bidhardcore.com

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.

Tasty jam from the far east today (for the Sox). Black Flag - My War; Japanese pressing on VAP. One of the coolest Black Flag rarities ever is this lp. I think VAP is a Japanese major, I know they licensed some other big name punk records like Discharge, Septic Death, GBH, as well as a lot of metal, and new wave. I believe this copy would have included an obi-strip if you bought it new, but other than that it looks to be in good shape. One cool thing about this edition of the record is it actually includes the lyrics to the album in English and Japanese. In the US you could mail away to SST for a special booklet of Raymond Pettibone art with the lyrics, but the lp didn’t come with a lyric sheet.

If you don’t know this album I don’t even know what to say. It’s one of the most controversial punk records ever, you either love it or hate it. Conventional wisdom at the time was that it was some kind of sellout, but listen to the infamous B-Side and tell me there’s anything compromised about what you hear. While it may not have been punk enough for purists in 1984, it has since been accepted by many as one of Black Flag’s definite masterpieces. I bought My War as a used tape when I was in high school and found it left me feeling sick to my stomach by the time the second song had started. The atonal leads colliding with Sabbath-esque sludge and minimal basement style production all pointed to one word. BLEAK.

The doctor is out today, so here’s some quoted text from shit-fi dot com. All credit to Stuart Schrader who wrote this, and clearly knows his stuff. Back tomorrow doggs…

Gai “Extermination” (Blue Jug / Violent Party EP 001)

If Confuse invented the Kyushu noise-core sound, Gai made it a genre. Even more obviously influenced by Chaos UK, Gai set the standard: trebly guitar, tin-pan drum rolls, incomprehensible vocals, and extremely simple songs, plus a sleeve with artwork in the doodling-with-the-free-hand-while-in-a-straight-jacket style invented by Disorder. More so than Confuse, Gai hemmed closely to the UK sound, with barmy streetpunk song structures. As the band evolved into Swankys, the streetpunk influence was itself taken over by a ‘77/fun-punk influence, and the band became an odd amalgam of noise-core guitars and bouncy, silly punk. To be honest, I think Gai’s flexi is the weakest record on this list, but it is important because it defines the genre. Dozens of bands, such as Dust Noise, Screaming Noise, Donkeys, Chaos Ch, ad noisiem, have directly copied Gai and Swankys, although Gai, far more than Confuse, strike me as themselves copyists. Swankys developed their own sound, but Gai’s flexi doesn’t have much of its own character, even down to not having a clear recording, just like Disorder’s “Perdition.” (The -ion endings endemic to Kyushu ’84 were certainly a tribute to that 12″.)

The “Damaging Noise” demo is noisier and perhaps more Discharge-influenced than the flexi, aided by its neanderthal-rolling-around-in-the-cave-gutter vocals and a few killer d-beat raw punk tunes. “Break” mixes Kyushu noise-core with straight Discharge riff rip, whereas “Fallen Angel’s Balls”(I don’t think that means what they think it means) is probably the closest Gai get to the bizarre noisy guitar-work of Confuse (avec le d-beat), and, finally,“Know” is a speedy shot of Stockholm-like mangel. Definitely a prime example of parallel evolution.

The two-sided, black, blank-label flexi has two highlights to my mind: the artwork and “Blood Spit Night (for ever 76).” Looking at the sleeve, one can’t help but wonder if Gai thought Blue Jug was going to lay out for a full eight inches of noise because, obviously, part of the artwork wasn’t within the crop marks. But more likely, that’s how they wanted it. If they could fit all four band members on a scooter, they could fit the word “extermination” on the sleeve. Note the retouching, consisting of Chaos UK and Violent Party tatts. As for the back, well, it’s even more clear something was cut off, but we get the point. On to “Blood Spit Night: uncoincidentally, like Confuse’s song “Spending Loud Night,” this song has a totally different sound from the rest of the band’s oeuvre—well, until they made a career out of it as Swankys. But prior to that, “Blood Spit Night” was one of the only examples of UK snotpunk cross-pollinated with “Driller Killer”-style dental surgery. It’s a slow singalong tune that bears no resemblance to the sound of the Portland band that would take the song’s name as its own. It’s a song that’ll make for a good to pogo to dislodge some of the dirt that accumulated in your ears after rolling around on the ground during the first five tracks on the flexi.

