but introducing new riffs and constantly stopping and starting again every few seconds was new to me. Break The Chain (the first song on the CD which had the Slave lp first) managed 5 or 6 different parts in about 25 seconds. At the time this seemed so impressive.
Early on I noticed Infest was a band that anyone could like. Dirty punks, straight-edgers, grind-core dudes, you could see any of them repping the same Infest gear at any given time - a rare occurrence in the segregated worlds which each inhabits. Within a year I picked up the Slave lp and Mankind 7″, which were easily findable on Deep 6 at the time. Freshman year of college I used to mosh around my room to Mankind when my roommates were out, or jam along on guitar. Some of my more purist straight edge friends occasionally gave me shit for listening to some “crust punk grindcore shit”, but it never held much water with me. Sick-O nullified any possible criticism that someone might level, anyway their logo had some positive dude in sneakers and a flat top breaking the chains.
I was pretty confused at first what the deal with the first Infest 7″was, but in a nutshell, they recorded an lp’s worth of songs, issued 10 of them on a s/t 7″ (also referred to as the Machismo 7″) on their own label (Draw Blank), and then around the same time licensed the whole session to Off The Disk records from Switzerland who issued all 18 songs as the Slave lp. Same songs, same recording, just one has more. Machismo was run off in an edition of 1,000, with clear and purple vinyl copies being extremely scarce variations. Even the black vinyl though goes for around $50 nowadays. It’s been bootlegged a few times, but some changes were made to the layout so that it’s easy to tell. This copy also seems to have a couple stickers included which is pretty cool.
I got into Hardcore music when I was like 15 or 16, I heard Minor Threat, 7 Seconds, Youth Of Today, Warzone, Dag Nasty, and soon I was checking out as many of the local Straight Edge HC shows as I could. This would have been 1997 or 1998 I guess, which to many readers probably makes me seem really young. Hopefully it doesn’t totally obliterate my most likely questionable “credibility”. All I can say is “time and place”. If I hadn’t been diaper clad in 1981 in Northern Virginia, I would have been putting forth my best effort to catch those early Void gigs. Anyhow, I moved to Boston in 1999 to go to college and I was psyched on most of the Straight Edge type bands that were big there at the time, (although it seemed like they all broke up with in the first year I lived there). At that time my dorm was probably a 10 minute walk from one of the city’s big centers of commerce, Newbury street, where the original location of Newbury Comics still resides to this day. Newbury Comics is actually more known for stocking music than comics (their comic selection is actually pretty shabby), and so I’d frequently walk down and pick through the 7″s and lps looking for something hot.
This was a time in my life when I was basically willing to buy something that looked like it would be cool to me with no other information on what it actually was. I have no idea what about Talk Is Poison’s records looked cool, but I elected to purchase their 6 song 7″ around this time (1999 or 2000). I really didn’t have any kind of context for this stuff, besides “fast”, and “brutal”, and that’s all I really needed. The songs were fast, but not too fast, occasionally tuneful, and generally heavy. The bass cut through with a really distinct distorted twang, the drums were totally ace, and the vocals, really caught my ear as sounding great. I absolutely loved those vocals. Even though they were split between various members, they sounded identical. Very throaty, very angry, and completely raging. Anyhow this was one of the first instances of hearing a less polished style of hardcore where it just absolutely shredded my ears. I think it was a key moment in my formative years. When the breakdown in Right To Die (the first song on the 6 song T.I.P. 7″) drops, it’s absolutely beyond all criticism. It sounds frantic and maniacal, but controlled and deliberate. The riffing only slows down a tad so that the rhythm section can hit you a little harder in the gut, the drums switch to the toms, the bass gets plucked a little rougher, it’s thunderous.
The seller here is has the first Talk Is Poison 7″ on pink vinyl (500 pressed), and their split with Deathreat, containing maybe my favorite song by them, Isolation which has an instantly memorable chorus. The Deathreat side is no slouch either by the way, but that’s for another day. It’s kind of funny they have a split with a band I assume is named after a Citizen’s Arrest song, because T.I.P. certainly sounded a lot like Citizen’s Arrest (who’s 7″ I picked up around the same time period). Food for thought?
There’s a collection lp of these 2 releases, and the second Talk Is Poison 7″ on Prank Records who initially issued all of their records, and members can currently be found in Look Back and Laugh, Cali Love (still a band?), Needles, Warcry, and probably others I don’t know.
