It started off as a joke: A while ago, I posted HEART ATTACK’s “Keep your Distance” 12″EP with what I believe is the first recorded (and fastest & cleanest) blastbeat. It dates from January 29 1983.
I soon came to realize that a Wikipedia article picked this up and put a link to the post. Two weeks ago, a renowned music journalist from the UK, Alexis Petridis, approached me on the subject. Now it seems like the joke (it was more than a joke, really) has created its own reality: Read more on the International Blastbeat Celebration Day in the the online version of UK’s Guardian newspaper.
PS: Here’s the interview in full:
How would you describe a blastbeat to someone who had never heard one?
Erich Keller: It’d be very prosaic and just say it’s very, very fast drumming. One bass kick follows one snare hit. Then I’d have the someone have a seat and pull out some examples from my music collection. I wouldn’t try and use a lot of violence by giving it a too restrictive definition. You hear what a blast beat is, with a little experience, you don’t measure it. Arts, not mathematics.
Where did the sound originate? Is there a recognised first ever blastbeat track/band?
Erich Keller: To my knowledge, the first ever recorded song with a distinctive blast beat appeal would be Heart Attack’s “From what I see”. It’s a song from the band’s second release, a 12″EP entitled “Keep your Distance”. Heart Attack was a Hardcore Band from the first wave. They got quite well known for the song “God is dead”, the title number from a highly collectable 7″EP that made it onto the groundbreaking “New York T(h)rash” Cassette only compilation. The 7″ was a blast, but the followup 12″ had the beat too. “From what I see” is extremely fast, tight and incredibly clean. There were other very fast Hardcore bands around at the same time, best known would be DRI who released their crazy 22 track 7″ in 1983. DRI’s EP however sounded fast, whereas Heart Attack’s blast beat track was fast. The whole “Keep your Distance” 12″ by Heart Attack was recorded in one day, January 29 of course, in the year of 1983. Until further notice, I’d say that was the day the first “real” blast beat song got laid down.
What is it about the sound that you personally find so exciting?
Erich Keller: To me, blast beats had a strange fascination when I first heard one (that must have been in early 1984 and it was, of course, “From what I see”). I mean, I remember so well the days when Metallica, Slayer, Hawaii or Exciter released their debuts. 1983 was a year that changed the face of music forever. You had these clean sounding, razor sharp metal bands and on the Hardcore side of things, a whole flood of countless demos, EPs and a few LPs that had been released since 1979/79 (when the Hardcore sound was born in the LA area by bands like Black Flag, Middle Class and Germs) kinda came together. I grew up as a metal head and I remember thinking Punk and Hardcore was Pop Music for the rich – but in 1983 it all started making sense to me. From there on, things kept escalating. The speed of the music was one facor and maybe the most important one. I remember, when I sat on the train one day in 1983 or 84 and head the walkman headphons on, playing “Final Command” from Slayer, a guy asked me if he could have a listen too. I borrowed him the headphones for a couple seconds and watched his face turn pale. “That’s soo fast”, he said. On my music blog, I’m trying to document the as of yet unwritten histories (there isn’t a single one, of course) of these exciting times. But the first blast beat experience on a more personal level was, when I heard my band’s drummer, Osi Oswald, play his incredibly fast and powerful beats. That was not the wimpy double bass & trigger shit you hear nowadays – it was just one skinny man and his shitty drum kit. And lots of physical power, aggression. Much like Mick Harris of Napalm Death, a friend of ours in 1986/87 – these guys ripped shit apart. THAT was it.
Why did you call for an International Blastbeat Day? Do you think as a sound its importance has been overlooked? Or are you just having a laugh?
Erich Keller: As always, I was having a bit of a laugh when I wrote this in my presentation of the Heart Attack blast beat record. On the other hand, it made me sad to see that so little is known about the “origins” of extreme music and so little is cared about it. Blast beats were not a Metal innovation, nor can you say it was a pure Hardcore thing. It came across when these scenes came across and it rose to an important stylish ingredient of extreme music pretty late actually, in the 90s, when this kind of music (Death Metal, Grindcore) got big. Hardcore had vanished by then, or rather yet, turned into a ludicrous jockorama. And no, it was not Repulsion (as much as I love them) and of course not Terrorizer and not even Napalm Death who first recorded a blast beat, it was a forgotten Hardcore band from New York.
