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Last December I actually got to see the Abused, reunited after 25 odd years of not playing. I couldn’t believe how good they were (blowing Antidote and Urban Waste off the stage in terms of performance) after 25 years. Kevin Crowley’s barking, teeth gritted delivery was still perfectly intact. Raf Astor’s guitar playing was still spot on, including his solos which might have even been more fluid than the ‘83 live ape I have. Dave Colo’n and Brian Dundon still brought the savage and primitive stomp of their glory days. I really mean it, I’ve seen plenty of reunited hardcore bands, plenty stink, and most are merely passable but the Abused were one I’ll always remember for utter greatness. I responded in the only way I could of course, slamming my brains out till I was panting, hanging off the bar, and grabbing for water while my heart tried not to explode.

Of course it wouldn’t have mattered how good they played if it weren’t for their lone (and still not properly reissued!!!) “Loud and Clear” E.P. (as well as their rare and oft bootlegged demo). Loud and Clear is one of the first pure hardcore records to come out of New York City, and also one of the first anywhere that was more Hardcore than Punk. In 1983 this was the new sound. The sound of the youth rising up. The Mob still had some of the old NY Punk sound in their pedigree, AF were basically just cavemen bashing and thrashing in 30 second bursts, but the Abused were a band that could have both the compositional maturity and genius of the Mob, and the crushing brute force and power of AF.The opening cut, (the title track) opens like Sabbath’s War Pigs rewritten for the A7 crowd. Massive power chords crashing down through all the overdrive a cheap amp can muster, cymbals and drum fills match the guitar attack, and even though there’s no air raid siren, there might as well be, because this song hits like a bomb. Kevin Crowly’s inimitable bark kicks in declaring things like “Won’t be pushed around no more, cause I know I’m not alone”. Dead serious and loud as fuck. Of course it’s 83 so this one’s over in 1 minute but not before a proto death grunt that simply proclaims “YESSSSS” under a wash of endless reverb. A few seconds later “War Games” is coming down on you with Raf Astor busting a Ron Ashton quality, fret grating guitar solo over another bomb raid level intro. It helps that the song actually contains lyrics like “flying low your target’s set” and “blow them up and shoot them down”. It’s an anti war song, but it sounds so violent it’s easy to forget. It’s also maybe the first song by an NYHC that has a pretty pronounced heavy metal influence. Metal in NY was also exploding around this time, and these solos must have singed the eyebrows of any metal head who happened to be lucky enough to lay ears on this. The Krakdowns, Sick Of It Alls, and Warzones of the world used a similar formula of simple heavy hardcore with metal accents a few years later, so in some ways this is (as well as probably Antidote’s 7″) is the first instance of the typical 80’s NY sound.And what else…

And what else? 6 more songs of perfect thrashing, stomping, barking mad hardcore punk. Want to hear one of the most perfect songs ever written (of any genre) - check out “No End In Sight”. I could have wept hearing this one so perfectly executed live, but I was busy throwing myself across the dance floor like a maniac. It’s so simple just a mosh part and a thrash section that each repeat twice, but just listen… everything just perfectly falls into place like every other perfect song on Earth. It’s far more than the sum of its parts. The thing is though basically all the songs are this good.

Oh and btw, I think this copy might end a little low because it’s in Japan and has a high opening bid. Who knows though…

The Abused - Loud and Clear 7″

It’s just shy of six months since I last made a bidhardcore post. There’s no specific reason as to why I haven’t bothered to look at the site more than once or twice in that time. I’ve made some changes in my daily routine, and my work duties have changed pretty drastically which are both contributing factors. I was in a bit of a funk for most of this year, and I think sometime it’s easier just  to cut out the shit you don’t feel is necessary for a little while. I’ve been online the least ever in the last 6 months than I have anytime in the last decade. So a lot of days would go by where I didn’t even think about “blogging”. I’ve still been up to the same shit, playing in some bands, doing recordings, playing gigs… I had a pretty fast paced but generally high quality summer.  Everything’s fine, and I’m feeling like a little stimulation via writing might be fun again, so I’m going to try and have regular posts coming your way. No promises, but hopefully someone will still want to read this (AND LEAVE COMMENTS). AJ and I also still want to do a redesign on the site at some point although there’s no concrete plan for that.

Anyway down to business. Somehow I’ve never actually done a real Abused “Loud and Clear” post despite the 7″ being linked several times on here. It seems fitting for a “first post back” since for my money, it’s one of the truly great US Hardcore 7″s, and possibly the best of the early NY crop of releases.

