megalomaniacal supernauts

2007-07-06T13:49:00.000+02:00

Justice: Oh How We Laughed Video

Here's the Justice music video I filmed, edited and directed for school. I'm not really 100% satisfied as the color correction is a total failure and there are a lot of shots that I couldn't use because you could see either the Black Pro-mist or the donut reflect. But I'm more satisfied about this thing than I am about all the other school related stuff I have made the last two years. Let me know what you think.

2007-03-25T16:25:00.000+02:00

"I walked the streets the other day"

It seems as if there are finally some new and fresh bands popping up again over here in Belgium and the Netherlands that are actually pretty good. Some of those bands are Vogue (who rerecorded their demo yesterday, as well as a 7"), The Reactionaries (featuring members of Dead Stop, Justice and Restless Youth) and the Dutch band Union Town. Be on the lookout for all these bands, because they are better than your average punk or hardcore band.

I will be spending some blog space on both Vogue and The Reactionaries some day soon, but for now I will urge you to at least check out the MP3s of Union Town by simply clicking here. Be prepared for some late DC influenced hardcore meets Dangerhouse hardcore and mid-paced late '70s with great Dave Smalley influenced vocals. If you like what you hear try to get a hold of their demo, you won't be disappointed.

2007-03-23T10:59:00.000+01:00

How do you do? I don't think we've meet, my name is Alec and I'm from Minor Threat!

I just found out that the guy that's asleep on the Minor Threat EP isn't Ian Mackaye, but his brother Alec. I always thought, just like most of you I guess, that Ian was the guy so tired he fell asleep at a show. I even think I remember having read this in Dance Of Days. I'm not 100% sure about that though.

Anyway, Henry Rollins had this to say about the picture:

That’s Alec MacKaye, Ian’s brother. I was standing there when that photo was taken. He was such an interesting guy. Alec and I were roommates in the summer of ’80 for a few weeks. Alec had the bunk bed. He would come in at like at 10 a.m. and say he walked to Bethesda and back. He would go in that outfit—the jeans and trench coat. And he would walk through the simmering D.C. stewpot in that outfit, and get to the show early and just pass out. That picture was taken either between sets or when he’d arrived early to the gig and caught a nappy-nap.

Check out some more great pictures taken by Susie J. Horgan along with little comments by Henry Rollins here. Or buy the book Punk Love here.

2007-02-24T12:22:00.000+01:00

The Beer Cup! Yeah!!

Here's a scan of the order form for Murphy's Law merchandise that was included with the Back With A Bong lp. I read somewhere someone wanted to see a scan of this, so here it is, whoever requested it.

2007-02-15T21:23:00.000+01:00

"The body is deteriorating every day, you can’t get too attached to it"

These are the alien beggar kids: They started to get dressed in the morning but came up with a better idea. They used razors, an axe, hatchets, anything they could get their hands on, and turned themselves into skinheads and Mohawks. Sure they look tough, but let’s get things straight: Being a kid in 1986 ain’t as much fun as you thought.
The Cro-Mags have known this for years. Their solution is musical and brilliant in its simplicity. Blend hardcore with the sexual powers of heavy metal and add some punk rock to be true to their roots. The Cro-Mags are the extraterrestrial sewer workers of hardcore. If it’s possible to be down to earth and orbit it at the same time, they’ve been there. While other bands are looking for new ways to say the same old thing, the Cro-Mags speed-sing simple, lyrical songs with a simple, non-lyrical message. One message: Being a kid sucks. Period.
Sounds like fun? Well, it’s a lot like playing sandlot baseball in Lebanon. But in rock culture the definition of ‘fun’ comes up for renewal every couple of years. The angriest musical message ever sent was the one punk rock gave to the hippies: “We hate your idea of fun.” Punk rock gave you a place to go when your parents were getting into Studio 54. But when rock ‘n’ roll grew up, how the hell could a kid rebel respectably when his parents were hanging out, smoking pot, and listening to the Clash? It is the action-reaction theory of evolution: One generation’s idea of fun is always the next generation’s poison.
The Cro-Mags have their own ideas. Three of the band members are Hare Krishnas. They are vegetarians and, for a bunch of non-smoking, non-drinking herbivores, they look pretty good. Unless you happen to hate tattoos, in which case they look healthy but scarred.
The band arrives on time. There are five of them, two of whom –Harley Flanagan and John Joseph- are twins. Equally tanned, attractive, muscled, shaved, and tattooed, they are the same height and finish each other’s sentences. Usually they agree. Onstage, you can tell them apart because John is the lead singer, and Harley plays bass. Offstage, it’s harder. Doug Holland, lead guitar, looks like John and Harley, but without the tattoos. Parris Mitchel Mayhew (known to friends as Kevin) appears to represent the preppie faction of the group. He stands taller than the others and has hair. Mackie, the drummer, also has hair and always look unhappy.
They are, by rock star standards, well-behaved and soft-spoken. Nobody squirms or tells ‘in’ jokes. They bring their own Perrier, answer all the questions, and don’t all talk at once. They don’t make comments about the interviewer’s legs just because she happens to be a girl, and they’re a rock band. They are, in a word, mellow. But onstage they play such angry music.
“It’s not angry,” John protests in a barely audible voice. “Maybe people think that because there is a certain energy associated with it that is physical and aggressive.”
“Yeah,” Harley agrees, “but we have a message. There is a certain amount of frustration in our lives, but we feel we have ways to deal with it.”
“Some people go to clubs, do cocaine, and listen to demonic metal to get out their frustrations. It’s negative. Hardcore kids come to a show, slam and stage-dive with their friends, and feel better. There’s hardly any frustration on the dance floor. If there is, it’s someone who has a lot of negativeness in them, but basically it’s all non-violent.”
“Still you appear to be afraid. You’re always telling the kids to watch out.”
For the first time they all talk at once. “No!”
“I just don’t want them to come up and unplug me in the middle of a song,” Harley says.
“Recently, people are getting a bit sloppy. I just have to tell them to watch out for the equipment. It does get chaotic, which is why the energy has to be real. Outsiders can’t make the distinction between the fans having fun and the ones that are negative.”
“Yeah, outsiders just get scared,” Doug adds. “But people want more violence at a hockey game.”

Q: Who invented hardcore?
A: Probably the Russians.
Q: What do hardcore kids and Russians have in common?
A: Whenever you see either group having too much fun, you worry.

John and Harley insist that church devotees attend their shows, which I find hard to believe. I make a mental note to look for them at the next show, but since skinheads and Hare Krishnas resemble each other, I realize that I have to look hard.
The Cro-Mags’ devotion to Krishna caused problems over the packaging of their first album, The Age Of Quarrel. They selected a painting from The Bhagavad Gita, the bible of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, that depicted acts of lust, violence, and drug abuse (rock ‘n’ roll and religion coming together again). Originally chosen for the jacket cover, the painting was moved to the inner sleeve because Profile (the band’s record label) decided it was too controversial. To add insult: The painting was altered to soften its effect. The band was angry and insisted that the album be shipped with CENSORED stamped in large letters across the painting.
Krishna and hardcore? It seems implausible. But glancing through the concert ads from the Village Voice I noticed another hardcore band that calls itself Krishna Madness. Given the action-reaction theory, it makes sense that these kids would be involved in a religion that opposes drugs and promiscuity rather than embrace all the things rock music has stood for in the past. The average age of a hardcore musician or fan is 15. This would put his parents at close to age 35. The Rolling Stones are older. The idea of Mick Jagger prancing around in drag while Keith Richards shoots up is enough to make any kid rebel.
“It would take a long time to explain,” says Doug, “but being a devotee is in part a result of seeing all your friends dead from drug overdoses. For me it is an answer.”
“Everyone is looking for answers to their questions,” says John, “It’s tough in this city. You have to meditate wherever you are. I was into reading a lot of books about philosophy. When I was hanging around the Bad Brains, they attracted a lot of Hare Krishnas. I read those books, and I felt that this philosophy mixed devotion with serious, intense philosophy and explained why even bad things happen. I started hanging around with devotees. Now we go to meetings every Sunday.”
“I resented a lot of our friends who are devotees at first,” says Harley, “but then I started to know them better. I believe in God, and I can associate comfortably with anyone who does. The religion preaches being positive about anything that happens to us.”
“Everywhere we go we hear things about our friends,” says Doug. “Like two people we knew hung themselves. When we go onstage, we try to think positive. Sometimes things can go wrong, but that is our karma. We’ve grown up seeing people around us dying, killing themselves with drug overdoses. We try to have a message, for ourselves and these kids. The message is the same as our religion: Be positive.”
“Yeah, a lot of people we knew were bugging out,” says John. “Taking money to buy crack.”
“I get frustrated,” says Harley, “and the only time I can really relax is if I relax my mind, chant, play this music, and meditate.”
And on Sunday nights they play mind wrenching, insane hardcore rock ‘n’ roll, and sing songs about how everything sucks.
Perhaps if a lot of people sit around and complain loudly about how bad things are, how we’re a bunch of pagan heretics, and how the world is going to end from all this horror; if everyone agrees about it, the experience could be “positive”. People might feel better knowing that they’re not alone. The experience could almost be religious. It could be a Cro-Mags show.
“I have no proof that it’s true,” Doug finishes, sensing my scepticism, “but I had my lung punctured by a Catholic priest. I was in the hospital, and the priest came to give me last rites. He held my arm out and left it hanging. The strain in my arm, I felt it, left a hole in my chest.”
“But,” Doug is quick to add, “it wasn’t his fault.”

Chris Williamson owns the Rock Hotel, which promotes the Cro-Mags and other hardcore shows all over the country. He loves the stuff. Williamson wears shorts and sneakers backstage, classic attire for a hardcore fan. He runs in circles, stopping for a minute to make a point. He speaks to you assuming that you already agree with him, which makes it easier to agree with him.
Williamson points out to the video monitor, ablaze with the opening band onstage. “This,” Chris says, and I nod in agreement, “already sounds too soft to us.”
He happens to be right. This music is an addiction. The louder and faster and rawer you get it, the more important those things become to you senses. It numbs you to anything else. All the Cro-Mags mastered other kinds of music –Doug was a blues guitarist and Mackie is an accomplished studio drummer- but the energy just wasn’t there in anything else they played.
“Hardcore was born as a reaction to punk and music from the UK and has to be called a truly American creation,” says Chris. “Although it was originally an East Coast phenomenon, I believe that the West Coast is finally falling under the incredible power of hardcore especially after seeing the Cro-Mags totally blow away everyone who witnessed their recent West Coast shows.” The Cro-Mags’ blending of hardcore and metal (metalcore) is unique, and the experience is devastating with slamming, diving, and stage storming –critical mass energy, and it’s overtaken the American musical scene.
The music is also a drug. A Cro-Mags show is not a Hare Krishna prayer meeting. It’s more like the Quaalude of the ‘80s. L’Amour in Brooklyn, New York, is traditionally a heavy metal rock club. On this night the battle lines are drawn. You can tell who’s into what around here by what they wear and where they stand. Hardcore fans are up front where they can slamdance and chickenfight. They have shaved heads, wear active sportswear, and sometimes go shirtless revealing well-muscled bodies. Heavy metal kids hang back –way back, where no one can step on their high heels, rip their spandex, or slamdance on their well-sprayed hairdos. The hardcore section smells like sweat, the heavy metal part like VO-5.
With things so divided you’d expect half the club to be bored half the time. But as the Cro-Mags open, John goes into an epileptic fin onstage, twisting into contortions that suggest a hardcore Joe Cocker. Everyone is wild. Clenched fists and the horns, the heavy metal hand sign, go up at once.
These are the toughest fans, even though they don’t know how to dress. Deviate even momentarily from the established hardcore format, and they’re finished with you. Forever. “That,” Doug points out, “is because they come here to relax.”
The Cro-Mags slow, then speed up tempos. It’s rush hour: John and Harley run the length of the stage like they’re in a marathon. Doug hangs back, playing the great leads that require intense concentration. Parris just about smashes himself.
When it’s over, everyone is spent. Fans file out quietly. They are even quiet outside, as they walk home or hang out on cars near the club. But you can’t help being afraid. They really look awful.
Though the music is quite repetitive, the fans are touchy about what they want to hear, and these guys are actually decent musicians. (Most hardcore bands are composed of kids who never even graduated high school, much less took a music lesson).
The Cro-Mags say they don’t get bored playing hardcore. I look around the room, taking a sight poll. Mackie, the unhappy looking one, shrugs. “I do.”
What, then, is he doing here?
“Well, I am happy as long as I can play other kinds of music. I like hardcore, it’s the only thing where the kids can jump around and be part of the show. But I am locked into a certain format, and it can be boring. But the energy in this is great.”
“I mean, we play gigs where kids break their arms,” says Harley, “kids have come up to me and said, ‘Man, you guys were great. I had such a good time, look, I broke my arm.’” To the Cro-Mags, all that matters is that the music is good, releases frustrations, hurts no one, and isn’t illegal. And as long as the kids don’t slamdance naked on public beaches, western civilization is safe.
Too bad things had to change. In the ‘60s there were just two kinds of music: rock and Joan Baez. Apparently nobody could stand her, but everything else was considered listenable. It was sort of like being a kid and having your mother insist that you eat all your liver because starving children in other parts of the world would be thrilled to have such a nice dinner. The hippies listened to everything because, in places like Poland, there were hippies going to bed hearing Perry Como.
There was less to listen to, so no one avoided Cream because Clapton played blues or laughed at Hendrix when he played just plain metal. Hendrix became a legend to guys who wouldn’t be caught dead at a heavy metal show today. But back then it never occurred to anybody to complain. No one ever noticed that when the Beatles played Shea Stadium they had become “too commercial.”
Then, again, maybe it’s good that things changed. Maybe rock doesn’t need any supergroups. Obviously, with so many classifications and with fans reluctant to listen to new groups that fall outside of their specific musical preferences, the best success any band can hope for is cult status.
As for the Cro-Mags, they’ve succeeded in raising your conscious and are preparing for a 50-city tour with Motörhead. If you’d like to be a fan but feel that you are too old, can’t stand hardcore, or just simply don’t remember how to have fun, the band advises you to attend one of their shows. “People always ask me,” says Parris, “but the only way I can describe it is to say, ‘you gotta see for yourself.’ Get there early, because the shows are always crowded. Wear sneakers.”
Is great commercial success in this band’s future?
“Success for a rock band,” Kevin concludes with conviction, “means surviving.” You can say pretty much the same for a kid in 1986.
Days later we are sitting in Doug’s New York East Village apartment, which is furnished modestly and is very clean. The bathtub is in the kitchen. He glances around with pride. “To be able to work and buy things and have a roof over my head gives me something that these kids need. I work a day job because for the first two years we made no money at all.”
What about the tattoos? Well, only John and Harley have them (you don’t have to get tattooed to be a Cro-Mag or a fan). But when you do something so permanent to yourself, don’t you wonder what you’ll feel about it in 20 years? You might be real sorry.
“The body is deteriorating every day,” John tells me in his best I-Play-Hardcore-So-I-Am-Calm-Now monotone. “You can’t get too attached to it.”
“Yeah,” agrees Harley, who’s a tattoo artist in his spare time. “If I thought I’d live forever, I’d worry about it. But for now the worst thing is when you think of something you’d like to draw there, but you’ve run out of space.”
A recent Cro-Mags show at New York’s Ritz. Skinheads bang heads with Hare Krishnas. Everyone has fun. Richie, the Ramones drummer, known for playing faster and louder than anyone around, is in the audience, applauding the show.
“Great, huh?” a Ramones/Cro-Mags fan with a Statue Of Liberty hairdo exclaims.
“Yeah, really great,” says Richie, “but it wiped me out. I guess I’m too old.”
“Don’t worry, Richie,” the fan reassures him. “It’s supposed to make you tired. Besides, you’re not too old till you can’t go to shows anymore.”

You just read an 1986 article about the Cro-Mags. I found the original article scanned somewhere online, but I don’t really recall where I got it from (if the person responsible for the scan happens to read this, on behalf of every Cro-Mags fan: Thank you!). I just typed the whole article and left it as it was, including the spelling. I think the article’s pretty funny, at times patronizing, at times naive and other times just stupid or on point. Reading this you realise how much times have changed concerning the relation between mainstream press and hard music. Oh yeah, this article was written by Annetta Stark and it appeared in a paper or magazine that I don’t know the name of.

2007-01-31T20:59:00.000+01:00

About Black Sabeth, Lcyries, Reglion And Lolopolosea

Here's a scan of an amazing Integrity interview I found back on my computer. I don't know what fanzine it's taken from and I don't know who scanned it, so no credit for you guys! Enjoy this piece of history and if you want to listen to the Die Hard demo while reading, you can download the demo below.

Here's the Off The Bat demo for you all to enjoy:

Off The Bat

2007-01-31T19:43:00.000+01:00

Drilling Into Untouched Stone

Thanks to the Something I Learned Today Blog I came across an amazing site that hosts a lot of live sets by the ever great Dinosaur Jr. as well as other J Mascis bands. There's really a bunch of cool audio and video stuff to download. Just listen to Mountain Man from the Dinosaur (Jr.) debut and you think there's no greater song in the world (this is by far not true, but it's the feeling you get when listening to the song). Anyway, this is the site you all should download stuff from:

http://www.freesofree.net/

And here is another cool website about Dinosaur Jr.:

http://www.keeblin.com/

And the official Dinosaur Jr. website is only another click away:

http://www.dinosaurjr.com/

2007-01-31T19:25:00.000+01:00

Distort Cleveland!

Fuck, it’s been over a year since I last posted about one of the greatest hardcore scenes in the world, the Clevo Hardcore scene. I promised then to post some more stuff and what not, but I didn’t… Well, I’ve put you all on hold for over a year, so I better deliver with this post, but I doubt that I will. After the “Testing British Accents” post I got quite some e-mails from guys involved in the Cleveland hardcore scene with more info, facts and gossip. One of the guys that e-mailed me was Chris Pellow, (ex-)member of The Darvocets, Apartment 213, Ringworm, etc., and he had a little problem with something I wrote about another old band of his, Windpipe. I had said that they sounded like “Infest meets Siege”, or at least that I was told so. Chris didn’t like this too much and this is what he had to say about the Windpipe sound in the mail:

“One thing I would like to abb about Windpipe is that we do not sound like Infest or Siege. That is coming straight from the source! We never once said “we should sound like this band or that band,…” It is what it is. Too bad we never went into a proper studio to record, our guitarist Kurdt never wanted to. We did however play fast. The four of us loved Deep Wound, Siege, Lärm, Infest and Ripcord as a whole. I think you’ll have to read the liner notes when said ep is available. Actually Matt Domino from Infest gave us the a-ok to call ourselves a “powerviolence” band when in fact it was only supposed to be an inside-joke kinda thing between bands from SoCal and NoCal. Just some trivia for you! And this was back in 1992, when everyone sounded like Nirvana (or wanted to), we wanted to sound like all the old Mystic Records bands. Short and sweet!”

The Windpipe EP has been out for a while now. I am not really sure if it’s on Non-Commercial Records or some other label. I still have to get it from Way Back Ron, who hopefully still has this for me. I haven’t heard the EP yet, so If someone has this as MP3s or something, get in touch with me.

Another old Cleveland dude that got in touch with me was Sean Saley. He used to play bass and sing for The Guns in 1983, 1984 and for about 10 seconds in 1985 and was in Government Issue as well at some time. He’s currently living outside of Washington DC and is still into good old hardcore. He let me know that a few weeks before my Cleveland Hardcore post The Guns actually played a reunion show with other old Clevo bands such as Zero Defex, Agitated and The Offbeats. The original drummer Dave passed away years ago, so at this show Sean played drum and Scott Eakin sang both his and Sean’s songs and played guitar. Scott’s girlfriend played bass at the show. The same line-up as the reunion show recorded a bunch of songs the day before the show, most of them were re-recorded songs from the ’84 session, a bunch of original songs that never got fully fleshed out and a bunch of songs from the line-up with Bob Ries. This was supposed to be on a new CD, but I don’t really know what happened with those tracks in the last 12 months. After all this information I got in just one e-mail I had still some more basic questions about The Guns and Sean was kind enough to answer them. So I’ll just share ‘em with you as well:

When you recorded the songs in '84 that never got released, what where they intended for? A full length? What label? Why didn't it happen?

We recorded most of our live set at a studio in Cleveland called The Sound Factory and the idea was that we were going to put it out on a local label called Trans-Dada that was run by the guy who produced the demo. That guy, Scott Lasch, was pretty broke after he paid for the studio session and the record got shelved until he could put it out or we got someone else to.

I don't remember anything about Toxic Shock, but I can tell you that during the summer of '84, we opened for 45 Grave, and Paul Cutler, the guitarist, was amused with us and took our demo back to LA to let someone at their label, Enigma, hear it. We ended up talking to someone at Enigma, but it never went anywhere. We were pretty young and naive.

What's up with your tracks on that Bowel CD?

That's the '84 demo. The "unreleased" stuff I was just talking about. To be honest, I don't remember exactly how that came about. I think one or more of the guys in Bowel were friends/band mates of Dave Araca, The Guns drummer. After Dave died, whichever guy it was (Dwid, maybe?) somehow wound up with the master tapes and put it out as that split LP with Bowel (more like hidden tracks). Anyway, I didn't even know about it until a year or two after it happened. I got a copy. That's all I care about.
We did record at least one or two songs that aren't on the Bowel CD though. One was a cover of Symptom Of The Universe by Black Sabbath.

I once saw a record sleeve of a The Guns record on display at some guy’s house. It was just the sleeve and no vinyl whatsoever. What's the story behind the printed sleeve of that record? The front looked like that insert in the Bowel CD, with a soldier type of drawing.

That drawing was done by a guy from Akron who was a friend of ours. His name was Vince Rancid. He also did cover art for bands like Raw Power, MDC, Vatican Commandos, and other local Akron/Cleveland bands like Zero Defex (ODFX). The full drawing (a guy with his brains bursting out of his head flanked by two of those skeletal soldiers) would have been the cover of the album if we had ended up releasing it.

Will the unreleased record (plus comp tracks) ever get a proper release?