Greatest ever use of blastbeats? Why?
Erich Keller: Let me put it like this: The greatest use of it is actually a gap in history. Check out the wonderful Repulsion double CD on Relapse. There, you’ll find the incredible January 26 (ha!) 1986 (three years after Heart Attack!) WFBE demo and of course the legendary “Horrified” album, recorded June 1986, a couple months later. What I love is this gap in between. The demo is very fast – and the later session is a bit faster: blastbeat-fast. I always loved these gaps, voids, spaces, breaks, dicontinuities in history.
PS II: For the record: I’m historian and not a literature student.
38 Comments
Incredible ha ha. Have a hard time stop laughing.
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wow seems like your blog has become really powerful. had noticed that before and sure can understand! the quality of what you’re doing and the passion are one-of-a-kind. i’ll light some candles on january 29th
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Haha, this was great. I´m now waiting for you to be on Larry King Live.
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Pretty good article. But the things you said in the interview are so much deeper. When will the book be out?
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When I was out walking the dog earlier tonight I was thinking about Erich and writing a book. I would buy it no matter what it was about!
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I was skeptical until I heard the song, and I GOTTA say I’m glad I was WRONG!
HOWEVER Erich
, I still think Mick Harris and Pete Sandoval set the gold standard for the modern blastbeat (intense precision, stamina, and no-frills drumwork overall)…and Repulsion, their blasts sound “slow” to me after all these years (like tup-tup-tup-tup instead of Micky’s tuptuptuptuptuptup…if that makes sense).
But yeah, that Heart Attack track makes the most absolute sense.
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The “experts” from Blabbermouth are discussing this now:
http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=112692
Blastbeats were invented in the 1990 by nowegian bm bands. hahaha.
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The comments on that Blabbermouth post were hilarious, and some quite sad as well. Lots of “Metal” separatists claiming the beat for themselves, and many people believing it was invented in the 90s. And there was also this ANUS.com-style gem (I don’t know if anyone here has visited that website, but they are a strange “nihilist” organization that champion the “inherent values” of Metal and European classical music: “The Blast Beat is what elevates black and death metal music above rock music and into the realms of classical.”
Erich, I finally have some time, and will email some personal thoughts about the full interview, if that’s alright.
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Now this is a funny coincidence. Last week I wrote a review of a bunch of 80ties metal records, among which Repulsions’ Horrified. All done in a kind of historic ‘in hindsight’ style. I stated that “Repulsion might well have produced the very first blastbeat” (note the slightly hypothetical tone, induced by suspicion of lack of historical sources). After hearing the HeartAttack song, the Repulsion hypothesis ceases to be.
Thanks for providing essential source material!
(ps: I’m an (art)historian myself)
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@ WTT: Of course, I love reading your stuff. You can of course publish it in a comment too. As you wish.
@ Cheers Bonnie. Would love to hear more, if you want to share.
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DXA’s “Police Brutality” is the winner in my opinion. Maybe it`s a couple months younger than Heart Attack’s song, but it’s also more blasting and it blasts for most of the song`s duration, while “From What I Can See” is amazing, but it’s just the intro. That`s just my opinion though…
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That’s a great song, Pedro, but Heart Attack’s “From what I see” blows it miles away – it’s twice as fast.
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Kind of fascinating to read about the fascination with the “blast beat” though I’ve never been fond of it cause it never sounded fast. I’m way more intrigued with the beat that Gang Green utilized on the This Is Boston session. Kind of a disco beat at hyper speed.
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Peter has articulated what I have felt for years but failed to find a way to express. To my ears, the first blast beats I was familiar with (Cryptic Slaughter – Convicted, Napalm Death – Scum) seemed like they were “cheating”, like part of the pattern was being left out. Gang Green, DRI, Mob 47, Charles Bronson and Infest really were fast, without cheating. Would you say Nasum’s – Inhale/Exhale album is a blast beat or really fast?
