You may or may not know, but Switzerland is not only very small a country, it also has no less than four official languages, spoken in four different regions (those four languages themselves consist of numerous different dialects, some of them so different from the official language that they’re hard to understand even for swiss). Why am I telling you? Ever since I can think, I completely lack any sort of patriotism, in fact, it’s quite the other way round. Not that I hate Switzerland per se; it’s a swell place to live, fer sure. I just hate the idea of not hating it. Just like art comes from cultivating a certain proportion of negativity towards “reality”, being an individual (well, let’s pretend ….) or an intellectual of sorts requires first and foremost a negative approach towards different concepts of society or group as such. If that’s where it ends, though, it becomes nothing but a ludicrous scheme. Punk is full of such schemes and that’s what makes me hate Punk. “I would never become member of a club whhich would accept people like me”, as Groucho Marx (son of Karl) said. This very attitude itself prevented me from caring too much about Swiss Punk for a long, long time. This was not uncommon though: Many of my pals from the old days felt the same way. Sure, you might say, this was very short sighted, but then again, it’s the sort of radicalism and everyday-consequence I’m missing a lot these days.

This was the main reason why I didn’t give shit about THE BASTARDS until the 90s. THE BASTARDS came from the french speaking part of Switzerland. It’s crazy, but when you grew up in the german speaking part and had a working class backgound (like I did), you most likely knew more about the USSR than about the french speaking regions of Switzerland. I remember that I’ve been to Geneva (the capital of the region and home of THE BASTARDS) exactly once, ca. 1975 and that was it. Years later (when I had temporarily lost the little mind I have, being a left radical), I visited Geneva again, but this time, I had iron bars and stones in my backpack.
Can’t tell much more about the BASTARDS other than they had probably Punk’s sexiest woman (along with Alice Bag who I adore) and during their life time, only released this pearl. They also had a s/m image which works fine for me. When I’m sober again tomorrow, I will definitely remember the one of the other additional detail, but as for now, that’s all you can get from me. Oh yes: “Schizo Terrorist” is probably too good to be from Switzerland.

Impossibilities.mp3
Danger.mp3
Schizo Terrorist.mp3

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Happy Blast Beat Memorial Day everybody!