Supposedly, a California label called Grand Theft Audio has been planning to put it out forever. I honestly don't know what the fuck is going on with it. For all I know, it might end up coming out as part of whatever happens with the recordings we made in December '05. We'll see…

Now, if that all doesn’t make you want to check out The Guns. Try to find their stuff because it’s some of the best ‘80s Midwest stuff you’ll hear. I would like to put up the record for everyone to download, but since Grand Theft Audio probably has the rights I will not do it.

Though here's some cool Clevo Hardcore stuff to download, be fast because these Send Spaces have a limited live span:

9 Shocks Terror Live In Belgium

Cider Practice Tape

Zero Defex P.E.A.C.E. Comp track

H-100s Distort Cleveland EP

If anyone can hook me up with stuff by The Offbeats, Zero Defex, The New Hope compilation, and other Clevo stuff, get in touch with me.

Some other stuff to check out:

Cleveland Punk History

The Inmates Live

The Darvocets Live

2007-01-30T00:40:00.000+01:00

"Yo, we're Altercation from Brooklyn New York!"

I just scanned three Altercation hand-written promo "flyers" that are said to have been put up in Some Records, NYC in 1987. I got these from Carlo Brega a few years ago, thanks dude. Someday you'll find these scans back in The Ghent Decontrol NYHC issue along with more rare Altercation stuff. I'll let you know when you will be able to get that.

And if you want to listen to some Altercation right now, you can download their demo overhere

2007-01-27T14:41:00.000+01:00

Back with a bang!

It’s been more than half a year since I have updated this blog, and before that it had been months as well. I think most of my entries are pretty interesting and it would be a shame if most of this stuff got buried somewhere in the dark alleys of blogdom. So I decided to kick this up a notch again, put together some stuff I have in my inbox for more than a year now and make it an interesting read for most to you diehard fans of my exquisite writings, though some stuff might be out of date as hell already. After that I’ll start working on some new articles and interviews. To set the pace for 2007, here’s an interview I’ve done with Dave Byrd in May 2006 as a promo for the European Set To Explode tour. Since there’s another European tour coming featuring DJ Dave Byrd, DJ Stereo Faith and DJ Justice in February you could say this is a promo for that tour.

Set To Explode is a fairly new band. When did you guys first start rehearsing, or even think about getting this band together. What’s the line-up and are the members still all the same guys as the first rehearsal?

I was actually thinking about doing a band when Striking Distance was still around. Initially I wanted to have Steve Clark & John Mutchler and then any drummer we could possibly bribe into joining us. John and I started jamming around February of 2005 and we spent a couple of months putting the 6 songs together that would come out on the Grave Mistake 7”. John played guitar, I played drums and in the beginning we had visions of only us two recording the 7”. But since I suck at drumming, we ran into a drunken punker one night that played with the The Goons. It would be easier to show him the songs than have me record them. Worn Thin was breaking-up so we were able to get Tad. So a few months after John and I were jamming, enter Tad (bass) and Tom (drums) into the picture.

Set To Explode describes themselves as being influenced by Minor Threat, Antidote (NYC) and Cock Sparrer. Are you afraid people might think you are influenced by the Dutch Antidote? What other bands besides those three would you say are influences to Set To Explode?

Tad wrote down those 3 bands on our MySpace page and I don't know why he put the NYC thing in there. I thought there was a band in the midwest who had the name, but whatever. I would say we all love the Bad Brains, Negative Approach, Dead Kennedys and various smaller DC bands.

You guys didn’t put out a demo and went on directly recording a 7” for Grave Mistake Records. Why did you skip the first step of being a band? Do you think you’ve paid your dues in previous bands or are you just being pretentious?

I didn't know there were certain 'steps' in doing a band we just wanted to get a 7" out. Hell, I know bands that go straight for an LP. Definitely not pretentious and you can never pay enough dues. I think Alex of Grave Mistake knew we wouldn't record and put out anything that sucked.

Is the ex-members thing something you want to play out as a band, or would you rather see kids checking out your band not thinking about your old bands?

It’s a double-edged sword. On one side, I'd like for people to check out, evaluate, and like or dislike the band based on its own merits and not be compared to every band we've been in before, but, it's not reality. On the other side, it helps get the word out and might get some people to give us a listen that normally would not. Then, the people can decide whether the band has its own identity and not just “Oh yeah, that band with so and so in it…. They’re ok”. I want people who see Set To Explode as a totally new effort. After Striking Distance broke up, I didn't want to do a band for a while, but I knew I would be back in some form. It was just a matter of time when everything just felt right and I had some things I wanted to yell about. This band is serious to me and don’t want it to lurk in the shadows of previous bands.

How have the reactions to your EP been so far?

People seem to like it. Some people say it doesn't have enough 'mosh' parts, some people say it's not enough songs, some people say it's more punk than anything we've ever done in any other band. That's good.... More punk is better given our world nowadays.

When I hear the beginning of Never Give In I hear the same riffing as Minor Threat, the song, World Diseased's little vocal prelude could be sampled from Guilty Of Being White and Feel The Rage has an overall Minor Threat feel that I can't immediately pin down. Now, you guys are from Washington DC and have some sense of pride about it. Are these obvious Minor Threat references part of paying tribute to the old DC scene, or did they just come out naturally while writing songs only to be noticed afterwards? Are there any other, less obvious, DC references in your sound?

The songs came out naturally. It was only after we started letting our friends listen to them that they made references to Minor Threat and Antidote. Hell, Never Give In and World Diseased, I’ve had those riffs in my head before the band was even an idea and I’m not really a person for ‘paying tribute’ or being nostalgic. I mean, we love old DC hardcore punk, so I’m sure there’s tons of influence, but we don’t intentionally set out to sound or write songs a certain way. That’s just how it comes out.

Is it true, as Lino Dead Stop has been claiming ever since he first heard your band's name, that you took the band name from the Dead Stop sentence "Soon my revenge will begin, because I'm about to explode!"?

Haha… Sorry Lino. How we got the name: my friend Kevin (from Majority Rule) and I were talking about bands at some bar and he was telling me about his new band and they had a song called Set To Explode and he wanted to name the band after the song. As soon as he said the name, I knew it was exactly what I wanted the name of my next band to be. I told him: “If you don’t use it for whatever reason, it’s mine!”. They didn’t end up using it because they felt it did not represent their band or whatever so I thanked him. Now we have to pay him royalties in Snickers bars.

Do you think of yourself as an explosive person?

I’ve been known to be a little on the wild side, a little crazy, but I think I have a good balance of normalcy. I think hardcore punk gives me enough of an outlet and therapy to avoid being in jail. As you live in Washington DC you happen to come across people from the old days quiet frequently. Who's the last person you saw walking on the street that played in a band that was featured on Flex Your Head? Tell me something more about that guy with the crazy stories who hangs out at your local bar?

Dante Fernando from Iron Cross and Grey Matter runs this bar/club in DC called the Black Cat and he’s always there walking around and saw him there Saturday night. On any night, you might be able to see John Stabb, Alec MacKaye, Brian Baker, David Grohl etc… It depends on what band is playing I guess. The guy at the bar I think you’re referring to is Bill MacKenzie who was at the SNL Fear show, mentioned on numerous early Dischord records, and is pictured on the back of the Teen Idles 7”. He doesn’t really talk too much about that stuff, but if you ask him, he’ll give you the scoop on certain shows and just give you an idea of how sketchy some of the shows used to be. It’s kinda cool since I hear him and his brother were the sketchy dudes at shows back then.

What are some of the holes you still need to fill in your record collection?

Minor Threat 7” Gary Cousins sleeve,Bad Brains Pay to Cum 7” with sleeve, Straight Ahead test press, Youth Brigade 7”. If anyone reading this has one of these, get in touch!

What's up next for Set To Explode? Anything plans to record soon?

Well, we’re coming to play the last Dead Stop show May 20th and doing a few shows afterwards and then we’ll probably go out to the California in July for a few days. Recording: Sometime this summer we’ll record the 7” for Youngblood Records. We just started writing new songs so we’ll see what happens.

To wrap this up, have a promo talk in favor of the Zero Boys, in order to get every hardcore kid into Vicious Circle!

Zero Boys is probably the most underrated punk bands of all time. If they had been from DC, LA, New York or Boston, they would have been as revered as the Dead Kennedys, Flag, Minor Threat and SSD. I’m stoked they’re playing shows again. Perfect blend of speed, melody, and fuck, the bass playing and fills is the icing on the cake. Civilization’s Dying may be one of the best punk songs ever…right next to Sonic Reducer and Nervous Breakdown.

Set To Explode's MySpace

Set To Explode Live In Belgium

Set To Explode Covering 86 Mentality

Grave Mistake Records

Dissonance Radio Featuring Guest DJs Dave Byrd, Tad To Explode,...

Banned In DC

2006-06-15T15:17:00.000+02:00

"Everything we do is a tribute to Black Sabbath"

It’s been more than long enough again since my last update and everything I have stacked up in my Megalomaniacal folder isn’t getting any younger while collecting digital dust. So here’s an interview I did with my friends in Rise And Fall around the time their “Into Oblivion” record was released. It took some time to get the answers back and it took three times as long to post the stuff up here. Some of the stuff might be outdated, but whatever… In the meanwhile Rise And Fall has done a European tour with Doomriders and a US tour with Guns Up and Blacklisted. Also their record got released in the US by Deathwish Inc. Records. All this didn’t happen when the interview was done, so keep that in mind. Here’s the interview I did with Bjorn and Cedric.
Oh yeah, if someone can tell me how I put this blog’s sidebar with all my personal info and stuff back to the top of the site, let me know. I fucked it up one way or another. Also it seems as I can't upload any pictures. If someone can help me, get in touch.

Okay, let’s kick it off properly. "Into Oblivion", your second full length has been out now for almost a month and I’ve seen quite some interesting reactions on the release by various segments of the hardcore in-crowd. How do you feel about all those reactions so far? I don’t know, but to me it seems that the reaction to the album is a lot bigger than I would have thought at first and I assume it’s a bit the same to the members of Rise And Fall, even after just one month. What are some of the most curious reactions you have gotten in the four weeks since the release?

Cedric: Well, I'm positively surprised about the reactions. The positive response seems to have broadened indeed, it seems that a lot of "different" people are into our sound now, as opposed to when we put out "Hellmouth". The major part of reviews I've read have been really enthusiastic. Looking back at the reviews "Hellmouth" got, feelings were sometimes mixed and we were considered good but average. Now, the feedback's been nearly overwhelming. I did expect "Into Oblivion" to do better ", but looking at the reviews they definitely surpassed my expectations! The most curious reactions would have to be the people that prefer "Hellmouth" but hey, to each his own... I just think the new record has so much more to offer.

Are you actually satisfied with the way everything turned out? I know I was a bit bummed when I first saw the artwork as I expected something, how to say, more original from a band like Rise And Fall. Are there little things on the record you get annoyed about already, like every member of every band gets once they have put out new record? What are some those little futile things?

Bjorn: Generally speaking, I'm really satisfied and proud of the album. But of course being the overly critical perfectionists that we are I'm sure everyone in the band already has a few minor issues with the album, the songs or the layout. For me personally that would be the cover art, because as much as I love the rest of the lay out (the booklet, the back cover etc) and Jake's work, I feel like the cover isn't the best part of the artwork and could've been "better" maybe. I'm not sure though. It is a strong and harsh image though so that's the upside, and a lot of people seem to really like it and I have to admit I'm into a lot more than I originally was so what am I talking about?Cedric: I'm really satisfied with the result. I think we managed to create what we envisioned. I personally wanted to push this record to the extreme soundwise, and that's what we did. Of course as a musician you work on a record with a certain time limit, so you can't avoid the fact that some parts "could have been better" or whatever. But for us it's hard to put it all into perspective as we were working on the album the whole time. I recently listened to the record again, for the first time since long and it turned out that the concerns I had were kind of exaggerated. Those futile things I worried about are just little things that turned out different but not for the worse. They're pretty irrelevant. We learn, you know.

Comparing "Into Oblivion" to "Hellmouth" it definitely sounds like Rise And Fall finally has found its sound. Where I think "Hellmouth" sounds a bit boring at times I don’t have this feeling anymore when listening to the heavy monster sound of "Into Oblivion". Do you tend to agree with what I’m saying? What are some of the reasons for this evolution? Did you guys start listening to other music between the writing of "Hellmouth" and "Into Oblivion"?

Bjorn: I definitely agree. I still like "Hellmouth" and it was an album we had to make in order for us to get to where we are now. Looking back it sounds a little dull, too polished and clean. Most of the songs sound too much alike in my opinion and that is definitely something we worked on when we wrote "Into Oblivion". The main reason for the change in sound and songwriting, next to everyone getting a little older and better at what they're doing (well, hopefully), would have to be that for "Into Oblivion" 90 % of the music was written by Cedric, while on "Hellmouth" he'd only been in the band for a few months... so in my opinion it's definitely Cedric growing into his own as a songwriter and everyone in the band being involved with the whole process and being determined to write a record that would blow "Hellmouth" out of the water.

Cedric: There has most definitely been a big evolution in the sound of Rise And Fall. Right after the recordings of "Hellmouth" I started to find my place in Rise And Fall. I felt more self-assured and I knew what the band and I were capable of. As we were writing songs I always found it important to write in function of the song, which means stripping down my riffs when they were too complicated, finding the best possible song structure, etc. All this in order to get the most aggressive and complete songs. As for influences I get influenced by anything I hear and anything that can contribute to the primitive, raw sound we were aiming for. As a fan of music I continuously discover new music and new bands, it could be that some bands got my attention, but in the end it was all about getting that aggressive vibe and still being Rise And Fall. When I write a new riff I basically think about how hard I can bang my head to it.

Let’s talk punkmetal. I remember last year, before summer, that we were joking around in your car again about weird/stupid subgenre names such as rapcore, metalcore, etc. Eventually we ended up saying that Rise And Fall plays punkmetal and at that point you decided to coin the phrase and to begin profiling Rise And Fall as a punkmetal band rather than a hardcore band. So, for once and all, define punkmetal to the bloggists. Why did you decide to coin the phrase? What other bands (old and current) do you consider punkmetal? And who do you feel are the godfathers of punkmetal? What bands or sound or philosophy would you totally not like to see associated with punkmetal?

Bjorn: Punkmetal first and foremost is a state of mind, an attitude. It is a fuck you towards all the polished, overproduced would be hardcore that has been flooding our scene. It most definitely also is a fuck you towards the attitude that has come with it: bands nearly whoring themselves out to "get somewhere" and climb that ladder, the increasing commercialisation and commodification of hardcore and this whole situation where all these bands that have nothing to do with hardcore (musically and ideologically) still take advantage of this scene, its kids and its network. That's what comes to mind when I think of the PUNKMETAL attitude and it is something that grew out of disgust for all the shit I see around me these days. Musically we decided that PUNKMETAL was the term that best defined our music, since we try to combine the attitude, anger and energy of hardcore punk with the heaviness, darkness and brutality of (good) metal. Musically, we're not a pure hardcore band, though we're all hardcore kids obviously. We sure as hell ain't a real metal band either so you could say we're hardcore punks playing metal. PUNKMETAL. I wouldn't claim to have invented the term because I swear I've seen it being used before in old magazines when dudes would try to describe the Cro-Mags for example, or Integrity. Those bands would definitely be the godfathers of punkmetal, in my opinion. Other bands I'd call punkmetal would be bands as varied as Ringworm, Gehenna, His Hero Is Gone, Mind Eraser, Tragedy, Celtic Frost, Venom, Motorhead, Inepsy etc. I guess you get what I'm saying.

We touched the subject of your artwork a little bit already and coincidently the artwork was done by Jake Bannon, the singer for Converge, the mixing of your record has been done by Kurt Ballou, the guitarist for Converge, and you’ve toured with Converge and now, surprise surprise, you are doing a US release of "Into Oblivion" with Deathwish Inc. Can you kiss any more ass to get a deal with Deathwish Inc. or what? What’s the deal with that? Does Rise And Fall kiss any ass to get something done or don’t you all give a fuck?

Bjorn: In order to kiss even more ass, we're touring Europe in March with Doomriders, which is Nate from Converge's other band. We figured we might as well go all the way! Seriously though, we like to work, play and tour with people we respect and that know what they're doing, plus we're all into Converge so I guess that explains a lot. Deathwish is putting out "Into Oblivion" because they're really into the album and believe in us as a band - if they'd put out every band that kissed their ass they'd put out a few records every week I'm afraid. We've always done and will continue to do things our way... Kissing ass and sucking up to get ahead is NOT something we've ever done or will ever do.

On a more serious note now, I’m assuming you are pretty happy to get the Deathwish Inc. support. I know you have two US tours planned, can you tell something more about that? Why two already? And what’s the deal with touring Japan, I heard things about that too.

Bjorn: Well most of these things are only plans so far, but we're definitely doing a ten day East Coast tour at the end of April with Blacklisted and Guns Up! Siked as hell about that. After the summer we want to do a longer US tour as well as a Japanese tour. With Deathwish doing our record in the States and Alliance Trax doing it in Japan, it only makes sense to go over there and promote the record. I hope everything works out as planned because touring those places would be like a dream come true. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

“Hellmouth” also got a US release, on SA Mob Records, are you happy with how that worked out? Did you have any intentions to work together with them again for “Into Oblivion”? And do you have other foreign releases planned in order to get better tour support? I’m thinking about a Russian release or a Chinese release or something.

Bjorn: Yeah, we're definitely pleased with how SA Mob helped us out with the "Hellmouth" record. It's a small label with no real distribution or whatever, but EMS is an awesome dude, one of the nicest dudes I've ever met in hardcore actually and the fact that he took the risk to put out a record for a band that no one over there had heard of just because he was into it says a lot. He works hard for the label and is an all around genuine person, and actually, he might be doing the US vinyl for "Into Oblivion", that isn't sure yet though. No Russian or Chinese adventures yet, but we are talking to a sweet Brazilian label for a South American release so there ya go!

I remember walking into the studio when you had just recorded your demo and that has only been some three years ago and now here we are, again doing an interview, but so much more has happened to Rise And Fall in-between. And it seems as if the crazy ride isn’t over yet. Can you and the band still cope with the fact that you keep getting more and more attention? Do you think eventually you will be totally exhausted with the pace of things that you either will have to step back, break up or something like that? Are you afraid something like that could happen –perhaps sooner than you wish-?

Bjorn: I don't know honestly. Thing is, you only live once and all I want is to get the most out of what I have and what I love doing. So on one hand I'm really happy with how things have turned out for Rise And Fall, starting as project between friends with no real ambition or plans and growing into a hardworking band that tours and puts out records and does fairly well. On the other hand I'm never totally satisfied and always want more. Maybe because this band is one of the only things that truly matters to me and I put so much of myself into it, just like the other dudes in the band. So right now I think things will only get busier and I'm looking forward to that. I don't think we'll be exhausted anytime soon, it's not like we're going to tour 9 months out of 12 or anything. We want to go as far as we can, play as much as we can and spread the punkmetal plague... and when our time's up and we don't love what we're doing anymore then we'll have to step back or break up.

Your record starts with some cracking guitar amp noises followed by a few heavy slow notes before all hell breaks loose. Are both of those things tributes to Black Sabbath (Sabotage kicks off with resembling cracking and Black Sabbath the album starts with one of the heaviest riffs of all time before all hell breaks loose)?

Cedric: The beginning of the record is all about setting the right mood for what's about to come. We wanted to sound as live as possible on this record, so what better way to start it then to plug in your guitar? About the slow notes, they just feel right, they have to be there, it's hard to explain. As I said earlier, I stripped it down to what is really necessary.

Bjorn: Everything we do is a tribute to Black Sabbath.

Let’s talk songs titles and where you got inspiration for them. Let me know if what I assume is wrong:

"The Void": Black Sabbath’s "Into The Void".

Bjorn: YES.

"To Hell And Back": the opener of "Lucifuge".

Bjorn: No, I stole it from Venom. It's a Venom song.

"Lost Among The Lost": an island where a bunch of people survived a plane crash and get haunted by something mysterious.

Bjorn: No. Even though I am in love with Evangeline Lily.

Any other song titles you care to explain?

Bjorn: "Ruins" as a song and songtitle is kind of sequel to "As The City Burns" off "Hellmouth". "Stakes Is High" is the title of a De La Soul album... I'm not a big fan, but thought it sounded good. There's more but I don't want to give everything away.

Where did you record that crowd going mental at the beginning of the track Into Oblivion? Was that that one show Pit counted at least 20 people moshing during the break in Give And Take?

Bjorn: No, it was recorded at that one show on the same tour were we were forced to play at 7.15 and the doors opened at 7.10... Now, that was fun. In all seriousness though, for people that were wondering, we got that off Slayer's "Decade Of Aggression" live album.

What’s that dude saying in the beginning of “Lost Among The Lost”? Something about God? Where’s that sample from? Does it have to do with the fact that your drummer JP is a practising Catholic drumming for a devilish punkmetal band? Did he want to get some sort of praying as compen sation for all the evil on the record?

Bjorn: JP being a Catholic and Cedric being a Satanist definitely complicates things for us, but we manage. The sample on "Lost Among The Lost" is actually Danzig being interviewed on the infamous Danzig home video. It's the part where the interviewer asks him "Do you believe in God?" and then Danzig's like "Do I believe in God?" etcetera. Pure genius.

On different descriptions of Rise And Fall I see the same bands always popping up as influences, let’s have a little check-up on how far these influences are correct. Tell me where, when and what you listened to (of) the following bands and whether or not you feel as if those bands are an influence on Rise And Fall as a band:

Celtic Frost: Cedric: I listen to the first two records almost on a daily base. This band has redefined the RIFF. They know like no other how to write a REAL RIFF. Next to that they have the sickest guitar sound, it still doesn't sound dated. Let's not forget "Morbid Tales" dates back to 1985. Yes, that's one year prior to "Reign In Blood". Bjorn pays tribute to Tom G. Warrior’s "OEGH" in every song we write.

Motörhead: Cedric: We want to be as loud as Motörhead. Next to that we try to capture the raw drive that Motörhead possesses like no other in some of our songs. You just cannot deny Motörhead's legacy on heavy music.

Leeway: Cedric: We obviously took our name from this band. This is definitely one of my favourite New York hardcore bands. AJ Novello writes amazing riffs and songs that certainly have an influence on me. Although I prefer the Born To Expire record this band has kept on progressing through their other albums without watering down.

