various artists - A389 Summer 06

Let's take it back 20 years to the summer of 2006. I was in my second year of my first marriage, living in the southwest corner of Baltimore County. And while I was separated by location and duty from my scene, I tried to stay up to date with what was happening. On a fleetingly short visit to Reptilian, I snagged this sampler, a collection showing off what was coming from the relatively-new label A389 Recordings.

"Tough guy hardcore" (whatever that means) wasn't ever really my bag. But label owner Dom played in Slumlords with my friend Doug, and had just started Pulling Teeth with fellow CCASer Mike, so I was willing to give it a shot. Plus...free, you know? And what you see is what you get here. It's unpolished (meant in a strictly positive sense) hardcore, suited more for the basement than the Warped Tour. There's good representation from Canadian HC bands, an Integrity/Ringworm-related project, and a healthy dose of what Baltimore was doing at the time. It was a honest snapshot of what was in the books over the first 12 releases from a label that's now up to A389-182. And today it makes me wish I'd picked up that Gut Instinct discography when it came out.

Discogs

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Inside Out - live on KXLU, 1991

Inside Out, live in Bellingham, WA, 1990 (photo by Bill Baker)

Of the first 20 releases on Revelation Records, REV:19 remains my favorite. "No Spiritual Surrender" is a thunderbolt, the culmination of the five prior years of growth of the youth crew. I know a fair amount of folks who will take "True Till Death" or "Start Today" or "Bringing It Down" as their favs. While those all are amazing records, it's Inside Out's sole legit release that takes the pole position for me.

The ten songs here come from a live performance at KXLU on the campus of Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles from 1991. The first time I ever heard them was a truncated version of this session that a buddy put on the tail end of a tape: a dub of a dub of a bootleg dub. He was a huge Rage Against the Machine fan who knew I was into hardcore, and figured I'd enjoy these. He was right.

The band would be broken up within six months of this recording, leaving this as one of the last documents of their existence. There are two songs here ("Empty Days", and "Nowhere To Turn") that never appeared on a record. Prior to guitarist Vic Dicara leaving the band in mid-1991 to become a Hare Krishna monk, Inside Out had discussed making a second record for Ebullition. I can only assume these cuts would have appeared on that record. Instead, Zach de la Rocha would team up with Tom Morello, and the rest was history.

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