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If Satan was to be evoken through music, it would take MERCYFUL FATE to make him appear. This EP, the band’s first own vinyl appearance, in all those years has never lost its intense grip on me. Something about these four songs is deeply disturbing: The sometimes atypical rhythm (as in “Devil Eyes”), the weird guitar work with its translucency and its bizarre slightly oriental flair – and of course and foremost the incredible voice of King Diamond. The two LPs following this twelve inch are great, extraordinarily great (which one is better, “Melissa” or “Don’t break the Oath”?), but they don’t have the same cutting edge anymore. If you want to hear the Punky beginnings of the band’s main song writers, check out BRATS masterful LP (more BRATS here).
Imagine a 14, 15 years old teenager walking into a record store and seeing this cover on display. A rough sketch, as it seems, crude and graphic: Two inverted crosses (“why these double crosses”, you’d ask yourself , “are these eviler than regular upturned crosses?”); a naked, well hung and hanging woman in the center, with a pentagram where the lustful fantasies culminate and a bunch of hooded zombies or demons standing in circle. Mate – that alone would make this EP an object of desire. Then you’d fetch the thing to check it out on one of the heavily used public record players, impale the vinyl on the turntable, take the headphones and fuck me Jesus, what’s this?!!! The Judas Priest reference was obvious to me right from start on: Twin guitars and the high pitched vocals, but with MERCYFUL FATE, it was like things had become a sickening twist.
Side A (the other side is called “Side 1″; a nice little oddity) starts off with “A Corpse without Soul”. The song lacks the genre typical structure (slow buildup and stuff like that) – instead, it just goes right off. And it goes off a second time, as soon as King Diamond screams his lungs out with the unforgettable line “Listen – I’m a corpse, I’m a corpse, I’m a corpse without soul”. Speed is up, until the slow middle part: “I was walking down among the graves, I heard a cry, my shadow was gone, emptiness in my body, I felt so alone” etc. – crazily intoned by the King’s voice. Some people often take the imaginative, fantastic imagery and lyrics of certain Metal bands and open a normative field with a second, opposing pole, held by the political, socially concerned contents of Punk bands. In this setting, Punk lyrics would appear to be of  a “true” function and Metal texts were “false”, “phoney”. If things were only that simple! Have you never let your fantasies go wild, let disturbing pictures arise in front of you, falling into a (often self-destructive) maelstrom of self-transcendence? This is what bands like MERCYFUL FATE are capable of doing to you and this is exactly how I understand satanism of the cleverer sort. It’s a form of self-empowerment, an exercise, a practice of the self.
“Nuns have no Fun” is undeniably my least fave pick of the four. Sure, the refrain is nice and powerful with the pubertal conjuration of the female genitalia (“C.U.N.T.”), but overall, the track misses the other songs enormous urgency. Turn the platter ’round and things will magically escalate in intensity. “Doomed by the living Dead” turns screws in your head, it’s of such intensity. The guitar / vocals continuum is so strong, so seamlessly amalgamated one into another, it is capable of perforating the layer under which music is said to be oscillating (as a reassuring aesthetical concept). Fact is, that with the help of substances and meditative practice, you can alter “reality” to degrees yet unfathomed by many undaring souls. “Flames are rising, can’t you see you’re dying (…), so just say goodbye to all your holy angels”. I had the great bliss to see MERCFUL FATE perform live in Belgium, at the now legendary “Heavy Sound Festival”, in 1984, and I remember how I had tears in my ears when they played this song. Darkness had slowly set in, the night was about to lay its black sheets over the small and soaked ground in the outskirts of Poperinge, a dump of a village that was heavily destroyed in the first world war. The night before the festival, my friend Marco “Dinosaur” Suremann and I had arrived in Poperinge, after continuous hassle from the cops in Brussels. We had been standing there in the heavy rain, when a biker guy turned up after had seen us leaning against the fence, trying to sleep standing in the rain. The good chap let us get some hours of sleep laying on a small table in the ruin of a caravan. We were very thankful for his most mercyful gesture.
Back to the EP, where the intangible climax is yet to be experienced. “Devil Eyes”, as said before, is of greatest force and uniqueness. “I’ll take you to hell, you’re inside my spell. In Lucifer’s mirror and I am his killer, I am his killer, I am devil eye’s (…) oh yeah, I love my eyes, oh yeah, those devil eyes” – eyes of the eyes, so to speak. The lead part starting at 1.38, and I cannot emphasize this strongly enough, has got to be the emotionally most captive moment in the recorded history of music. Take that, Peter, for you still don’t seem to be understanding what you say when you speak of “Heavy Metal solos” (secretly, he’s a big lover of Metal, as I happen to know).

Three pressings of this milestone made. First one had a white border instead of the black one (some sources say there were only a couple hundred made with the white border, but I find that hard to believe, since the copy I bought in late 82 or early 83 had a white border and so did all the other copies of my friends back then). Pictured however is the 2nd pressing, with the black frame. The 3rd press looks alike, but often misses the insert and has a small distribution imprint somewhere on the back. Some nutheads pay big $$$ (often more than what a 2nd press goes for!) for bootlegs on colored vinyl on ebay; there were no colored vinyl variations of this. “Rave-On” was a neat little label from Holland that released only a handful of records up until 1984, but all of them are unique in their own sense. You’ll hear them all, sooner or later. Promise.

A Corpse without Soul.mp3
Nuns have no Fun.mp3
Doomed by the living Dead.mp3
Devil Eyes.mp3

PS: Please make sure, after so much praise, to check out this.

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I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just started watching Lars von Trier’s “Antichrist” and after the first (intense!) 10 minutes, I started realizing that I had a WHITE SPIRIT song on my mind. Whatever may be responsible for this most extraordinary association (you tell me!), here I am, taking a short break from watching the film, ripping and posting WHITE SPIRIT’s first 7″. It contains the great “Backs to the Grind” track (with some nice cheesy organ) and “Cheetah”, the song that made me sit down and write these lines. “Cheetah” must be played in the month-long burial ceremony of mine. Promise? Okay, and now back to the movie.