Neurosis: Cedric: Although a lot of bands try to imitate them no one gets near the sound they've been creating since the "Souls At Zero" record. Isis? No offence, but give me a fucking break. Neurosis can be loud or quiet but they got you by the throat ALL the time! That influence kinda infiltrated on “Stakes Is High”.

Ringworm: Cedric: This band, together with Integrity and the Cro-Mags is the foundation of our sound, our starting point if you will. "We are Gods if we are heartless. Drink his blood and piss on the bastard’s carcass."

Danzig: Cedric: The first four Danzig albums are the exception on the rule that no record is perfect. There is NOT one flaw in the first four records. I know it, Bjorn knows it and you'd better know it too. His music influences me in all my musical endeavours, no matter how far stretched that might seem.

Cro-Mags: Cedric: Pure genius. The second riff in Live In Sin is my personal ten seconds of Best Wishes-era-Cro-Mags-worship.

Entombed: Cedric: Yes. As a guitarist I cannot deny the influence the sound and music of Entombed has on me. They made me turn up the mids on my amp pretty bad. From the Nihilist demos to the newer stuff, we listen to it all.

Discharge: Cedric: A band I personally discovered way too late. The pounding drums, manic guitar and raging vocals is something I want to translate in a maybe more contemporary manner in Rise And Fall.

Dead Stop: Cedric: The mark that Dead Stop has left on the hardcore scene here is nothing short of amazing. Not only are they talented musicians but they showed everyone what the essence is of playing in a hardcore punk band. From releasing their own records to creating a huge manic following to introducing kids to bands that otherwise would be long forgotten. I'm certain this band has a huge influence on every hardcore-minded band around today. It will be weird to see them play their last show.

Integrity: Cedric: As mentioned a starting point and still a big influence on the Rise And Fall sound. Personally I got into hardcore in a time where every hardcore band was starting to sound like a third-rate Slayer rip-off. Integrity showed me you can wear your Slayer influences on your sleeve while still being a real hardcore band.

Black Sabbath: Cedric: This is the band where everything starts with for me. Tuning down your guitar in 1970, creating a wall of sound surrounded by a dark overtone while everyone is wearing flowers in their hair, now that's a statement. I will listen to the first six albums everywhere anytime.

Tragedy: Cedric: One of the more recent bands that has influenced me. They create this dark, original, dirty, raw sound that reminds you that between all the crap that we're exposed to there are still bands that capture a true hardcore punk feel. Seriously, the intensity and the power they possess is almost scary. Few bands can be this convincing.

Born From Pain: Cedric: This band shows that to get somewhere you just got to do it. A shitload of hard work has gotten them where they are today, Europe's biggest hardcore band. They definitely got their shit together.

When Rise And Fall just started out you played a bunch of cover songs, I remember an Icemen song, a Ringworm song and Leeway’s Rise And Fall. It’s been a while since you played any covers, are you planning on keeping it that way, or are you cooking some up?

Bjorn: We're into playing a cool cover song once in a while but since we switched drummers and worked on "Into Oblivion" for such a long time (writing songs, recording them etc.) we didn't really have the time to learn any new covers. However, we recently recorded Integrity's "Kingdom Of Heaven" for an Integrity tribute record so I think we'll play that a couple of times too live. I have a few other songs in mind that I'd like to cover but it's hard to get everyone to agree on what we should and shouldn't do.

What’s next for Rise And Fall? What will be the next thing you’ll be recording?

Bjorn: In 2006 we'll focus on touring and playing as much as possible so we'll see how that turns out. We just recorded that Integrity cover and there's talk of maybe recording some more songs later this year for a new release in one form or another. Nothing solid yet, so I can't really tell you more.

Do you have any idea how many times you had to answer to me on this question already: Any last words?

Bjorn: This would have to be the 3rd or 4th time, I think? Probably the 4th if I count the interview we did in Roeselare in '98 outside Ronald's infamous Salon Benefit show. As always, thanks for the interview and continued support. Stay punk.

http://www.riseandfall.org/

http://www.myspace.com/riseandfall13

http://www.deathwishinc.com/

http://www.reflectionsrecords.com/

http://www.alliance-trax.com/

2006-05-13T20:53:00.000+02:00

Saturday May 13th

First of all, welcome back and thanks for all of your patience. I know it’s been quite a while since you last heard from me. Life’s been pretty busy lately and to be really honest, doing this blog isn’t my biggest priority. Not that I have been sitting still behind the scenes. I’ve been doing some interviews and writings and stuff the last few months, but didn’t get around posting anything up here. So yeah, you could say that you aren’t rid off me yet. So today’s May 13th and what else for a comeback could be better on this very day than a new interview with True Blue’s Patrick Kitzel? I wouldn’t know. Originally I had the plan to post some live MP3s of a show True Blue played in Belgium a couple years ago, but as I haven’t figured out how to moderate anything like that you’ll have to do with just the interview. I think what Kitzel had to tell me was pretty interesting and I got answers to some questions I had on my mind for some while in typical PK-style.

What was the whole vibe or concept behind True Blue? When you guys started out kids weren’t into Cro-Mags yet and the hardcore world seemed to be under the reign of mediocre youth crew revival bands or third generation Earth Crisis-influenced bands. You dudes stood up like a sore thumb. How did a band like True Blue deal with that?

René and me never respected much separation in hardcore. We always hated and despised it. When in late ‘96 the whole “youth crew” revival arrived it was some sort of near death experience once again for hardcore. I mean for the most part all those bands and followers cared about was their ill clique of bands. I kept hearing “this ain’t hardcore, that ain’t hardcore”. It was like it had been before when the first “youth crew” came around. Nothing but separation and alienation. It seemed like everyone jumped onto that train. I mean, there were of course the few and the proud around (like Big from Mainstrike) that always had been into that sound and style, but it seemed like the new “fashion” arrived at that time. And time has proven that most kids that jocked that shit are now into whatever is cool now. Minus once again a handful of people like Big. Anyway, both, René and me would sit around and just shake our heads. We tried to look back at which bands got us into hardcore and inspired us the most and that pretty much gave us the musical direction. We didn’t try to be like anything, man. We just wanted to play a style of hardcore that we love most, you know. For us it wasn’t like “hey let’s try to sound like this or that band”. It was just natural. So we got a few peeps together and went for it.

Do you have any ideas how many shows True Blue played? What are the ones of which you have the best memories?

We probably played around a hundred shows I’d say. Best memories? I don’t know... One of the last shows we played in East Germany at some festival was a great show. Tons of kids knew the words and went nuts. I always liked playing Belgium and Holland. The whole US tour was amazing, the trips to Switzerland. It was all great. It’s always hard to talk about “best memories”. It was all good and it was all bad in a way...like real life.

What was the reason for True Blue to break up? Did you still have any unrecorded songs then? Will you ever record any of those? I heard rumours that True Blue already recorded some songs (or demo versions of songs) for an upcoming full length. Is there any truth to that? And how about that On The Attack song that World Collapse did, was that originally a True Blue song?

I guess I was the reason for the break up. I was in a weird place in my life during the last year of the band’s existing. To make things worse I couldn’t stand the people in the band anymore. In my eyes except for Rene nobody was what I’d consider hardcore. I had a hard time doing with the band what I wanted to do. People had different ideas were to take the band I guess... (editor-???) I mean, most guys in the band consider themselves musicians and I ain’t one at all. All I cared about was to get on stage and let go, to speak my mind, etc. I would fight and argue constantly with people in the band. Flo, who was a important part of the band, wanted to quit to go to school full time... It was all a mess. When we wrote the LP songs we recorded some demo versions. So, yes it’s true. Some of that might end up one way or another on the discography that’s coming out sometime soon. And yes, On The Attack was a True Blue song. We played it a few times in Europe and on the US tour. The lyrics were slightly different. I love the World Collapse version. Shit’s mad hard!

What was the meaning behind some of those abstract lyrics True Blue had, e.g. God Of Wrath?

I think that life in general inspired most words. World Collapse was about our planet going down the drain, God Of Wrath was about struggle in life, Devilangel was about people that abuse hardcore. It was important to us not to have the lyrics written a certain way, which ended up confusing a lot of people I think. I mean, we didn’t have your “step in the back” type shit.

You told me there will be a True Blue discography sometime in 2006. What will be on that CD? What label will put it out? Can we expect some new classic True Blue gear with the release of that CD?

The discography will have a ton of cool stuff. Tons of pics, flyers etc. It will have the demo, The Ice, one or two unreleased songs, live stuff, cool stuff man... I am pretty sure that there will be some merch with that release. Labelwise I am not sure. I might put it out on Reaper Records. We will see. Some bigger labels are interested so who knows.

Currently you are working on a demo of a new band you’ll sing in again, Retaliation. Who else is in that band? Can we expect to see some live shows of Retaliation, or is this band more of a project? When will the demo drop and how many songs will be on it?
We recorded 6 songs as a demo, last week. This coming week we’re gonna get the words ready and then try to go in the studio a.s.a.p. Maybe later in April or May. I’ll have to do the vocal recordings in the States. The bass will also be recorded over here in the States by Buske from The Promise/Terror. The line up is René on drums (ex-True Blue, currently in World Collapse), Frank on guitar (ex-True Blue, currently in World Collapse) and last but definitely not least my good friend J. Buske DNA on the bass (ex-The Promise, Another Victim, Terror). We will definitely play shows and try to tour. But nothing is definite yet, due to the distance of band members. Some song titles are Death By My Side, False Prophets, Kingdom Of Heaven... Hopefully we will play Yper Fest, Posi Numbers, etc. We will see. The website should be up soon too with some more info and songs and what not. Stay fucking tuned. 2006 will def bring some stuff that’s worth checking out.

Anything to add? Any cool things you wanna share about either True Blue or Retaliation that I haven’t asked you about?

Retaliation is gonna be a band to be taken serious. This is not some jaded fucking attempt to put a record out. People gonna not like what they hear. I have quite some shit to say and it won’t be pretty. The way I see hardcore these days. It’s fucking invaded by bands that might have roots in this scene but that drifted too far away from the core. Bands that no longer have any sort of message involved and def don’t sound hardcore either. Bands like As I Lay Dying, 18 Visions, Bleeding Through, Bury Your Dead and God knows who else needs to pack it up and quit playing shows within what’s called the hardcore scene. I am sick of meeting people that find out that I listen to hardcore and they go “Oh I listen to hardcore too... Do you like yada yada yada...” I get pissed off that your regular Joe thinks that this is what hardcore is. A bunch of freaks with crazy hair, tight jeans and a lyric book filled with suicidal dreams. It’s time that all this shit gets out of this scene. People think I take this shit too serious, but I mean it, hardcore can be anything you want. But if you lose all the ingredients like having a message that’s real then I don’t know what to say other than... Fucking get the fuck outta here, I don’t care what you sound like or dress like but as I said, if you don’t have the heart and the hardcore attitude and lifestyle then you ain’t supposed to be here.
Also get ready for the new Terror LP, shit’s gonna be ill!

Love it or leave it,

God bless, Patrick Kitzel DNA

www.reaperhardcore.com

www.worldcollapse.com

www.givemedrugs.com

2006-02-14T19:17:00.000+01:00

It's Better To Burn Out Than To Fade Away!

Welcome back, this Megalomaniacal Supernaut hasn’t been sitting still lately, only it doesn’t show from this blog. Anyway, I’m back from a small hiatus and I’m ready to throw shit at that blogfan again. Obviously I won’t be updating daily like my blog splinter bomb before last year’s end, but I’ll try to update a few times every month again. I’ve got a lot of interesting stuff up my sleeve, you’ve been forewarned.
First things first, as you might have heard already, the greatest European hardcore band ever is breaking up. Dead Stop’s calling it a day, a lot of people knew about it already, but now it’s official, there’s no turning back and, yes, we’re all gonna cry when that last feedback fades. Well, I know I am going to. I know it is kinda lame for hardcore bands to have some sort of press statements about why they are breaking up and stuff, but then again, you better take a stand as a band as to why you are breaking before the world wide messageboard maelstrom breaks out and ends up twisting the truth.

So, here’s Dead Stop’s official notice:

"Though the decision to break up was a hard one to take, we feel like there is no better time to do it than now. We have accomplished everything we wanted to achieve with this band and then some. Rather than fizzling out like a candle we would like to go out with a bang, now that we are still fully enjoying what we do and before petty bullshit ruins what we have built throughout the last 4 years. We feel that with "Live For Nothing" we have written the best record we were capable of and have said everything we wanted to say with Dead Stop. We've been all over Europe, from England to Greece and from Norway to Spain . We've toured the US twice. We got the chance to play our beloved Lintfabriek countless times and got to share the stage with a lot of the bands we greatly respect. We are grateful for all the support we've gotten and all the craziness and hardcore enthusiasts that followed us nearly anywhere we went but it is time for something new. New challenges and new bands. We started this band to pay tribute to the early 80's hardcore pioneers we all loved and most kids seemed to have forgotten about. At the same time we were sick of seeing lame bands playing watered down hardcore to bored crowds. With a lot of hard work we managed to gain monumentum rather quickly and soon played shows of which we could only have dreamed of playing before, plus we think we managed to open a lot of people's eyes to the truly important and often overlooked early 80's hardcore bands that inspired us and brought us together in the first place. We are proud of everything we have achieved and how we achieved it. Thank you all for your support and we hope to see you all on the 20th of May and/or at the other shows we'll be playing before we say goodbye."

Dead Stop’s only planned on playing a few last shows all over Europe, if you can’t make it to the final show try to check ‘em out at one of these shows:

February 24th – Antwerpen, Belgium w/ Career Suicide, Seein’ Red

February 25th – Kortrijk, Belgium w/ Justice

March 3rd – Brugge, Belgium w/ Turn The Screw

March 23rd – Gent, Belgium w/ White Crime Club & Minutemen documentary

March 25th – Hoogstraten, Belgium w/ The Kids

April 2nd – Manchester, UK w/ Underdog, Justice

April 9th - Hengelo, Holland w/ Underdog, Justice

April 29th – Barcelona, Spain w/ Restless Youth, Fearless Vampire Killers, Bold

May 7th – Bremen, Germany w/ Fearless Vampire Killers

May 20th – Kontich, Belgium w/ Set To Explode, Iron Boots, Annihilation Time

One more thing, if you are one of those idiots thinking about Dead Stop as a mediocre hardcore band I suggest you a few things: 1) Done With You 2) Live For Nothing 3) Larry Edge 4) a clue. Besides, if Dead Stop is more than good enough for Dave Byrd, Poison Idea’s Jerry A and Henk Kangaroo, why wouldn’t it be for you? Just get out and find another “hobby”.

Also, Complete Control Records have just launched their freshly designed website, you can read their news update about Dead Stop, Restless Youth, Justice and the upcoming tours of Annihilation Time, Iron Boots, Set To Explode and Underdog by clicking here!

Let’s stick to Dead Stop for today’s entry. Last November Dead Stop flew across the Atlantic again, not that it is their only place to go, but one of the many, to tour part of the United States for a second time. This time I unfortunately couldn’t make it, but GLUEtarian Bjorn Dossche could and kept a little tour diary for us, Get-In-The-Van-style. Check it out, read it, close your eyes and pretend to be surrounded by these dudes in a van or at a venue, it’s not the real deal, but with a bit of imagination you get the overall idea! Thanks to Dossche for hooking me up.

SATURDAY 10/29/2005: THE BASEMENT, NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ: Landed at JFK around noon local time, picked up the rental van which to our surprise had been pimped (it had a Dead Kennedys logo scratched on the side) and set sail for the first show of the tour. We got to New Jersey early as hell which left us with some time to kill. We strolled around town but there wasn't much to see so we just got pizza (in case we wouldn't have the chance to eat pizza in the next 2 weeks) and hung out. The show was in a basement which got me excited because I guess it's just an American thing you know... basement shows. We met up with the 86 Mentality and Set To Explode dudes and Dave Sausage who'd taken care of Dead Stop's merch and brought them their Havoc LPs and their 7"s on his own label, Six Feet Under. He takes care of business! To everyone's surprise the show started in time and I remember Set To Explode putting on a good show, as well as an awesome 86 Mentality set with original guitarist John, since their current guitarist was still in Europe wandering around. They got a great response and set the mood for the rest of the night. Dead Stop was next and did fairly well - kids were going off but I knew the best was yet to come. Forward To Death sounded very Black Flag-ish and covered the Dead Kennedys. Headlining tonight was Kill Your Idols and we were all siked about that since it's been ages since they've been to Europe. Kids went nuts and rightfully so. Their set ended with a ton of Breakdown demo covers, "It's Clobberin' Time" and their Jawbreaker cover. Good times. After the show Coorde explained us all what "grease trucks" were and we drove to DC where we were staying at the hardcore mansion there, with dudes like Tad To Explode and AfterMatt living there.

SUNDAY 10/30/2005: THE U-TURN, WASHINGTON, DC: Jason from 86 Mentality had organized this DC hardcore matinee and I was thinking how crazy it was that we were actually in DC - one of the most crucial cities in the history of hardcore. This show just had to be cool, there was no other way. It was definitely sweet to see that a lot of kids turned up... and it also made Jason's day a little less stressful. Forced Forward went on first and just when I told Michiel that they kinda reminded me of old Rollins Band meets 108, they busted out a 108 cover. Pretty cool. Even cooler was talking to their singer after the show about Liar, Congress and the H8000 scene. Set To Explode played another explosive set, with some crowd response and the band going off on stage, causing John's amp to take a nosedive and nearly die a painful death. Dead Stop was welcomed as if they were coming home after having been away for a year. There were circle pits, lots of kids singing along to the Done With You songs and Dead Stop was getting into gear. DC's own bastard sons 86 Mentality then went on and boy... mayhem ensued. Hard as fuck, tight and dudes were definitely "getting aggro". Awesome show. The only bummer was that Gert twisted his ankle while doing the pogo to 86 Mentality and his foot looked fucked. And it was the foot he uses to play his kick pedal. Despite everyone being worried Gert played every show of the tour, this dude is obviously hard as nails...if you've seen his leather jacket you know why. After the show we all got some awesome vegan food at Jason's house, while Michiel played "House Of The Rising Sun" on an acoustic guitar. Even though everyone was dead tired, a few of us went to the Black Cat (owned by one of the Iron Cross dudes) afterwards to chill, play pool, get drunk and request Bad Brains, Bowie and Stooges songs on the jukebox. Awesome night.

MONDAY 10/31/2005: NANCI RAYGUN, RICHMOND, VA: Dead Stop and myself had been really looking forward to this show because we all know a bunch of people there, plus Richmond has a reputation for being one of the best cities for hardcore shows these days on the East Coast...and Dead Stop had already played an awesome show there last year. So after some serious shopping in a mall halfway between DC and Richmond we get to the venue, which is an awesome and spacious (but punk looking) place, kinda like our own Lintfabriek. It was awesome getting to see old friends again and catching up. Great food too. Government Warning played this show, they were really good and include members of Direct Control and Alex Dimatessa, one of the nicest dudes ever and owner of Grave Mistake Records. Mad As Hell played too, their second show ever as this band is kind of a goofy side project of various Richmond scenesters and Down To Nothing members. Things got kinda wild already and when Set To Explode starting playing kids went off even more. The band was on form and a lot of kids already knew the 7" songs. A raging and energetic set, definitely one to remember. I had been watching Set To Explode with my man Jason Mazzola, and as soon as they were done he turned to me and said: "That old man's still angry" (referring to Dave Byrd) and that about sums it up. Then it was Dead Stop's turn. Now I knew it was going to be good, but this show was actually off the hook. An awesome response and Dead Stop raging harder than a motherfucker. Opening their set with "Tied Down" was a great idea, and so was closing with a couple of Bad Brains covers. Kids were eating that shit raw. The cool thing was that the response to the covers and their own songs was nearly the same - I was proud of them. After the show we hung out with the Iron Boots dudes and other cool people that were there. Iron Boots seemed determined to make it to Europe in 2006, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed! We left Richmond around midnight because we had a long drive ahead of us, to Daytona Beach, Florida.

TUESDAY 11/01/2005: SEABREEZE LOUNGE, DAYTONA BEACH, FL: Driving overnight turned out to be a tight plan because it meant we arrived around noon, drove up to the beach and actually just parked the van on the beach, hopped out and jumped into the sea. Best thing ever. The waves were big and the water was warm and it was the first of November. Siked! After getting food and exploring Daytona Beach (nearly deserted when it's not summer) we got to the club early. Lino, Larry and me chilled with the girl that owned the club. The club was sketchy looking to say the least. It usually housed death metal shows, and there was exactly one customer there, who seemed to be on a serious bad trip and kept yelling at himself in the mirror. The girl that owned the place was kinda nice, kinda chubby and kinda not so smart, but she did tell us about how she "redecorated" the place with a chainsaw while a death metal band was playing. Cool. When Billy, the promoter, got there and brought us food we knew it was gonna be cool because Billy rules. The first band played and covered Infest, Discharge, Charles Bronson and more. I forgot their name though. When it was time for Dead Stop to go on, Billy took the mic and told the 40 kids there how awesome it was of them to come and then went on to motivate everyone to buy Dead Stop gear, support touring bands and small shows and then got kinda angry when he thought of the 22 year old washed up computer nerds that don't even bother coming to shows no more. He was on fire and so were the 40 kids there by the time he'd finished. The show was awesome, constant circle pitting, singalongs, tons of energy. Larry was doing circle pits! We stayed at Billy's house, which was like a hardcore mansion where all kids came to hang out. We all went kinda crazy when we saw pictures of Floorpunch and Degradation, taken at our own legendary Lintfabriek...not to mention the awesome Liar picture! Billy took us out for breakfast the next morning, told us about his company called "Straight Edge Cuts" and his motto: "If it's not straight, it will be". I miss Billy!

