Good bad Music for bad, bad Times!

This 5 tracker of Chicago’s RIGHTS OF THE ACCUSED is not a record, it’s a fucking vitamin pill and one day before the annual mayday riots here in Surrick, this might be the best I can post! Listen to the drum sound here - it will make you flip out, I guarantee. Especially the middle part in the first song “Faith”, after the short break, when the bass drum kicks in, man - this absolutely destroys me whenever I put this on. Hardcore Thrash of the finest sort!

Can’t tell you much about the history of the band. RIGHTS OF THE ACCUSED were also featured (among others) on the two classic tape comps MEATHOUSE and EMPTY SKULLS, they had tracks on MIDDLE OF AMERICA and had recorded 2 demo tapes (from which the earlier comp tracks were taken) prior to this masterpiece. Unfortunately, the band went through some weird musical metamorphosis in the next three years, so when an LP was released in 1987, it was a total letdown (haven’t heard it since, but I’m pretty sure it still sucks the big one). Haven’t any of the numerous other releases, but RIGHTS OF THE ACCUSED have a myspace site which you can find here.

This must be the most precious of all my records cuz when you ordered it from the band directly, it came with a one million $ bill:

And here is one of the other two inserts as well (the poster is too big for me scanner, sorry):

Quick now, download and destroy!

Faith.mp3
Hypocrite.mp3
In School.mp3
Innocence.mp3
What I learned today.mp3

This may not stand the test of time as gloriously as, say, BLITZKRIEG, although SWEET SAVAGE used to be one of the top underground bands of the NWOBHM. In fact, when you now compare this rocking and rolling two-tracker with heavier bands of the era, it’s quite obvious why we originally called such bands “Heavy Rock”. Except for some interesting breaks and bits in “Killing Time” (later covered by METALLICA), this is almost typical Pub Rock (or as Peter would love to have it called: Pubes Rock), except for the powerful singing maybe. I can’t really say whether this is good, bad or good bad music, but “Killing Time” sure is the better of the two tracks.

I used to hold strong resentment against SWEET SAVAGE in the early 80s. It wasn’t the music really - to tell the truth, it was because of the two guys on the left of the cover and their nasty grin. I mean looking at them still maddens me and I tend to believe people like these might have ruined my youth more than no sex, no drugs and no god.

I used to have the 2nd 7″ as well, but I can’t really remember how it sounded. But the tracks from the BBC session (partially used for the “Friday Rock Show”) were a bit darker and heavier than this first 7″.

Take no Prisoners.mp3
Killing Time.mp3

Finally, Dave Phillips‘ “The Hermeneutics of Fear Of God” is available again!

What can I say? Of all the “extreme” music I heard in my life, from poststructural noise to Grindcore, from Death Metal to Hardcore Thrash, this has got got to be the most vicious, aggressive and torturing record that I know. Dave obsessively inspected, dissected, turned around and reassembled the sonic remains of our old band FEAR OF GOD and thus created a bastard noise version of it that leaves me breathless still. One seriously wonders with which results the same method would twist, revolt other already “extreme” sounding music and we can only hope for Dave Phillips, the modern day Frankenstein, to lay more corpses on his experimental scaffolds, cutting and stitching and pestering them, thus deliberately creating more bastards to haunt our nights (when reason is put to sleep).

Read more here and here and order the expanded vinyl version (58 songs, 500 made only, 100 on colored vinyl) or the CD version (Digipack, 61 songs plus a short but lovely bonus Video) from Absurd Records (greetings to Marcelo!). As you can see, the minimalistic but affectionately done LP comes with insert (not visible on the photos), stamped innersleeve and sticker.

Some song samples (more here):

Track 1.mp3
Song 3.mp3
Song 5.mp3

Boston’s DEATHWISH recorded a demo tape in December of 1983 that stayed widely obscured even in the tape trader circuit until three of the songs saw the light of day in 1989 on this piece of vinyl – at the climax of the first post-Hardcore wave that swept all the gym clowns into the old structures.

This is state of the art in-your-face Hardcore. Recorded at Radiobeat Studios, the three songs rip and roar, much in the vein of “My America” era F.U.’s or a little tamed “Is this my World?” JERYY’S KIDS. One of the two guitarists was Jordan Wood, who in 1985 formed SLAPSHOT together with Choke (NEGATIVE FX, LAST RIGHTS) and who commited suicide a few years ago.