Backs to the Grind.mp3
Cheetah.mp3

PS: Somebody care to transcribe the lyrics of “Cheetah”? What’s he singing in the chorus? I’m humming along since 30 years now and I’m sick of it. I finally wanna know what he sings!

PS 2: Yeah, the crackling. Go and buy an official reissue of this.

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This is one of the best european HC records and although I don’t spin the only EP by Norway’s SVART FRAMTID twice a week anymore (like I used to do), it’s still got a lot of charme. Just read the lyrics to the song “Religios Terror” and almost felt a bit nostalgic: Seems like songs against religion these days would rather be directed against those Taliban, Hamas and El-Qaida creeps. Best song is “Disipline” – a minor classic, followed by “17 Milliarder” which has some intersting guitar bits towards the end.
A couple of years ago, the prices for all X-Port Plater releases were exorbitantly high and I always wondered what the cause for the short-lived hype was. Even a bootleg LP that compiled them EPs went for a ridiculous amount of money.
The cover is actually a pretty posh foldout thing, but I’m too lazy (hungover, to be frank) to get the entire thing scanned.

Here’s a weird SVART FRAMTID video from youtube. Seems to be coming from some TV-show.

For more in a similiar vein, you should check out BARN AV REGNBUEN.

Religios Terror.mp3
Disiplin.mp3
Systematikk.mp3
Nar Bomba kommer.mp3
17 Milliarder.mp3
De tror det blir bedre.mp3

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Who wouldn’t remember when he or she first heard NEON CHRIST on the PEACE WAR Double LP comp? Although the comp is great from a to z, the NEON CHRIST song is one of those that really stick out. Fast, energetic, athletic and extremely catchy. It took me ’til 1988 until I finally was able to find me this EP – I remember when we arrived at the home of Dave from INFEST, I immediately went through his (very small but tasteful) record collection. One of the gemms I picked out was this EP here; he gave it to me for free. 10 minutes later, INFEST started to practice in the living room of the house, but that’s another story.

The fast thrashing songs are all great and über-catchy. But then you hear the final song, “After”, and you go just “what the hell?!” – what a masterpiece!

As a special bonus, I’m also including the 2nd 7″ from the double 7″ set released in 1990 (bloody hell, how did these 20 years pass me by just like that??). Whilst the first 7″ features most (but not all) songs of the original EP, the 2nd 7″ has the aforementioned track (“Ashes to ashes” – a song which has my back turn into one big goose bumps area) from the PEACE WAR comp, plus three more songs from this session. And these three songs keep astonishing me whenever I hear them! Incredibly well crafted, highly original smashers of their very own caliber. Hardcore never was more exciting than this and it’s a crying shame the band didn’t continue after this session! Imagine what an LP they could have recorded – one could cry over the loss!

This is the rare yellow cover version; only the first 200 of the batch had this cover. The double 7″ had a press run of 2000 copies.

NEON CHRIST- s/t 7″EP:

Parental Suppression.mp3
Draft Song.mp3
Winding.mp3 / Bad Influence.mp3
Neon Christ.mp3
We mean Business.mp3
Yoof.mp3
It’s mine.mp3
Doom.mp3
After.mp3

2nd 7″ from “A Seven Inch two Times” 2×7″EP:

The Knife that cuts so deep.mp3
Ashes to Ashes.mp3
Blind Patriot.mp3
The Death they’ll give you.mp3

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Let’s not start the new year without some more Metal. Here’s one treat for you.

