Yesterday, I saw THE FREEZE live for the first time ever. I wasn’t expecting too much, although “Land of the Lost” is one of the five best albums ever released methinks and I doubt there’s another Hardcore record I played as often as this. Then again, I normally don’t attend Hardcore shows anymore and the fact alone I didn’t want to miss THE FREEZE proves I expected at least to rehash a small dose of the old sensation. So my girlfriend and took a one hour drive on my scooter to the city of Lucerne. Just upon arrival, I ran into a bunch of old buddies of mine like Nasty (formerly EXXOR) and Roger (formerly NECROMANCER & AMEX NIMEON), both now playing in THE SENILES. I also met Röbi who used to do so much for the 80s Hardcore thing in Switzerland and Germany with his legendary SPEED AIRPLAY radio show in the mid 80s and of course Mölch with whom I was engaged in both MEGAWIMP fanzine and OFF THE DISK RECORDS, among other familiar and half familiar faces.
THE SENILES delivered a fun show and as soon as the second band WICKED (who play horrible music) was on stage, we literally ran outside the venue (which is a former prison, located in a surrealistic area in rural Switzerland, with a massive panorama of mountains, so dominant that it almost takes your breath away and makes you feel numb – or as Heinrich Heine said about central Switzerland: Mountains so high that all the swiss are blockheads). So while we sat by some table, a short guy who had the looks of Inspector Columbo played around with a dog. I mean, what am I saying, playing: He was obsessed by the damn tyke. He couldn’t let go off of it and ran around and about with that animal like they both were on some kind of a Doctor Doolitle wonder drug. Suddenly, the Columbo guy disappeared only to reappear on stage as Clif Hanger, singer of THE FREEZE.
The set was great. They opened with “American Town” and the audience, young and old, got totally into the band right from start. They ripped (!) through a set well mixed with both old and new songs and not one of the numbers was below great. The energy level was high, Clif looked like a mad man (or as Röbi said: If he wouldn’t have been a singer, he would have ended up being something like the una-bomber). The audience sang along most songs like I wouldn’t have expected it and I totally dug this because I keep thinking of Clif Hanger as the Raymond Carver of Hardcore. This man has written some of my favorite lyrics. So it wasn’t until long until even the old silly me started to dance hard and harder until I completely lost control during tracks such as “Time Bomb”, “Boston not L.A.”, “Violent Arrest” or the monolithic “Nazi Fun”. I’m not sure whether any other original members were among the line up of five, but whether or not – they did a hell of a good job and it took me until the next day to start feeling the familiar mixture between excitement and stomache-ache like I usually feel when having taken part in one of these folkloric history re-enactments of sorts.
“Guilty Face” was the THE FREEZE’s Hardcore peak. Never before and never after they sounded faster and angrier. All of the four songs can be called the crème de la crème of Hardcore, even the slower “Halloween Night”. I’m sure you all have heard these tracks, maybe on the reissue 10″ with extra tracks on Axction Records, but I just felt like throwing this one into the round.
Find more of THE FREEZE on the essential “Unsafe at any Speed” 7″ compilation ep and don’t forget me the first one, Tommy (and else).
This post is especially for Linda, my love.
Violent Arrest.mp3
Voices from my Window.mp3
Halloween Night.mp3
Guilty Face.mp3
27 Comments
Hello Erich!
I got to see The Freeze play in ’84. They played at Perkins Palace with The Exploited and 7 Seconds. Great show and the crowd didn’t give Wattie a good reception. They continously threw stuff at him throughout the set and kept shouting “Wattie is a wanker!”. I saw the Exploited play at the Olympic a week prior and the crowd was cool with him but the opening bands were boring, including Bad Religion. The Perkins gig was much better.
Land of the Lost was an ok record and Guilty Face as well but their best tracks were off Boston Not L.A. in a novelty sort of way.
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That’s the Hardcore I love!! So great and woith power. Thanks for this I will have to check out the other records of this band.