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Erich, you’re right, the Heart Attack blast beat is indeed the fastest thing ever recorded then, with the possible exception of that Asocial demo if that is really from 1982 as they say.
But on the other hand it could share the prize with DXA and Asocial in a way because it`s not really on the main part of the song, which would be the case here.
I present the evidence:
DXA:
http://a3.s3.p.quickshareit.com/files/04policebrutality724a9.mp3
Asocial:
http://a4.s3.p.quickshareit.com/files/02asocialhowcouldhardcorebeanyworsehardcoresong3ea87.mp3
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@ kountchokula: That’s funny that you think Mick / ND was “cheating”. In fact, it was very important for him NOT to “cheat on the drums” (that’s how he called it in 1987, when I visited him in Birmingham). And no, Mick never did cheat. He was super precise and he played with such force, it almost blew you away from the drum kit. INFEST’s drummer, for example, with whom half of Fear Of God jammed in LA in 1988, was not half as good, fast, forceful. When Osi (Fear Of God) delivered some of his blast beats on INFEST’s drum kit, they couldn’t believe their ears. Osi was a freaking machine. So bad he gave up playing ultra fast so soon.
@ Pedro: Thanks much for the links
We’ve had ASOCIAL featured here before and again, HEART ATTACK puts them to shame. I would consider HA’s song more than just a “intro blast beat speed song”, really – just like DXA. I spent so many years with this music and have heard so much – I would stick to HA’s “From what I see” being the fastest song of its time. 
@ Peter KBD: It’s a shame you never got into blast beats, cause a great drummer like you would probably handle the speed & power easily and put most other drummers to shame.
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I remember some old ND interviews were Mick Harris would always make a point that he was a “non-cheater” (haha), along with the Heresy drummer (yeah, Heresy didn’t have blastbeats, but the drummer guy was fast as fuck)…
I still need to listen to this Heart Attack song, but when I come home, i always forget about it, and remember when I come to your blog, haha, i’m getting senile…
cheers
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So what exactly is considered “cheating”? If he made a point of saying that, then there must be certain bands he was referring to.
I agree, Heresy was way fast – “Never Healed” has got to be the fastest non-blastbeat record out there.
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“Cheating on the drums” according to Micky meant that the snare drum was played faster than the bass kick. Typical example was considered to be LÄRM.
HERESY’s “Never healed” flexi is such a killer record and yes, fast without being blast beatish. Check the live recordings of the first euro tour I posted a while ago – that was blast beat speed. Another, probably better, example for high-speed drumming would be SIEGE, of course.
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Theres more talk about this subject on the Blabbermouth site,a few days ago,Im sure its still up…Mike
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Entertaining post … although I don’t think the genealogy of the blast-beat fits into the Foucauldian interpretative mold of break/discontinuity. As it is merely a sped up “uffta-uffta”, I’d rather describe it in an old-school Hegelian dialectics sort of way (the transition from quantity to quality).
…
I’m just kidding.
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I agree, CR – and yet, I believe I’m also right, at least a bit.
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Hi,
Great article and good name for my favorite music or maybe I like heavy heavy sound like Rapeman. Well, as you may see by my first posts last year of my records at Mark’s Downunderground blog, good to have a name to what my 1987 Thrash or what I call ’83 Misfits – Earth A.D. thrash. But I really like your coined name Blastbeat kind of like Pitchshifter stuff with tight and heavy drums and bass. Well I forgot to mention you on our new social network over there but I meant you too when I listed Peter’s KBD site:>}
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happy blast beat day everybody!
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oh, today is blastbeat day?! thanks for reminding me, pär. kinda uncool when the inventor himself forgets it.
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G-Anx from Jönköping sweden! They were early on blastbeat (god/cnut what stupid name),recorded reh.tapes/demos, toured Yugoslavia in 1985.
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Syster are you too dumb to read or what? what’s the matter with all these shitheads turning up here all of a sudden?!