WEDNESDAY 11/02/2005: THE BEDROOM, ATLANTA, GA: Atlanta, Georgia. None of us knew much about Atlanta, nor about the scene down there but still we were kind of excited to be there. If all went according to plan Dave K. of Hardware Fanzine fame was gonna be at this show...but he wasn't. The show got moved in the last week or so and ended up being a house show. We got to the house at around seven and chilled there. Ordered pizza and hung out on the porch which was fun. Kids started showing up and to avoid a huge bum out if cops would show up and shut the show down, Dead Stop went on first. They played someone's bedroom and the place was packed with kids. Not a whole lot of moving around, but a tight set none the less and during the Bad Brains covers things got crazy. We sold merch in the kitchen and talked to drunk locals and vampires. If I remember it well, two other bands went on after Dead Stop, one featuring Jesse, our host for tonight. Jesse used to be a drug dealer and got very enthusiastic when we told him most of us did drugs, weed, coke, XTC and what have you. That was cool. He wasn't even too bummed out when it turned out we were just making shit up and four out of the six dudes at his house were actually straight edge. Jesse also did Dead Stop a huge favour by calling and threatening UPS because they kept fucking up the delivery of a package with some extra merch Dead Stop had ordered. He drove to the local UPS office early in the morning and worked it out, and returned with the box. Much respect.

THURSDAY 11/03/2005: RAMP RIDERS, ST. LOUIS, MO: Set To Explode didn't play the past two shows so tonight was our "reunion" with those dudes. Plus tonight would also be Michiel's debut on guitar for Set To Explode since their guitarist John couldn't do the whole tour due to legal issues or something like that. This show was in a huge skate park which made me wish I wasn't such a loser and could actually skate. Dave Byrd proved that you're only as old as you act and impressed everyone with his skills in the half pipe. Quite a sight seeing this 34 year old rip it up with a stylish pink safety helmet. Since everyone was obviously hungry we decided to order pizza and I'll be damned if this wasn't some of the best pizza I ever had. Rob who put on the show also told us he was taking us out for pizza after the show too so this was perfect. Unfortunately not too many kids showed up tonight, even though Dead Stop had played an awesome show in St Louis the year before... Hardcore kids, who understands them? Rob's band Cardiac Arrest played a good set and a band called Step On It played a few songs too, but I thought they sucked and the whole vibe was definitely getting weird. "Going through the motions" would best describe their set and the response they got. Michiel's first show with Set To Explode went really well, without rehearsing once as a band – quite spectacular. Tad To Explode was so taken back by how well things went that he stopped playing for a few seconds. When Dead Stop played kids were a little hesitant at first but the longer they played, the more kids got into it and "Nervous Breakdown" did the rest. Overall, a forgettable show, but there was pizza and casinos ahead, so whatever! Pizza was good again and the casino was on a boat that was in the Mississippi river, the natural border between Missouri and Illinois. Gambling is illegal in Missouri, so the boat was on the Illinois' side of the river. I love America! Larry and Lino proceeded to win $300 in the casino while poor folks like Michiel and me just ordered free drinks and went sight seeing on the upper deck of the casino boat. Tad To Explode played blackjack the whole night, no one knows why as he didn't make a buck. He's a hero though! It got late so we went back to stay at this huge house/squat that looked like the HQ of an underground rebel army.

FRIDAY 11/04/2005: HAUNTED KITCHEN, KANSAS CITY, KS: Well, this show wasn't in Kansas City, but a smaller town about half an hour further down. It took us a while to get there and everyone in the van got kinda nervous to meet Felix Havoc, Dead Stop's US label boss, for the first time. The show was in the basement of a pretty big squatted house. First person we saw when getting out of the van of course was Felix! Larry was on the verge of a nervous breakdown! Felix Havoc looked normal and didn't appear to have a gun on him, nor did I see any blood anywhere, so that was cool. Felix was nice as hell, he was there with Regulations from Sweden who he was driving around on their nearly two month long US/Canada tour. What I remember about this show:
1. Some of the best mashed potatoes I ever had, EVER.
2. This 40+ hardcore dude with a Cro-Mags shirt that drove four hours to see Dead Stop. He had kids and a wife and was so stoked to see Dead Stop it was unreal.3. Kids in Justice shirts.4. People going nuts to Regulations in that mid ‘90s French emo style. This is how you do it: wiggle back and forth, wear glasses, hold your shoulders (or backpack) with both hands. Cry if you want to. Weird.

SATURDAY 11/05/2005: TC UNDERGROUND, MINNEAPOLIS, MN: After the show in Kansas we drove halfway to Minneapolis and slept in a motel. Today was actually a day off but we wanted to check out the first day of the Midwest Hardcore Fest, Extreme Noise Records and Minneapolis. I can tell you now that Extreme Noise is one of the best hardcore punk stores I've ever been too. Everyone was stoked and bought loads. Lino neglected to buy Belgian hardcore classic Strike The Match by Nations On Fire for $1, luckily Larry was there to buy it instead of him. I only saw a few bands play due to the Mall Of America, the presence of the internet in the venue, the record store next door and the absence of bands I really wanted to see. State was pretty good though and so was Caustic Christ. The show was done around ten. Coorde, Gert and me and went to check out a show in another club in town, with Coliseum, Torche and Kylesa. Not too many people there either, but both Torche and Kylesa played blazing sets, with a huge crushing sound. Coliseum is a great band, but their show was a bit of a letdown due to the sloppy sound. While we were head banging, Dave Byrd and Tom To Explode nearly got in a fight with a bunch of bouncers from the bar next door.Day 2 of the fest, with Dead Stop, Set To Explode and Regulations. Before those three went on, I also saw a young local Lockin' Out type band called Listen Up and they were good too. The singer's stage presence reminded me of a young Matt Bold. I didn't see most of the other bands due to merch duties. All in all, Felix and everyone involved with the fest were kinda disappointed with the turnout as they were expecting 200 to 300 people to show up and I'm guessing there were only maybe 100 people there. Still, Set To Explode played another solid set, some people even knew the Government Issue cover which must've made Dave Byrd happy (for a little while). Dead Stop also played a solid set and got a good response, especially when they covered Minor Threat. It's funny to see a whole room explode after a whole day of standing around. Just like last night, it seemed most people were excited to see Regulations, and even though I'm not a fan, I can understand why cause this band does what they do well, they have presence, a good sound and play tight. Highlight of the day was actually going for pasta with the whole tour "crew" (Dead Stop + Set To Explode + roadies), some of the best pasta I had in 2005. Unfortunately plans for another night out were cancelled because we had a long drive ahead of us and we wanted to hang out in Chicago before the show tomorrow night too. Too bad cause I really wanted to see Big Business who were playing elsewhere in town.

MONDAY 11/07/2005: PULASKI PARK DISTRICT BUILDING, CHICAGO, IL: Chicago is cool. Checked some record stores and second hand clothing stores, didn't buy much, but it was cool to stroll around. My man Cedric loves Chicago and I can't say that I don't understand why! The show tonight was at some kind of community center at the edge of town, there was a daycare center for kids and an indoor basketball court. Cool. There was a ping pong table in there, so Lino and me went for it and played 25 sets or something ridiculous like that. We also met the fella who does Lifeline Records (Modern Life Is War, Kill Your Idols etc), a really nice guy. The room the show was held in was too big and wide, and again, there was no stage, but whatever. Turnout was good for a Monday night. Wound Up was playing this show too and to everyone's surprise they covered The Kids' "Fascist Cops" in honour of the Belgians that were in their town. Unfortunately for them people weren't really into them and the "zotte sfeer" was definitely absent. Weird, cause this was their 7" release show, and as we discovered afterwards, their last show too. "Is anyone angry?", is what Dave Byrd asked the crowd tonight. Before anyone could think of something that pissed them off, Set To Explode had already played half of their songs. I could keep saying this, but this was another raging set, this band doesn't disappoint. Some crowd participation too, but it wasn't until Dead Stop went on that this show started looking like a hardcore show... Lino dedicating a Bad Brains cover to the one black guy in the audience was a winner too. Good show. Mexican food afterwards and some drinking and brawling (courtesy of who else than the mighty Dave "Monsieur l'Oiseau" Byrd?) ended a fine night in Chicago. We stayed at Mark from Punch In The Face/Wound Up/Pinkeye's place which was a really nice loft. The man also showed us around Chicago the day after which was nice of him. Too bad the Married With Children fountain was out of service.

TUESDAY 11/08/2005: REFUGE SKATE SHOP, DEARBORN, MI: A tiny skate shop in Dearborn, Michigan (fifteen minutes from Detroit) was the setting for tonight's show. Due to some other shows happening the same night (Converge and Ringworm somewhere in Detroit for example), this show wasn't too crowded. The skate shop was cool though and the owner/promoter of the show was a really nice dude, so hanging out was fun. I don't really remember much else, besides the Mexican food we got after the show and the sleepover at the dude's house, with Tad To Explode threatening to kill Lino if he didn't stop making fun of Tad's hair. Good times. By this time it became obvious that Tad was a genuine "heerser" and an interesting character to say the least. He also decided to wear his hair down instead of Discharge-styled in order to cross the border to Canada without getting into trouble.

WEDNESDAY 11/09/2005: ADRIFT SKATE PARK, TORNTO, ON: Armed with a semi waterproof plan (we had a "contract" for one show in Canada and the other one got “cancelled”) and Michiel's expertise at the wheel we got to the Canadian border early in the morning. As expected we had to get out of the van, the van got searched, Michiel got questioned and we had to wait for quite a while until we were finally allowed into Canada. When I think of Canada I think of Spoiler and Friday, No Warning, Haymaker, Fucked Up, Criminally Insane and Cursed, so needless to say that everyone was pretty fucking excited, me especially since it was my first time there. Oh, on the way to Toronto Gert also decided to call Set To Explode to say that we'd been refused access to Canada and would have to try to get in through another border. Afterwards it turned out this had led to serious panic attacks in Camp To Explode, a bunch of calls to American Border personnel and DC officials. Uh oh! Got to Toronto, went shopping, drank hot chocolate, hung out with a few heroin junkies at McDonalds and then head to the house where we'd be spending the night and where the dudes that did the show lived (one of them sings for Urban Blight). They'd cooked up some great food and we hung out before heading to the show, which was in the back of a skate shop. It had a little ramp in the back too. Cool. Turnout was good and so were the opening bands. Dave Walling was there, the dude has driven up all the way from Philly. Heerser. Terminal State played a good solid set of fast, trashy hardcore and Gunnar Hansen were really good too. Early 80's styled stuff with a Black Flag touch. Their singer was a true madman, foaming at the mouth, running and rolling all over the place wearing a white Justice shirt, which he later tied around his head. Toronto was ready for Set To Explode, who were on form tonight, as well as Dead Stop who got the crowd moving again. Mostly from left to right and back. Dave Byrd was moshing. Good show. Food afterwards was brilliant and so was Tad's quote of the night: "No, it's not like that man".

THURSDAY 11/10/2005: CAF L’INCO, MONTREAL, QB: Half of Dead Stop drove up with Dave Walling, reportedly listening to a lot of death metal on the way to Montreal which made me jealous because I hadn't heard any metal in over ten days at this point. Montreal was cold as fuck. We got to the venue and heard this was the same place where Fearless Vampire Killers had played an insane show a few weeks ago. How cool. Set up and merch and chilled inside while we waited for Spoiler The Legend to show up. It was awesome seeing him again, he hadn't changed much, a new camo jacket maybe, but his Side By Side sweater was still there! I kinda forgot about the bands that played this show, I remember a band that kinda sounded like Think I Care and the singer was wearing a sleeveless Celtic Frost shirt. Friday got there too in the meantime and a dude from Inepsy was selling some second hand CDs. My Revenge from Vermont played too and started with a Slayer cover. Don't know what else to say except that my mom told me to keep my mouth shut if I didn't have anything nice to say. Set To Explode's set started with the best intro ever: Dave Byrd walking up the stage and saying "What's up, we're Striking Distance". Maybe he drank a little too much? Didn't matter though, the old man was as angry as ever and even though only Gert Dead Stop was singing along to the Government Issue cover, this still was a really good set. Tension started building by now and you could kinda feel that people were excited to see Dead Stop (again). Starting off with the infamous Justice intro "for The Spoiler" the place went nuts from start to finish. I remember a bunch of Bad Brains covers getting thrown in the mix ("The Regulator", "Right Brigade", "We Will Not") and a Void cover as well. Anyway, this was a blistering set with an awesome response, definitely one of the best shows on the tour. Larry, Dave Byrd and Spoiler getting in that moshpit...what more could one ask for? After the show and after chilling with the club's owner and discussing Leeway we head out for a sightseeing trip through Montreal, in our van of course and then ate with Mr. and Mrs. Spoiler before crashing at their place. I love hardcore.

FRIDAY 11/11/2005: REGENERATION, BOSTON, MA: Left Montreal early so we'd get to Boston at a decent hour. No borders problems this time, Coorde even made friends with the officer on duty. "How's that video game working out for you son?" "Oh well, you win some, you lose some." We got to the venue easily and found out it was punk hardcore record store and tattoo parlor, then we head into town for some shopping and food cause the show was gonna start pretty late anyway. The store was turned into an awesome venue with a small, but cool stage and gradually more and more people came in... The show ended up being sold out (I think over 150 paid to get in) and some people wound up not getting in at all. The place was packed by the time Killer Fiction played, a new band featuring Mike from Striking Distance on guitar. They were actually quite good, reminding me of Integrity at times and Entombed at others. Say Goodbye played too and was well received. Set To Explode's show highlight was seeing Al Quint lose it to the Government Issue cover. Actually, the whole set was really fucking good, again. Can't wait to see this band again when they hit Europe. While Dead Stop was setting up and getting ready to play I could feel there was a certain vibe in the air that reminded me of Belgian shows... People were stoked to see Dead Stop and they were about to witness an absolutely blinding set, with tons of energy, stagedives, moshing and mayhem. It didn't even matter that the vocal amplifier sounded like absolute shit. This show was insane and a perfect end for an awesome tour.Thank you Dead Stop, Larry, Set To Explode and everyone else who made these two weeks as awesome as they were.

Bjorn Dossche

2005-12-24T13:02:00.000+01:00

He stands for the people, he lives for them! The following interview has been republished online a couple of times already, so it may very well be that you have read this before. Nevertheless, I think it is still damn interesting and that there still are people out there that haven’t read this. So once again, and for the last time, here’s the interview I did with Craig Setari in April 2002 about Straight Ahead, conducted at Groezrock Belgium and originally published in my zine The Ghent Decontrol issue #3.

How did you get involved in hardcore? What was your social background growing up?

I grew up poor white thrash in Queens, New York. I had no father, just a mother who worked very hard to support me and my brother. I was a bad kid, I did drugs and stuff. My brother went to junior high school with a guy named Danny Lilker. You know Danny Lilker? The guy who plays in Brutal Truth and Nuclear Assault? Well, he went to school with my brother, so when I was like 10 or 11 years old Danny would come to our house for lunch. Him and my brother had music class together. Danny was the first guy that turned me onto punk and hardcore music. One day he brought me these old punk tapes mixed with some heavy metal stuff and I loved it. When I went to junior high school there were these kids who were roadies for the band The Mob. They were very young, I was in my seventh grade and they were in their ninth grade. So they would give me old Bad Brains singles and Mob stuff and I just loved it. And they were like "Let's go down to the show this Sunday." And I would go to shows with them and once I went to one I went every week.

And that was in 1983 or something?

I started listening to hardcore in '82 and I went to my first show in '83, maybe '84. I listened to hardcore for a little while before going to shows. I still remember the bill of my first show, it was Adrenalin O.D., Bodies In Panic and Malignant Tumour.

When did you start playing music?

When Danny used to come to my house he was teaching my brother how to play bass and I just picked it up. I was probably 10 or 11 years old and I just started to play it and I liked it. I started to play when I was 11 and by the time I was 13 I was in a band. That's pretty fast.

How did your mother feel about you getting involved with hardcore?

My mother's German. She came straight from Germany. She gave me a lot of room to do what I wanted to do. She would understand. She asked what I was doing and I said that it was music by regular people. She came to see me play when I was 15 and she loved it. So I got support. Have you ever seen my old red bass? The one I've been playing forever? She got it for me.

You've been in all these legendary New York bands, like Straight Ahead, Agnostic Front, Youth Of Today and all the others. Do you sometimes feel like a living legend?

No, I just do what I do. I just happened to be in a time and place where there weren't many people that played instruments and who were really into it. I could play well, back then people couldn't really play their instruments. I was already a good musician. I practiced every day because I really like to play bass. So that coupled to the desire I had and the love of the hardcore made people wanting me to be in their band. I was sought after. And I jumped really high and all. But all that other stuff... The whole ego side of things... I appreciate the respect I get, because I put most of my life in it, but there's people who have done more remarkable things than I've done. I'm just dumb enough to stick around.

Don't you come across people idolizing you a lot? Idolizing you because of your past and present.

I get that a little, but I don't really bring that out to people very much. I just do the quiet talk, you know, "How are you doing?" and that kinda stuff. I don't like idolizing. I got into hardcore to get away from that, because everybody else was ego-tripping. When I got into this music it was because you're the same as me and I'm the same as you. Everybody was on an equal foot. That's why in today's music world I still don't fit in. I could probably make a lot of money if I acted and dressed like I was a big shot, but that goes into everything why I do this for. So why would I do that?

Which one of the bands you've been in do you like the most nowadays?

Straight Ahead!

In every aspect?

Every band taught me something different. I liked being in Agnostic Front, I like being in Sick Of It All. All the bands I was in meant something. I didn't like being in Youth Of Today very much at the time. Because they were "Look at me! Look at me!", they wanted to be famous. They said they didn't, but they wanted.

And eventually they got famous.

Well, I guess. Not more famous than me, we're all swimming in the same fish tank. But even that band taught me something. Every band I was in has its place. But Straight Ahead was fun. There was no pressure at that point, you just did what you wanted and nobody was really watching, it was a local thing.

Was Straight Ahead just NYC Mayhem, or were there different members?

The guitar player for Mayhem quit and Tommy went from drumming and singing just to singing and we got Arman to play drums.

Are you still in touch with the members of your old bands?

I talk to Tommy Straight Ahead a lot and that's about it. He's a construction worker. I see Roger and Vinnie sometimes. I see Matt Henderson a lot. I just see the Agnostic Front guys a lot and Tommy Carroll. I run into Porcelly once in a while.

How do you feel about the zillion Straight Ahead bootlegs?

Well, whatever. I never put it out, I planned on it, but I never did. But nobody knows about that band, what that band was and it's kinda cool like that. Though if it ever gets put out I will do it...but it won't.

Do you still have Straight Ahead recordings laying around that never got released?

Oh yeah, I have a whole demo tape that no one has actually heard, no one but me. Knock Down is on it and a couple of other songs.

Sick Of It All has gotten a lot of shit for being on a major label from the hardcore in-crowd a few years back, nowadays kids don't bother too much anymore. Do you think kids don’t care about that anymore or is there some other reason?

I think these days so many bands are on majors that nobody cares anymore. When you do something first people complain. But not any of these people are paying my bills and food. They shouldn't tell me how to live, I make my own way. But it was a good thing. People judge things without knowing. That's what ruins hardcore. Everybody's trying to blame, make comments. There's no respect anymore. I never disrespected my elders back when I was a kid.

Tell me a good fight story from back in the days.

I wasn't really a fighter. I'm more a lover than a fighter. But I've witnessed a lot. One time outside CB's these skinhead kids came from New Jersey and they were fucking around. So after the show Russell from Underdog had a fight with this guy and they argue a little and they fought. So Russell and the guy are fighting and Russell grabs the guy around the waist and throws him on a car. And the guy is punching Russell on the head and they were going at it, when all of a sudden Todd Youth picks up a skateboard, brings it over his head and the guy's with his back on the car and hits the guy with the trucks of the skateboard. Right on the bridge of his nose and the guy's whole face explodes, there was blood everywhere. The guy was knocked out. And then all the bums that lived in the building on top of CBGB's started throwing bottles at everybody and newspapers that were on fire landed on people and stuff. There was this big riot. And we all ran away. That was in '86.
Tell me about the very first tour you did.
That was with Youth Of Today in 1986, before that I had done like five shows in a row, during summer. I had done stuff with Mayhem and Straight Ahead, but it wasn't more than four or five days in a row. We didn't have cars, nobody could drive. With Youth Of Today I went down south and back and that was pretty fun. Tommy was in the band playing drums, but then he quit. He said he didn't like the other guys in the band.

Was Straight Ahead still around then?

Yeah, we had it both going on. For a little while. In the end I quit Youth Of Today to join Straight Ahead again.

Had Straight Ahead broken up?

For a little while, me and Tommy had a fight and we broke up. But we were friends no matter what.

So you weren't replaced by someone else?

In Straight Ahead? No way, I'm Craig Ahead, you can't replace me. That was my band, I wrote all the songs.

Thanks for the interview man.

2005-12-24T00:47:00.000+01:00

Testing British Accents.

After the entry in which I talked about bands such as Cider and The Darvocets and more of the Clevo scum punk bands I received a mail from Paul who does Non Commercial Records and also plays in several of those bands such as The Inmates, Cider, The Darvocets and probably a bunch more. He gave me some more detailed info about what bands share members, what some of those bands put out so far, whether or not they’re still around etc. I thought most of the stuff he told me was pretty interesting and since I said some not-so-straight facts in my first post here’s how it really is:

Paul is the lead sing and guitarist in Cider. Aaron Melnick is the bass player. The drummer Bobby was the drummer on the first Ringworm album. Paul is also the lead singer of The Inmates. Both Melnicks are in The Inmates. Aaron plays lead guitar and Lenny plays bass. The Inmates was always going on at the same time as Integrity, but most people never knew because they didn’t want to use a name to get them popular. Unfortunately at that time all of the members had five other bands so they never got the chance to tour or anything. The drummer of The Inmates is Wedge who also was the drummer of the H-100s, 9 Shocks Terror and The Ruiners (the original hardcore Ruiners that is). Upstab has the lead singer of H-100s and The Ruiners Chris Erba as the singer. Upstab has no former members of Ringworm or Integrity in them, only a few members of Puncture Wound and that’s it. Upstab will be touring Europe in 2006, don’t miss out for some confronting hardcore. The Darvocets has Paul on guitar again, Alien Obsessed Larry on vocals, Chris Pellow on bass who was the original bass player of Ringworm and guitarist of Apartment 213 and Bobby from Cider on drums. The Darvocets have a more late ‘70s sound going on.