(part 2 tomorrow)

The Abused - Loud and Clear 7″

Porcell says:

When Mike played drums for Youth of Today, he was a very reserved, quiet guy. You could’ve never pictured him in a million years singing for a band because we’d go on tour and he’d literally say maybe a few words a day. He didn’t seem angry then but there were a few instances on that tour where the “Mike Judge” of years to come reared his head. Once when YOT were playing a show with Uniform Choice, I think it was Detroit, there was a fight in the pit during UC between two skinheads. Mike actually walked over to try to break it up when the girlfriend of one of the guys fighting told him to mind his own business, pushed him and then slapped him FULL FORCE right across the face. Mike’s hands instantly flew up to punch her but then he stopped himself because, well, she was a girl. But he was in a rage. He just stood there, with a big red slap mark across his knotted face, breathing like a snake, just wanting so bad to haul off on that skinbird but somehow he was restraining himself. But there he was in the middle of the pit, teeth clenched, fists in the air, looking like a time bomb that would go off if somebody breathed heavy. The two guys instantly got scared and stopped fighting, and the one dude made a quick exit with his squawking foul-mouthed girlfriend in tow. I remember thinking “Damn, Mike’s actually a pretty intimidating guy.” Little did I know.

Here’s a crucial slice of early NYHC, No Thanks “Are You Ready To Die” on red vinyl. Though the seller seems to think it’s a mis-press, it’s seen around from time to time, but is definitely more rare than the black vinyl. According to the band’s singer there were 5,000 pressed on red, which is impossible given how infrequently you see it.

So it was sometime in 2005 and I was on tour with Mind Eraser. As it was the first tour I’d ever booked, it was quite poorly done, and by that I mean, the dates were a total clusterfuck. As such we had a day off in Berkley which shouldn’t be a place you have trouble finding a show. At any rate though, it happened, and somehow (I don’t remember how) Cooch got word that the singer of No Thanks, Donna Damage had surfaced in Berkley and had been on the internet claiming to want to do a reissue of their elusive 7″ E.P., and even to have original unplayed copies. An email was sent, and miraculously a reply came from Ms. Damage that we should meet her that afternoon at her apartment. I felt like one of those punk rock detectives on the Break My Face website. When we showed up Donna was there with her roommate, a former member of a later lineup of No Thanks as well as her metal band Navigator (they have a demo that reminds me of  Détente , another female fronted metal group). They were both definitely in the Berkley hippie mode, and offered to get us stoned, which of course we politely declined because being straight edge is cool. Without missing a beat, she offered us some carrot cake instead (it was not “space cake”). I wish this happened more often, but it’s the only time in my life that it has. Usually people just get bummed I don’t want to get fried. Fucking jerks I say…

The cake was delicious and following that Donna pulled out a box full of photos from hardcore’s early days on the Lower East Side. There were also a few cassette tapes, and yes, a handful of copies of No Thanks’ “Are You Ready To Die”. We flipped through the photos for a while. Early pictures of the Nihilistics and the Undead, a shot of teenage Harley Flannegan, maybe some early Sonic Youth or Agnostic Front shots, great material. As we rummaged Donna told us stories about living on the Lower East Side during the first hardcore era and stop to note things like “that’s my old living room” in photos. She played us the No Thanks demo (which is absolutely killer, and possibly the fastest hardcore released in ‘81), and told us about the troubled release of their 7″. The engineer didn’t like the band or take them seriously, the original front cover art was lost or destroyed, the label was sketchy with their treatment of the band, etc. All the usual shit. After an hour or two we thought it might be time to make an exit, we’d made plans to further discuss doing a reissue of the 7″ and demo after tour (eventually this got bounced to Gloom records, before finally coming out last year on Lengua Armada), and I politely enquired about purchasing one of her copies of the 7″, which at that point was already a 3-digit item. Donna instead offered to give me a copy, and then offered one to Cooch too. In probably the least selfish moment of his life he declined, saying he already had one. Immediately I could read the collector scum remorse on his face, but it was too late.

As soon as we got in the car the first thing he said was “I can’t believe I turned down a free copy”. I’m sure I said something like “yea what the fuck is wrong with you”. Still we were psyched on our experience, and at that point anyway were looking forward to the first reissue on Painkiller. Of course that never happened, and basically every other reissue we’ve attempted has been foiled in some way since. “Wahhhh”.

Regardless No Thanks were a great early hardcore band. I think they’re probably most similar to the punky scuzz of Urban Waste, but a little heavier in terms of protest lyrics and politics. Donna is probably one of the hardest female singers I’ve ever heard. Absolutely great vocals. Ladies take note: sing like this in a band instead of trying to copy Penelope Houston. Are there any females even reading this blog?

Hey real talk - pick up the lp reissue of this stuff on Lengua Armada, it’s well done and worth your time if you dig early NYHC.

