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Germany’s BETON COMBO released one LP, a 12″ and this monster of a 7″. I must admit that the LP means everything to me a Punk LP could possible mean to anyone, with all its Indian Hardcore Punk-charme, so totally focussed on that Berlin of the 80s feeling that historians will write masses of books about in years to come.
This one sounds different. Much more on the brutal side of Hardcore Punk, not unlike Sweden’s UNTER DEN LINDEN, if you ask me, but even better, crunchier, meaner. The incredible “High on War” and “Zubrowka” hit like a steam hammer and “Hohle Schweine” (“Stupid Pigs”), although slower, is so incredibly aggressive and mean with the nasty german lyrics and the singer’s trademark cynical “ha-ha” – laughter. This is one of my favourite singers ever, this guy just has it (Hunter S. Thompson called it Gonzo, when it came in literary form). What makes this totally surreal is that although it’s german, I can only understand a few words and the rest is totally vague, could be any language or none at all. Wonderful! And have you heard the guitar lead at the end of the song? Can this be true? 1983, guys, 1983! Bloody hell, when making this post ready, I could hardly edit the rips cause I had to play the tracks over and over again. What a monster of a record!
A friend of mine saw BETON COMBO play live around the time this EP was released. He said the gigs were battles against the audience rather than concerts, so “high on war” everybody was. Sure can imagine that!
I guess there’s a BETON COMBO discography CD around somewhere. Buy it (or find yourself the original vinyls. Well, honestly, when I look at the beautiful foldout cover of this, I say fuck the CD, save some greens and buy yourself the original, shouldn’t be toooooooo expensive). German Hardcore Punk going transcendetal again, with a distinctive phenomenological turn!
High on War.mp3
Zubrowka.mp3
Hohle Schweine.mp3
18 Comments
Holy fucking shit! This burned another hole in my butt. Love the 12″ EP for it´s weird edge. This totally great but in a different way. Awesomeness just came to me.
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JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Another record I once owned. I believe I got this one from Vinyl Boogie in Berlin ages ago. I’m looking forward to hearing it again!
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Immensely popular post, haha.
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People have no clue how great music sounds?
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Pretty good stuff, not as good as some other german punk you´ve uploaded here. When I was listening all I could think of was that The Accidents must have listen alot to these guys.
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Hello I am of Chile, you have a very good page jejejeje! I like this band, quite good. I do a Link to you in my page: D greetings, hugs
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Hi , Admin . How are you ? Hope fine ! Never heard this band before but it’s really good ! Abrasive hc/punk just the way it should be !!! I’m glad to know that you’re active for one more year.
Cheers , bro .
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What a KILLER ep! And the back up vocals in the end of Hohle Schweine makes the guitar lead even better! Another add to my want list. Thanks!
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Chano – back from the dead! We’ve been missing you!
Martin: Never thought you’d like Beton Combo. Great to see you dig it!
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nice ep! (should i say: nice and ugly ep? ejal, ick finds jut.)
i agree on your note regarding the new metallica lp.
it took ‘em 20 years, but they made it.
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Finally got round to listening to this today & it’s great! Just solid, no-bullshit hardcore punk rock! Why get all arty-farty when you can just blast out the goods like this? “Cannae whack it!” as we say in Scotland.
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Hey Erich! Any chance of posting Harnröhrer “Stadtguerilla” 7″ EP?
I got it once but was missing the last song.
Thanx
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Hi admin, haven’t visited here for a while. I pre-commented this post some time ago, in the Vorkriegsphase post methinks. Phenomen(ologic)al hammer yeah! haha
I have the lyrics to High On War in case somebody’s curious. I don’t think there’s a discography CD around, which is a drag. The band also contributed in some comps with unreleased songs, like KZ36 and such.
Saludos
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Please, please, please post the lp if you like it better than this monster of a ripper.
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I saw Beton Combo twice back in the day, first at the ill-fated concert in Ampermoching in December 82 opening for Slime (when Slime got fucked up seriously by the audience after chanting “Hier regiert der HSV” and then, when things got hotter, threatening the audience with a one-foot-piece of garden hose – a quite remarkably effective weapon, btw – and then spraying tear gas into the audience) – Slime recount their version of the story in the liner notes of “Alle gegen Alle”, and truth be told, the audience was looking for an excuse to fight Slime. Anyway, Beton Combo were amazingly good. But when I saw them again half a year later in some dive in Munich, they were just a different animal. So much better, more abrasive, great stage show, all the stuff sounded exactly like on “High on War”. The LP, which came before (and features the first version of “Hohle Schweine”), is quite tame by comparison. After that they somehow injected a kind of Search-and-Destroy-Stooges-Raw-Power vibe into their music that made it much more volatile and aggressive without ever being generic hardcore. Which I guess was the problem for them: They were so ahead of their time in Germany that they kind of fell through the cracks. After “High on War” they did another 12″ (“23 Skidoo”, if memory serves) for the Sasquatch record label (with multicolored vinyl, much cleaner production), and after that failed they kind of faded away, I think. When HC broke big in Berlin with bands like No Allegiance, Combat Not Conform and Manson Youth in late 84/85, they were just not in that scene. Too bad, nothing really compares with “High on War” – CCM meets Stooges meets “Full Metal Jacket”…
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Thanks for the as usual great input, Thomas!
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Thx. I never could understand why people didn’t get more into Beton Combo. They were outstanding. It’s good to know I was not alone in my enthusiasm.
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