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What’s to say when talking about the most important records in your life? When I was 17, I got my brain ripped out by Infest’s “Slave” lp, and when they picked it up off the floor and stuck it back in a bunch of the wires were crossed. After that it was a long chain of events that got me to here. Siege, Deep Wound, Drop Dead, Citizen’s Arrest, Voorhees, No Comment, Crossed Out, Negative FX. It was before everything was a click away on Soulseek, and so it took about a year of borrowing, and scouring to hear most of it, but I feel like Slave was the first time really thrashy brutal hardcore left a lasting effect on me.I’ve already kind of done an entry on this album, because I did an entry on the abridged version of it - the Machismo 7″. Slave is the same recording, but with 8 additional songs and was released in Europe on Off The Disk.  It was Highly Collectible (™ B. Mastrobuono) and hard to get even when it was released, and now with the revived interest in this sort of hardcore, it’s become all the more valuable and high priced. I picked up most of my copies of this lp in the early 2000’s when interest was relatively low, although a couple years ago I paid an exorbitant amount for a pink vinyl copy of which there’s supposed to be less than 50. After that, the next rarest version is allegedly the one I’ve linked here, which is a different color on each side of the record. I’ve seen a few different variations, but this one is blue and sea foam looking. Who knows if the price will ever drop on this stuff again? Might as well pay up now, you couldn’t do it for a better album. Even the repress with alternate cover art is fetching some loot these days after all.

Well here’s one from back in the day -
Man Is The Bastard / Capitalist Casualties split 12″. By that I mean: 1994. Possibly the worst year for hardcore. Certainly one of them anyway. This is a pretty cool record though, a career highlight for both Man In The Bastard, and Capitalist Casualties, both synonymous with so many patch distros from years past (ALL PATCHES ARE PRINTED ON RECYCLED FABRIC…specifically my mom’s curtains). This thing is starting to fetch some cash and is quite outta print. I actually need a vinyl copy if someone wants to trade. It’s one of 2 or 3 MITB recs I still need to get.

Cap Cas on this one still sound pretty good, if not much different from a lot of their other releases. At this point they’d started to lose their 80’s sound which was basically a copy of the first Cryptic Slaughter lp, and started incorporating more of the normal and expected aspects of “power violence”. It wasn’t really that much different, but I feel like stuff such as The Art of Ballistics was just more straight up hardcore. It’s weird they’d already been a band for 7 or 8 years at the point this was released. For mid-90’s Cap Cas though this is some of the best. My favorite will always be their earlier Raised Ignorant 7″ though. These guys like speed. There’s not really a whole lot I can say about them because they’re so simple. Kind of like the way Out Cold or someone is, although they sound way different. They’re just content to get fucked up and write really ripping hardcore forever. Mucho respect.

Man Is The Bastard side on this one is night to Cap Cas’ day. I’d rank this maybe in their top 5 recordings if I was going to make a list (and last time I counted there’s 19 or 20 that I know of). It’s from a time when Eric Wood was cool, as opposed to now where he’s into arbitrarily dubbing random myspace-violence bands as “getting it”… oh and he wears a Locust shirt (I’m saying the party was over when that Locust MITB split came out…what a bummer). I’m sorry I just can’t let it slide. This is why people don’t like me. What I’m getting at though, is that at one time anyway, the dude was a genius and surrounded himself with equally sharp collaborators. This release is even from the MITB phase that included No Comment’s Andy Beattie on additional vocals (you can check my previous No Comment posts to see what I think of Mr. Beattie). Foot Binding (first song) rips it out like a deconstructed PCP fueled thrash metal nightmare. The riffing is dizzying and it’s a perfect summation of the insane rage and power that the hardcore aspect of Man Is The Bastard’s sound delivered. Typical MITB protocol was flipping the shit on you just when you’d got your footing with them. Track 2, Feeding The Octopus, does just that, busting out a 4 and a half minute instrumental workout augmented by various creepy electronic buzzes and hums. As a band they’re a total exploration of “brutality” (a word dulled by its overuse in reference to HC at this point) and as such, it seems like they can’t not juxtapose a hardcore rager like the first song with this kind of sludgy progressive shred fest - they want you to make that connection, or they know you already have.  There’s 3 other “career bests” on here too. MITB wins the cup for best side of this release, and that’s not meant to be a slight on Cap Cas, but there’s just more for me to sink my teeth into here.