Other Clevo punk bands that I found out about since my previous post are: The Wolfdowners, Brainwashed Youth and Windpipe.
The Wolfdowners play a noisy mix of influences combining The Stooges, Joy Division, Thin Lizzy, Radio Birdman, Coltraine and a shitload of punk and hardcore bands thrown in as well. At least, that’s how they describe themselves… I don’t hear too much Thin Lizzy or Joy Division or any of those bands in their sound though, only a little bit… It’s a cool band nevertheless. The Wolfdowners feature, surprise surprise, members of Cider, The Inmates, 50’s Fists and Brainwashed Youth. So far they put out a demo in 2004 called Wolf It Down on Non Commercial Records and a 12” should be out soon on Parts Unknown Records. You can listen to a song by them here.
Brainwashed Youth have two releases up to now, a demo which can be found on Battle Of The Worst Bands comp on Non Commercial Records (one of those songs ended up on the Dark Empire comp as well) and recently they put out an EP, again on Non Commercial Records, entitled Testing British Accents. From one I can tell this band also features Aaron Melnick and Paul. The other names on the EP are Whiskey Breath and Dan Sabu… I need some more time to figure out who they are. You can listen to an MP3 from the Testing British Accents here. A Brainwashed Youth 12” should be recorded now and will be released on Non Commercial Records.
Windpipe is a band from the early ‘90s of whom Non Commercial Records will put out the demo on a slab of 7” vinyl. That demo was actually never officially released, but now after 15 years someone cares enough to actually do so. I’m curious as how they sound as I’ve been told they sound like Infest meets Siege. This band featured Chris Erba on vocals as well, Chris Pellow on bass, one of the guitarists and drummer from Confront after they broke up. Should be good.

Other releases that Non Commercial will be doing soon are: The Battle Of The Worst Bands on vinyl. This battle features the first Cider EP, the first Darvocets EP, the Ruiners EP (the three first releases on Non Commercial Records, put out in the early to mid-‘90s), plus the infamous Brainwashed Youth demo. Only 300 will be pressed, so if you want this you will have to be fast. I have the CD version of this comp already and it’s pretty solid and packed with stuff. The other release that will be out on Non Commercial Records is a Cider CD that will feature the first two EPs, unreleased demo tracks and live songs. There will be a nice booklet with this CD giving a good representation of the band’s history.

What I personally like about Non Commercial Records is that they totally didn’t steal their name, even for hardcore’s lower standards this label is definitely non-commercial. Their releases are cheap, their CDs are made dirt cheap and when you order from Paul you get a sweet package with a handwritten letter and free stuff inside, total pre-internet style. The only other band with the same punk approach/attitude I can think of is Kangaroo Records (thinking of the look of that Direct Control EP for example)…oh yeah, and maybe Back Ta Basics back then, but that actually was more out of greed rather than out of a punk attitude I guess.

Oh yeah, as I mentioned before already, Painkiller Records will be doing the vinyl of the new Darvocets record and The Inmates reissue. Gloom Records will be doing the CD version of The Inmates’ discography.

Now that we’re still talking Cleveland, let’s talk about that obscure ‘80s band called The Guns. Possible to half the readers know as that other band on the Bowel CD. As even Kill From The Heart doesn’t even offer any info I tracked down a bit of info by myself through several informants. The Guns’ stuff that’s on the Bowel CD is actually an unreleased LP. They had recorded it to put it out on Toxic Shock Records, the label that put out the Peace Corpse EP and the Decry “Falling” LP, but it got shelved. What did The Guns then officially put out? Well, only a few songs on two different compilations. The first compilation they appeared on was an Ohio hardcore compilation LP called The New Hope (’82-’83 era), they had two songs on that one “I’m Not Right” and “Locked Inside”. Other bands that appeared on that compilation were The Agitated, Zero Defex, The Dark and a few more bands bathing in the annals of obscurity. The other compilation The Guns appeared on was They Pelted Us With Rocks And Garbage, an all Clevo comp (with a bunch of artsy bands on) put out by Negative Print Fanzine, the song they contributed was “Your Mistake”. This song can also be found on the Bowel CD. The band actually got together in 1982 when two friends, Scott Eikin (age 12) and David Araca (age 13) of the band The Dark, formed their own side project, The Guns. In 1983 they recorded for The New Hope comp that was put out by Scott’s older brother and singer for The Dark, Tom Eakin (a.k.a. Tommy Dark). In 1983 Sean Saley/Wright quit the drums in Starvation Army and joined The Guns as bass player. Those three dudes played tons of shows from late ’83 through ’84. In ’84 they recorded the album that never got a proper release with Scott Lasch. In late ’84 Sean Saley/Wright left Cleveland (and also The Guns) and moved to Washington DC where he joined Government Issue to play drums. The Guns weren’t done yet, they carried on with Scott Silverman on lead guitar and Bob Ries on bass through 1987. Scott Eikin went on to be in many bands, David Araca had a bit of success with the band False Hope and he also played in Integrity. Scott later also did Stepsister together with his brother Tom that also had Tony Erba in the ranks. David Araca passed away in 1994, age 26.

I hope to have enlighten you a bit again on the Cleveland scene with this post and if people have more info for me, feel free to e-mail me. I’m an information addict. Next Clevo time I’ll be talking about Midnight and Boulder.

2005-12-23T21:21:00.000+01:00

Behold The Hand Of Glory.

Today’s post won’t be that much. Tonight I’ll be writing and preparing a bunch of other entries that will be posted in the next couple of days. I’m not gonna reveal anything yet, so you’ll have to check back daily. You won’t be disappointed. In the meanwhile here are some things to keep you busy online while you are impatiently waiting for updates of my fresh and genius rambling writings. Here’s some Friday relaxing reading material.

alpha) Every time I post something a little bit interesting on Megalomaniacal Supernauts I promote the shit out of this blog on various messageboards Western world wide. Yesterday I had the honour to get a visit on this blog from John Porcell. He had read the entry with the Henry Rollins stuff and noticed the Discharge passage. This is what he posted on the Livewire messageboard in the promo thread I had put up there.

Funny that you posted that, I used to read those playlists every time they came out, awesome stuff, I'm psyched to read that book. When I first saw that blurb about Discharge's "It's No TV Sketch" I sent Henry an e-mail about it, I still have it so here it is...

Hey Henry, I noticed on one of your playlists, you had a description for Discharge's "It's No TV Sketch" (great song by the way) where you mentioned how legend had it, when Discharge went metal, HR tackled the singer onstage. Not exactly what happened, but it's an interesting story nonetheless...

I was at that show, my band Youth of Today played, it was at the old Ritz on 11th St. in NY with COC and Discharge. HR was indeed in the house and did a stagedive for Youth of Today in what appeared to be a three-piece suit, which I can honestly say is the highlight of my music "career." Anyway, onto the Discharge story... NYC was pumped to see them, there were definitely more skinheads and punks there than metalheads, and everyone was jam-packed shoulder to shoulder to see Discharge. Then they came out literally looking like Poison and launched into one of the lamest cockrock ditties that would've made even Junkyard-era Brian Baker cringe. Before they could reach the second chorus, the crowd immediately started booing, spitting and throwing anything that wasn't nailed down. There was almost a riot.

If you remember, the old Ritz had a backstage room that overlooked the stage on the right side, and HR was up there, looking quite disappointed and animated (and by this time stripped down to just a frilly shirt and vest). HR grabbed one of those big plastic garbage cans, full to the brim, and threw it down onstage, literally covering Cal the singer head to toe in nasty musician refuse. Perfect shot. Then he grabbed one of those plastic ice trays filled with beer and ice and launched it at the guitar player, smashing his pedal board and shorting out all his cables. Another bullseye, the guy is like a fucking marksman. With the guitar completely out and a bloodthirsty mob at their feet, Discharge had no choice but to tuck their tails between their legs and slink off the stage, without even finishing their 2nd song.

You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool HR!

Take care, Porcell

Rollins wrote me back on that email, here's what he had to say:

Porcell. Thanks for that. I wasn't at that show, obviously, hence the disclaimer in the annotation. I did some shows with them and they were really cool guys. I guess they were going for something different and no one was digging it. In 1984 the Sisters of Mercy opened for Black Flag at the Ritz. I felt bad for them. The first three rows were trying to kill them.
Thanks. Henry

Oh yeah, one more thing on Porcell. Yesterday or so Barebones Hardcore posted a history of The Young Republicans by Porcell, good writing with great stories. Read it!

beta) Stop, Look And Listen is a pretty cool fanzine that has a pretty cool website that hosts a bunch of pretty cool live sets by some of our favourite pretty cool hardcore bands. Right now I’m listening to an Inside Out Anthrax set, you know, that show you have seen on video with all the crazy shit going on, that made you want to be there and/or makes you decide that Inside Out must have been one of the most intense West Coast hardcore bands ever. Other shows that have been posted on there recently are two Youth Of Today shows from the ’89 European tour in Germany and a Judge show from Minneapolis in ’90. I still have to listen to all of those, but the Inside Out show has a good sound quality. Also check out the demo section on the site, you can download a bunch of demos from new and upcoming bands such as Wasted Time, Soulfire, Think It Through and a few more.

gamma) Let’s talk Steve Ready and NY Wolfpack. How’s Your Edge just put up a new interview with Steve Ready about NY Wolfpack, Youth Of Today and fighting. Actually the first NY Wolfpack interview ever, 20 years after the band broke up. A good job done by the 2005 Boston Crew. Coincidently Middle Aged Youth MP3 Blog put up the NY Wolfpack ’89 Demo and LP for download, also the Albany Style compilation 7” (featuring, besides the Wolfpak, the OG Fit For Abuse, Carnal Abuse and No Outlet) is on there. Check out the comments on both posts as there is some interesting info to be found there.

delta) Delta stands for Black Flag. If you are down with the Flag and their early days here you can read the draft, and extended version, of an article on the history of Black Flag that appeared in the December issue of Mojo magazine written by Jay Babcock. I still have to read the whole thing, but it seems to be on top.

epsilon) NWOBHMetallers from The Netherlands, Powervice, has been doing well in my iTunes player lately. So far they only put out a demo, that I don’t even have yet, and send out a promo to one label only, Nuclear Blast, but that’s already more than enough to make me curious to see them live. They were supposed to play with High On Fire, but that show unfortunately got cancelled. I’ve been told that they are a great live band, so I hope to see them soon. You can hear as much of Powervice as I do daily and get an MP3 from their site. Yeah, that’s right…only one song. Try to get their demo, and if you get it before me, let me know. Good Judas Priest/early Maiden style of metal.

2005-12-22T17:02:00.000+01:00

Harmony In My Fanaticism!

People reading my blog from the start may have noticed already that I’m a bit of a Henry Rollins fan. Well, here’s another entry about Mr. Rollins. Last month 2.13.61 put out two new books by the man, the first one is entitled Roomanitarian, I haven’t read it yet, but I can tell you that the book has three main parts. The first one has your-typical-Rollins poems, the second one has more short written pieces and the final part of the book is a series of letters full of social commentary written to a fictional character resembling some real life conservative leading lady. The other book, Fanatic!, is what this blog entry focuses on. I haven’t gotten this book either, but again, I can tell you what it is about. In 2004 Henry Rollins had his own radio show on LA’s based Indie 103.1 FM called Harmony In My Head, after the Buzzcocks song. On that show he played songs from his own collection and more than often tracks from either obscure bands or obscure recordings/tracks/mixes from cult bands. Disciplined as Rollins is he kept all of his play lists and in Fanatic! he wrote down some more info on all 600 songs he played on that radio show. There’s 300 pages of music worship from a real music geek in Fanatic!, and being a music geek myself, I can’t wait to get hands on that book. While browsing this thing called the internet for more info on either the book or the radio show I found out that Henry Rollins will be doing the radio show again from December 27th on. I still have to look up if there is an online streaming for the show or an archive to download the show once it has been broadcasted. I also found short versions of Rollins’ reviews of the chosen songs, as they appear (but then more expanded) in Fanatic! Here’s the selection I made of the most remarkable, interesting and/or weird songs he played and wrote about.

Dillinger – Ragnampiza: Originally I heard this at Ian MacKaye’s house in 1983 and I played a CD-R of the tape I made of it back then. I have since found the single but have never been able to track down the LP Bionic Dread which I think it comes from. I have a lot of Dillinger records. I think he’s most well-known for his album Cocaine in my Brain, which is a great one. I went online and did a little searching and found that the very cool Hip-O Records has just done a best-of with this version on it so I got it used for four bucks. I don’t know a great deal about reggae or dub music but I have a small stack of stuff that Ian turned me onto over the years. Scientist’s records on Green sleeves are cool, A lot of the CDs on the Blood and Fire label are great like If DJ Was Your Trade and King Tabby’s Dub Like Dirt. Scientist has one on that label called Dub in the Roots Tradition which I like a lot.

Discharge – It’s No TV Sketch: All the early Discharge singles and the first album are great. I don’t have all their records but I remember playing with them in 1982 in Canada and they were cool live and seemed like cool people. I know at one point, they made a kind of metal record and it wasn’t what people were expecting and they played New York and the legend is that while the band was playing their new music that was not going down well with the audience, HR from the Bad Brains ran onstage and tackled the singer guy. I would like tostate here for the record, that I wouldn’t like to get tackled by HR. The Discharge stuff is on Clay Records. Thank you.

Black Flag – Fix Me: Off the first Black Flag single Nervous Breakdown. It’s in print on SST. Keith Morris on vocals. This is available on what I think is the best Black Flag CD, called The First Four Years. It’s twenty some minutes long and says more in that time than most bands say in their whole careers.

The Ruts – Staring at the Rude Boys: Too bad that Malcom Owen died as the band were just starting off. Sad that he died anyway. You can argue but in my opinion, the Ruts never wrote a bad song. There’s a great new Ruts CD out that has their classic The Crack album plus the Grin and Bear It comp. album. There’s also a Peel Sessions CD. The Ruts will be getting a lot of airplay on this show.

Circle Jerks – Beverly Hills: A great track off the now classic Group Sex album. I was lucky. I saw the band play in San Francisco in the summer of 1980. I was out with the Teen Idles when they were doing their west coast tour. It was a great bill. Circle Jerks, Flipper and the Dead Kennedys at the Mabuhay Gardens. I didn’t know anything about the Jerks, all I knew was Keith was the original singer in Black Flag and we had met him a few hours before. Tony Alva was there as well so I met two of my heroes in one day. The Jerks came on and basically played the Group Sex record which wasn’t recorded yet. I remember just being blown away. The band was so tight and one song slammed into another and it was one of the most intense things I have ever seen.

The Ramones - Time Bomb: Great song with Dee Dee on lead vocal. I was about to leave for a tour and a few hours before I was going to ship out, I was told that Joey was looking really bad and he could be near the end of his life. Before I went to the airport, I put on the Ramones Subterranean Jungle album. I play that one a lot. On the flight to Australia, I thought of the times I had hung out with him and wondered where I would be and how I would feel when he passed away. Several hours later I got off the plane in Melbourne and the press person who picked me up gave me the local paper that had the notice that Joey had slipped away. I guess it happened when I was on the flight. This album and the Pleasant Dreams albums are really cool and often overlooked.

Bad Brains – I: One of my favortie Bad Brains songs. I watched them work on this song as well as Right Brigade in Nathan Teen Idles basement many years ago. When they would play it, the place would go nuts. If you ever get a chance to check out the Bad Brains stuff, Black Dots, Rock for Light, I Against I and the ROIR Sessions are recommended.

Slayer – Stain of Mind: My favorite song off the Diabolus in Musica album. What a band. Talk about no sellout. This song is so relentlessly killing it should get an award.

Skrewdriver – You’re so Dumb: The singles and the All Skrewed up LP are punk perfection. Then it all went horrible wrong when the band started spouting the worst White Power crap and went into the blind world of racism. This song is from the Better Off Crazy/You’re so Dumb single. There’s a pretty interesting interview with the band’s drummer: http://www.televisionpersonalities.co.uk/jowe/swell.htm that’s a good read. The band’s singer, Ian Stuart is one of the scariest people I have ever seen. The singles and LP give no hint of what was to come.

Bad Brains - The Man Won't Annoy Ya: This is from a live tape made at the legendary Madam’s Organ house located in the Adams Morgan district in Washington DC. This would be in 1979, probably around November or December. This was one of the band’s more reggae flavored songs but before they brought out several reggae songs, that was 1980. If you pick up the very cool Banned in DC photo book, you will see killer Bad Brains pictures at MO. So cool, no stage really, bands played in the living room. I had so many great nights in that place it’s not even funny. At the beginning of the track you can hear people yelling out “Jah!” and shit like that. That would be Ian, Geordie Teen Idles, myself and others in the front. Later on in the song, you can hear people chanting, “Hey, hey, hey.” Ian and I would get on each side of the band and provide stereo backing vocals without mic. the band was not all that into us giving them mild amounts of shit but it was fun. These were some great times in the early DC music scene.

Bad Brains - Pay to Cum: From the Black Dots album. The Bad Brains recorded this as a demo in August of 1979. It was a tape that got passed around in the DC scene quite a bit. I still have the copy that singer HR gave me around that time. To me, this single recording session is as important and relevant to Punk-Independent music as Never Mind the Bullocks or Nevermind. I also think, (he puts on his corny critic cap and clocks in . . .) that if they had released this in 1979, it would have been an immediate lightning rod, here’s your godhead punk release of the decade. It’s interesting that all these years later, this tape finally gets released. This is a must-have album.

Minor Threat - Stepping Stone: From the Minor Threat Complete Discography CD. Don Zientara of Inner Ear Studios did this mix on his own and played for Ian when Ian came into mix the session. Ian liked it and so it goes. SS was a kind of in-joke amongst DC bands. Everybody did it. It was a cool song and it’s easy to play and sing so everyone started doing it. I think the first time I heard a band do it on a regular basis was when the Teen Idles would play it from time to time. Of all the versions, I think the Minor Threat one is my favorite.

Teen Idles – Get Up and Go: From the Teen Idles Minor Disturbance EP. The Teen Idles single was the first ever Dischord release. Here’s something kinda lame that I did but I’ll tell you: When the Teen Idles EP came out, it was a big deal in our small DC music scene. Record stores weren’t all that interested in some band hawking their single so they allowed a few copies to sit on the shelf on consignment. Ian took five of the Teen Idles EP and put them in a record store down the street from where I worked. I went on a break and bought all of them. I figured it was an important record. I kept them in the plastic bags they came in until last year when I took them out and transferred them to other bags and stored them.

Saint Vitus – White Stallions: The album this comes from, Hallow’s Victim isn’t on CD I don’t think. If it is, I have not been able to find it. I got this track off a kind of best of called Heavier than Thou. We used to do a lot of shows with these guys in 1984. It was cool to be on tour with them but cooler to see them when not on tour so you could really have a great time and not have to think about the show you had to do as soon as they were off. I had a lot great times seeing these guys. I still have tapes of them playing parties and I can hear myself and other SST/Black Flag types singing along with them. Those were some great nights.

The Effigies – Below the Drop: Boy do these guys have fans. I got enough letters about the Effigies. Please play the Effigies, how come you haven’t played the Effigies, etc. Well, ok, here you go! This was a great live band. They were friends with Black Flag. I remember taking a series of busses through LA to see them play at some club. How I got back to SST I don’t remember. This is from the Remains Nonviewable comp. CD.

Black Sabbath - War Pigs: When the band reformed in 1997 and played those two shows in Birmingham UK, I was there and on the first night when they came out and opened with this, one of the greatest songs of all time, the entire place went nuts. What a great night. Seeing what’s happening in American foreign policy these days, there’s never been a more perfect song to play.

Black Sabbath - The Mob Rules: What?! More Black Sabbath? A damned outrage! I think this is one of the all time great riffs. I listen to the Dio-era Sabbath all the time. Great records. If you listen to the lyrics, you can see that Dio nailed down the state of things. Hey, he lives in the Valley, right? Let’s all drive by after the show and give him a Hail Satan, what do you say?!

Saint Vitus - War is Our Destiny: I remember when the lyrics of the song were different. Scotty used to sing “Sad wings of destiny” instead. Isn’t that a Priest song? Anyway, they did a little re-write and I always thought it was one of their best songs. Live it used to kill. This was a great band to see. I had a lot of fun at those shows. High On Fire - Baghdad: I figure this is a great way to finish tonight’s pre-election angst broadcast. This is from The Art of Self Defense album and it’s a monster all the way from start to finish.

Flipper - Love Canal: A great Flipper single. I did a lot of shows with Flipper in the 80's. What a band. I will never forget hanging outside Target Video in San Francisco with them as Greg Ginn asked them if they wanted to be on SST and the band’s singer, Bruce just went off on Ginn. I’m paraphrasing, “You guys are just punk rock stars and SST is just a small label that wants to be mainstream,” etc. It was hard to watch Ginn take it from Bruce. We put them on our bills all the time and SST was a great label and Ginn wasn’t in line for that kind of dressing down but that was Flipper. Devastating live band. Their version of Super Freak was incredible.

Butthole Surfers – Sweatloaf: From the Locust Abortion Technician album, came out in 1987 I think. I’ll never forget all the shows we did with the band in 1991 on the Lollapalooza tour. I forget how many times they did this but there were some shows where the band would be onstage and the band’s roadie Danny would come out with a shotgun and give it to Gibby. No one in the audience knew that the gun was loaded with shells that had no shot, just powder. With no shot and more powder, sound was enormous and the flame that came out of the barrel was quite intense. Gibby would yell into the mic, something like, “I didn’t see you little motherfuckers dancing to the Rollins Band!” and then he started firing on the crowd. It was really scary and people scattered. What a swell band.

Mercyful Fate – Black Funeral: From the Melissa album. I don’t know a damn thing about the singer, King Diamond besides the fact that he made me laugh my ass off when I saw him on MTV once talking about Satan. The make-up was great and you can’t help thinking what he would have done, looking like that walking through Brooklyn. Satan can’t help you in Red Hook.

Venom – The Chanting of the Priests: From the Calm Before the Storm album. Black Flag played with these jokers in Trenton NJ in 1986. Price of a ticket? A few bucks. Joe Cole getting in the singer/bass player’s face with his palm covered in a penned-on pentagram, doing his best Richard Ramirez imitation as he told Kronos to, “Hail Satan”? Priceless.

