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If you’ve ever been to a punk show where there was someone with patches on their pants or jacket, you’ve probably seen a Rudimentary Peni logo. I’m not quite sure how a band that hardly has played any shows in 25 years, and as such dense and unfriendly recordings can appear on the backs of so many teen’s garments, but I guess it’s probably because they had a Crass endorsement during a certain period of time, and are thus linked to the early anarcho/punk activist scene.  Rudimentary Peni, despite some members personal politics aren’t really a political band though, at least not in the way that most people think of a politically minded band, with giant slogans and rallying cries. To them, Zach De La Rocha owes nothing. It’s true a lot of their songs even on their first single, which is pre-Crass affiliation, address political issues and themes, but these issues are addressed in personal ways from behind a wall of isolation and obliqueness, it’s like you’re hearing a man’s conversation with himself on issues like religion, or political candidates. The idea that it might be impenetrable isn’t an issue because why would a conversation with yourself need to be? What’s most surprising about that fact is that the lyrics are actually written by two different members in the band, bassist Grant Mathews, and guitarist/vocalist/visual artist, Nick Blinko, but they seem to all flow from the same source.

Both of Rudimentary Peni’s first E.P. offerings, 1981’s s/t 7″, and 1982’s “Farce” 7″, are early hardcore classics, but it’s their outsider sound, and also look, that set them in their own little world. The artwork found on these records is a perfect match for the creepy and hypnotic sounds on the vinyl. Thin lined, highly detailed, black and white chicken scratched drawings of deformed people and distorted objects, often made of hundreds of tiny dots or scratches that were obviously the result of hours of hypnotic repetition. This too is a good match for the sound of the records. While a lot of the songs begin as seemingly ordinary early hardcore numbers, most eventually erode (if they last much longer than 40 seconds) into trance-like circular patterns. The vocal delivery is constant and rhythmic, and as Rudimentary Peni’s records progress song to song, they tend to become increasingly oppressive because of these qualities on the listener.  The songs do blend together as one, but I think in this case that’s a benefit. Occasionally there are breaks in the madness with songs like The Gardener on their first 7″ which crawls along like a psychotic nursery rhyme. If anything it sounds more isolated and nightmarish than the more straight forward numbers. Many punk bands make a lot of noise about being close to the audience, being one with the audience. On the contrary I think Rudimentary Peni build a wall between themselves and the listener, and for that matter the entire outside world. If you use these songs to look at the world through their eyes, it’s something like looking out through a black shroud. It’s cold, it’s lonely, and I personally find it affecting.

Shortly after these records were releases Mathews began a battle with cancer (eventually he won), and a few years later Blinko was diagnosed as “delusional” and institutionalized. Some people might theorize that the blackness they immersed themselves in brought on these horrible episodes. Some other people might say that they were born into that blackness though, and that Rudimentary Peni was just their way of making sense of their own world, where they felt like outsiders. When not stricken with debilitating mental and physical illness, Rudimentary Peni continues to sporadically release records. They just had a new album come out and the first half, if not quite as sublime as their early stuff, is still pretty good 3 chord punk, though by the second act it begins to meander with itself.

If all this is maybe too much, and you just want a fist pumping hardcore song, check out the song Sacrifice off the Farce E.P. (it’s the first song). It should give you the fix you need.

oh, and please CLICK

Rudimentay Peni - s/t 7″ 

Technically I should be listing this on a metal designated day, but somehow there’s never any copies for sale on Mondays, and I think a case can be made that Repulsion’s “Horrified” is basically an accidental hardcore record anyway. Repulsion were a band of metal heads in the wrong time and the wrong damn place - early 80’s Flint Michigan.  I really can’t think of a worse place to be in the USA then. These guys were born and bred metal heads, but they had punk and Hardcore sympathies so while they were following the progression of bands like Slayer, Possessed, Death, and Celtic Frost, they were also catching onto the extreme sounds of Discharge, Siege, C.O.C., NYC Mayhem,  and D.R.I., as well as the tasteless shock punk of G.G. Allin. Repulsion were ahead of their time because they could make the connection between something like Siege and something like Possessed. That the brutality and delivery were different, but still similar, and related to each other.

When they recorded their Horrified lp it was actually supposed to a be a demo called, Slaughter Of The Innocent. The idea was they would produce the best possible sounding demo they could with their entire current set list, and then use the recording to secure a record deal. Apparently tension ran high with the band and the studio engineer who not surprisingly, found their punk metal hybrid to be trash, and gave very little attention to detail during the session, but in the end I think that may help make this recording what it is (godly). The 2 guitars are panned hard right and hard left, the vocals are shouted hoarse and without any echo or sign of overdubbing, the drums are a blasting racket, and the bass… whata bass sound. Apparently there was some screw up when they were recording forcing the band to record a second track of bass over top of the other one which was too faint on most of the tracks, so it was decided it would be run direct into the board through a fuzz pedal. Easy on the ears it’s not. Saturated, blown out, and fucked up it certainly is, and it helps to cement the entire thing as a distorted “shit-fi” whirlwind of a recording. The style of recording alone sounds more hardcore than basically any of the bands Repulsion was influenced by. It’s abrasive even by today’s standards. The songs themselves are possibly the fastest recorded up to that point in time in metal, and are stripped to the bone for maximum speed potential. Only 3 even break the 2 minute mark and there’s not a high note or attempt at singing in sight. Repulsion may not have intended to be, but for all intents and purposes they were as hardcore as anyone else in 1985, or now.