As an after thought, I do wanna say I have a lot of respect for Mr. Wood, I’m just not seeing eye to eye with his current interests, which is alright, such is life. Anyway, he took the time to drop The Crumbsuckers in a recent interview as a favorite record, and for that alone I give him a pat on the back, a tip of the hat, and maybe a “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” too. Love/Hate mail can be addressed to cc@bidhardcore.com.

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.

Uh oh, more 90’s HC, this time from my buddy Mark Hurst. I feel confident this is quality stuff though. Mark has made roughly 1.5 billion dollars selling all his records off over the last few years when not playing drums for Wound Up & Punch In The Face, and he has spent every cent on live DVDs of Blur and Ride. SELLOUT!

1st: he’s got 4 Despise You E.P.’s up for sale.

• Their 7″ entitled PCP Scapegoat
• Their split 7″ w/ Crom
• Their split 7″ w/ Suppression
• Their split with Stapled Shut

The Crom split and PCP Scapegoat 7″ are both the same recording session and sound kind of shitty IMO (still good stuff though), the Suppression split is better, but their split with Stapled Shut is some of the best material by both bands. Despise You were all kind of more grind-core dudes doing a “secret” side project that was more HC/Power Violence, circa the mid-90’s. They used a lot of Hispanic gang type imagery associated with bad parts of L.A. and kind of tricked a lot of people into thinking they were a bunch of criminals. When they hit their stride musically it was on this record and the Left Back Let Down 4 way split, sounding like a battle between the Terrorizer demos & Crossed Out’s vinyl output. That’s a rather generic description, but if you’ve ever listened to Despise You, you’d know it’s pretty accurate. They tuned their instruments to A, which almost put them musically into Carcass territory, but the vocal delivery was pure violent American hard core, just spitting hoarse out of breath shouts. By the way the best Stapled Shut song is on this split as well, Resin Heaven. I think almost every Stapled Shut song has a pot smoking reference in it, which is weird because most of them are pretty fast. This one works a real groove for about 5 minutes though, and is surprisingly catchy. They also had this cool sound to their instruments that sounded like they turned all the tone and treble knobs to zero, and ran everything directly into the mixing board. It gives it this absolutely impenetrable Wall-Of-Fuzz sound that I really like. Totally killer band whose releases can all be had very cheap.

Now to the other side of the globe for every D.S.B. record produced through the 90’s and into the early 2000’s. Chronologically:

• No Fight No Get 7″ original press on Devour/Bloodclot
• Radical Sharpshot 7″, red vinyl, on Overthrow
• Wings Continue To Strive With Unchanged Mind lp on Bloodsucker
• split 7″ w/ Deathreat on Mangrove
• Pure Cultivation 7″ on Partners In Crime
• Battle Into The Invisible Zone on Kangaroo
• Wait Tremblingly on Partners In Crime

The last 3 are pretty easy to still find new, but the others are some of the best straight up hardcore to come from Japan in the last 10 years that I’ve heard. D.S.B. did a weekend of shows on the east coast, kind of at the height of the early 2000’s Japan-core craze, and I managed to take in two of the shows. They were absolutely the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever witnessed. These guys just 100% went for broke, jumping and thrashing off everything, playing a boatload of catchy jams, and just generally proving what all the fuss was about to anyone who was there. I think the general consensus is their best work is the first 2 E.P.s, and I’m inclined to agree that they’re as good as classic records by greats like Outo, Nightmare, etc.

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.

One of the few bands to be explicitly named by the term’s originators as “West Coast Power Violence”, No Comment occupy a special place even among the PV genre elite. A group impossible to replicate, and one of so few to produce a truly perfect record that transcends the genre it’s tied to - DOWNSIDED. One of the things that set the group apart from many others were the relatively clear shouts of Andy Beattie, who would sound as comfortable in any number of other Hardcore bands, but sounds so perfectly suited for No Comment. The constant wash of riffing is really driven by the start and stop of the drums, which I’ve heard the drummer had to take speed to perform adequately (no idea if this is simply legend). The sound is almost the musical equivalent to someone having a seizure or something. Every few seconds the song changes direction, but never collapses under the weight of itself. Each track is relatively simple, but deceptively so, as each one takes skill to put together with more split second stops starts and twists than most other genre bands would bother with. I think that’s part of what makes No Comment who they are and were. The will to really stretch a 20 second song for all it’s worth. For many that just means a quick blast of crash and bash, but No Comment were able to take the same ammount of time and really make it feel like a whole song in that time. It’s this kind of razor thin percission that really defines them. In all they rip through 11 songs, the first 10 of which are covered, I think in less than 5 minutes, the last of which preserves the tradition of ending with a long heavy outro. Like some other entries on here, it’s sort of difficult to know what to even say about a record thats meant so much to me, and thrilled me so many times. It’s not even that Downsided is “this” or “that”, it just is,(for me at least). I remember when I finally obtained the actual 7″ (had a discography prior to that), and looking at the weird foldout sleeve. The collage on the front with the baby and all the drugs, the strange look of the members, the giant fold out of the arm on the inside, the cryptic lyrics. The final proof that No Comment were just their own island I guess.

