Do the thing you want instead of the thing you're supposed to do.
And that's how I came to write about "Enter The War Zone" this morning.
The practice of putting more than four songs on a 7" still makes me giggle. It's the acme of joyful amateurism: damn the fidelity or songsmithing...let's play it short, fast, and loud! While we're not quite in "Bllleeeeaaauuurrrrgghhh!" territory here, the 17 cuts here are a wonderful blur, capturing a moment in the mid/late-80s extreme hardcore scene now best known as fast-core.
Lärm leads the way with a quartet of cuts, all of which also appeared on their 1984 split 12" with Stanx. This is what you get when you take a bunch of Dutch teenagers, turn them onto second wave sXe hardcore, speed it up from 33rpm to 78rpm, and toss in a liberal dose of European socialism. These dudes would put out one more 7", then reboot as Seein' Red, one of the best political HC bands of the 90s and aughts, in 1988.
Pomona's Pillsbury Hardcore were wrapping up their short time as an active band when they contributed a pair of live cuts, including a Negative Approach cover. By 1989, Pillsbury Hardcore had evolved into the even-faster Pissed Happy Children. Within another year, Eric Wood and Joel Connell had unleashed the mighty Man Is The Bastard, the progenitors of power violence. These two tracks show the progression that would eventually lead to MitB; short, bass-led blasts that just pummel the ears.
I think it's fair to say that Attitude Adjustment from San Francisco was the best known and most "traditional" of the four bands on "End The War Zone". AA would release their first album, "American Paranoia", on Pushead's label Pusmort in 1986; their two songs bordering sides A & B are pulled from that LP. I love hearing records from this time, as crossover was just starting, and the cross-pollination between metal and hardcore was really coming to the forefront.
Is Straight Ahead the outlier here? Not necessarily musically, tho it's fun to compare where these New Yorkers were coming from, compared to their European and Californian comp-mates. There are a number of tracks here that didn't show up on 1987's "Breakaway" 12", and, stylistically, this has much more in common with Euro hardcore from the period than the NYHC that would become prominent within a year. I always felt like I should give Sick Of It All more of a chance due to two of their members being in Straight Ahead.
Records like these should be hailed as the outsider art they are. Here are four bands, each from a different part of the world, assembled together by a short-lived label in the San Fernando Valley. I find myself talking a lot with friends and colleagues about authenticity; how it cannot be created or purchased, that it simply is. THIS is real. It is not musically proficient, or groundbreaking. But I'll be damned if I wouldn't rather listen to this a lot of the time.
Pomona's Pillsbury Hardcore were wrapping up their short time as an active band when they contributed a pair of live cuts, including a Negative Approach cover. By 1989, Pillsbury Hardcore had evolved into the even-faster Pissed Happy Children. Within another year, Eric Wood and Joel Connell had unleashed the mighty Man Is The Bastard, the progenitors of power violence. These two tracks show the progression that would eventually lead to MitB; short, bass-led blasts that just pummel the ears.
I think it's fair to say that Attitude Adjustment from San Francisco was the best known and most "traditional" of the four bands on "End The War Zone". AA would release their first album, "American Paranoia", on Pushead's label Pusmort in 1986; their two songs bordering sides A & B are pulled from that LP. I love hearing records from this time, as crossover was just starting, and the cross-pollination between metal and hardcore was really coming to the forefront.
Records like these should be hailed as the outsider art they are. Here are four bands, each from a different part of the world, assembled together by a short-lived label in the San Fernando Valley. I find myself talking a lot with friends and colleagues about authenticity; how it cannot be created or purchased, that it simply is. THIS is real. It is not musically proficient, or groundbreaking. But I'll be damned if I wouldn't rather listen to this a lot of the time.
Click here for download
No comments:
Post a Comment