Prior to the «Beermacht» demo, Portland’s WEHRMACHT released this cassette through the swiss SM-cassette label of Röbi Zollinger (founder of the legendary «Speed Airplay» radio show). To my knowledge, this was the first ever official WEHRMACHT release. Quite funny actually, when you look back, how dedicated the handful of swiss scene activists were in pushing international bands in that time. Not only because there wasn’t too much good music being made in Switzerland, but also because to us (no, this is not the royal “we”) it seemed only self-evident that we wouldn’t be limited by national borders.
The german Wehrmacht and sharks, horror movie soundtracks and Thrash Metal mixed together – only in America! This tape blew everybody out of their shoes and I can still understand why. The power is overwhelming and (especially on the a-side) comes from the incredible drumming skills of Brian Lehfeldt and Tito Matos’ voice. And: Because a part of the audience was obviously not amused by the “Heavy Metal” band at all. But the band didn’t take the shit coming from the Punk crowd and just fired back (Wehrmacht opened up for POISON IDEA that night).
Typical for a soundboard recording, the guitars are low in the mix and the singing is very dominant, but not for a second I find that a bad thing. You still can hear the riffing (did you notice the main riff in “B.O.S.” is pretty much the same Napalm Death had on the a-side of “Scum” used more than once?), but really, the vocals (think of a lightning fast Paul Baloff!) and the drumming are sensational.
GENOCIDE (pre-REPULSION) recorded their WFBE-demo just a couple days (Jan 26 1986) before the WEHRMACHT live show here was taped. Both bands played at about the same speed at that time (before REPULSION accelerated for good), but Brian Lehfeldt is more of a solid metal drummer and technically on a very different level. Again, we’re on the verge of what would become “Grindcore”, but without the Death Metal background and that’s what makes WEHRMACHT pretty much unique (CRYPTIC SLAUGHTER could be lumped together with them; maybe that’s why the two bands remained close friends up to this day). I also find the band’s Hardcore influences really strong, yet it’s a Thrash Metal band. That’s the interesting effect of these influential “hinge-bands”: They’re on a crossing point.
The b-side with the two rehearsal sessions is very good too. A bit slower still, it’s like you can hear how they sucked up the speed and thrash input that came from especially S.O.D. (and I think that the “Death Metal side” of Death, Genocide or Slaughter increased speed after D.R.I.”s “Dealin’ with it”, SIEGE & “Speak english or die” too).
SM-tapes had at least one other release I can think of right now and that was the live tape of the east german band L’ATTENTAT. The story of the howabouts that tape got smuggled through the iron curtain into the west and released and how it later turned out that one of the band members was actually a snitch has to be told at some other point.
I decided not to fiddle around and left the one channel as it is on the a-side. I could have amplified it to better balance the entire sound, but as you know, I normally try not to change a thing, not cut off a second off the recordings or edit it in any way, so I just left it the way it is.
Download the tape in never heard before quality (ripped from the mastertape):
A-side (Live at Pine Street Theatre, Portland Oregon, Jan. 31 1986) (.zip folder)
B-side (Rehearsals from Sept. 5 1985 & October 19 1985) (.zip folder)
PS: WEHRMACHT will tour Europe in November 2010 with the original lineup.
PS II: I added a band bio I got from Dave / Rocket Science. Thanks much for this, mate!
14 Comments
cremate the fuckin’ wankers. No surprise NAPALM DEATH covered “Night Of Pain”. See you in November.
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This is so unbelieable great I cannot belive it. Wehrmacht made a huge impression on me when Shark Attack was released.
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AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! best post!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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i’m not even sure what to say. i haven’t even gotten the second side yet but oh my god. this band just has so much energy it’s fucking scary. i went to a crossover thrash show (that’s what this is right) and the bands just tried to be like this. they just didn’t have the raw energy. thank you so much. i love all genocide/repulsion’s work but i don’t think they sped it up a lot more. my other thrash friends are going to shit themselves after hearing this. thanks again.
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Great writing as usual, even though this ain’t my cup of tea, I can smell the history!
Am intersted in yr comments on L’ATTENTAT…I had a vinyl LP of theirs years ago which was pretty dull & so I sold it – very cool packaging & notes etc…but music a bit of a mess… Now I’ve just read ‘Stasiland’ & am a bit wiser to the history of east germany I’d like to know more about this band – esp. if they were infiltrated by the stasi themselves! More info please!
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Thanks for this Erich. I had the Beermacht demo as a kid , but you know how that goes…sold it in the mid 90′s
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im digging all the NW posts, saw these guys quite a few times.
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i recall discovering WT with this live tape back in early 1986… I even played it in a local disco…needless to say that the pseudo Metallers there didn’t understand what was going on…. a great laugh! But when the LP came out it was a HUGE disapointment and I gave up on them.