A Burn 7″ on pink? File Under:

• Records I Need Again, Please Trade Me One
• AJ’s Favorite 7″
• Sick Drumming, Weird Guitars

The Burn 7″ is one of the most indisputably brilliant Revelation releases, as I hope you know. It succeeds on every level, and only uptight jerks who don’t appreciate its subtleties have trouble appreciating it. What I always heard was that the riffs were conceived in an effort to make them unplayable on guitar by anyone but Gavin Van Vlack. No idea of the validity of that, but it’s a fine story. Alan Cage’s muscular snare roll leads the charge into the opening track, Shall Be Judged, one of the better late 80s/early 90’s vegetarian songs. Gavin’s guitar works kind of a post crossover, chorus dipped end of the 80’s in NYC approach. Like Prong and Helmet were happening and being metal influenced didn’t really mean sounding like Slayer or having guitar solos anymore*. Cage and Van Vlack really break the 90’s wide open about 40 seconds into things. It’s a new world, a new New York, and everything has more groove, and weirder chords, but holy fucking hell does that first break down hit you like ten tons of bricks. For all the mainstream praise that say, Helmet got for doing some weird Alt-Metal off timey heaviness, they never came close to anything this primal but at the same time complex. This is a great moment in 90’s hardcore, and in some ways, one of the last important moments for NYHC.

You can still see what a seismic change it was when suddenly Revelation dropped Burn, Quicksand, Supertouch’s lp, Inside Out, on everyone ears. Suddenly everything was extremely serious (including musicianship), real polished, and a bit more “industry”. Compare to the beautiful shitiness of the No For An Answer 7″ and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Back to Shall Be Judged, it has all the hallmarks of the 90’s, right down to a weird dissonant plucked part, a talking part, and a cool down part. This is a great song, because Burn is a great band, with an amazing frontman (Chaka Malik), but the number of horrible revisitations of its formula that happened in the 90’s, (thankfully for the most part when I was too young to be going to shows), is infinite.

The other tracks — Godhead, Drown, and Out Of Time, all expand on the musical themes established in Shall Be Judged. Godhead digs into the groove and breaks the 3 minute mark as it condemns organized religion in a way that I might describe as quaintly 90’s (but I feel kind of like a dick doing it). Drown has some more mellowed out and reflective moments with Malik declaring he’s “drowning in a sea of emotion”. Out of Time is a hair lower than the other 3 tracks in that it’s not the anthematic stone cold classic that they are, but it’s still a good weird groovy hardcore song. Following this Burn did a demo recording titled New Morality, presumably to shop to a bigger label that was a tape trading standard for years, its since been issued as a 7″ on Revelation. They imploded a little while after that and never made the sprawling epic lp they should have. There was a couple of brief reunions in ‘97, and ‘02, the later of which yielded a 6 song 12″ that had a few new cuts, and a couple of older, “lost classics” revisited on it, that’s not as bad as some people would try and tell you. But all of that aside, none of that shines as brightly as their 12 minutes of power here on their first 7″.

Back when this record came out, people bought records still and so there are 1000 pressed on pink like this one, and a few thousand more on the much more common black vinyl.

*(Who the fuck decided to dispose of guitar solos in the 90s?)

There’s nothing like a test press of a classic record to pique your interest reader. So I submit, Rorschach’s - Remain Sedate on Vermiform records, in test press form. Probably best remembered as the first significant musical statement by one of the most historically important bands of the 90s. I’d say for better or worse, (and I’m afraid it’s quite obviously for worse), there are only a few bands that had more of an impact on the subsequent musical landscape insofar as rock and roll. But though Remain Sedate is a classic, it’s probably not had half the impact of Rorschach’s later, Protestant lp. Instead it treads a weird territory between Die Kreuzen’s 1st lp, COC’s Animosity, with a bit of an early Swans under current, and, unfortunately, a bit of the unpleasant early 90’s basement aftertaste. It’s formative and imperfect, but still pretty great, at least as far as music that makes you feel bad can be (and we all know it can be).

For the time though, 1990, this stuff is pretty ripping, and still very harsh, even when it feels a little dated. The ear splitting bellows of Charles Maggio are enough to stick with you long after the needle is skipping along the runoff groove, and the slippery guitar charge led by Keith Huckins manages to enclose the listener into some kind of nightmare haze. It’s hard listening honestly. The jams are dense, the mood is not uplifting, and the taste is bitter. But it’s important even if, and maybe because, it makes you feel like shit. The originality it was ripe with is still evident even after all this time, and so, it’s not surprising that a substantial part of any dollar bin now is crammed with inferior derivatives of that original sound. How tacky.

