When I was a wee slip of a youth, full of piss and vinegar but still discovering myself and what my taste was, I picked up a comp tape from the counter of the local Record & Tape Exchange. I think I snagged it because one of my classmates' bands had a pair of songs on it. Very heady stuff at the age of 16...I knew people who made records!
It was all Roanoke bands, circa 1992-94, and while I've misplaced the tape, and no one's every listed it on Discogs, it was the first time I'd heard Swank, a ska-punk band of some renown who'd eventually put out a pair of recordings on the pre-Fall Out Boy version of Fueled By Ramen. It was also the first time I'd encounter Suppression, local audio terrorists who broke my brain more than just a little bit. How the hell was I supposed to get anything out of the Dave Matthews Band or Metallica or the goddamned Red Hot Chili Peppers when I'd just gotten my first sip of grindcore?
I wasn't aware of it immediately, but Suppression had a label they self-released on called Chaotic Noise Productions (C.N.P., as the literature goes). And while I never targeted their records, I ended up with more than a few over the years. From early cassette releases like the Cripple Bastards comp and the Agoraphobic Nosebleed demo to something more recent like the "Eardrill" comp tape, I'd cop something because I heard it'd be strong and extreme, I'd open it up, get my mind melted, then see that mailing address of Roanoke, then late Richmond, VA.
This one came out in 2001, during what might be called "the middle period" of C.N.P. The only release from the label that year, it's a goddamned cacophonous comp, featuring a bunch of noisy motherfuckers just going for it. When the most conventional track comes from Charm City Suicides ("covering" Reagan Youth), you know you're in for something nearly opposite a Def Jam street sampler or the current NOW! comp. There's a pair of Kojak tracks, a quartet of Suppression cuts, a little something from Bastard Noise that clocks in at (checks track length) 9 minutes?!? There's a monkey man making a man monkey suck his banana on the cover. This isn't for kids, ya know?
One last anecdote: P.C.P. Roadblock contribute three songs here, just one of a handful of appearances they made on aluminum, wax, or magnetic tape during their existence. I don't recall the other bands on the show, or even the instigating circumstances, but I remember them playing the most antagonistic set I've ever seen in my life at the old Ottobar, ending with at least two band members getting kicked to the floor during their set, and a Rubbermaid trash can getting lobbed at them. There's nothing really to take away from that, other than to note that's what you're getting yourself into here.
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