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WOW!!! Nice post and a great follow up to the previous one. Incredible moments in music history. Posted a live tape of theirs a while ago that I’m sure made the tape trading rounds back in the day, from a year later,
http://mustard-relics.com/2008/02/03/wehrmacht-russian-river-theatre-032287/.
Should have followed these guys more back then, just figured they were a novelty. Thanx a ton man. Spazztic Blur next?
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Admin Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 20:36
Oh yeah, I should have mentioned your post! Glad you like this, Justin – but Spazztic Blur? I think not ….
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Pär Arvidsson Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 20:54
Spazztic Blurr was super as well!
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Admin Reply:
August 12th, 2010 at 20:57
Not my cup of buttermilk.
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I’ve always loved the “Biermacht” demo but I wasn’t familiar with this tape, so thanks a lot for that!
In retrospect, it’s crazy to think of all the groundbreaking underground projects that Switzerland bred in the 80s – Hellhammer, Megawimp, Off The Disk, FOG, Messiah, Apocalyptic Noise, Speed Airplay and so many more!
You made me really curious about L’Attentat too. Didn’t know about that snitch guy… Please tell us more!
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Thanx for this, pal!! Never heard this scorcher before. Wehrmacht were totally demented, but also powerful & cool!!
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Hey, thanks everyone for the nice comments… We are thrilled to reformed w the original line-up and are looking forward to our Europe tour. Soon we will releasing “fast As A Shark Attack” Featuring Accept “fast a a shark” and Ripping new recordings ov “shark attack” and “united shoebothers” Keep an eye on our Myspace and Face book pages ….
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Admin Reply:
October 16th, 2010 at 18:57
See you on tour, Brian!
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I just discovered this blog and feel like I’m about 5 years late to the party, but wanted to write some comments so decided to start here. Erich, your musical journey from the late 70s through the mid-late 80s is so close to my own — from hard rock to NWOBHM to thrash to hardcore and beyond — that I’m really enjoying all of the commentary that accompanies the music.
I discovered Wehrmacht sometime around late 85/early 86 during my underground tape trading heyday and started writing back and forth with Brian Lehfeldt. At that time, their thrash metal/hardcore fusion closely mirrored the way my own musical tastes were evolving and I quickly latched on to the sounds they were creating. My early efforts to ‘promote’ the band through my trading connections garnered a mention under the ‘thank you’ list of both their LPs.
I’ll always remember the first time I saw the band live back in the summer of ’86 (July 25 1986 to be exact — it was just under a week before my 22nd birthday and I’ve still got the ticket stub). I had just graduated from college and rode the Greyhound from my home in eastern Washington down to Portland to visit an old University chum of mine. He had dropped out mid-way through though, and what was once a great friendship bound by love of heavy metal had begun to splinter as my musical tastes began to wander away from that genre and down the hardcore path. Nevertheless, I managed to drag him down to the Pine St. Theater that Friday night to see D.R.I. and Wehrmacht.
The club was all ages with a bar area for 21 and over; something that struck me as distinctly “Portlandian” at the time since all the shows I attended in Seattle and Spokane were always ‘no alchohol’ affairs. I can remember seeing Pig Champion in attendance. The reception for the openers was somewhat indifferent. I assumed the majority of the crowd were there for the headlining band and at this point in time Wehrmacht were still a cassette band phenomenon since their first vinyl effort was still a year out. Back in the day I could often be found in the pit, but my sense of self preservation normally forwent any attempts at stage diving. However, for whatever reason I decided to show some support and enthusiasm by climbing up on the stage, doing some brief and inane hardcore dance half way across and then quickly exit stage center by jumping off. One of the up fronters apparently determined that he didn’t want my shoe accidentally making contact with his head (imagine that!) and thrust out an arm to disrupt my otherwise graceful leap. The resulting contact flipped me mid-air and I unceremoniously did my worst superman impersonation, managing to avoid skull to concrete floor contact only through a judicious last second dive and roll maneuver (all those years of judo instruction having apparently paid off). The result was a horribly sprained wrist that left my arm in pain for weeks to come. I subsequently had to sit out the D.R.I. mayhem from the sidelines with my mildly bemused buddy who could only laugh and give me one of those “what the hell were you thinking” looks.
Anyway, enough rambling…thanks for posting this. It brings back some great memories of those rough and tumble tape trading days and this great crossover band in their infancy.
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Thanks a lot Dave! Reading these stories is the main attraction for me. There were not too many like you or me back in the underground days, so it’s really nice the internet lets us connect and share our little adventures from back then. Funny when you think that I saw Wehrmacht just a month before you did (as mentioned somewhere). I’m on that LP thankslist too, but I don’t have it no more.
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