Dead Silence
Boulder, Colorado’s Dead Silence were your standard American anarcho peace punk band, sporting songs about the usual topics - war, animal rights, capitalism, sellouts, etc. Given that it should be no surprise my first exposure to Dead Silence came in the form of their track “Hope” on the Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll compilation They Don’t Get Laid, They Don’t Get Paid, But Boy Do They Work Hard. I was impressed enough to back track and capture most of the band’s pre 1990 catalog, including their 1985 Stress 12″ and 1986’s Beginning of the End LP. 20 years later the music itself sounds clunky, a combination of poor production and limited musicianship. What’s wrong with the material is offset by what is right - some solid lyrical content and deranged vocal delivery courtesy of singer Kevin Vulture. In 1994 Vinyl Communications released Unlearning, a CD compiling the band’s work from 1985-1989. Though the band would continue to release 7″s into the mid-90’s, all of the best material is collected on the now out of print Unlearning collection.
from 1985’s Stress 12″
Dead Silence - Mad Scientist’s Ball.mp3
from 1986’s Beginning of The End LP
Dead Silence - Fucked In the Head Part II.mp3
Dead Silence - Energy Wasted.mp3
Dead Silence - We Turn Away.mp3
Dead Silsnce - Beginning of the End.mp3
from the MRR compilation They Don’t Get Laid, They Don’t Get Paid…
Dead Silence - Hope.mp3
originally from Metal Gives Us A Headache EP
Dead Silence - Sally.mp3
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DEAD SILENCE should be more known then it is right now. Great lyrics, sounds nice and old school. I like the fuzz on the guitars. But by request i ask of you to put up the rest of the Dead Silence tunes on the site……PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
It’s hard to find anything on this band…ANYWHERE.
Somethingilearned.com is a site i visit often.
I agree. This band definitely deserved more attention than they got. I did a show for them about ten years ago here in PHX and they were the nicest bunch of folks! I haven’t thought about them for a while… Thanks for sharing their music.
Certainly you can hear the Rudimentary Peni influence. I remember Kevin had a lyric from one of their songs on his leather jacket. They were alright live but Kevin could get a tad preachy on his pulpit.
The Unlearning CD is definintely worth picking up as is the rest of the stuff they released after that CD came out. The “Hell, How Could We Make Any More Money Than This?” 7″ is one of my favorites, right up there with their mid 80s stuff.
The Beginning Of The End LP was also re-released as a split with Dissent (Dead Silence LP on one side, Dissent LP on the other side).
http://homepages.nyu.edu/~cch223/usa/deadsilence_main.html
The song “Sally” has always retained an incredibly dark and creepy vibe that’s not often evident in this kinda music.
Dead Silence meant a lot to me growing up in Boulder, CO. Fun, fun shows at Penny Lane and, yes, they were preachy. But to a fourteen year old, it was something to think about. I still love their rudimentary peni cover “1/4 World” on the “For Your Ego’s Sake” ep and have kept the ep for 20(?) years mostly because it is so funny: imagine, a 30pp pamphlet on vivisection for the price of a 7″ record!!!
MAN I LOVED this band!!!!!!!!!!!!! If I could find a cd by them, I would buy it but I have been searching and searching and there is NOTHING. if anyone has any of their music and they’d like to share, lemme know!!! rambonga@gmail.com
I remember a friend giving me a cassette of this band after she attended a Ft. Collins gig and was totaly blown away! The opening track had a powerful drum line with a great vocal intro. The song title was Something Today or something like that. Anyway, great band like many wish their music was available on CD.
I helped start Dead Silence with vulture, adam and ted. ya, we were preachy.. but so what. we had stuff on our minds that needed to be said. i left the band before ’stress’, we had recorded a few good songs, but i left, so they trashed the recording. you can find the songs at my site. as for the musicianship, the good musicians left the band before these albums came out…
i’m glad to find an entry about Dead Silence here because it seems like time has virtually forgotten them. they’re almost completely unknown among younger punks here in Colorado, and it’s only thru luck and serendipity that i was able to find out about them being as young as i am (23 now, was 17 when i first discovered this band). the first 12″ is definitely crude, but like you said, what it lacks in musicianship it makes up for in passion. overall, an amazing and overlooked band.
Ahh Dead Silence huh…well would you believe that their sounds and LP’s etc.. reached Australian shores too,and my copy of their above reviewed LP still gets a good run through to this day. I did a fanzine interview with Kevin in 1988 for my fanzine ‘Resistant Harmony’ and we used to pen the best letters across the seas. Anyone have a current contact for Kevin Vulture ? I’d be happy to get a 2008 update CD out, no probs there. Thanks for the space,and those young Colorado punks are missin’ out not back tracking on these guys.
Nice. I just had a conversation with a fellow 30-something 80’s punk. I pulled out my 22-year-old vinyl (Stress) album and complained that I can never find any info on these dudes. They made a bit of an impact on us when they came all the way out here to western PA to play with the bands we dug. It was sort of an honor since they were good and still made the trip to our little slice of the scene. (At least once, they spent the night at our cabin to enjoy the local color.) So that’s one thing, but Australia? Sweet. Nice job, dudes. I suspect they turned out like the rest of us…taken by time to Domestica or worse. Hopefully, however, that’s not the case, and they kept up their tradition of cool-cat, sons-of-hippies, Out-West punk. They had thoughts and delivered them well. Either way, they remian part of my evolution.
Any info???
Just a further update on the DS trip,if anyone out there happens upon a contact for Kevin or other members of the band,pls feel free to forward them onto my reissue website and we can chat about getting something out there for 2008, that would be fitting and make for a powerful release that i sure would be happy to have on hand and help to ensure the band is not totally forgotten, even if it has to be served up on a silver platter,comps can often give one the kick to chase up original releases so yeah…thanks for the great site you have here,it brings together so much history and cool writing you can easy lose a few hours clicking away to your right.
About Australia.. that’s really cool. Would you imagine that one of the original founding members is now living in Australia?
Another DS update query…So which of the members now resides in Oz ? The plot thickens…..
I have nothing but love for Dead Silence. They alone convinced me to go vegan eighteen years ago. DS represents a movement that will always be dear to me.
Peace.
I had the pleasure of attending a show at the Grange in La Porte in the late 80’s and it did nothing for my political outlook but man was that a great show. I still hold to the fact that Sally was an inspired peice of poetry to those of us who were living outdoors could really hold onto and understand the message in that song because alot of us knew how it was to be there. Incredible music, and more of it needs to become available to these younger kids that need to hear a message other than this whining about my home life shit. If any of you know how to get new copies of these albums to sell contact me at billhumphrey@angelskates.com
http://llornkcor.com/deadsilence
Hey y’all, I played drums in DS from 84 to 90. Then moved to Austin and eventually became lost to domestica.
I last heard from Kevin ten years ago, he was up in the northwest. Kevin had a passion I’ve never seen since. Steve (guitar after Llorn) went home to Kentucky. Joel and Jay are still in Colorado. Who went to Australia?
Karl (bass after Bear) was on myspace but disappeared.
Someone put up a DS page on myspace, here’s the link:
Peace!
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=95573900
Hey Ted & fellow DS members who may be stopping by here once in a while..if you wanna chat about possibly getting a good/solid cd reish out there,pls drop me a line down here in Oz. All the best, Scotti
Afterburn Recs info@afterburnaustralia.com
It was I, who moved to Australia.