Here’s a hot mess. Someone’s early 90’s shoebox of 7″s plenty plenty plenty of junk. But there’s some choice picks, like No Comment’s “Common Senseless” (why is this record so hard to come by?),  Trip 6’s one and only “No Defeat No Surrender”(plz don’t speak ill of the cover art), a bunch less remarkable things too like 7″s by Outburst, Against The Wall, Turning Point, early Seein Red, Confrontation. Also there’s 2 10″s, both by kinda weird bands, 1 is the post Brotherhood project, Resolution- foolishly this is not tagged as being pre-Sunn or Burning Witch. For all the bad music Greg Andersen has been involved with, he gets a pass for life for being in Brotherhood. Oh also there is the Demise 10″on Erich Keller’s Off The Disc, in fact it’s a rare variation limited to 100 copies. Demise were around the same time as Infest, and gigged around with some of the weird thrash bands in Cali but never found the same popularity that some of their peers did (I think in part because they took up some nationalist political views later on). This 10″, and their
Furnace of Tension 7″(which I believe is just remixed 10″ tracks?) are their best stuff which is still just OK at best. The clear gem in this stuff is the No Comment 7″. While it’s not an example of a perfect hardcore record (that would be their Downsided 7″), it’s damn near close. Andy Beatie (I think I spelled his name wrong), is one of the best vocalists ever to take up extreme music. Please someone - read this and get the Low Threat Profile e.p. released.  Trip 6 is a cool band probably most remembered for their track on the Revelation “The Way It Is” comp, and somewhat less so for being the band that The Psychos dissolved into. In fact the full recording session for this 7″ was actually a 12 song demo, about half comprised of re-done Psychos songs. Tommy Rat, the final singer for the Psychos has one of the burliest vocal styles in NYHC, kind of transposing the NY-Street vibe onto something that reminds me of Crucifix or some other such band… Trip 6 is hardly a peace punk band, but they have a dirty primitive sound and that’s what I mean when I say this.

Greetings… 2 picks for you today.

• First of all, if you’re a Misfits collector this Horror Business 7″ is probably one of your most sought after items. This has an a-side label on both sides, and as you can see the opening bid of $2000 has already been met. If someone’s got some Xmas money on their side this could maybe get up to $3000 but probably won’t. This is one of the stupider pieces of Misfits minutia, IMO, but I’ve bought things nearly as stupid I guess. You’re probably not going to buy this but you might as well have a look anyway. This one is my 2nd fav misfits single and layout btw (3-Hits is numero uno). I guess I should bust out the Misfits Xmas-day ‘79 boot, next week so I can have a Ghooooul Yule. Maybe not.
• Also seller kiitollinen_kansalainen has a fine spread of dirty hardcore picks. A few worth mentioning: Neanderthal’s life changing “Fighting Music” 7″ , as well as their split with Rorschach, which is where the song Fighting Music is actually found (”let’s fight!”). Outo’s “No Way Out” E.P., is a personal favorite and a great sleeve on it too. A Totalitar/Disclose split LP a true “d-beat” classic, and the best of a number of listend genre items. The Crucifix lp is not a first press so don’t bother, I’m not sure what the deal is with the Battalion of Saints 7″ either. What I wanna know is how this Floorpunch EP made it into the collection? It looks so lonely as the only record without a large ammount of black on the cover. I guess when it comes to genre boundries Mark Porter is just trancendent. In my mind though I’m imagining this crust punker heard Division 1 Champs, took a shower, went straight edge, and then bought 5 more copies of the 7″. Now he’s just selling off the remains of his punk collection, and throwing in an extra FP 7″ for good measure. I think he sings in a band called SobrietyXPoint that sounds like a harder Turning Point 7″ mixed with the Invasion demo, and are playing a show in fantasy land this weekend (see you there).