Of course, with a press run of a meager 300 copies, this became an instant collectors item (I think I got this from Seth Putnam who is a very generous bloke and occasionally sent me packages with newly released records he thought I might like). No wonder, Lost & Found Records pressed its own bootleg version of “Tailgate” in the mid 90s.

Tailgate.mp3
Break the Chain.mp3
Condemned.mp3

Of the many Boston area Hardcore bands of the 80s, PTL KLUB is one of the nearly forgotten. Why is that? Ever since the bands first vinyl release (the “13 Commandments” LP), I enjoyed the ferociousness and jockorama aggression. Maybe the group just picked the wrong label (Mystic), maybe they played the unity game too little. Certainly the band had the misfortune to be active in the time the original HC declined rapidly. Had these records been released 2 years earlier or maybe 15 years later, they’d gotten a bit more attention.
This EP starts off with its highlight, a great cover version of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” and it closes with the next best song, “Living Death”. In between we have four more pretty intense thrashers. Maybe it’s nothing spectacular, but this is the kind of stuff that still moves me from time to time, cause it’s so high on energy. PTL KLUB’s best release however is the 1987 EP “Nobody care anymore”, which also became the band’s swansong. I would guess it’s pretty safe to say you’ll be hearing that one too, sometime.

White Rabbit.mp3
What’s wrong.mp3
Sea of Hate.mp3
Hey Harry.mp3
Want you Baby.mp3
Living Death.mp3

Here’s one record that’s particularly hard to find and that caused a bit of confusion among friends of good bad and good and bad music in the times before internet. Maybe it was us youngsters in the 80s only that didn’t know of the two british bands by the name of DISCHARGE, but I remember many talks and guessings on how that split 7″ would sound that was listed in the Volume discography and appeared on many want lists. I also seem to remember how some folks kept saying it was DISCHARGE who first came up with the term “Hardcore Punk” and I’m pretty sure that they meant the well known DISCHARGE from Stoke-on-Tent. I never spent much time on the question who coined the Hardcore term and I don’t really care too much, but it would seem to me that those who connected the invention of it to DISCHARGE most likey meant the wrong DISCHARGE. At least, this DISCHARGE here was the first to have a song with the unbeatable title “Hardcore Punx”. However, I wasn’t able to locate this single until the early eBay days, when you could get things for moderate prices. I sold my copy of the split 7″ about ten years ago for quite a bit of money, but made a decent cassette copy of it. The xeroxes of the inserts have gone missing along the way. This ‘CHARGE (haha) came from Middlesbrough, located not too far from Stoke-on-Trent, in the north-east.

The little we know about them and this split 7″ has been carefully compiled by Dizzy from Detour Records, whom I’d like to thank for giving his permission to use the scans you see here. The band first went by the formidable name of “Squelch Vaginas”, formed in 1978. In the same year, they altered it to DISCHARGE. It seems like DISCHARGE stired up quite some shit in their short existence or how the TPA fanzine put it in its 1979 issue: “The only band to have gone from crap to great and back to crap again in only two months”. So here ends our story: DISCHARGE folded by early 1980, not before releasing this split single.

The other side has THE FILTH of whom even less is known. The same fanzine TPA had a bit on them in which a fight between fans of THE FILTH and some other band took place. Or so: “Three people were seen shouting and the Police got involved”, haha. Both bands deliver the same great amateurish Punk with extra hot sauce. Couldn’t say which one I like more, but THE FILTH’s “Rise of the Mods” song is a hit: “The Rise of the Mods is here today, at least that’s what the morons say”.

Especially the FILTH side has quite some surface noise, but I love this, it just suits the music fine. There’s a short dropout during the first DISCHARGE song. These two songs have been featured on Vol.1 of “Bored Teenagers” and I guess you better try and get yourself one of these (and all the other volumes at that) in order to (hopefully, haven’t heard it) get the song flawless.