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satan dammit! i didn’t feel too well the night they played here in berlin so i didn’t go the show, which i originally planned to do. now i could even bite my hairy ass with much more ferocity…at least i saw the adolescents two days before that!
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Sounds like a great show! This 7″ totally kills and no matter how often I heard these songs they still sound amazing. Thanks for this post. No I can finally have them on my ipod.
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did they do “idiots at happy hour”?
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Unfortunately, they did not, Howard. I wish they had played the complete discography up to & incl. Rabid Reaction
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This bands first 4 or 5 records are outrageously good. I have the 10″ re-release on Ax/ction Records which I stole from some rip-off guy at a record fair back in 1991 or so. Man, I’m so punk! Check out the live “Five Way Fury” LP on Lost & Found Records for a pretty rippin’ live set, when they had both the drummer & bassist of Moving Targets in the line-up, both of whom died recently. Such a shame.
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too bad i have loved that song since i got it on my “first punk rock tape”
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I fucking love this record and did see them in ’83, with Scream…great show.
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Going to see them next week in London… I’m not sure how many times that is (5 or 6) starting in 1982! Never been disappointed.
Last time I saw them was in NYC and my son came along. Cliff had his daughter(s?) with him. Great gig with the reformed and still thoroughly offensive Nihilistics.
The Columbo comment is spot on. Exactly what I thought when I saw Cliff milling about outside the Knitting Factory!
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great ep, great post!
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such a great post. thanks a million for the text and the music. did linda enjoy the show too?
ps: I’m crazily in love too.
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Great to hear about old timers still ripping it up. Lots of great Freeze records, but this is their best output, in my opinion.
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Nice, my dog’s name is Linda.
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Whoa…I have an Aunt named Linda!!! Coincidence??
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This fuckin’ rocks! WOOOOOO!
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Classic! Missed Freeze when they played here in 94 convinced that they would suck. The records after Rabid… have their moments while their latest being too much stepping on Bad Religion ground with ooozzz and ahhhhhss. Have a Freeze live from 2002 or something doing a gig at a radio station that really really rocks so I can imagine what you saw. Talking about re-enactment I will attend both Adolescents and Poison Idea when they come along here.
Tell Linda I said Hi!
.
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as i stated, i saw freeze play back in ’84. i would have saw them play in 81-83 but they didn’t play l.a. those years.
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i was at the berlin show (reminded me on something like a “veteran day”) and it was the best show of an band “back of these days” i ever saw… the only other original member was bill “lunchmeat” close on guitar, but i think, an essential one… i was lucky to talk with cliff after the show, ’cause at the end of the show, i was aspecting to see him die right on stage… he looked just like a tired wreck. he turned out to be a smart, charming and witty guy and was talking like a waterfall pulling all these faces… he mentioned to write his mem oirs right now… that’s worth reading i think
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BREAKING BALLS- the lyrics are way too small to be legible, and I can’t find the lyrics to “Violent Arrest” anywhere.
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Will upload a bigger scan! My scans are generally known to be horrible, I know, I know …..
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Big dick, small scans.
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So yours must be even smaller, I reckon!
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Yepp! It’s been shrinking over the years as the size of the scans have grown
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i think i need to be soot for not leaving a comment on this one yet. the freeze are one of my favorite hc bands and i have not ever heard a freeze track i didn’t totally love even the new shit. and i feel the same way about bad religion. it’s like some bands you just love. this is the hardest they ever were and it fucking smokes. i mean this is one of the best hardcore records along with dri’s first ep’ poison idea’s pick your king, negative approach s/t 7, and of corse urban waste s/t 7. that’s just my opinion though and maybe it’s wrong. i don’t care this rock thank erich!
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am i crazy or didn’t you post the Land Of The Lost 12″ too? i can’t find the post??
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No, Zach – never posted “Land of the Lost”.
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zach Reply:
October 11th, 2010 at 18:31
really? i could have sworn you did. oh well.
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zach Reply:
October 11th, 2010 at 18:35
oh maybe i saw it on Heavy Rotation.
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