In conclusion, the incestuous relationship between the members of Gai and other Kyushu noise-core bands remains unclear to me, and I’d love to read a well-written translation of a retelling of the history. Based on the somewhat confusing (ugh) liner notes of the Sieg Heil LP on Overthrow, Confuse taught Gai and Sieg Heil, who shared members, how to produce the classic fuzz/noise guitar sound (and showed them how to dress in proper UK LBS&A style). It seems that Gai, led by Swanky on vocals, started as Swankys and then reverted back to that name later. They received their influence from Confuse at the same time both bands, along with Sieg Heil, and presumably others like Gess and No Cut (who both went on to employ melody—The horror! The horror!), were tearing up the live houses of Fukuoka and Hakata. Confuse’s “Indignation” demo, though not the first recording (recorded in April 1984), was the shot across the bow for Japanese noise-core, as a fully realized, cohesive release of 13 songs defining a new style of music. Confuse’s “Nuclear Addicts” flexi and Gai’s flexi were recorded within a few days of each other in August and September 1984. Both flexis were preceded by Gai’s “Damaging Noise” demo, Sieg Heil’s “Nazism” demo, and the “Indignation” demo, all on Violent Party. As far as I can tell, Violent Party used two concomitant numbering schemes for their flexi and cassette releases (“Nazism” and “Nuclear Addicts” are both #2). CD and LP re-releases of both of Gai’s demos have been intermittently available in Japan. There is also a CD called “1981–1985 Violent Party,” said to include otherwise unreleased studio tracks from those years. Finally, there is the internet rumor, originating with Wedge of 9 Shocks Terror, that Gai covered Electric Eels, which, if true, could cause a rethinking of the genesis of the entire noise-core genre, but I need to hear this cover myself first. This sort of minutiae isn’t particularly interesting to most people, I assume, but many blogs and fanzines out there talk a big game when it comes to obsessing over this music, with very little new or useful information (or even writing!) available. I blame filesharing to a degree, because hopelessly obscure music is now much more widely available, but it is decontextualized and stripped of the original packaging, which tends to help situate it, with dates, thanks lists, line-ups, etc.—though shoddy bootlegs and unavailable legitimate reissues are to blame too. Anyway, all that aside, Gai’s flexi is an essential piece of any museum-quality noise-core collection, but listen to those three tracks from “Damaging Noise” first if you’ve never heard these maniacs.

Alright here’s a nice looking Underdog 7″for sale, noted as being first press. Presumably it is because if it were 2nd press it would be blue vinyl. Underdog still stands alone as such a weird band of their time. The riffs are really groovy and heavy for something recorded in ‘85 and even though they always point to the Bad Brains as an influence, there’s something way different about them. The soulful vocals threw me off as a kid, I thought they sounded like 80’s metal. I regretted thinking that later (now). Underdog is really right on the line where Hardcore crossed over from the first to the second generation of participants, and started to have much less to do with “Punk”. From around this point onward there seemed to be a lot more emphasis on precision in the music, speed seemed less important, production became more modern, there was a sound and aesthetic that became more self contained, and nowhere was this was more noticeable than New York City and its surrounding areas. Some could say it was the influence of Heavy Metal’s rising popularity, and in part it was, but I think, even if in a more subtle way, that street culture and early rap music played a part too, especially in New York. Look no further than Underdog’s classic Say It To My Face for a pseudo-rapped vocal delivery, and a musical groove, that I can’t describe any other way than “bouncy”. In some way or other it just sounds like the New York you’d picture from the mid-80s set to a song. My memories of that place are as dim as could be, I only visited once, and I was a child so maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think so. For these reasons and probably some others, the Underdog 7″ strikes me as one of the earliest examples of a record you just can’t explain to punk “purists”. They hear Say It To My Face, or True Blue, and it just doesn’t resonate to them like Urban Waste or early AF. It’s too far removed, maybe too clean or not “crazy” enough. For me it’s just a different kind of power and anger, more focused, maybe less out of control, but not any less meaningful. Btw - check this seller’s other stuff for plenty of other great NYHC picks.

