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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.

Hey the Celtics won the finals - so here’s a classic Boston punk record from the days of Larry Bird. Gang Green - Sold Out on clear vinyl with a MEGA RARE acetate cover. I could tell the story of Gang Green’s “Sold Out” 7″ in my own words for the uninitiated, but this excerpt from the reissue cd does it so well, that there’s no need. Read on…

By 1983 GangGreen were a memory. They did not play out anymore or record. But their popularity seemed to grow to epidemic proportions. Meanwhile: Hardcore was at its peak in America and Boston was the breeding ground for such bands as Negative FX, SSD, DYS, The FU’s, Last Rights, Jerry’s Kids, and The Proletariat. But the GangGreen tracks on “This is Boston Not L.A.” led them to legendary status. There was a postumus release called, “Unsafe at Any Speed.” The track by GangGreen was called “Selfish.” Their only other recordings were known as the “Sold Out Sessions.” Three songs were recorded during that session: “Sold Out“, “Terrorize” and a song that was never finished called, “America.” The bill was $275.00, unpaid, overdue and threatened to be taped over.

Enter Taang! Records:It wasn’t until Dave Collins, drummer of DYS, showed up at a Bad Brains show with a copy of the GangGreen tape known as the Legendary Sold Out Sessions. The reason Dave Collins got a copy of the tape was because DYS were recording at Radiobeat studios and he managed to get a copy of the most eagerly awaited unreleased tape in Boston history.Meanwhile at the Bad Brains show:For this particular Bad Brains show there was a seven hour wait because the Bad Brains needed to score weed. The crowd that gathered in The Channel parking lot did not enter the club. They remained outside due to the no remittance once entered rule. That day the lot looked like a HARDCORE WOODSTOCK. Skate ramps were built that day, graffiti was sprayed on naked buildings, children were even conceived… but most importantly, a record label was born.Dave Collins searched the lot for the Motorhead Mobile, an all black ‘67 Camaro which was a listening haven for many. He spotted the car and found members of GangGreen, Negative FX, SSD and most of the Boston hardcore scene huddled around the car blasting Discharge. DC aka Dave Collins held the tape high above his head in victory yelling, “Hey crew look what I’ve got.” The Discharge tape was exited out of the tape deck & GangGreentape slid in. After several repeated blstings of the tape there was nothing but praise. The bands nodded in approval but Curtis, a D.J. at the time, who plagued radio with hardcore (especially Boston hardcore), could not contain himself. “This is fucking great!” he shouted, “It should be on X-CLAIM!“Doherty whispered to Curtis, “We’re not straight edge.” “That’s fine,” Curtis replied, “Springa & Chris Foley never were either. X-CLAIM is Boston & this has to be on a Boston label!” demanded Curtis. X-CLAIM was thee Boston label at the time. Known to most for straight-edge hardcore and releasing albums by great Boston hardcore bands.

The X-CLAIM situation was this:  No one ran it.  Bands used the name and there were four different addresses. DYS got SSD’s mail and The Fu’sthrew out Jerry’s Kids’ mail… get the picture? So it was time to start fresh. Curtis was handed the tape and it was up to him to do something about it. Doherty, Dean, and Curtis are all friends and X-Claim was X-Claim.Curtis got some help from people he had helped; Al from X-Claim/SSD, Ian from Dischord/Minor Threat, Glen from Plan 9/Misfits, Jon Loder from Crass/Spiderleg, Mike Stone from Clay. These five people were a great inspiration and direction for this new label. TAANG! Records was born with the release of “Sold Out” by GangGreen in March ‘84. The record took off, word got out all over the world. The label was on its way.As for GangGreen: They reformed for the release of “Sold Out” (TAANG! #1) but shortly thereafter Bill decided not to play music anymore and the band played their last show with the Minutemen at The Channelin Boston. Doherty passed out face first on the floor due to a long day of drinking with Dicky B. at a nearby bar.