DISCHARGE Side:
Anytown.mp3
Hardcore Punx.mp3

THE FILTH Side:
Freedom.mp3
Rise of the Mods.mp3
Blue Law.mp3

I’ve been meaning to post this for quite some time now, but after Justin from Mustard Relics blog had such a hard time here today (check the comments section), I’m making this is a three-records-in-a-row-24hrs, just for him.
I can’t tell you much about S.A.S. (SPEAK AGAINST SOCIETY) other than the band came from the middle of nowhere (Scarborough in North Yorks UK) and I bought this 7″ in 1985 from a local distributer and was totally blown away right on from the first few spins! I can’t exactly say what it is, but this babe has a totally unique aura, with its totally distorted guitars, the speedy drums and the great vocals. All is a bit amateurish, passionate and totally urgent and demanding. Damn, I must speak candidly with you – this 7″ really touches me like few others of the genre do. The intro chords, now don’t laugh, put me in the same emotional state, the short instrumental tune called “Embryo” from Black Sabbath does(you know, medieval times and such) plus a little bit of the old teargas, petrol bombs and bricks feeling, haha. Sorry, but that describes pretty accordingly my feelings when I play this gem. And “Gunrunner” from the b-side is just an extremely beautiful and intense song. I’d say this is objectively super-duper great (hint hint nudge nudge Justin).
The band later morphed into SATANIC MALFUNCTIONS and ACTIVE MINDS and took the sloganeering to new heights (or depths). This is pretty hard to come by; if I remember correctly, only 300 were pressed. Enjoy, veganists!

Intro.mp3 / The Sport of Gentlemen?.mp3 / Meaningless Name.mp3
Scapegoats.mp3
Drunk again.mp3
Armageddon.mp3
We don’t need it.mp3
Gunrunner.mp3
Royalty.mp3
Your Future.mp3

Before somebody asks where the missing tracks are: They’re all there, but the first three songs couldn’t be separated.

Let’s play around with that figure of the “simultaneity of the non-simultaneous” a tad more.

Not long after THE DESPERATE BICYCLES had released their first two 7″ers, a band from L.A. released theirs. Same phenomenon here, although this time, the main time line reaches into the future rather than in the past. The DEADBEATS just ripped shit up with this one! To me this is still one of the most radical records I have ever heard. The compositions and the great, dry sound are totally timeless. I mean, does this sound or feel like it’s been recorded 30 years ago?

This is the inside of the sleeve they don’t want you to see.

“Kill the Hippies” is the instant hit here and yes, this runs me shivers down my spine! How fucking intense is this!!! The stakkato rhythm proves the 70s are over now. A bit more on the experimental side is “Brainless”, but nevertheless, you can’t get the chorus out of your head no more. On the flip, we have the high light of this. “Final Ride” has got to be heard to be disbelived. The intensity and utter destructiveness of this song nearly crushes me and it’s unreal to think that there are still enough idiots around who mock guitar solos to be a Metal thing, a bad thing, a not Punk thing – just listen to the solo part in “Final Ride”, doesn’t this make you want to do things, things?!

Yes, this has been on some blogs before (for instance on Joe’s “Last Days of Man”), but do yourself a favor and comnpare the song files, will ya.

Kill the Hippies.mp3
Brainless.mp3
Final Ride.mp3
Deadbeat.mp3

I love it when a record messes up chronology. The philosopher Ernst Bloch coined the figure of the “simultaneity of the non-simultaneous” and meant the strange phenomenon of a Modernity in which different historical concepts, both old and new, overlay, like a strong moment of inertia, resulting in a weird “unmodern Modernity”. Well, this is what comes to my mind when playing THE DESPERATE BICYCLES. Pick any of their early releases: It sounds like some weird sixties band (the organ!), but it must be something else. In the past years, people have come to the conclusion that it is Punk. So let this be Punk then (even if it sounds, and here comes this figure again, like Post-Punk).
This is my favourite DESPERATE BICYCLES 7″ (yes, I like it better than the first one) and hands down, this is one of the sidereal hours in music as we love it. Just like the old story that tells us that WIRE only had rehearsed so and so little before recording “Pink Flag”, THE DESPERATE BICYCLES are wanting to make us believe that “it was easy, it was cheap” and anybody could do it. It sure was cheap (check the back cover) and I’m sure it was easy (not as easy as these things are today), but that is so once you accomplished something, anything. The blokes in DESPERATE BICYCLES may not have been the most talented musicians to ever walk this earth yet they prove that technical skills and the capability of creating art are not compulsively connected one to the other. Both songs, “The Medium was Tedium” and the equally great “Don’t back the Front” either grab you right by your brain (and not balls) or they don’t. It is easy and it sounds cheap but the effect this has on some listeners, of whom I happen to be one, goes way beyond these ostensible limitations.
This post may seem a bit redundant since there’s a web page that has the entire DESPERATE BICYCLES output for download, but I’m pretty sure it will reach the one or the other out there who will get a good kick from this. It was easy, it was cheap – and it’s all been done.