Sadly, and not surprisingly this demo wasn’t exactly a hit with any labels. The band say they sent it everywhere, hoping to get some money to record what they saw as a proper album, and at best they were told, send a copy of the next demo. No one got it because they were all looking for another Slayer. The band dejected, depressed, and out of steam, fizzled later in the year. But like the zombies that adorned the very flyers they were billed on, Repulsion was soon exhumed from their own coffin… well kind of. Less than a year later Napalm Death had recorded their debut lp, and it became a novelty success in the UK. John Peel loved it, parents hated it, kids had to have it, and everyone was asking “where did you come up with this shit”. Pretty much the whole band credited Repulsion as one of their main influences and suddenly people were busy tracking down copies of their demos (some of which were issued under their previous name Genocide). When Carcass exploded onto the fledgling grind-core scene soon after there was no stopping things. Soon Carcass front man Jeff Walker had his own imprint subsidiary on Earache (who released Napalm Death and Carcass’ albums), and his first project was basically remixing the Slaughter of the Innocent demo and releasing it as the 18 song Horrified lp. Retribution. It was strictly for the diehard, but finally the planet had caught up to where Repulsion had been, and grind-core mania was on.So this is that original pressing released in ‘89 that I’ve linked. Since then its been issued a few different times. Most recently with a bonus lp containing most of the band’s other demos on Southern Lord that’s worth every cent if you’re unfamiliar.

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:

1. Even though I write on this blog 5 days a week, I rarely read anything, and when I do, I prefer escapism.
2. 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.

Hey everyone, it’s time for another guest posting, this time by Tony Rettman who you might know from WFMU radio, http://200lbu.blogspot.com/, or hanging around New Jersey record stores for the last 20 years (I’m guessing). Check out the radio show, lame bands like Mind Eraser get to play on it sometimes.

TR:

I’ve vented my spleen more than a few times over the revisionist ways of youngsters regarding the infamous Mutha label. How and why and where this label got the reputation it now has I cannot pinpoint. What I do know is most of their releases were laughed at, spat on and most possibly shat on when they were originally released in the eighties. There’s no denying the label is an intriguing chunk of underground history, but the amount of actual worthwhile material released on the imprint is miniscule at best. One slab they released that I will throw my weight behind is this Cyanamid seven inch from 1984. Cyanamid is one of those rare bands that just seem to sound stranger as time goes on. When I was a wee nip, their live sets were nothing more than a confusing mess. On record, they could sound like anything from Flipper on 16 rpm’s to abuncha wind up monkeys on outdated cough syrup. At the time of this six song seven inches’ release, I chalked it up as a novelty and that was that.
 
Upon further listening in the past few years, Cyanamid’s frenzied sound has reminded me alot of the slash-and-burn improvisational style of stuff like Rudolph Grey’s Blue Humans or late eighties Lower East Side noiseniks Demo-Moe. It is at this time I will stop typing and imagine the entire bid hardcore audience staring at their computer screens in utter confusion at those band names while the sound of crickets can be heard from outside their window. Hey…what can I say? I’m just trying to broaden some horizons…to turn some people onto some outlandish sounds…I’m also trying to get rid of some extra Blue Humans records I got laying around this place. Hi-Ya! Napalm Death send props out to Cyanamid on the inner sleeve on ‘Scum’* but I’ve always thought of Cyanamid as way more gnarled and loose than Harris and company. Nonetheless, you probably should get this to complete your Mutha collection and further your standings as a Hardcore nerdboy. I mean…even if you don’t dig it, at least you’ll have something to talk about with your pals at the next Punk Rock show before you go home to spend another wonderful night cold and alone with your records.

*note from cc: I was advised to fact check that they do indeed get a shoot out in Scum, however I was not able to because I originally owned it on tape (thankyou list was removed from the layout), the booklet to my CD appears to be missing, and the only vinyl I own is a test pressing (ahem, dated june ‘87). So while I’m not able to actually look this up, I can own up to having Scum on 3 formats, and of course that little ol’ test press.

I’m classin’ up the joint here! Stuart Schrader of http://www.shit-fi.com produced an entry for me today on the infamous Chemotherapy 7″. You get not only detailed information about the actual record, but also an explanation of what exactly “shit-fi” is, and for once, some college level writing.