The Obsessed – Tombstone Highway: From the Obsessed album on Tolotta. I have known Scott the singer/guitar player/songwriter of this band for almost twenty-five years. You may have heard “Wino” in some other bands like Saint Vitus, Shine, Spirit Caravan, The Hidden Hand. What a great musician he is. Talk about the real deal, Scott’s all that and a beat down.

http://www.harmonyinmyhead.com/
http://www.21361.com/
http://www.indie1031.fm/

2005-12-22T00:12:00.000+01:00

“The band that prays together has found the Hare Krishna way and it’s called hardcore, music that says being a kid in 1986 is hard.”

It’s been a while since you all heard from The Megalomaniacs, but here I am back again with a nice piece to kick off the holidays. I have a bunch of ideas and articles in my head already and I hope to do at least four more entries before the end of the year, possible more. You’ll find out about it anyway.
The text below is from a 1986 article about the Cro-Mags. I found the original article scanned somewhere online, but I don’t really recall where I got it from (if the person responsible for the scan happens to read this, on behalf of every Cro-Mags fan: Thank you!). I just typed the whole article and left it as it was, including the spelling. I think the article’s pretty funny, at times patronizing, at times naïve and other times just stupid or on point. Read it for yourself and realise how much times have changed concerning the relation between mainstream press and hard music. Oh yeah, this article was written by Annetta Stark and it appeared in a paper or magazine that I don’t know the name of.
Enjoy this article and be on the lookout for more NYHC worship this week.

2005-11-17T01:07:00.000+01:00

Forest Of The Megalomaniac.

Not a real post this time, just a quick announcement (or quick advertisement, as you wish). Most of you are probably aware that the Nike Company just released Pushead Lamorte SB Dunks. Now if those shoes weren’t so damn ugly and/or limited/expensive I would consider buying a pair, but seeing pictures of the packaging makes me want to find a pair anyway. So if there is a Pusfan, or sole collector, out there that, for whatever reason, would not like to keep or want the shoe box and wrap paper you can send it to me, I’ll paypal you the postage costs with $10 extra. Feel free to get in touch with me, thanks. Just check out how great-looking this is, would be perfect to put in my living room next to my Cleanse The Bacteria poster.

Oh yeah, here’s something weird. While trying to find some more info on these Dunks I googled “Pushead Nikes” (on Google Belgium) and check out what result number eight was that I got…really check it out yourself… What are the odds??

http://www.google.be/
http://www.pusfan.com/
http://www.besound.com/pushead/home.html
http://www.septicdeath.com/
http://www.nike.com/nikeskateboarding/v2/main.html
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7721634836&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1

2005-11-15T22:28:00.000+01:00

The grim reaper will come to call on me soon…

I’m about to finish Choosing Death, a book on the history of death metal and grindcore written by Albert Mudrian. Actually I don’t know if I will read the last few chapters any time soon as it focuses on Pig Destroyer, Nasum and even Earth Crisis. As a matter of fact I don’t really care much for death metal or grindcore anyway, with the exception of the British pioneers and the Western Mass godfathers. So far the book for me has gone from being very interesting in the beginning (the rise of the Birmingham scene and Earache Records) to plain rambling from the second part of the book on giving too many facts about the bands, their members and their record deals…and eventually it all becomes a bit too predictable. There’s no real storyline throughout the book and so it ends up being rather stale and factual, though, as mentioned before the first part of the book is pretty interesting. What follows is an excerpt from the book when Albert Mudrian goes a bit deeper into two bands that were very influential to bands such as Napalm Death, Heresy and Extreme Noise Terror, and is possible the best part in the book for people with a love for hardcore and a not so big love for death metal.

[…] Though sometimes overlooked, Boston had a powerful scene of its own. To most, Boston hardcore is forever defined by SS (Society System) Decontrol and their controversial brand of punk, which, along with Minor Threat, helped characterize the straight edge movement. But the Boston area, quite simply, had the fastest bands, several of which actually hailed from small suburban towns in western Massachusetts.
Amherst was such a place. A two-hour drive west of Boston, the picturesque college town was also home to a young local named Joseph Mascis. In 1982, the 15-years-old Mascis -simply known as J to friends- wasn’t much different from the town’s other few proud punk rockers, often spending his free time roaming the racks of local record store Main Street Records in North Hampton.
“I met this kid in that store that looked kinda like Dee Dee Ramone,” Mascis recalls, “I talked to him a little bit and he seemed to be into some of the same hardcore stuff as me. The next week I saw a flyer up in the record store and I figured it had to be that kid because I didn’t know anybody else that was into stuff like Discharge and Minor Threat.”
That kid was Scott Helland, who, along with his friend Lou Barlow, sought a drummer to play “superfast beats” –as their flyer bluntly stated- for their fledgling hardcore band. The group was practicing for several months before the painfully shy Mascis answered the advertisement. After joining, Mascis insisted the band draft his friend Charlie Nakajima to sing. Days later, Mascis christened the group Deep Wound, and within a few short months they began playing sporadic gigs with local hardcore punk groups, such as Helland’s other outfit The Outpatients.
“We just wanted to play as fast as possible, and, I think, sometimes it was to the detriment of our songs,” says Mascis. “All we were concerned with, really, was playing faster and faster.”
For that crown Deep Wound would have some competition. In another small western Massachusetts suburb named Weymouth, local drummer Robert Williams and his 10th grade classmates, guitarist Kurt Habelt and bassist Henry McNamee, had been instigating a racket since 1981, shortly after their first exposure to Minor Threat and Discharge. On the weekends, the trio frequently made the half-hour journey east to Boston’s premier independent record store, Newbury Comics, to feed their appetites for scorching punk rock.
“It was such a special time to be discovering music,” recalls Williams. “I can remember coming home from Newbury Comics –which was just a closet, with cardboard boxes of comic books and 7-inches on wooden shelves- and my hands were shaking I was so excited to play these records. I remember the look of absolute snobbery and disgust on the face of the cashier –a young pre-‘Til Tuesday Aimee Mann- when I came up to the register with an original pressing of the Meatmen’s ‘Blood Sausage’ 7-inch, which had a used condom with pubic hair on the cover. I had a rating system –the faster my mom would run upstairs to get me to shut it off, the better it was. I couldn’t get through a side of Black Flag’s Damaged. Flipper couldn’t even get through a song.”
Further inspired by their trips into the city to see Black Flag and NYC punkers the Misfits, Williams devoted more time to his musical project, which he had recently dubbed Siege.
“The three of us were jamming together in Hank’s garage and then later in a church, making absolutely hellish dissonance that resounded through the neighbourhood,” Williams remembers. “Locals still come up to me, now grown, and talk about how they used to drink beers in the woods with their friends and listen.”
Soon the quartet recruited singer Kevin Mahoney, from yet another western Mass. Suburb, Braintree –a town rich in hardcore heritage and home of the original Gang Green and Jerry’s Kids. By 1983, Siege began playing shows in this rapidly developing western Mass. community.
“It was a healthy, awesome, real DIY scene out there in western Mass. –a clique of very excited groups,” Williams explains. “It was one of the places that you played when you made the rounds, another being Stamford, Connecticut. They were very positives scenes, but very few of them made the ride to Boston to play shows. They were younger, artsy types and they weren’t the most driven, savvy entertainers in the world. These were just punk kids and they happened to live in a remote place. More often, Boston would go out to western Mass. to play.”
That community had already accepted the speedy Deep Wound, but withstanding the sheer velocity, violent lyrics and developing metallic leanings of Siege would be an even greater test. After all, this was a band both faster and heavier than the crossover thrash punk of Cryptic Slaughter and Septic Death, which was then regarded as the pinnacle of aural intensity in the US.
“There was a time when we made a deliberate decision to set out to be the absolute fastest band,” says Williams, whose speed training included playing AC/DC’s Highway To Hell LP at 45 RPM and duplicating the drum beats while wearing headphones. “The track ‘Beating Around The Bush’ becomes galloping Brit punk when played on 45,” he notes. “I loved metal, too –Venom, Priest, Motörhead’s ‘Iron Fist’. In fact, we covered Venom’s ‘Warhead’ at our first show, which was at our high school’s battle of the bands –we got disqualified for obscenity, plus our bassist Hank smashed his bass. But it was about speed. We would listen to the fastest punk and hardcore bands we could find and say, ‘Okay, we’re gonna deliberately write something that is faster than them, because we are going to be the fastest.’ We took it very seriously.”
Williams and the rest of Siege, however, didn’t hold Boston’s straight edge movement in similar regard.
“I was a heavy pot smoker,” says Williams, whose drug use was in direct contrast to the prevailing sentiment within the hardcore scene at the time. “And we were younger guys, newcomers, certainly not straight edge, and didn’t fit in with the original Boston crew, who were bullies. Their thing kind of grew into the jock-infested macho one-dimensional shit that half of hardcore is now –the baseball cap-wearing, smack a kid up shit. The other half being the Maximum Rock n’ Roll peace-punk, crust leftist, reverse conformism –but this was before all those terms and before things were so clichéd.”
By the time Siege was making its own way in early 1984, however, their kindred spirits in Deep Wound were simply going away.
“The hardcore scene was kinda dead to us,” says Mascis. “I was more into the Birthday Party and the noisier types of bands after that. Scott, the bass player, was really busy with his other band the Outpatients, too, so basically he went in the Outpatients full-time and the rest of us formed Dinosaur, but we were called Mogo then and we still had the same singer from Deep Wound, Charlie, but then after one gig we decided that Charlie was a no go and then we officially started Dinosaur [which later became Dinosaur Jr]. We had a totally different concept. We went from being a kinda really loud country band or something, because hardcore had just died out for us.”
Before Deep Wound officially disbanded, however, the group managed to record a self-titled 7-inch EP and a few tracks for the Bands That Could Be God compilation with local producer Lou Giordano at Boston’s Radio Beat Studios. Giordano recorded Boston’s top punk and hardcore acts, such as SS Decontrol, Negative FX, the FU’s, Jerry’s Kids and the Proletariat in the tiny reconstructed AM radio station in the heart of Kenmore Square.
“There was a small staff there.” Giordano explains. “There was the owner, Jimmy Dufour, and then I joined up in late ’82, and that was right about the time that the Boston scene was really exploding. Black Flag had come through town and basically just freaked everybody out, and it was never the same after that. And the Boston bands were kinda racing to catch up with the rest of the country, and all these bands sprung up overnight with a completely different sound than anywhere else –it was like they passed them all.”
Unsurprisingly, Siege elected to make their first recordings there as well, entering the studio with Giordano in February of 1984.
“The way our studio operated was that anything that comes in –there’s no value judgements made about the music,” Giordano recalls. “We just record it. Still, one of the things that I guess was cool about being a staff engineer is that I wouldn’t have sought out a band like that. I wasn’t philosophically into anything that they were doing, but they were all good musicians –you would have to be to stay together at the speeds they were playing at. So there was that aspect of it, and just the whole pushing the envelope thing. It sounds like it’s just gonna completely break apart going 700 miles through the sky and then all of a sudden everything just comes right together again.”
“And they were some of the most unassuming, laid-back people to ever work with,” he continues. “I mean, they had no attitude at all. They just came in and they were just really polite and very thankful, and then when they turned on the amps and made that noise, it was just unbelievable that it was coming from them.”
“He had seen a lot of that kind of thing, but we were serious about equipment, and that may have been one thing that set us apart,” Williams remembers. “But it was nothing new to him. He was really adept.”
Siege would return to the studio in October of that same year, recording three more tracks –“Walls”, “Cold War” and “Sad But True”- for a compilation assembled by artist and Maximum Rock n’ Roll scribe Pushead called Cleanse The Bacteria. That session would be this line-up’s last. A little over a year later, with internal tensions mounting, Siege imploded before what was to be their first ever New York City gig at the celebrated rock club CBGB’s. “The vocalist was bickering the guitarist,” Williams explains. “The van was loaded for our show. We never played the show. Kev never showed up, and I really can’t blame him. After that, we stopped playing.”
There were several false starts over the next few years, the last of which occurred in 1990, when Williams and guitarist Kurt Habelt were joined by local Boston vocalist Seth Putman.
“We were recording and writing, and I had written a bunch of revolutionary stuff, like violent lyrics, and the same guitarist changed some of my lyrics with weak rhyme, making them pacifist rather than revolutionary, and really changing their context,” says Williams. “He delivered that to Seth in the studio behind our backs. And he went so far as to erase one line of Seth’s singing and put in his own voice. I still have genocidal resentment about that. We never planned on compromising our extremity.” […]

Check out these links for some more stuff on the book, Deep Wound and Siege:

http://feralhouse.com/press/choosingdeath/

http://www.damagedgoods.co.uk/deepwound/

http://homepages.nyu.edu/~cch223/usa/info/siege_SVinter.html

http://www.scotthelland.com/

2005-11-15T22:14:00.000+01:00

What’s that noise?! (pt.3)

Here’s the third and final part of the interview Dolloff The Rat did a couple of years ago for his Sit Home And Rot fanzine with Dan Lilker. If you still wish to read more about Dan Lilker and the old days you should check out this interview conducted by Billy Milano, an interview that has only one purpose from Milano’s side: get Dan to talk as much shit as possible on Scott Ian.

I’ve seen a video of a NYC Mayhem show where you sing Life Of Riley with them. Were you into NYC Mayhem? What about Mental Abuse?

Oh, yeah, I forgot fucking Mental Abuse. That vocalist Cyd Sludge was a classic! And of course I enjoyed the short-lived NYC Mayhem, who went from death metal in ’78 to insane ultra-fast hardcore in a matter of what seemed like weeks.

Was it mainly bangers, hardcore kids or skins that moshed for you guys? Or was it a combination of the bunch?

Probably mostly bangers, but certainly a healthy amount of the other two categories. There were plenty of hardcore kids who could tell that we were not that serious with the lyrics and enjoyed us live for the intensity and the ‘moshability’. For that matter, I must say I thought it was pretty dumb to put ‘mosh part’ in the lyrics of Speak English Or Die. I only saw that when it was too late to do anything about it.

Will S.O.D. ever consider playing another show? I know you guys played CBGB’s once a year or two ago.

Although I very highly doubt it at the moment, it is possible that with time (and the right offer) it could happen again.

What do you think of Anthrax? Is it true that they were hated back then?

Well, the thing with those guys back then was that they had a little habit of latching onto certain trends and activities and trying to associate themselves with these things in a rather clumsy and obvious manner. So when they put the NYHC symbol on one of their shirts, more than a few people got a little pissed. It didn’t help when metal journalist Don Kaye mentioned in some widely distributed magazine that ‘it was rumored that they had actually tried to copyright the symbol’. That is not true, but it fanned the flames. Especially when they could compare Anthrax to Nuclear Assault. John and I were regulars at the CB’s matinees. We played a few of them and we didn’t pull kiss-ass-maneuvers if you get me. Scott later tried to get out of it by claiming that by putting the symbol there they were promoting it, thereby ‘supporting the scene’. That tired old expression. Hardcore kids weren’t fooled and pointed out that they could have supported the scene in a much less misleading way by simply mentioning bands they liked in interviews and wearing their shirts.

Are you really into horror movies? Do you like The Exorcist? Freddy Krueger’s a great song.

Oh yeah, I love all kinds of horror movies. From total humorous splatter to mind-bending psychological terror. Favorites include Evil Dead 2, Suspiria and Bad Taste.

Any closing words?

This has been a real trip down memory lane for me. It was quite nostalgic doing all this reminiscing and shit. I’m glad there’s people like you out there that are still enjoying and supporting the old style. After all, look at mainstream metal today… Papa Roach?!

2005-11-09T20:41:00.000+01:00

What's that noise?! (pt.2)

He was responsible for Craig Ahead picking up a bass guitar, he formed Anthrax, played in S.O.D. and had his say in the infamous Phil Donahue Show about NYHC. There’s a huge chance that this dude saw all the great bands you wish you saw at their best, plus he has some cool things to say. Here’s the second part of the Dan Lilker interview.

S.O.D. or M.O.D.? Who had better mosh parts? I say S.O.D., but the mosh part in Aren’t You Hungry is pretty ridiculous!

Well, if I were brutally honest, I always thought M.O.D. was highly derivative of S.O.D. Aren’t You Hungry was actually written by me and Scott. For anyone who has seen American Pie 2, it’s like this: If S.O.D. was Stiffler then M.O.D. was Stiffler’s little brother.

Did anyone in S.O.D. ever get hassled at CB’s back in the 80s doe having long hair?

No, not really. The hardcore people were pretty friendly as I remember. There would always be, maybe a few, shit talkers, but they were a minority and were probably just trying to impress their friend, much like I alluded to before.

Speaking of that, when’s the last time you cut your hair?

I cut off most of my hair in May ’97 to get rid off the dreads I had for almost two years. But only a few times since then. It’s pretty long now!

What are some memorable shows you played back then? I have a flyer for a S.O.D., Motörhead, Cro-Mags show at Rock Hotel, that must have been crazy! Did you ever play with Metallica during the Master Of Puppets days?

That show ruled. Some of the first S.O.D. shows were done with Suicidal Tendencies when they still did a lot of stuff from their classic first album. Nuclear Assault did a show with Samhain, M.D.C. and Celtic Frost once. The only time I ever played with Metallica was way back when I was still in Anthrax at Kirk’s first show.

You still talk to or hang out with any guys from S.O.D.? What are you doing with yourself these days?

Well, S.O.D. just broke up for good due to some fatal misunderstandings concerning how much touring we were gonna do when we reemerged in ’99-’00. I still talk to the guys occasionally via e-mail. Now I am doing shit with Nuclear Assault again, ironically. I have joked that I have to reform all the 80s bands I played in because I’m getting sick of nu-metal, because I got to show these fuckers how to play real metal, which doesn’t involve jumping up and down and rapping.

What were your favorite NYHC bands to see back then? Favorite metal bands? And least favorite?

Crumbsuckers, Ludichrist, Krakdown, Adrenalin O.D. (from New Jersey), Agnostic Front, The Psychos, Cro-Mags, Murphy’s Law, Straight Ahead, etc.

What were you guys thinking when you wrote United Forces? That’s probably the most vicious song written in the last 95 years. It just puts everyone I know into a frenzy!

That was a song Scott brought to the band. He had already written like half the songs before I came into the picture. I helped writing Milano Mosh, Milk, Pussywhipped, Speak English Or Die, Chromatic Death and Fist Banging Mania. I can’t take credit for United Forces.

Could you talk a little bit about the Phil Donahue Show you were on in ’86? How did you get on that? Did you really get rejected from a deli?

Oh Christ, I did not really try to get a job at a deli. That was the first thing that came to mind only because I was contemplating getting a job at a deli. The reason the show was done was that New York Magazine did a big article on some teenage hardcore chick from Long Island and her crush on Jimmy Gestapo from Murphy’s Law, yawn… So, Phil somehow got wind of that a lot of us thought the article was gay and wanted to see what we thought. By the way, after the magazine came out the girl (her name was Bekka) got a really big head and did a column for some magazine dissing metalheads. Shortly afterwards Nuclear Assault dedicated Buttfuck to her at a show we knew she was at.

Who were your good friends back in the day? Was there anybody in the scene that you were scared of?

I had a lot of good friends in that scene to the point where if I start mentioning some I’ll forget others and feel bad later. I guess Craig, Billy Milano and pretty much everyone from the bands I mentioned before would be a good start.

2005-11-07T00:14:00.000+01:00

I’m gonna jump out of your speaker right now and slab you in the bum. Cheers!

I don’t know how it goes with you people, but whenever I come across a website that has a ‘links’ section I usually am not that tempted to click on that button in order to find more links when I am not necessarily looking for something specific. So I decided to write a little piece for you with a bunch of links included so if you are somewhat interested in what I mention, say or suggest you can click-away the night. You could say that this is my first news to use sorta post with useful links for those who care.

Let’s kick this first piece off with some news from the Belgian hardcore scene, more precisely about my punkmetalling bros in Rise And Fall. This week an MP3 of The Void from their upcoming record Into Oblivion was posted on their label Reflections Records’ website. Listening to Into Oblivion, release date 11/24, you won’t have a hard time hearing their varying influences though those create a rather unique sound. People that can appreciate some Slayer, Entombed, Tragedy, Discharge, Integrity, Black Sabbath, Eyehategod, Integrity, Cro-Mags, Leeway, Ringworm and Dead Stop in their lives need to give Rise And Fall a shot. Punkmetal to the bone. Speaking about punkmetal, Integrity’s live intensity of the early 90s has been immortalized by means of a slab of vinyl. Aurora Borealis has put out a live LP with a set from back in ’92, a show in Cleveland on Palm Sunday. Only 500 copies were pressed and the record has been out for a few weeks now, so if you want this you gonna have to act fast. This week I’ve been listening to two other Cleveland bands quiet a lot, two bands that are still around, I assume, Upstab and Cider. Both bands play filthy raw punk with a lot of distortion and a straight forward sound. Upstab have some old Clevo dudes in the ranks, I don’t know who exactly, but I bet some of them have played in Integrity or Ringworm at one time. I know about one EP they have, put out by Even Worse Records/Way Back When Records from The Netherlands, that should be still available. I have some more stuff by Upstab as MP3s, but I don’t know if that stuff is from a demo, another EP or perhaps unreleased stuff. One thing is sure, it’s hard hitting. You can listen to an Upstab track here. Cider feature a better known Cleveland legend, namely Aaron Melnick, though in the insert of the They Are The Enemy EP on Painkiller Records he’s credited as both Brainwashed Aaron and, the classic, A2. They Are The Enemy EP was rereleased earlier this year by Painkiller Records, but I don’t think it’s still available. Next to They Are The Enemy EP Cider put out the Out To Get Me EP on Non Commercial Records in 1994, that is sold out of course. Basically it will be hard to find a Cider record anywhere, so all I can offer you till you do is this MP3. Maybe some day Painkiller Records will put out a Cider discography or do a repress, just like they are about to do with another raw Clevo punk project featuring a (only one?) Melnick, The Inmates. Their Asshole Anonymous LP was released a couple years ago on Human Stench Records, limited to 300 copies only. So if you want to find out more about this obscure Cleveland outfit, be sure to order the LP from the fine folks over at Painkiller Records. I don’t know if their Government Crimes EP will be on the repress as well, but it def would be a nice extra. Listen what The Inmates were about here. To end this part about Ohio’s filthiest there’s one more thing I have to say, and again it involves Painkiller Records, The Darvocets have recorded 6 new songs that will be on a one sided 12”, listen to their Eyes Like Ants to get a little hint as what they might sound like. A lot of info on all these Clevo bands can be found on the Non Commercial Records website.