The New Wave of British Heavy Metal may have been many things. One thing it was not: It wasn’t limited to Britain, once the can had been opened. Just like in Punk, the sparks of the first wave flew around the globe in no time. In California, Brian Slagel was one of the many who were fascinated with the outburst of musical energy, so in 1981, he began putting together a fanzine called “The New Heavy Metal Revue” (a small, photocopied zine of which I should have the two and only numbers down in the basement somehwere). The interest in the new thing was immense, suddenly there were bands all over the place, so it was only natural to collect some money to release not only a zine, but a compilation LP. In the summer of 1982, 5000 copies were pressed of what was to be the first and probably the most important Metal compilation series ever. METAL MASSACRE still is one of the defining moments in my personal musical life. I first bought the 2nd, different version, in later 1982 or early 1983, just before the 2nd installment was released. Up until number 5, I bought every one of them upon release (and horded three copies of the rare picture disc boxset), before completely losing interest after the so-so sixth in the series. Looking back, it’s hard to say which of those would be my fave, but I guess I’ve always favored volume 4 over the others as it does best at documenting the swing towards extremer music.

This is the rare first version of “Metal Massacre”. It’s never been re-pressed or re-released, at least not as far as I know. It features a different track list (the songs of both STEELER and RATT were omitted after this version) and is widely known for featuring the first ever METALLICA recording, when the band was a five piece. Lars Ulrich had followed DIAMOND HEAD on the band’s 1981 UK tour and when he returned to L.A., he set all wheels in motion to establish a band of his own and feature a song on Brian Slagel’s projected “Metal Massacre” comp. The core of the band at the time consisted of Lars (who by, the way and depsite some hostility he’s getting, probably is and surely was a friendly guy back then who even took time to answer my almost incomprehensible fan letter I sent him in late 1982 or early 1983), James Hetfield, Dave Mustaine and bassist Ron McGovney (name also misspelled). The group had hired a second guitarist for recording, a guy named Lloyd Grant and “Hit the Lights” was recorded live and in one take. This ad-hoc version of “Hit the Lights” was replaced by another version with different line-up on subsequent pressing (check the cover detail above: The group’s name is misspelled as “Mettallica”, that’s how you can easily tell the first from the later pressings).

My faves apart from this charming METALLICA track would be DEMON FLIGHT (I will never ever get tired of this song!), BITCH deliver the most aggressive and powerful track second to CIRITH UNGOL, who shine with a devastating non-LP version of “Death of the Sun”. The AVATAR instrumental is nice, but could have been a bit more concentrated and no, this is not the pre-SAVATAGE band. PANDEMONIUM’s song is really good, atmospheric. I never got the bigfuzz some people made about MALICE (remember when the demo was traded like it was made out of solid gold?) and I still don’t understand. What a boring band. The RATT song is really good and so is the very british sounding STEELER track.

Download the complete vinyl rip here.

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“Erich, I’ve got something for you here!”, the shop owner Alex yelled at me in his irresistibly nonchalent way when I entered the legendary Bro Records shop one day in spring 1985. He waved the NEGAZIONE EP around in the smoke filled air of his empire. “What is it?”, I asked and he just said: “Wait and listen!”. The plastic got put up at once and blasted out through the shop’s immense pa (black gigantic home made speakers that I’ll never forget). “Niente” was on – and the whole shop (a handful of Punks and Metalheads) started slam dancing between the shelves. Beer cans opened and cigs were lit and the 5 or 6 copies of “Tutti pazzi” (“Everybody’s crazy”) were gone a moment later (for 2.50$ each).

When later the same year, I saw NEGAZIONE live for the first time, these insane bastards started the set off with “Niente”.  And that was exactly when I kinda lost consciousness. What a band. What a song. Whenever they played this live, the audience went beserk! And what a spectacular EP!! Without a doubt one, if not the, most radical EP of the italian HC grandezza. Every song is so intense, twisted, violent that I still can feel the total fascination I had for them guys 25 years ago. In fact, it was first more of a lovehate thing – this record seriously fucked with my head. Love won (for once) and never went away.
Note: The songs are all attached to each other. I did split up the titles on the b-side though, cause it seemed possible. I left the a-side as one big ugly brutal chunk though. You’ll find the follow-up EP here.

Sogni & bisogni.mp3 & Niente.mp3
La mia mente.mp3
Maschere.mp3
Tutti pazzi.mp3

And have a good 2010 to you all!

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