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Damn it,
I missed Blastbeat day as well! Happy bb-day a bit too late Erich. I actually meant to post some Swedish socialdemocratic blastbeat for you, but unfortunately it slipped my mind.
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Like G-Anx or Filthy Christians or so?
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Nope, I was actually thinking of something quite new, like Massgrav’s first E.P.
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I actually saw Massgrav on the 29th, and they ended the set with “SÃ¥ssialdemokraterna”(Social Democrats), by Eddie Meduza.
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Hahaha January 29 is my birthday.
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on the first ND lp mick harris thanked steve heresy “for playing fast without cheating”. that was indeed because steve played the regular 2/4 beat really fast with the highhat still running at full speed (although the “never healed” song itself consisted of a true blast beat). many other punk drummers weren’t technically capable of doing that and just left half of the highhat hits off at sometimes even slower speed, only hitting it along with the kickdrum but not the snare (see chaos uk “short sharp shock”, sons of ishmael “hayseed hc”, etc. now some of this of course had its own charm, too, especially these 2 examples).
at that time mick harris wasn’t able to play a proper, fast 2/4 beat like steve heresy (or eric brecht/dri, a.b./neos, …). at a similar speed he already used the blast beat instead (“siege of power”). he played the d-beat fast and hard hitting with ENT a bit later, too, but wasn’t too precise at it. nick bullen mentioned in an interview that mick harris basically started out with chaos uk and speeded that beat up steadily before he found out about the likes of dave grave.
so mick harris did cheat on the 2/4 beat but obviously not on the “real” blast beat which he indeed transferred into a new dimension of speed and aggression. as a time witness i can subscribe to erich’s words above.
cheating on the blast beat to him meant – again as erich said – either leaving out a few bassdrum kicks (olav from lärm was a hard hitting drummer but only became a real force with seein’ red) or playing it with 2 kickdrum pedals alternately like shane emburry did in unseen terror (who was a weak blast beat drummer and switching to bass was a good decision).
today’s blast beats have almost doubled in speed since then while at the same time 99% have become totally lifeless at a high technical standard. with a few genuine exceptions. check out yacopsae live for a guide into what’s possible and you’ll have a good time for sure, even if you may not dig their brand of power violence.
as for the fast 2/4 beat without cheating i’m surprised about how few newer hardcore drummers are able to play that beat convincingly. my guess is barely anyone is really starting out with a proper rocking 4/4- or even 2/4 beat aymore (as the originators did before speeding up) and wants to play full speed ahead right from the start without wasting time on practicing the basics. a complete fail IMO. but let’s wait and see what happens after the d-beat crust inflation is over.
and in regards to peter, he DID play the blast beat and very funky on top of that. check out “pusrad” on raped teenagers’ first 7″. marvellous! he was really good at the fast 2/4 beat, too. no cheater! just obviously had too much bad pop music induced later on
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Great input Roswell (Dirk, by any chance?). Thanks so much!!
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yes, erich. it’s difficult to stay incognito, isn’t it
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Especially with the email adress you’re using
Remember me from the old days (around “Cleanse the Bacteria” time)? We traded some records, but unfortunately, you never wantd to get rid of that Extrem / Mickyman LPs …. Let me know if you still have one in your closet. I was never able to find me one of these!
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sure 1+1 still =2
and sure i do remember our trading times. i’m sorry but i only have my personal extrem split lp left which i’ll defend to death, having joined them later on. barely anyone here ever gave up on their copies over the years which is no wonder, though, as it was a one of a kind release in austria.
it got reissued on cd along with the full 1984 demo (“nazis raus” included) last year on a2o records, but unfortunately no vinyl reissue yet. would be a double album, actually.
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I have a serious problem with reissues ….
I know, one day, I will find the split lp (probably on ebay) and then I’ll just have to buy it. A friend of mine once found one on the flea market in St. Gallen for about 1 €. The Vorarlberg punks & metalheads regularly visited St. Gallen’s legendary Bro Records (on saturdays, normally – scenes of vinyl frenzy in the tiny record store I’ll never forget!). That’s probably how that one split lp found its way to my little shit town. Too bad I didn’t find it then …..
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