So this here is an early 90’s bootleg of the Abused demo but it’s a great example of how to make a cool bootleg. Most of the songs on here aren’t found on the Loud and Clear 7″ that the Abused recorded after this. The stuff on here isn’t quite as hardcore as their 7″, and while it’s still definitely in that camp, some of the vocals remind me of Fear’s Lee Ving (see: We Need A War). Some of the riffs mix in a bit of Fear too, although maybe a more apt comparison would be NYC’s The Mob. The riffing is just a little bit more simple and punky.

• I Don’t Know You is a great example of this with a couple of simple 3 chord riffs, that pummel along for about 30 seconds or so. Maybe unremarkable compared to some other Abused songs, but still pretty good.
• Rule On You opens with a total rocked out guitar solo that could come right out of a Dictators song, just thuggish NYC rock ‘n roll style. After a few seconds though, the boys switch to the hardcore speed and the chanted choruses of “rule on you /rule on you/rule on youuuu”.
• Senseless has an frantic start stop beginning and when the full song comes in works an atonal Discharge type progression. Driving, hard, and just power loaded to the max.
• Psycho Lies has random noisy runs up the frets of the guitar and rips off some Minor Threat lyrics too (I Don’t Wanna Hear It - Nothing But Bullshit). This makes me wonder if the rumor that The Abused first heard hardcore by stealing a car with a Minor Threat tape in the front seat is true. Probably not…
• We Need A War as mentioned before is basically just Fear’s Let’s Have a War devolved into a straight hardcore number. Hey WHY NOT right?

There’s also a song that I’ve heard on a different bootleg of this session called Kill and Destroy which is pretty ripping, thrash. Almost YDI/SOA style but it seems like it’s not on this one. This has a cool glued sleeve and a couple good photos of the band if I recall correctly. One of my favorite boots from the 90s.

This one’s a record NO ONE remembers, unless they’re from Deleware circa ‘89: Infection “Legal Limit” lp. I found this in some dust covered bin about a year ago, and bought it for a few bucks just to check out. I was a little uncertain about potential sketchy politics based on the cover looking like some bogus white power record, but later confirmed that Infection never dabbled in such garbage (in fact there’s even a bonus rap track on here).

When I popped this on, I found it was a nice forgotten slab of metallic, would-be-NYHC, with the right amount of ineptitude and attitude. This has the familiar feel of all the classic In Effect releases like Brightside, Liberty and Justice, Blood Sweat and No Tears, with some Warzone and Breakdown vibes in there too. Hardheaded HARDcore, with metal guitars and everything dripped in cheap reverb. If it were a NY band I think they would have had no trouble being an accepted part of that scene, but Delaware is a hundred miles away, and though Philly is close by, it’s just not the same.

The record opens with a good galloping intro (a pit starter), before going into Same Set Of Eyes. Their singer immediately reminds me of an imitation of Roger Miret and Raybeez. I guess he doesn’t get originality points but he does it pretty well. The song has a nice chunky mosh beat for the main riff almost like Altercation or something. United is your standard punks and skins vs. society anthem that could be a late 80’s Warzone outtake. Most of the rest of the record touches on all the things you’d expect, but also with a lot of love for drinking/being drunk (hence the title). Actually what probably hurt Infection’s popularity more than being Delawarians, is that they were adamantly No-Edge (that’s 80’s slang for anti-Straight Edge if you’re a little slow on the come up). While this might fly just fine nowadays, it seems like a risky proposition in ‘89/’90 at the absolute height of Straight Edge when your sound will basically only appeal to angry suburban boys with pent up frustrations. With the exception of legit agitators like Sheer Terror, or fun kinda bands like Murphy’s Law, most of the big non-edge bands seemed to not rip into it too much - i.e. Agnostic Front sending out Strength “to the sxe kids”. Maybe in NY you could build a following being a No-Edge band, but for a fairly generic sounding band from Delaware, with a ghetto looking lp sleeve, well, forget about it.

So, really though, this is a pretty good album, and if you like this style I think you’re bound to enjoy it. It’s definitely better than a lot of the also-rans of the time like Fit Of Anger or Gut Instinct. There’s also a previous 7″ with a different singer, and of course some demos, but I think I like this album the best. $30 is a lot to pay for it but maybe you just want it nowand don’t want to wait around (we call that a convenience fee). When they pop up for sale at stores they’re nearly always $6 or less because no store actually knows what it is. Unfortunatly if you try to find one online pretty much any dealer will price it at $20 or higher just because it’s on a small label and it’s late 80’s hc.

Mosh it up.

Well i’ve talked about Warzone’s Don’t Forget the Struggle, Don’t Forget the Streets before, but some dude is selling multiple copies sealed for $100. Of course you have to pay an extra $25 for insurance outside of the USA, but they do have the original hand written lettering on the back. Unfortunately the dude doesn’t have any pictures in the auction, so instead I’ll just put up this one (we’re playing Chunks):