Stuart: German rare punk “jeweler” Ingo Eitelbach’s offerings have not been up to the standards he set at the end of the 90s/beginning of the 00s, when it seemed every sale list he published contained Jackie Shark and the Beach Butchers or Tapeworm. Well, times is tough. Recently, he’s been auctioning a lot of hardcore that no one cares much about, but there are still a few jewels to be found. For example, Chemotherapy.Chemotherapy’s lone 7″ is one of the, if not the, earliest examples of shit-fi American hardcore. By that I mean a hardcore record released with a malicious lack of pretense of “quality” after it was already possible, and preferable, to produce “quality” hardcore records. Gang Green’s earliest recordings were works of accidental genius but there was talent and intention underneath there. In 1983, polished hardcore records and even post-hardcore records were beginning to appear, changing expectations for listeners. (In my opinion, within a year, the US hardcore scene would become a shadow of what it had been in the three years prior.) Chemotherapy’s record is a work of intentional talentless teenaged garbage. They aimed to produce an extremely simple, primitively recorded, tuneless, ugly, offensive hardcore record, and they succeeded. Why? Perhaps to do so was to be punk, to reject what was already becoming hardcore punk dogma (ie, fast, tight, well-recorded and/or innovative, intelligent, lefty). Maybe they were a caricature of hardcore punk. If so, the joke’s on them because lots of people actually like to listen to music this rough and consider it innovative and brilliant in its own way. Still, with a “musical” interpretation of the Pledge of Allegiance as one song and another with lyrics that include a racial and homophobic slur—in reference to the singer’s cell mate after getting busted for underage drinking (uh, yeah, right)—it’s hard not to think that this band still would manage to alienate the alienated. When they sing “all my friends are dead” (their melodic hardcore tune), I can’t help but think that it must’ve been repeated listens to this record that killed them off. Oh yeah, the longest song on the record, at 48 seconds, is the Pledge of Allegiance. I know of two sleeve variations for this record. The rarer one, which I bought some years ago from another German dealer, has no back sleeve. Rather, the band’s address and the members names are typed directly onto the dust sleeve, which is glued to the front of the picture sleeve. (This sleeve could be a fake, but, in my opinion, it’d be a very high-quality fake because it appears accurately aged. It did come from a dealer with a mild “rep,” so maybe my caveat should have emptored.) In fine noncommercial fashion, the front of the sleeve doesn’t say Chemotherapy on it. Though the comic of a character with a Hitler moustache holding a giant syringe is great—if you hate oncologists. Like I said, offensive to the core. My copy did not include an insert, but the copy on auction does. I know of two variations for the insert. The copy of the record in Maximum Rocknroll’s collection has two single-sided sheets as inserts, with lyrics for each side of the record printed on them. With this one-off type of insert and the sleeve that I have, it’s possible the band made other unique variations that have yet to be discovered by collectors. Ingo’s auction copy is presumably the regular-sleeve version, with a normal back listing the song titles and band member and the note “Rights reserved so go ahead and copy it for a friend.” Too bad there’s no photo of the back of the sleeve with the auction.

This record has always been tough to find, and its price has been increasing in recent years as it has become more well-known. I’ve heard that only 300 were pressed, which is plausible but unconfirmed. I doubt many that actually made it into stores were ever purchased. There’s little to recommend the record to the average hardcore punker by looking at it—though the skull/syringes logo is pretty cool. Tim Yohannon’s review in Maximum Rocknroll nailed it back when the record was released: “Totally crude and psychotic garage stuff here. They’ve got amazingly primitive drumming, raw guitars, and lots of super-short outbursts of madness called songs. A delight for NEOS and early HALF-JAPANESE fanatics.” Too true.

One final note, a certain notorious punk detective tracked down a band member a few years ago. The band member was getting ready to move to Uganda to work in microfinance. Because he was leaving the United States, he mailed a box of all of his records to the punk detective in question for free. Talk about a guy who was not in need of microfinance. Here are some excerpts from their conversation:Q: This may seem like a strange question, but I’m trying to locate a member of an old Indiana punk band called Chemotherapy.

A: Wow, Good detective work! Yep that was me, though we recorded the record when I was in high school in Indianapolis. I don’t know if I even have a copy anymore.

[…]

Q: You mentioned that you hadn’t been in contact with the other members for years. All of the other names listed on the record are pseudonyms. Can you tell me the first and last names of the other 3 members?

A: To be honest, I can’t even remember those guys names right now. I’ve been racking my brain and came up empty. Its funny I can picture them, but can’t for the life of me remember their names. I’ll let you know if my memory returns.

I’m back! Took an additional day to get here, but we got $800 in Delta vouchers to make it worth the while. So on my first day back I’ll share with you one of my favorite little known USHC ragers. Some may consider this blowing up the spot, but frankly, I already own the record.

Sewer Zombies - Reach Out lp is some of the most tasteless, tuneless, hard core music ever made in the United States, and, specifically Florida. Imagine some people from Chrome & No Trend getting together, getting high to a bunch of Finnish hardcore 7″s, and then improvising an lp’s worth of music influenced by that. This is seriously brain damaging. Although there’s only 1 dude playing on the whole recording it’s credited as a full band, and was released on Florida’s Subversive label. The drumming is primal, basic, and loose, and the riffs laid over it are at best semi-coherent. There’s not much of a question that there wasn’t much more than a thumb nail sketch of where the song would go before the recording started. Lyrically take some of the most miserable, sub-Flipper nihilism, and use your imagination to figure out what songs like “They Died With Their Willy Nelson T-Shirts On” and “Executive Execution” might be like. In the future I guarantee people into fringe freak music are going to be after this lp. True outsider hardcore.