Got everything under the sun one the auction block here, but since this is bidhardcore, it’s kind of easy to filter out a lot of it. First of all let me apologize to Scot Oxholm (if he’s reading this), I am not going to talk about the Green Rage 7″ for sale. Moving on, here’s some items you might want to know about:

1) Naked Raygun “Throb Throb” test pressing. In truth I’d like to own this but I am probably not dropping the loot. From what I can tell this would be from the original pressing because it has a promo sheet attached from ‘84. Naked Raygun to this point had released a 12″ E.P. a three song single, and a few compilation tracks, and this was to be their first proper lp released through some Dutch East sub label (Homestead). I think it’s really their first great release, although I’ve heard it disparaged by some. Raygun were truly a one of a kind band, much greater than the sum of their parts. At times they would drop the most straight forward rockin punk tunes with numerous “oh’s” and “whoas”, so tuneful and melodic you never forget them, like the CLASSIC opener Rat Patrol. Just as quick though they’d turn out something with a rolling bassline and guitars that were more akin to Big Black while pounding a 50’s style rockabilly drum beat. By the way vocalist Jeff Pezatti played bass on the first couple Big Black 12″ E.P.s, and while, by the time Throb Throb was released he’d already been replaced by genius John Haggerty, original guitarist Santiago Durango (who co-wrote much of Throb Throb), was a member of Big Black as well.

2) …Speaking of Big Black, we’ve got a Pig Pile Boxset here. While they’re probably most famous because they were Steve Albini’s first well known band, Big Black is also quite remembered for being able to work up quite a miserable racket of guitars that were self described as going “schhiinkkkkt” and “vrooooooooom” against a pulsing atonal backbeat of a Roland 808 and an interminably drunk bass player. In all honesty this band was by my calculations, one of the heaviest, and most exciting of all time. The most interesting thing about this boxset is actually that it comes with a 5″ flexi record with a cover of In My House, which hasn’t ever been reissued. The record itself, which is live is actually a little disappointing in how clean it sounds compared to their studio recordings where they managed to make an ungodly racket. In addition you get a pretty cool video of the band playing live, and a pretty stupid shirt and poster, in a nice looking 12×12 box.

3) Finally, here’s something that’s not by a Chicago band revered by the aging indie elite: Chain Of Strength - Chain Crew record. Personally I’m not really impressed by this record at all, and I know it’s not as rare as it purports to be (100 copies), as I’ve known of more than a couple individuals who’ve obtained a separate cover, and then matched it to the corresponding vinyl. Just saying. Second, I don’t really like the 2nd Chain Of Strength 7″ a whole lot. The first one is totally bare bones straight edge HC just raging it up start to finish, but this one injects a significant chunk of Turning Point (lp) style melody, much more “emo” type lyrics, and a significant increase in hair-gel. Lastly I always found this particular edition to be kind of a bogus rarity because it wasn’t even made by the band, but by a friend of theirs, I believe posthumously. It does look REALLY cool, much better than the normal edition of the record, and the inserts w/ green toner are cool as hell (it sucks they don’t make colored toner for xerox machines anymore), but I’d rather own a silver sleeve edition of the first record and a studio recording of Til The End.

I guess technically this should be on bid-proto-hardcore dot com. Once again we’ve got a seller with a bunch of clothing for sale, and a couple of interesting vinyl items. Most desirable is a decent looking copy of Crime “Hot Wire My Heart” backed with “Baby You’re So Repulsive”, their first release from 1976. I was struck with how memorable the Crime aesthetic was even before I’d actually heard their music. They have a big bold logo, they always look cool in promo photos, often in matching get-ups, and their promotional flyers always had cool looking pop-art type imagery. Something has been made of them being an early example of D.I.Y. type approach in punk music (Hotwire is a self financed/released single), and that’s worth at least a mention, but desirable records it does not necessarily make. The sound of Crime is interesting, it kicks up a mid-tempo rocking feel, not far off a solid glam band, maybe like one of those James Williamson era Stooges bootlegs, but even more rickety and loose, and with a sharp sardonic vocal delivery that’s altogether meaner than Iggs even at his most pissed. There’s something else I can’t quite put my finger on that makes the sound of Crime compelling though. Maybe it’s how it sounds like they don’t even care that the recording sounds like little more than a few mics standing in the middle of the racket, or the way the guitars seem to be getting bashed in and out of tune at various times. There’s just an intangible something about Crime that makes them cool as hell. If you’ve never checked out Crime you oughta be able to find the San Francisco’s Doomed anthology, or download their 3 singles (although the third sucks by all accounts) off any number of mp3 blogs.