The Medium was Tedium.mp3
Don’t back the Front.mp3

What a crime! One of the shortest Split Singles of the early Hardcore days and definitely one of the very best and the perfect sound for such a lovely early spring day (although I caught a virus that pins me down to my bed most of the time)! BATTALION OF SAINTS salacious wir lieben die jugendlich mädchen-esque “Sweaty little Girls”, backed up by another L.A. band, the incredible S.V.D.B. (SAINT VITUS DANCE BAND - now how’s that for a band name?!). Both bands totally rip, both songs are top-of-the-top hits, hard to say which is better. Maybe I like S.V.D.B.’s melancholic tune a tiny little bit better. “Chain Reaction” sounds like it could have been on one of the very best Posh boy releases. BATTALION OF SAINTS as always totally shred! A bit more on the punkier side, raw and dirty and with George Antony’s buzzsaw vocals.

Here’s what the apparently official BATTALION OF SAINTS internet biography has to say about this and all other Mystic releases: «Shortly after their first EP was out, they were asked to contribute a few tracks to the BYO Records compilation “Someone’s Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In” - a compilation challenging youth to stand up for what they believe in - especially to take a stand against police brutality. The band went to Mystic Sound Studios and recorded. Three of the tracks were used, including the vicious attack on police brutality, “Cops Are Out.” Some other bands to appear on the comp were Youth Brigade, Adolescents, Social Distortion, and Bad Religion. They also appeared on Version Sound’s “Meathouse 1″ compliation, and the “Our Blow Out!” compilation (local San Diego band comp.). Tracks from the Hit Single sessions were used for these comps.
After recording at Mystic Sound, Doug Moody of Mystic Records, who kept the masters, released the Second Coming 7″ EP on his label, with really raw & screamy early versions of 3 tracks. He also used an otherwise unreleased track, “Sweaty Little Girls,” to be included on the Destroy L.A. Fanzine on vinyl. After the release of the ‘zine/record, Mystic used 2 of the Destroy L.A. tracks and released a split 7″ with the Battalion of Saints track on one side, S.V.D.B.’s track “Chain Reaction” on the other. Unfortunately, none of these Mystic releases were ever authorized by the band, and the band got no money from Mystic. The singles sold several thousand copies - more than any other band had done for Mystic at the time. They were legitimate releases on a somewhat legitimate label, but as usual, Mystic got in the habit of ripping off bands who worked with them. A few years after they had disbanded for the first time, Doug Moody of Mystic put out the Sweaty Little Girls ep with the track from Destroy LA, and on the B side 2 live tracks. At the same time, Moody also got in touch with Randy Fuele from Hit Single and got some of the tapes from the band’s two recording sessions there. Using these demos, the Fighting Boys session, and again the Destroy L.A. track, along with more live recordings, Mystic put out a bootleg Best of… lp of the Bats titled “Rock In Peace.»

What I never could understand was the role of the two fanzines Sound of Hollywood and Destroy L.A. in these releases. How could a fanzine work together with Doug Moody in releasing bootlegs?
I’d also be very happy to hear more about S.V.D.B. As far as I know, this is the band’s only recording that’s ever been released on vinyl (note: both tracks of this split 7″ also appear on Mystic’s “The sound of Hollywood” compilation LP which is a smasher!). Anybody has more?

If you want to find out how I uncovered one minor Punk Rock scam that involves the BATTALION OF SAINTS, you should click this link.

BATTALION OF SAINTS: Sweaty little Girls.mp3
SAINT VITUS DANCE BAND (S.V.D.B.): Chain Reaction.mp3