There you have it. History, as it happened before the eyes of those who were there. Gang Green have been consistently one of the worst bands in Boston for about 20 years now, but because of the Sold Out 7″ single they will always have a place in the hearts of punks and hardcore kids in this town. The cover is an all time classic. The 3 members, probably under 18, with a mirror that has the band name spelled out in cocaine. It wasn’t exactly hard to predict it would be all downhill from there. The song sold out is a great one - clean guitar starts the song off sounding like some pre-hardcore Boston bar rock/power pop as Chris Dorhety warbles off key “All we want is money and to be on every station” and so on, before declaring “give the fuckin’ people what they want” in a teenaged scream that has been rarely equaled by anyone since it was first laid to tape. At this point of course Gang Green deliver some full tilt thrashing and lyrics no one will ever decipher. I was in a band that covered this once, and I played the song about a dozen times in a row trying to figure out what I was supposed to say. Finally I resigned myself to just singing nonsense that sounded the same has the nonsense he shouts. Song 2 is Terrorize which is a slightly more refined version of the “Boston Not LA”, basically just full on thrash with screaming backups for the chorus. Gang Green were one of the few who wrote the book on tuneless ear shredding thrash. It’s too bad they really did try to sell out later, making mediocre heavy metal records on Roadrunner but whatever.

Only 100 copies of Sold Out come on clear vinyl with this transparent acetate cover, probably all of them were hoarded by the notoriously unscrupulous Curtis Taang. I assume a lot were traded as his early releases sometimes include copies of his tradelist, but i suppose it’s possible some were sold for coin too.  

Doug Moody. Oh Doug Moody… The Roger Corman of American Hardcore.  On the wikipedia entry for Mystic Records you’ll find the following information:

Mystic was founded by Doug Moody who wanted it to be a platform for America’s youth to voice their opinions musically. The label attracted Hardcore Thrash and Speed Metal (a term Moody is credited with coining) bands. In its heyday (between 1983 and 1985), Mystic released over 100 different records with several hundred artists. Moody was assisted in his efforts by Philco Raves (who assisted in recording and production) Bill Karras (sales and distribution) and Mark Wilkins aka Mystic Mark, (Record and Tour Promotion)…

There’s no doubt this was written by one of the people it mentions, but it’s at least somewhat informational. Now way back a while ago I’d heard Doug had a career in the recording industry prior to Mystic, and after some internet clicks, I found a record of that on this blog: Selections From The Punk Vault. If you scroll to the bottom and read through the comments you can see Moody and a couple of his associates chime in and give the full picture of how the Mystic empire came to be. I’m not going to excerpt it at length here, but suffice it to say, the dude was in the music industry working with everything, from Classical, to Gospel, to Doo-Wop, it’s insane that for some of us  he’s most known not for the dozens of Gold records of 50’s and 60’s artists that he A&R’d, but for releasing records like this comp: We Got Power.

In practice this is probably the best Mystic compilation and, in the classic Mystic style it’s seriously filled to the edge of the record with songs; 40 to be exact. One big difference is that it’s got a lot more “big names” than most other releases on Mystic. As explained through the comments in the above link, the folks at Mystic did not start a punk label because they were a part of the scene, they were just looking for a niche. When you look back at the insanely large 80’s Mystic Catalog it becomes obvious that it was just about producing a product quick and cheap for basically, any hardcore band (so it seems). The same way Roger Corman was basically just throwing together whatever he could on a limited budget looking for a returned. Quality and ability generally don’t seem to be concerns once you start to sample the Mystic back catalog.  It’s like a hardcore junksale. If you wanna get down on your hands and knees you might find something cool, but it ain’t gonna be much. Still it’s hard to argue with this particular tracklist:

1. THE AUTHORITIES “I Hate Cops” / 2. THE NIP DRIVERS “Tang” / 3. JFA “Middle America” / 4. DR. KNOW “Savior” / 5.WHITE FLAG “Celabate” / 6. WHITE CROSS “Nuke Attack” / 7. FUCK-UPS “Bacon and Eggs” / 8. PUTRID GIRLS “1 2 3 4″ / 9. ILL REPUTE “Count the Odds” / 10. STALAG 13 “Selfish” / 11. REBEL TRUTH “Monkey’s Paw” / 12. WILLFUL NEGLECT “E.M.S. & D.” / 13. TAR BABIES “Confused” / 14. MECHT MENSCH “Might Makes Right” / 15. GRAVEN IMAGE “My World” / 16. THE VACANT “Caught by the Mafia” / 17. ADRENALIN OD “World War 4″ / 18. THE CLONES “Conform to the Norm” / 19. THE BIG BOYS “Brick Walls” / 20. SIN 34 “Not” / 21. MINUTEMEN “Party With Me Punker” / 22. DAYGLO ABORTIONS “Scared of people” / 23. CAUSTIC CAUSE “Look to the Left” / 24. DON’T NO “Blind Ambition” / 25. S.V.D.B. “Flames of Hell” / 26. PATRIOTS “Cavity” / 27. HATED PRINCIPLES “Survival At All Costs” / 28. CRANKSHAFT “New Wave Homos” / 29. URBAN ASSAULT (S.F.) “Night on the Town” / 30.URBAN ASSULT (Tahoe) “Rock’n'Roll Burnout” / 31. 7 SECONDS “Wasted Life Ain’t No Crime” / 32. JACK SHIT “Follow the Leader” / 33. ATHEISTS “Music I Can’t Stand” / 34. ROMULANS “Judgement Day” / 35. NO LABELS “Ego” / 36. ARMED RESPONSE “Too Gross for Comfort” / 37. DERANGED DICTION “Crooning” / 38. FALSE CONFESSION / 39. MANIMALS “Things Under My Bed” / 40. RED CROSS “Pseudo Intellectual”

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.

Metal Monday 24: 

In hindsight, knowing what we know now about Fenriz and Nocturno Culto, having seen the many you tube videos, or the bonus footage that came on the reissued Darkthrone CDs, explaining the making of albums in slurred voices spilling booze on themselves, Transylvania Hunger (this is the original RARE Peaceville pressing) could have all just been a big joke. I just imagine them laughing about all of the extremity and sloganeering in the black metal scene and being like “let’s make a record that’s all one tempo - fuck it”. From the outset though it’s one of the most hypnotic and majestic black metal releases ever. Recorded on an 8 track with lots of tape noise, buzzing mosquito guitars, and drums that sound about the same as cardboard boxes as they speed along in endless paddle beats - it’s a rigid set of limitations. But limiting themselves so much seemed to bring out more expressiveness in their sound than ever. The dark and sweeping melodies of the title track will stick in your head forever if you hear them once, and it’s an important statement because of that - these songs are addictive. Darkthrone and black metal in general often centered on consciously regressive themes, but by 1994 most of their peers were making records that were becoming increasingly complex and in some cases progressive. For better or worse they were able to prove that all of that was secondary to the feeling and spirit of the songs. Transylvanian Hunger is the ultimate “less is more” moment in metal because it so completely qualifies the sentiment. There are no keyboards, nothing was recorded in an airplane hanger, there isn’t a producer, it’s truly RAW. Maybe totally stripping away all the Celtic Frost parts from previous and subsequent albums allowed for a more soulful and honest delivery. Maybe this was all serious and just what the band was feeling at the time; that regression and primitiveness are the truest expression of “black metal”. Either way, directly or indirectly, this album has been responsible for hundreds of home recordings by alienated, evil obsessed youths, obviously though no matter how good these offspring are, they can never surpass this release in influence or inspiration.

Always good for a cloudy day, a cold night, or a bad week. I <3 Transylvania.

Darkthrone - Transylvania Hunger LP (Peaceville pressing)

A couple links: 

• CC’s post on Systems Overload generated 18 comments – worth a second visit.
• PBoy interviews DFJ on World Moves Fast blog.
• No Comment interview from German Zine Lack of Ideals on You Breed Like Rats blog.

Encouragements:

• Please leave comments (and include a link to your blog if you have one).
• Send us email with links to stuff that pertains to anything we (CC specifically) writes about.
• Check out the About page, because it changes occasionally with new information about this blog.