That’s all I’ve got for you for now, I have a lot more news line-up that I will be posting soon. You might have to recheck Megalomaniacal Supernauts sooner than you think…

2005-11-06T15:56:00.000+01:00

What’s that noise?! (part 1)

Can you do the Milano Mosh? Good, because now you are ready to take your second step in S.O.D.-ness. I found back this 2001/2002 interview with Dan Lilker about the old days of the New York hardcore and metal scene, about the origins of S.O.D., Anthrax and Nuclear Assault and about other related stuff. A pretty interesting read I’d like to share with you. It’s a pretty long interview, so I’ll be posting this in different parts. Here’s part one of the extended interview I took from Sit Home And Rot issue #2, a hardcore fanzine done by early 00s east coast scene star Dolloff The Rat. When I approached him recently to ask some sort of permission to reprint this interview this is what he replied to me: “Do it fag…I’m hard as hell.” So I guess that meant it was a go!

What was your first show? What were some of the bands you grew up seeing back in the day? Craig Ahead told me about you taking him to his first show…

Well, since I came from the metal side of things and this interview appears to be mostly hardcore orientated, I’ll give you a twofold answer. My first metal show was probably Priest and Maiden in ’81. The next year I saw Riot, Anvil and Raven at a show put on by Johnny Z before he started Megaforce. My first hardcore show was Adrenalin O.D. and some other bands at CBGB’s at the end of ’83. I think this is the show Craig is talking about. Other bands I saw back then are too many to mention, but include Agnostic Front, Metallica, Cro-Mags, Possessed, The Psychos, Dark Angel, Murphy’s Law, Exodus, etc.

How did S.O.D. get started? Are there any unreleased S.O.D. songs from the Speak English Or Die days? What were you thinking when you first played March Of The S.O.D.?

Scott started S.O.D. because he wanted to play fast hardcore. He called me in April ’85 and offered me the job on bass. No, there aren’t any unreleased tracks. The first time I played March Of The S.O.D. (at the rehearsal for the record) I liked it, but I had no idea it would come out so heavy on tape.

How do you do the Milano Mosh? Have you ever seen it? Describe it.

I think the Milano Mosh is more of a mindset than an actual dance style. It was part of the S.O.D. mentality of being plain obnoxious. Everything we did should have been taken with a grain of salt since a lot of it was pretty much tongue-in-cheek. Not everyone got that…

Did anyone ever try to fight or hassle any of you because they thought you were racist?

That depends on your definition of hassle. No one ever got in my face or anything, but we certainly got a lot of flak from people in the hardcore scene. I learned from the whole thing that there are certain subjects you shouldn’t joke with. Then again, a lot of people who dissed us were probably almost happy that we were around because it gave them something to moan about so they could have a platform to prove how ‘down’ they were. I think about twenty English crust bands wrote songs like Fuck Off Billy Milano.

How did Nuclear Assault come about? Was it much different than being in S.O.D.?

Nuclear Assault formed in early ’84 after I was no longer in Anthrax due to the then-vocalist hating me for some reason. So I said ‘OK’ and formed a band to do more intense shit anyway. John was there from the beginning and we eventually found Glenn and Anthony, signed to Combat and the rest is history. It was quite different than being in S.O.D. We played all the time and put out a few albums. And of course our lyrics weren’t an obnoxious sociological experiment, as in ‘Let’s see how many people we can piss off.’ Similarities would be the crowds we’d draw and their reaction to our live music.

Who are some of your favorite NYHC bass players?

Dude, it’s been a while since I even paid attention to NYHC, so I’ll try to remember the oldies: Harley Flanagan, Chuck Valle, Craig, of course, but since I taught him everything he knows that’s like complimenting your own son. Outside the NY scene other good bassists were the dudes from MDC and The Offenders.

Who’s Kill Yourself about?

Although Scott wrote the lyrics to this I’m pretty sure it’s not about anyone in particular. It’s just a nihilist proclamation intended to rid the over-populated world of useless losers.

Are you proud that you wrote the song Fuck The Middle East? Explain if your opinions have changed since you wrote it in the mid 80s.

As mentioned before, our lyrics were made to be taken with a grain of salt. However, it’s tragically iron how that song is always in vogue! I can certainly see how some people would see the lyrics as some racist, mindlessly patriotic knee-jerk rhetoric, but once again I must emphasize that we were just having fun and went a little far with the shock value. Scott wrote the lyrics, but I stand behind them as long as what I just said is kept in mind.

What year did you first tour and who’d you play with? Were the shows violent? Any good stories you’d care to share? Did you ever play with Carnivore?

I believe we started touring in late ’86 when Game Over came out. Please keep in mind this was a long time ago and I’ve smoked a lot of weed since then! I think we toured with bands like Overkill… The shows were violent only in a good way, no fights, just thrashing, moshing and diving. My friends are encouraging me to write a book like Tom G. so then I’ll try to remember all the stories. And yes, we played with the mighty Carnivore.

2005-10-30T21:46:00.000+01:00

Hate To Say You Threw It All Away!

A couple of weeks ago Dead Stop put out their third release entitled Live For Nothing and again, just like the Done With You release show, Belgium’s Lintfabriek got packed to celebrate this event and, just like the Done With You release show, it was one of the best shows most of those present have ever seen. A couple of days before that very release show I did this brief interview with Axeman Michiel about Live For Nothing and the current US tour:

You just put out a new record, Live For Nothing. Wasn’t it hard to write a follow-up to the incredibly received Done With You album? I assume you wanted to write a record that was as good as Done With You, and if possible even better. In my opinion you succeeded in meeting those terms, but do you think it was worth taking that risk? Were you confident enough that what you had written was good enough, or did you, at first, have some doubts about the new material? Do you think Dead Stop has outdone themselves?

I think it was definitely worth taking the risk. When we released Done With You we didn’t have any plans for the future, we just played a lot of shows and all of a sudden we started to write new stuff again. We wrote a couple of songs for some compilations and we had a good feeling about the new stuff, so we started working on other new songs. It all came in a really natural spontaneous way. There was no real pressure or anything. Of course we didn’t want to write a second Done With You LP, but the basic ingredients were the same. We’re still Dead Stop and we’re not going to try to sound completely different. Over the years we just became better musicians and we all learned how to write a decent Dead Stop song, so writing new songs was a lot fun. In my opinion the songs are typical Dead Stop songs only a little bit different and better. The vibe is more negative, more aggressive and that’s what we really wanted to create. We added some new influences to our sound and I think we succeeded in writing a good follow up to Done With You without rewriting that LP. We definitely haven’t outdone ourselves, because I think we could have made it better than it is now. I wanted to add some more details to some songs but sometimes you got to make compromises. But really, writing Live For Nothing wasn’t that hard a task, it just came natural and we’re satisfied with the result.

A graveyard, tombstones, a raven, black frames… The whole record’s lay-out theme and title seem to be about death. Is the death of Dead Stop inevitable? Is the whole thing coming to its end or is Dead Stop not quite done with us? Will you let the Dead Stop flame burn out or just let it fade away?

Of course the death of Dead Stop is inevitable. We don’t want to drag this band down. When the time is right we have to move on to new things and create something new. It’s not good to rehash things over and over again, so yeah someday Dead Stop will come to an end. When we feel that the vibe and the energy is gone or not as it used to be we will quit. I think that’s the best you can do as a band or as a musician. Why drag things down when you can create so much more, different, music? At the moment we feel that Live For Nothing is the last Dead Stop album ever. We feel that we wrote every song we had to write and we don’t want to write a new album just to release something or please an audience. But that’s what we said after Done With You as well. In ten, five, or even two years I’d rather have people think about Dead Stop as an awesome band than about the band being the one that just played one too many shows and ended up being a shadow of what they once were.

On your 7” you had a dead businessman, on your full-length you had the rotting corpse of that businessman and now you have a 12” with his grave. Is this a full circle?

We always had songs dealing with things like people who live their lives but not really living it. I have a hard time with people who just waste their lives away, not doing anything constructive or adventurous. You know the typical birth-school-work-death scheme…it’s not for me. It scares the hell out of me. It’s not that I don’t want to settle down or anything, it’s just that I don’t want to become a boring loser who has his house and goes to work everyday and sits in his sofa every Sunday. I don’t want to live that life. For me, hardcore punk is about living your live, about having fun and explore the world. I’m thankful that hardcore taught me that lesson. And that’s something I will carry on with me for the rest of my days, no matter what music I’m into. So it’s one of the main themes in our lyrics. It’s kind of funny that, without any real intention, the artwork for Live For Nothing deals with that kind of feeling again. There wasn’t like a plan to have three covers with that certain metaphoric symbolism, it just happened. The artwork of the Live For Nothing LP symbolises death without having really lived life to the fullest, plus for me personally it also stands for the current state of the hardcore scene. It always has its ups and downs and it always has to die out before it can rise again. It happened in the 80’s, in the 90’s and I think it’s happening again, in Europe at least, whether we like it or not. When people start complaining about stupid things such as bands having too much “success” or when some idiots look down on kids because they’re having fun, you know there’s something wrong with hardcore’s state. And I think that’s the way we’re heading right now. The kids are getting spoiled and start taking everything for granted. The only advice I can give to the kids is: don’t get caught into that trap, don’t start whining and bitching over every little thing, be thankful that the scene we have these days is so good and be happy that you can see bands like Justice, Restless Youth and Rise And Fall play every week. On the bright side I still see enough positive things in hardcore as well. New bands keep coming up and new kids keep coming to shows, that is great.

Live For Nothing is out in the US on Havoc Records, Done With You was put out by Deranged Records. Why did you change labels for your northern American press?

There was no particular reason for that change, we agreed to do a one record deal with Deranged and we were happy he gave us the opportunity to release Done With You in north America, but we wanted to try something new. As soon as we heard Havoc was interested we wanted to work with them. I only hear great things about that label and they release some good stuff, so we’re really satisfied with that choice.

Complete Control Records already put out its fifth release, the fifth, let’s be honest, European hardcore classic in a row. Michiel, as being one of the main men behind Complete Control Records, it’s been quite something since CCR 001, hasn’t it? How do you feel these days about Complete Control Records and its Declaration Of Principles? Do you think you held on to the principles you set out to live up to or do you think you (and possible the other involved with Complete Control Records) have had to make compromises one way or another along the DIY road? Did you come across any obstacles you hadn’t foreseen when you decided to start releasing records yourself?

Well, it all went pretty fast. It’s been a year and a half since the first CCR release and now we just released CCR 005. It’s been crazy. I’m really proud of the stuff we released so far, the first Justice 7” still is amazing and the Restless Youth 7” is one of the best hardcore punk releases ever. The great thing about those two bands is that you can hear them evolve. When you listen to the Justice EP and you compare it to the new LP it’s awesome to hear what they’ve become. The same with Restless Youth, their new stuff is going to be even better than their 7”. I don’t think the world can handle that kind of music. Raw hardcore punk as it was meant to be, totally crazy. I think it’s cool that the three Complete Control bands are doing their own thing. We don’t sound the same, but we share the same ideas and love for hardcore punk and music in general.
Of course things have changed since the beginning and we’re still remodelling the label every day. When we started out we didn’t have any distribution or anything so we worked with the people from Reflections Records and they helped us along the way. Nowadays we’re handling our own distribution and we’re still working hard everyday to improve things. But this is kind of hard at times as all of us are working real full-time jobs next to our daily Complete Control hours.
I think we succeeded pretty well in holding on to our principles. Every band still has to put in own time, money and energy. That’s how it is. The idea of the bands having complete control is still one of the most important principles, we still feel that a band’s record has to be made with the band’s blood sweat and tears, not only the music, but the whole nine yards concerning the release of a record. I’m not into labels putting out sloppy releases. Every release we do has to look good and has to be of a certain quality, that’s the Complete Control requirement and guarantee. That’s why we make gatefold LPs, digipack CDs, etc. We want to add something extra to the product. And I think that’s only possible when you have complete control over your own stuff.

When I examine the lay-out of Live For Nothing two bands come to mind: Tragedy and Void. Are those two bands also heavy influences to what Dead Stop stands for? Or is the whole thing rather a coincidence?

Musicwise those bands are of no influence at all, but you can say that their artwork kinda influenced us. The Void side of the split with The Faith is by far one of the best looking things ever. As a historian I am totally into that Middle Ages stuff. The Tragedy link is somehow coincidental because Restless Joseph did the lay-out and we had no idea what it would look like. We’re totally satisfied with the result and it’s a good representation of our music. As our music became a little bit darker and depressed, the lay-out perfectly fits the music. As far as those two bands being an influence on what Dead Stop stands for, I can say that we have a lot in common with those two bands. Void was one of the early hardcore bands who added crazy stuff to their music, they weren’t afraid to add some weird influences to their songs without losing the essence of a good hardcore punk song. They totally did their own thing which is great. Both bands are great hardcore bands with a good punk vibe.

‘Fuck that progress we regress!’ sings Lino perhaps a little bit naïve in Dead Stop, the song, but whether you like it or not when listening to Live For Nothing I do hear a band that has progressed. A band that has progressed between the 7” and LP and between the LP and this 12”. I also hear some non-hardcore influences in some of the songs, am I right?

Of course we progressed, as we became better musicians, but that song Dead Stop was written in a time when hardcore was almost non-existent and all we had was metal bands or rock bands who thought they were hardcore bands. What people tried to sell as hardcore was just plain metal, which is ok, but don’t call it hardcore. Call it whatever you want but like I said so many times before, you can’t claim to be playing jazz music when you are actually playing rock ‘n roll? So why can a metal band claim to be hardcore in any way? We founded Dead Stop as a reaction against all those trends. We wanted people to realise that you still could write a good hardcore song with only three chords. And we still believe that today. For example when you listen to the new song Walk The Line, which is maybe the simplest Dead Stop song ever, you hear a hardcore song with three chords and it lasts only 40 seconds. But I think it’s one of the best and hardest songs we ever wrote.
Of course you do progress in a way and it’s good to throw in some other influences, but without losing the essence of the hardcore song. We also progressed in our song writing, which is a logical step when you play for that long together in a band. We certainly have some non-hardcore influences, but it’s necessary to try something different. It just makes the music more interesting. That’s what all the great hardcore bands in history did, going from SSD and the Bad Brains to Underdog and Rest In Pieces. They all did something special and tried different things, but without losing the essence and remaining a hardcore band. We definitely progressed but not without losing the hardcore vibe. I still can’t write decent leads and Gert still isn’t able to play drum solos for twenty minutes, but that hasn’t got anything to do with hardcore. Even if I could play leads like Joe Satriani I wouldn’t play them. Hardcore music to me still is about raw, honest and simple music. Music that everyone can play, that’s what punk and hardcore was about, music for everyone and played by everyone. If I want to progress as a musician I’ll play in a different band. Dead Stop is a hardcore punk band and will always stay a hardcore punk band.

On the Live For Nothing insert I noticed that the final track Letting Go was recorded by Lino instead of by Patrick Delabie a.k.a. Europe’s Don Fury, Steve Albini and Lou Giordano. What happened? Did Lino quit his job as a waiter to replace Patrick? Did Dead Stop end up having beef with Patrick over the last song and did he leave the studio or something?

None of that happened. When we were recording that song we still didn’t know how we wanted it to sound, when we hit the studio that song still wasn’t finished, so we asked Patrick’s opinion and we changed the song a bit. So we started rehearsing that song in the studio while Patrick went out for diner. He gave some instructions to Lino how to record and that’s how it happened. We recorded that song in two takes without really rehearsing it. That song is born out of a jam-session and we had no idea what it would sound like. Lino did a good job and pushed it to reach our highest potential.

Tell me the story about when Lino walked back into the studio finding you with you guitar on your lap sliding over its strings making weird noises to put over one of your songs and Pat Delabie smashing effect buttons on the control panel like a madman. Sounds like the two of you were caught red-handed pulling some Dillinger Escape Plan shit to Dead Stop. Or am I looking at the wrong picture here? What would have happened if Lino hadn’t walked in at that moment and the two of you would have had your way?

It all happened during the recording of that song Letting Go. I wanted to add some special effects to get the most out of that song. I wanted to create something that would get the best out of the song and use it to its maximum potential, so the music would connect to the lyrics best. I wanted to add a slide guitar because it gives you that great woolly, spacey effect. When it comes down to adding special effects Patrick gets kinda enthusiastic and starts to experiment with lots of things. I think he did too much dope in his days plus he’s a big Butthole Surfers fan so that’s why he’s into that freaky stuff. The whole situation was kinda hilarious, because Patrick was pushing some effects and I was playing the slide guitar with my eyes shut, completely overwhelmed by the moment and then all of a sudden Lino walks in and is really pissed off, because he thinks we’re totally messing that song up. The thing is that he could only hear the experimental guitar noises outside the studio. Inside the studio we heard the regular music as well, but Lino was standing outside so I can understand his reaction. When Lino hadn’t walked in there would have been a harmonica in that song. I still find it a pity that we didn’t get to do that, but maybe that would have been a bit too Western.

You are going to tour some part of the US and Canada again in a few weeks, 12 months after your first US tour. I guess you are stoked to go over there again. Do you have different expectations than last time? What do you hope will be better than last time?

Last time we didn’t expect anything at all and got a great tour with awesome reactions, so I guess it’s normal that we have some expectations now. So far the shows look really promising and I can’t wait to go again. I’m stoked to say the least. However I still don’t have too many expectations, I expect the least and we’ll see what happens. I know last year a lot of people were surprised by us and we got some really good feedback, so I hope things will be even better than last year. I actually hope we get the chance to play as many good shows as last year. Last year the Richmond, St Louis, Canada and Boston shows were really good. We basically play the same cities as last year, plus some extra shows. So I guess it can’t go wrong and we’re really anxious to go again and see all the cool people again we met last year.

Thank you.

You too, thanks for the opportunity to talk about our new record. Look out for it, it’s out now on Complete Control Records in Europe and Havoc Records in North America. Like I said already we’re looking forward to go the States next week and meet new people, bands and visit new places. Thanks for the interest… Fuck that progress, we regress.

So, tonight Dead Stop are playing a Halloween show in Washington DC, home of George W. Bush, Dave Byrd and the Bad Brains, and last night they rocked New Jersey. Steven Tuffin sent Larry Edge a text message asking how the show went and he got an answer that said something like that the show was pretty good, despite being jet-legged, that they had seen a couple of new movies on the plane and that they all missed him a lot already. This sounds like a good start for the tour to me and my bet is that the shows will only get better. So if you’re in doubt about traveling to that Dead Stop show in the state next to you, I’m telling you from over here: you’ll regret this forever. So, get in touch with that chick on MySpace that lives near the venue to crash after the show and perhaps you have a great time twice that night.

Here are the dates for the Dead Stop 2005 US tour, some are incorrect, but I have forgotten which ones exactly, I believe the show in Atlanta got cancelled and the show in Kansas City got relocated to a place close-by and is now a show together with The Regulations. Other than that these dates should be correct:

30 October 2005: The U-Turn, Washington DC

31 October 2005: Nanci Raygun, Richmond, VA

01 November 2005: Seabreeze Lounge, Daytona Beach, FL

02 November 2005: Day Off, this date was supposed to be the Atlanta show

03 November 2005: Ramp Riders, St Louis, MO

04 November 2005: Haunted Kitchen, Lawrence, KS (I think this is the updated KS show)

05 November 2005: TC Underground, Minneapolis, MN

06 November 2005: Day Off

07 November 2005: Pulaski Park District Building, Chicago, IL

08 November 2005: Refuge Skate Shop, Dearborn, MI

09 November 2005: Adrift Skate Park, Toronto, ON

10 November 2005: Caf L'Inco, Montreal, QC

11 November 2005: Regeneration, Boston, MA

Here's some more intersting stuff for you:

http://www.completecontrolrecords.com

http://www.myspace.com/deadstop

http://www.sudoku.com

http://www.zonemagazines.be

2005-09-29T22:48:00.000+02:00

On The Loose, They're On The Loose.

Last week I came to realise that one of the best current US hardcore bands, 86 Mentality, will kick off their tour of our European continent in less than 14 days. As I want to support the band as much as possible I had promised them a while ago that I would do a little interview about the tour and some other random stuff for Megalomaniacal Supernauts. I quickly made up a bunch of questions and I got the answers back the same night already. As I saw them live a bunch of times already I can let most of you European readers know already that you are going to see a great show. Hook those dudes up with local beer and show them a good time. This is what Jason Halal, drummer and spokesman of the band had to say:

In less than one week you guys land in Europe for your very first European tour. How is 86 Mentality preparing for this journey? Did you pack your bags already? How is each individual in 86 Mentality mentally getting ready for this? What’s the most remarkable item each crew member will have packed with his personal belongings? And most important: are you nervous already?

We are all REALLY excited, but there’s a lot of headache to deal with in getting ready. Practicing is the easy part. The rough stuff is logistics like figuring out what to take with you, who’s borrowing what equipment from who, etc. That’s the stuff that drives me crazy. And yes, I have already started packing my bags because I’m forgetful and if I don’t, I will forget something at the last minute.
I’m not sure if anyone’s taking anything remarkable, but I do know that Matt is taking his father’s iPod, which is actually really funny. After we come home, he’s staying in Europe for a week and a half with his girlfriend, so he’s making sure he puts as much music on that thing as possible before he leaves. It sounds normal, but he’s taking this really seriously, doing daily 6 hour shifts copying music and everything... I have no idea what Steve is bringing, but our roadie Matt has just $300 to last him the 2.5 weeks which includes partying and everything else, so I wish him luck with that. And as far as I know, Jewdickee isn’t bringing anything special although he was talking about buying a phone so he can text message people in the US, which we all think is retarded. But I think Steve convinced him that he would smash the phone if he actually bought one, so he may not actually do that. Me, I’m just bringing a book I just picked up on the history of English hardcore 80-84 and some bags of almonds and other nut mixes for the road.
Are we nervous? Yeah, a little, but I think we are tighter now than we ever have been so I’m really not too worried about how we sound. I just hope people have some idea who the hell we are…

Jason, every time I talk to you about the upcoming European tour you mention how excited you are to play Dead Stop’s record release show at ‘t Lintfabriek in Belgium. Why are you so stoked on playing that show?