1 more jam you might want up here is is this Major Conflict 7″. This is an early NYHC entry, and certainly an “also-ran”, famed partially for the fact that the group featured members of Urban Waste, and also for the movie and book, based in part on one of the member’s experiences in the band “A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints”. For NYHC trivialists, the 2nd Raw Deal demo (which was never officially released when the band was around, but is where their comp tracks come from, and was used to submit to In Effect to get signed) has a cover of the song Outgroup, which Raw Deal and later Killing Time later sometimes performed live. Anyhow, I can’t say this record is great, but it does have some cool parts. There’s only 3 songs, and they’re a little on the long side, and more tuneful and “rockin” than the sound Urban Waste were known for, but some people, including my associate AJ find the record, and it’s bizarre lyrics about walking down the street and being king of the jungle, to be endearing. Mad At The World records did a CD reissue of this 7″ along with an unreleased 12″ E.P. and some live material maybe 2-3 years back if you’re interested, but you could always just buy this very E.P.

OOPS — I almost didn’t notice this Accused/Rejectors split 12″the first Accused record (as noted), and I think (?) their only with their original singer before Blaine from the Fartz joined. I just learned he was also the singer on the 10-Minute Warning demo which is an exceptional tape trade obscurity. Can one of you hardcorepunkmetalfreaks get on reissuing that? The last song on my copy cuts off. Totally classic thrash, although it’s hard to tell the condition of the record from the photo.

I like this seller’s listings. I’ve featured them before, but this set is kind of cooler because it’s several different things — a bunch of rap lps, a bunch of Japanese hardcore, some American grindcore, and a little bit of NYHC. I dunno, you could probably have a decent time hanging with this person.Here’s a tasty Japanese ripper… or something like that. LSD’s - Jast Last 7″. This is hardly the genre I’m most knowledgeable in, but this is one record that left an impression on me right from the get go. The vocals pour out in a mess of distortion and slurred growling, most likely double tracked (it could just me some kind of echo effect though?), but sounding pretty crazy. The music is kind of more controlled and somewhat metallic in the delivery, with fairly precise mid-paced type riffs. My favorite song is the 6 minute Karen Nash which begins with a clean guitar intro, and then builds up with a noodley riff, before kicking in full power with the most deranged vocal section on the entire record. The song pushes into hookier and more melodic territory, more-so than the other two on the record, or for that matter any other LSD song. By the time the maiden-esque solo kicks in 2 minutes deep it’s pretty obvious you’re hearing a masterwork. Finally at about the middle the sheets of distortion let up for a return to the same clean guitar work from the beginning. The buildup back into the song is cheesy and “of the time” as could be but it works because the band sell it, and to me it all sounds necessary, like there’s no fat to trim (which is absurd because in reality it’s a 6 minute song), they have me under the spell. When the speed really picks up again and the vocals come with tortured “whoas” echoing into 80’s reverb oblivion, it’s the payoff. I really have no idea what this song is actually about, but it just sounds moving. Maybe melodrama has a big effect on me. As a sequel to yesterday’s posting: a Crossed Out 7″. Of course if you know me at all, you know I’ve staked some of my creativity in this record’s legacy, much to the disappointment and annoyance of a person or three, but generally these are people that are old and/or Scottish. Seriously though, this one’s timeless. A template for a dozens and dozens of bands thereafter, none one tenth as good. Crossed Out said they were into Siege and the Skitslickers, it really can’t get much more straight forward than that. It’s that kind of simplicity that permeates the sound and style of the record. There’s nothing tricky or hard to grasp, it just sounds like a hammer beating against your skull really fast, and then really slow. There are a couple of 90’s bootlegs of this but the seller has taken care to list attributes that verify it as an original (matrix numbers being the give away). If you’re ever not sure about one of these, look at the between song gaps, the original pressing has long silences between each song, like 5-10 seconds, you should be able to see them just by looking at the vinyl.