Well today is de facto the busiest day of the year at my job and as a result I haven’t had any time to prepare a real post. I went to see Mission Of Burma do their Signals Calls and Marchesshow last night. Here’s the setlist:

• playland
• peking spring
• new disco
• eyes of men (!!!)
• active in the yard (might have misidentified this?)
• academy fight song
• execution
• devotion
• max ernst
• revolver
• outlaw
• fame and fortune
• this is not a photograph
• red
• all world cowboy romance

came back for an encore that was:

• a cover of a song by the Girls (didn’t catch the title - i pose)
• the first 4 songs from Obliterati (2006 lp):
  • 2wice
  • spider’s web
  • let yourself go
  • donna sumeria

Seriously they were wonderful. Mission of Burma is probably my all time favorite Boston band. They’re not a hardcore band, but they were liked by the Boston Crew back in the day — the dvd of their final day show at the Bradford proves this with the whole Boston Crew in stage dive mode for the whole set. Of course that’s also the infamous last Negative FX show from which came the declaration “WE AINT GONNA STOP - FUCK YOU”. I’ve always loved the clash of high and low culture. The way Burma could mix up influences like Wire, Roxy Music, Pere Ubu etc. with skull bashing garage punk like The Stooges, The Dils, and so on. I’m often drawn to groups that are able to clash the high and the low. I find it compelling. I’m going to see them do their VS. lpstart to finish tonight, and I’m really giddy like a little girl. I’ll spare a long entry on the band since they’re technically not a hardcore band, but let me just say there was a moment in the band’s history (near the end of their initial run) when they were surely influenced and flirting with Hardcore sounds. Around 82/83 when the style had taken over the city of Boston they really started incorporating faster tempos into their work. OK/No Way, The Ballad Of Johnny Burma, That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate, Active In The Yard, Dumbells, Go Fun Burn Man, Blackboard, House Flaming — all of these songs were sort of Burma-fied approximations of the Hardcore sound. Much more melodic and angular, but you can’t deny that some of the style had seeped into them. Next week though, back to some more traditional “Hardcore” talk.

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.

While lesser bands of the day continue to increase in infamy, get bootlegged, and be sported on shitty looking tshirts by members of bands with names like Social Crisis, Negative Abuse, Ripping Group, Control Unit, etc., The Stains languish in semi-obscurity, known only to collectors and old men. Their s/t 12″ is one of the best examples of why SST is simultaneously the greatest and shittiest label of all time. While new Mojack and Zoogz Rift CDs are still appearing on a weekly basis, Mr. Ginn has records like this deleted from his catalog (to say nothing of The Dicks - Kill From the Heart, and the undoubtedly massive archive of unreleased Black Flag).

The Stains 12″ is one of the earliest recordings of meat and potatoes USHC, created in ‘81, although the band was started allegedly as early as 1976, the album didn’t actually see release until 1983. What a bummer for the band, (they broke up shortly after). You can still taste some of the heavy metal and rock influences that the members would have obviously drawn from, coming up in the original LA Hardcore scene. It’s not that far off a band like The Fix who were making similar sounds during this time, despite no close proximity to The Stains. I gotta mention that for an album recorded by Spot this one has a great sound. Crunchy thick guitar (much thicker than usual), solid drums, and vocals that are, for once, not 10x too loud in the mix. Maybe the fact that personalities like Greg Ginn or Bob Mould weren’t flexing their egos all over the process is the reason this record actually sounds good. I think these guys might have some connection to Overkill L.A. (another great lost SST band), but I’m not entirely certain.

The Stains - s/t 12″ (SST)

I’m not sure who the seller is on this stuff but they clearly are an older person. They have 2 items sold in their completed auctions: an original Black Flag flyer and a test press of Jealous Again. Currently for sale they have:

• Red Cross - posh boy 12″ test pressing (Red Kross…)
• UXA - Illusions of Grandeur test press
• Germs - What We Do is Secret 12″ Test press
• and an unused As A Parent, I Found It An Anti-Parent Record sticker

Some of this stuff says “given to me by the band”. The sticker says: “This is one of the last Unstuck stickers on the sheet. We put them on the Damaged records in 1981 at the pressing plant.”

Pretty killer. Hopefully even more cool stuff comes soon. Can anyone identify the model in the studded jacket for sale?