How could I not be? I’ve heard so many stories and seen so many photos of Dead Stop shows in Belgium. After Striking Distance played with Dead Stop on their European tour, Dave Byrd kept telling us how blown away he was. Then he returned for the Done With You record release show at ‘t Lintfabriek which sounded even wilder. He said that after their set, his white shirt was covered in footprints, so of course I’m psyched! Plus, having played about 10 shows with Dead Stop in the US and Canada, I can’t wait to see them on their home turf, where I know kids will be flipping out.

Most US bands have the tendency to break up once they have toured Europe, will that happen to 86 Mentality or have you set out to break the Curse Of Touring Europe And Calling It A Day?

That’s a good question, I don’t know. I don’t want to jinx things, but I’m really not sure on how much farther we plan on taking this band. I think we’ve gotten very lucky with minimal output (two EPs) and just the fact that we’re going to Europe is a huge achievement, considering that many bands aren’t that lucky. But I really do love playing with these guys and everything that comes with it so I hope it won’t come to an end too quickly. Actually, we plan on touring the West Coast next summer, so unless something weird happens before then, at least I can plan on that before we call it quits.

You’ve toured in the US with Dead Stop, an European band, in order to hook them up more easily with places to play, places to stay and stuff like that. Not that this is something necessary, but it makes things easier on the practical side of things. 86 Mentality won’t be touring Europe with a local/European band, don’t you fear that this will be a bit of a disadvantage in order to get kids to your shows or do you think you’ll get a decent turnout all by yourself? What are some of the European bands you’d like to have been on tour with over here?

You know, we had the opportunity to tour with Dead Stop and Restless Youth this past May, which would have been amazing, but timing wasn’t on our side. The record was heavily delayed and I was in the middle of getting a new job, so it just wasn’t the best time for us to come over. Now that we finally have the chance, of course we would still love to go with another band, but like I said before, we are so lucky to be able to do this in the first place that I think we’re mostly just appreciative of our good fortune. Plus, Coorde and Gert were nice enough to put together this whole tour for us, which we couldn’t have done ourselves.
But we will be playing three shows with Dead Stop and a few UK dates with Restless Youth and Municipal Waste, so it’s not like we’re going to be all alone either.
As for other European bands, I must confess I’m not really too aware of many bands in existence right now aside from the Complete Control bands and a few others. But I’ve heard great things about Reproach and I’m really excited to discover what’s out there, especially in Sweden and Denmark, which I hear are really cool.

How many tours did 86 Mentality do actually already? Isn’t it a rather big step to take, coming over here for more than two weeks when you haven’t toured the US as long as you will be touring Europe?

This is only our second tour. The first was with Dead Stop in the US and Canada and that was only 10 shows, so we haven’t really done much of anything in the big picture. Not because we don’t want to, but because we all have jobs and busy schedules and can’t afford to go out touring the way we would like. But that’s also why we’re lucky, because there are a million bands out there touring their asses off that are probably more deserving than us to be going to Europe. So yes, I suppose that is a big step, but I think we’d rather do this while we have the chance than wait and lose the opportunity forever, right?

You have put out a new EP entitled On The Loose just before the summer, how have the reactions been on the EP so far? Do people seem to like it more than the first EP? I keep hearing rumours that there will be an LP with both EPs on it as an European release, any truth to that?

Reactions have been good. Perhaps some people like it better than the first EP, but I really just haven’t heard enough to know about that. It’s hard to tell.
The LP is a long story, but let me just say that at one point we had someone in Europe who agreed to put out an LP, which would have been both 7”s and some extras, since the first EP didn’t get a European release. It ended up taking a long time for us to finish the recording and by the time we were ready, the person who was supposed to release it was no longer able to. There have been a few offers since then, but since we lost the opportunity for more people to check us out before our tour, we’re not rushing to release the LP as soon as possible. Plus, we just received our CD called Going Nowhere Fast from Grave Mistake that has all the contents of the LP, including both 7”s, an exclusive song from the demo, two unreleased tracks, two live songs and two covers, and we’ll be bringing that on tour.

I couldn’t help noticing that On The Loose sounds a lot more mid-tempo (or less fast, as you wish) than the self titled debut. Is this because you changed guitarists? Or is there another reason for this? Why did you actually get a new guitarist?

Yes, there are more mid-tempo parts on this one, but the fast parts are just as fast as on the first one. Not for any particular reason, just because those are the songs we ended up writing. The whole reason why we got a new guitarist is because our old guitarist no longer wanted to do the band. Originally, it was Steve on guitar, but we couldn’t find anyone we wanted to sing, so Steve took over and then we got our buddy John who Steve had played with in No Justice, to take over on guitar. John quit after the first 7” came out, then finished his band, The Aftermath, and started Set To Explode, and we got Matt from Crispus Attucks on guitar.

Are you guys writing new songs already again? Or do you have the post-recording songwriters block? Will you be doing another EP or do you aim at releasing a full length next?

I actually hate answering this question, because I have absolutely no idea what we’re doing after this. I’d like to do another record, possibly a full-length but I’m not sure we plan on sticking together that long or that it’s in our best interests, since we’re all really happy with the way the EPs turned out and I wouldn’t want to release another record if the music didn’t live up to previous recordings. And nobody here wants to release a How We Rock or anything like that, so it may just be better to end on a high note while we have the chance. I guess just wait and see...

Finally, what are your general expectations for the European tour? And if you have anything to add, now’s the fucking time.

All I know is Kris Coorde told us to look forward to good Belgian beer, frites, hot Scandinavian girls and getting fed at shows, so as long as I get those things, and see Dead Stop at ‘t Linfabriek, I’m happy. Of course we hope to play good shows, but I’m also really looking forward to seeing our friends in Belgium, meeting new people and bands and travelling with my band mates. So here are the tour dates, thanks for the interview, Flex, we’ll see you in a week!

Thanks and see you soon.

This is the complete tour schedule, so if 86 Mentality is playing near where you live, definitely go check them out:

6 October Ghent, Belgium (with Dead Stop)

7 October Ibbenburen, Germany (with Dick Cheney)

8 October Hengelo, Holland

9 October Bremen, Germany

10 October Linkoping, Sweden

11 October Stockholm, Sweden

12 October Copenhagen, Denmark (with Signal Lost)

13 October Liechtenstein, Germany

14 October South West Germany TBC

15 October Kontich, Belgium (Dead Stop Record Release with Municipal Waste and Reproach)

16 October Tilburg, Holland

17 October Düsseldorf, Germany (with Dead Stop)

18 October Day off

19 October Leeds, England (with Municipal Waste)

20 October Liverpool, England (with Restless Youth)

21 October Newcastle, England (with Restless Youth)

22 October London, England (with Restless Youth)

And if you are still wondering what the fuck 86 Mentality sounds like check out their MP3 Chemical Threat (of the On The Loose EP) at the Grave Mistake MySpace page (www.myspace.com/gravemistakerecords), get over the 'weird' vocals and be able to singalong to at least one song. In case you are wondering how the singalong goes, here's a little help: "Chemical Threat One Two Three, Body Check For You And Me, Chemical Threat On LSD, Deep Throat's Down By Your Knees" is NOT how it is supposed to be.

2005-09-05T00:54:00.000+02:00

2, 3, Spoiler!
Belgium’s crowd favorite number two Justice just got back last week from their two month bi-continental tour and already again there’s important news. Their bass player (and equally important to a band like Justice: their artwork dude) Kevin Alen, a.k.a. Push The Limit a.k.a. Spoiler, is playing his final show with Stief, Billy, Tilburg and Flip as he is moving to Canada, following his wife Friday who went back there just before the summer. As everyone will be missing this dude, his artwork, his zine, his stage presence, his humor and his eating habits I figured I’d give the Spoiler one last chance to speak out a little about Justice, but also about himself, his trek out of Belgium and the summer of ’05. All Hail The Spoiler!

You are just home again a couple of days from the Justice Annual Western World Summer Tour, are you used to a real bed already again?

Actually I don’t have my apartment anymore, so I’m sleeping on a mattress on the floor at my mom’s house. The first few days after tour were unreal. So much happened in two months and there was never any time to sit around and think about it, so once tour was over it all hit me. It was weird being alone, with no time schedule or anything.

The second summer in the existence of Justice, the second summer of an extensive US and EU tour. How was it this time around?

This tour was obviously a lot longer first of all, especially in the US (last year was nine US shows, this one was twenty-nine US shows). We got to go all around, see all of the “scenes” and places. Also last year we were there pretty much on a demo, not knowing what the fuck we were doing, with our van breaking down constantly, etc. This time around we had our shit together a little and we actually made some money this time too.

How would you compare Y2K5 Summer Tour to last year’s summer tour? Did the hardcore scene go through some noticeable changes in some places since the summer of ‘04?

In the US I noticed that a lot of the “cool” crowd was gone and in most places the crowd was made up of young kids. It reminded me of the UK actually. US dudes get jaded at like what? Twenty? Fuck that. On a positive note we were treated really well at all places, people were friendly, almost all the shows we played were awesome. In the EU I noticed a lot of the not-so-hip places we played last year or in the winter with Righteous Jams, like Poland, East Germany, etc. had all improved a shit load since last time. Give those dudes a year or two and their scene will explode.

What were some of the highlights and lowlights of the tour?

Highlights: All the great shows and the cool places we saw. All the beaches we went swimming at in Florida, San Diego and Spain. Hiking, the lake in Seattle, so much shit… Hanging with Mental, meeting a bunch of cool people everywhere.
Lowlights: members of Mental breaking their edge, people arguing (even though this is no big deal for a two month tour), the fact that touring the US costs so much more...but honestly there weren’t many lowlights.

What are some of the better bands you’ve seen on the road?

Underdog!!! There were also the obvious great like Iron Boots, 86 Mentality, LOJ…but I’d like to mention some cool new bands: Iron Age (the demo is ok, but live they kill), Like It Or Not, Scab Picker 69 and I’m forgetting some.

What were the best 5 shows of the tour? Which shows do you want to erase from your memory as soon as possible?

Off the top of my head: ‘t Lintfabriek in Belgium (thank you all for not being over us), Chicago, Boston (we only got to play five songs, but it was intense), Posi Numbers (seeing AJ in the corner of my eye in his orange shorts getting ready for a dive did it for me) and Nottingham. The only one I’d like to erase from my memory is obviously our Ieper Fest set. You’d think after sixty shows in a row Billy would know how to play our songs.

Did you write a tour report for your next issue of Push The Limit zine?

Yeah, I kept a journal the entire two months and this will be published in its original uncensored form. It’s obviously pretty long so it may be in Push The Limit or become a zine of its own (Justice: The Book) to accompany Justice: The Movie.

Speaking about your zine? What’s up with that, when will there be a next issue? How did people react on your last issue? What are some of the most remarkable things people said about it?

As usual I am taking forever, but this time I have the excuse of touring all summer and moving across the globe. I am working on it though. It will have only live interviews with Cold World, Iron Boots, Violent Minds, State Of Mind, and more. Last issue was received really well. The main things I remember is how many people loved the piece on the Icemen (this was inspired by my man Tombeur by the way) and how many people got into the Icemen because of it. Also the prudish kids who said that boobs have no place in hardcore zines. Why the fuck not?! Seriously!

Saturday September 10th you are playing your final show with Justice as you are moving across the ocean. How are you feeling about playing your last show? Will you miss the band? Will you miss Belgium? What will you miss the most about Belgium/Europe? And what are some of the things you won’t miss at all? Will we ever see you back again on this side of the Atlantic?

Not one day goes by that I don’t feel shitty about it. I don’t even know how I feel about it, I try to kid myself into positive sides to it, but there aren’t any. It’s going to be fucking weird going on that stage for the last time. I guess I’ll try not to be too dramatic about it. I am going to miss everyone in the band dearly and I’m going to miss doing the band: practicing, doing artwork, road trips, touring… Justice was one of the biggest things in my life and played a big role in who I am today. Wait, I said I wouldn’t be dramatic. Belgium has the best scene in the entire world and I am going to miss its shows and all the great friends in it. I’m particularly bummed on not getting to see how the scene evolves, Dead Stop’s and Justice’s last shows, new bands… I will definitely be visiting Belgium, maybe I can pull off some roadie duty or something. I also made a deal with my wife that if we decide in a year or two that Belgium was cooler to live in than Montreal, we’re coming back!

Thanks and good luck!

For those of you who want to see Spoiler in action with Justice one last time, come out to JH HobNob in Brasschaat/Belgium this Saturday, also on the bill are True Colors, Turn The Screw, Restless Youth, Reproach and Dead Stop. Show starts at seven!

2005-09-05T00:28:00.000+02:00

Society System Destroyed His Life.

Last year I bought and read Broken Summers, a book written by the well-known Henry Rollins. The book is a look behind the scenes of the making of his Rise Above: 24 Black Flag Songs To Benefit The West Memphis Three CD and the world tour that followed. The book is written in Rollins’s typical combative in-your-face style including a decent dose of pretentious self-pity, masochism and a better-than-most-of-you-attitude. All of his journal entries are pretty entertaining though and remind me a lot of those in Get In The Van, only written by someone older and wiser, but definitely -and fortunately- not less confronting and pissed-off. His anger and frustration concerning the fate of the West Memphis Three is heartfelt and -dare I say?- righteous. If you are into going through your little sister’s drawers in order to find her secret diary and being that much of a voyeur that you really want to read it, try reading a journal of someone who wants you to read all about himself instead, also if you are into what Henry Rollins is doing in general, into Black Flag or into William Shatner you should give Broken Summers a shot. It’s a good read. The reason for me talking about the book is actually something totally different. When reading Rollins’s books I always have some sort of activated sensor to alert me whenever a hardcore legend’s name pops up in sentences, usually said-dude’s Ian McKaye, but all of a sudden on page 168 of Broken Summers I see ‘Springa from SS Decontrol’! Sirens and red alert! Hold on a minute? Is he gonna talk about Springa? THE Springa?! Let me grab a pen and paper so I can make notes! Who can I share this exciting news with? Who will be stoked to hear about what Henry of Black Flag has to say about Springa of Society System Decontrol in 2003? At the time when I was reading this book I couldn’t think of anyone who would be, but I always kept the passage in my mind. And now, one year later, I realized that I might find some kindred dorks who are into stupid stuff like this as well, dorks who are into reading blog sites of insignificant dudes like myself. Ladies and gentlemen, behold, Henry Rollins on Springa:

06-15-03 Boston MA: […] I had a disturbing incident earlier in the day. I was backstage working online on business stuff and the one and only Springa from SS Decontrol came in and started talking a mile a minute. He looked totally insane. He seemed to be talking to himself or something. Oblivious that I am working, he goes into this thing about coming out from Chicago to bury his father who never did anything more for him than chain him up in the basement. He repeated that about three times and then he said he was thinking of auditioning for some kind of acting troupe that was going to tour in the summer. He went on and on, it was nuts. Finally someone from the venue came up to him and tried to throw him out because they thought he was some guy off the street. Springa asked me if he could come to the show and pulled out a few crumbled one dollar bills and said that’s all the money he had. I nodded the guy to ok it and told Springa I would see him later. He went on about some other spacey shit and then the guy said he had to leave and he just shuffled out. I never saw him again. The backstage manager told me that earlier Springa had come up to him and told him that I said it was alright for him to have a ticket and if he didn’t get one, “Henry was going to be very angry.” This is long before I saw him. The last time I saw Springa was years ago in Chicago and he came barreling backstage walking around the room, sweating like he was on something, going off on some insane tangent. I don’t know what’s up with the guy. We used to play with his band and they were good. […]

Check out these sites to find out more about some of the things I talked about:

http://21361.com/
http://www.wm3.org/splash.php
http://xclaim.com/
http://homepages.nyu.edu/~cch223/usa/lyrics/ssd_kids.html

2005-08-22T21:26:00.000+02:00

In The Meantime, A Preview Of What’s To Come.

The next issue of The Ghent Decontrol will be a special about NYHC: interviews with some of the protagonists of the New York scene of the 80s and early 90s (the days when CBGBs still was cool), reprints, quotes, stories… There will be 60+ pages spend on delivering you all you ever wanted to know about Citizen’s Arrest, Rest In Pieces, Absolution, Warzone, Altercation, Cro-Mags, The Psychos and Token Entry.
Here is a little teaser of some of the things that will be in the zine and I hope you will be interested enough to order the zine once it is out. I won’t be featuring the interviews online whatsoever, if you want to read more you will have to buy the zine and will have to look at ink instead of pixels. I hope you still can do that…

These are excerpts from interviews with Absolution’s Gavin Van Vlack (originally appeared in Making A Scene by Bri Hurley), Citizen’s Arrest’s Patrick Winter and Rest In Pieces’ Armand Mandji. If you like this stuff, keep in mind: there’s a lot more where that came from!

ABSOLUTION:

“Skinheads talk about anti-homosexuality when their girls look pretty similar to them. I used to think that it was cool and cute. I went out with skinhead girls. I don’t find the English fashion fitting for a woman. It makes them look like men. This sounds rather chauvinistic, but it does. I don’t find it attractive. The oxblood boots, and the Fred Perry shirt, and the stay-press pants, and the Friar Tuck haircut. I think it kinda loses, to tell you the truth. But I don’t like wimpy women either. I don’t like weak people in general.”

CITIZEN'S ARREST:

"CBGB’s for me wasn’t always the most fun place to see or play a show. It has a great reputation and all mainly because it’s in NYC and has been home to some legendary acts. Some of the Sunday hardcore shows were pretty scary. There were some real bad elements that got into the place during the mid to late 80’s. Kids who were really illegal aliens who just came to start fights and all. You would go into the pit to try and get a mosh move in and there’d be a schmuck that couldn’t speak English running around with a chain hitting people with it or taking cheap shots at people. The bass player of Our Gang got punched by one of these losers right in the face for no reason. I think it was because he had long hair at the time. Some of the bouncers there were good and some were real dicks and would do fucked up things like punch people in the face. I used to go every week like a religion. Often times we wouldn’t even pay. I would pay if I felt it was worth it but a lot of times we’d share each other’s hand stamp by licking our hands and pressing it on someone else’s. There were some great shows there even still. When Chain Of Strength played there way back it was great because they weren’t that popular yet so the place wasn’t that crowded but you could feel the Californian energy. The best thing I ever saw at CBGB’s was when Absolution played. First off, when Absolution came out their demo was the hottest and best demo around. It was as long as an album and was the most original thing you’d ever heard. Amidst the youth crew bands and angry style bands Absolution was just like “Fuck it! We’re unclassifiable but we blow everybody away…” And they did! So anyhow, during their set at CBGB’s the microphone just went out and Djinji, the singer, just kept singing without a mike. And you could still hear him and you just respected how he didn’t care. They loved what they were doing and they were going to do it no matter what. Also, if I remember correctly, Gavin, the guitar player, went after the board guy after the set. Gavin was a great guy, but you knew never to mess with him. Absolution was the best band around back then in my opinion and if you haven’t heard them you are missing out on a lot."

REST IN PIECES:

"That record represents a strange time. I wasn’t opposed to putting some distance between Rest In Pieces and the hardcore scene because I wanted more musical freedom than the scene normally allowed. Adding slide guitar was a shameless effort to show how influenced we were by bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd and Rose Tattoo – and neither band was fashionable to anyone in the scene. We did ‘I Got the Fire’, a cover of Iron Maiden covering Montrose. Like I said, it was a strange time. We really wanted to make Rest In Pieces different than the rest of the hardcore scene and we liked being the odd man out. A lot of our fans that would come out of the woodwork to see us at CB’s appreciated that aspect. We would see a lot of faces that wouldn’t normally show up to generic hardcore matinees. Regarding the record, I like to describe it as a recorded experiment gone wrong, that was made public. It didn’t sound like us and the sound was watered down. I tried to sing too much when I should have approached the vocals exactly like My Rage. It could have been a thousand times better."

2005-08-22T20:50:00.000+02:00

Welcome To All You Kids Of The Black Hole!

As from now on it’s official, I’ve turned into a total geek, a bigger nerd than the characters in High Fidelity, Napoleon Dynamite and Ghost World combined. No longer am I just a messageboard bickerer, an addicted downloader or an online researcher –or better said “researcher”- for articles and things in the line of my interests. No, from now on I joined the community of those who think they are interesting enough to share their thoughts, opinions, ideas and knowledge with the world through the vehicle of the online log book, better know as a blog. The reason for me to pick up blogging is simple, it will save me a lot of time that I will be needing for other stuff soon as I am heading back to school in a couple of weeks, for a couple of years. And this time I’m not planning on fucking up. Some of you may know, some of you may not, but I am also doing The Ghent Decontrol, a hardcore fanzine that I’ve been doing for a few years now…not that I have put an issue out the last 18 months, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been working on one. Well, after the next issue (#5) will have been let loose upon the world the fanzine will be on hiatus for a while, until I’ve got time again to do what I love most about fanzines and that’s cutting and pasting. That time will be once I’m done with school again, in a few years. As far as doing interviews, writings, news updates and reviews goes…that’s what I’ve created Megalomaniacal Supernauts for. So what can you expect from me and possible other Megalomaniacal Supernauts? Well, mostly stuff about hardcore, be it interviews (with bands, labels, hardcore hall of famers, or interesting kids in general), writings, tour reports, reviews or news. I am aware of the fact that I said ‘mostly’ because it may happen from time to time that I cover something that’s not necessarily part of the hardcore spectrum, that could be about –other- music, movies, books or stuff that I think is interesting not only for me or that I want to share with you people. Basically everything that has balls and attitude and the will to confront could be covered by the Megalomaniacal Supernauts. What you shouldn’t be expecting from me is stories about my personal life, gossip, politics and other stuff I’m not schooled in enough to have a decent view on. There are already enough people pretending they know shit having a say online while the only shit they know is jack, you all can do without me blabbering. Until I’ve finished The Ghent Decontrol issue #5 there won’t be happening much over here, but once the zine has been put out you all should keep rechecking my spot often. I have a lot of plans…