Something I Learned Today

I’m sure there was more to the Cleveland hardcore scene in the early 90’s than Integrity and Face Value, but those two bands were Cleveland in my circle of friends. Even cooler, they were just a couple of hours down the pike from us which means we got see them a lot. While I dug the evil metal vibe of Integrity’s Those Who Fear Tomorrow, Face Value were the shit. I think the only thing that got me to take off their 1990 Coming of Age EP off the turntable was receiving their follow up full length Price Of Maturity. Man, that thing just rocked - tough vocals, lots of tempo changes, and a gnarly hardcore guitar sound (despite the occasional solo). This was one of the last great tough guy hardcore records I purchased. And really, it was the last great record for Face Value. Follow up’s Kick It Over and Choices (post vocalist Tony Erba’s departure) were disappointing. Erba has gone onto play bass with the H-100’s, 9 Shocks Terror, Gordon Solie Motherfuckers, and Amps II Eleven. He is currently fronting Cheap Tragedies

The CD of Price of Maturity included the Coming of Age EP. This thing looks to be OOP, so you can grab all 22 tracks right here as a .rar archive. A couple of my favorites below. Dance it up Clevo style!

from the Coming of Age EP
Face Value - Can’t Take Much More.mp3
Face Value - Coming of Age.mp3

from the Price of Maturity LP
Face Value - Excommunication.mp3
Face Value - Naivete.mp3
Face Value - Outside Looking In.mp3
Face Value - Unjustified.mp3
Face Value - Emotional Addiction.mp3
Face Value - Withdrawal.mp3

from the Only The Strong comp 7″
Face Value - Someday.mp3

Notes:
Photo from Face Value page at ClePunk

A couple of weeks back I received a request for some Monsula, which caused me to drag out my only record by them, their 1990 Nickel EP on Lookout. When this came out I gave it short shrift, playing it once and immediately boxing it. When I pulled it out for a listen awhile back I couldn’t even remember what it sounded like. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the poppy crap I was expecting. Instead it was catchy, melodic hardcore with distinct DC/emo influence. Well worth a listen. I think I’ll track down their 1992 Sanitized LP and see what else I may have missed out on.

Monsula - Firecracker.mp3
Monsula - Missing You.mp3
Monsula - Razors.mp3
Monsula - When Will It End.mp3

I’m not proud of it now, but one of the ways I dealt with interning at my first college radio station was to steal stuff. In my mind it made up for the fact that I had to sit at a desk and answer the phone while people with less impeccable taste in music got on the air. It was definitely petty theft, consisting mostly of small office supplies, but sometimes I would snag some music I didn’t think would be appreciated. One of my scores was a mix tape of bands recorded live on WFMU, which is how I discovered Dirge. The music was typical of the scene and times - late ’80’s New Jersey moshcore with gravelly vocals and screaming “wheeeeeeee” metal leads. Definitely my thing at the time. (not so much now, but still…)

As you can tell, the filler up above is meant to consume some lines as I don’t have much information on Dirge. They released an LP, 12″ and 7″ and had a track on the Hardcore Breakout USA compilation. That’s all I got - if you have more then jump in and share. Below are a couple of cuts from the band’s 12″ records and demo. You can download all of the material I have here

from 1988’s Soulstorm LP, released on Anthrax Records
Dirge - Screwed To Death.mp3
Dirge - Superficial.mp3
Dirge - Self-Destruct.mp3

from 1990’s Fleshcrawler 12″ on Old World
Dirge - Corrupted.mp3
Dirge - Predictions.mp3
Dirge - Small Scene.mp3

a couple from Dirge’s 1987 demo. Crappier production, but the sound is still powerful
Dirge - Resurrection.mp3
Dirge - Threat of Power.mp3
Dirge - Negative Sanctions.mp3

Notes:
** Vocalist Jacko Monahan currently books shows at Brighton Bar in Long Branch, New Jersey
** Anyone have a copy of 1989’s Matrix 7″ they’re willing to part with? Are the songs different than the versions found on Fleshcrawler?
** Also would love to here that WFMU session again if anyone happens to have it!

A short-lived blast of brutality from NYC, Citizens Arrest graced us with an EP and a fistful of comp tracks in the early 90’s before splintering on the eve of their first LP (Colussus). Hyperfast tracks in the Seige/Infest/Septic Death vein with insane vocals - hard to believe this shit aint Japanese. 1990’s A Light in the Darkness 6 song EP is smoking hot - I would post the whole thing but there are rumors of the discography getting a reissue. With that in mind here are a couple of cuts:

from 1990’s A Light In The Darkness EP
Citizens Arrest - Serve and Protect.mp3
Citizens Arrest - In The Distance.mp3

from 1991’s Colossus LP
Citizens Arrest - Through The Mist.mp3
Citizens Arrest - Pain.mp3
Citizens Arrest - Agony God.mp3

from 1990’s Look At All The Children Now comp
Citizens Arrest - Death Threat.mp3
Citizens Arrest - I Wont Allow.mp3

Note:
Citizens Arrest on Myspace

Earth Rapers & Hell Raisers was double 7″ compilation put out by the folks at Hippycore in 1990 as benefitf or the Phoenix chapter of Earth First! Lot’s of pissed off, political hardcore from 12 bands and a thick booklet with all sorts of tree hugging commie bullshit of environmental and vegan information. Say what you will about the politics, but every Hippycore release I’ve come across is a labor of love, with thick booklets and tons of educational material. Earth Rapers… isn’t as consistent of a comp as earlier Hippycore comp Metal Gives Us A Headache, but still has some bite to it. The best cuts come from Bent, Machine, Christ on a Crutch, Jesters of Chaos, Seein’ Red, and Samiam. But I’ll let you be the judge of that:

Sins of the Flesh - Technology.mp3
Bent - Intellectual Hypocrites.mp3
Jesters of Chaos - Nuclear Delicacies.mp3
Pissed Happy Children - Graveyard at Sea.mp3
Reality Control - Hold My Breath.mp3
Conspiracy of Equals - Gender Slavery.mp3
Machine - Blind Man’s Holiday.mp3
Samiam - Insightful.mp3
Pleasant Valley Children - Fuck Kill Destroy.mp3
Pollution Circus - Lenny’s Song.mp3
Seein’ Red - Earth First.mp3
Christ on a Crutch - Christian’s Crack Diary.mp3

I swear must have entered some kind of time warp or worm hole back to my senior year in high school, because there it was in front of me - Gorilla Biscuits and Murphy’s Law playing last night at the Country Club in Syracuse. It’s like it was fucking 1989 all over again, with the exception that I’m a lot older, fatter, and just plain disinterested in most NYHC these days. So yeah, I passed on the show. Instead, I spent some time pulling together a couple of my favorite pisstakes on straight edge from years past….

And oh man, I’d forgotten just how ridiculously funny The Posi-Machine was, and just how much it pissed off some of my most enthusiastic SXE friends (except the “slow” girl we hung out with, who thought that Crucial Youth were dead serious)

Crucial Youth - Caffeine.mp3
Crucial Youth - Big Mouth.mp3
Crucial Youth - Scarlet M.mp3

Buddyhead has the lowdown on Gayrilla Biscuits. Their first 7″ featured 8 homofied covers of straightedge/tough guy classics by the likes of Sick of it All, Minor Threat, Bold, and Gorilla Biscuits. Crude and retarded, but entertaining in junior high kinda way.

Gayrilla Biscuits - Flaming Ass Still Burns.mp3
Gayrilla Biscuits - Nailed in the Ass.mp3

I really don’t know much about Grudge, other than they were from LA and released their Project Ex 7″ in 1989.

Grudge - Drinking’s Great.mp3
Grudge - Buckle Up.mp3

Man, 1990 was a great year for hardcore compilations, especially those in featuring bands from the NYC region. Forever is one of three killer NY/NJ hardcore 7″ comps released in ‘90 (Murders Among Us and Rebuilding being the other two 7″s, not to mention the Look At All The Children Now 12″). Forever was released on Irate and features early material from some of the NY/NJ hardcore scene heavies. 5 bands, 5 tracks, featuring posi-core from Turning Point, bilious hardcore from Born Against, and vicious blasts from Rorschach and Citizen’s Arrest. Not to be overlooked, Burn contributes a wild hardcore track that borders on greatness, hindered only by muddy production. One of my favorite comps from my own hardcore heyday:

Turning Point - Insecurity.mp3
Born Against - Mary and Child.mp3
Rorschach - Checkmate.mp3
Burn - Decay.mp3
Citizen’s Arrest - Pain.mp3

And now for something completely different - a short blast of manic ’90’s hardcore from Cleveland’s H-100’s. There isn’t much info on them, other than this blurb from Havoc Records:

Cleveland Ohio’s h-100’s blast out crucial early 80’s style raw thrash. The singer was a teenage kid with a really snotty voice. The rest of the band were thirty-year-old record collector dudes who were there when hardcore ruled and didn’t forget. Although the h-100’s claim 80’s Japanese thrash as their main influence this record reminds me more of early Die Kreuzen, Poison Idea, Toxic Reasons or many other Midwestern thrash bands of the 80’s…H-100’s were notorious for their outrageous live shows which usually featured fireworks, wrestling moves and throwing everything that wasn’t nailed down.

The H-100s released 3 singles - Texas Death Match, Dismantle, and Distort Cleveland before - splitting in early 1996. 3/4 of the band would become 9 Shocks Terror, with Tony Erba & Wedge eventually forming Gordon Solie Motherfuckers. There was reportedly a CD of all three 7″s, but I’ve never seen it. 1995’s Distort Cleveland EP is my favorite of the three records. Take a listen:

H-100s - Brown Sugar.mp3
H-100s - Destroy Cleveland.mp3
H-100s - Shit We Live In Today.mp3
H-100s - Don’t Ask Me How I Am.mp3
H-100s - Free.mp3

And for good measure here are two more - “Agitate” is from Dismantle, “Picked On” is from Texas Death Match
H-100s - Agitate.mp3
H-100s - Picked On.mp3

A quick one to round out the week, More Songs About Plants and Trees was a pro-conservation compilation released on graphic artist John Yates Allied Recordings in 1990. 4 bands, 4 tracks, and a crapload of environmentalist mailing addresses make for a rather uninspiring compilation, but shit, it was in my “to do” pile and the Antischism track is pretty fucking great. Side 1 includes a poppy and melodic track San Francisco’s Cringer and pretty mediocre number from the Lookouts. The flipside was always more my speed - screaming anarcho hardcore from South Carolina’s Antischism and solid doomcore from NYC’s Nausea.

Cringer - Burn Down The Forest.mp3
The Lookouts - Once Upon a Time.mp3
Antischism - Greedy Bastards.mp3
Nausea - Here Today….mp3

RIP big man. Not a lot of info, but it’s been confirmed that larger than life Poison Idea co-founder and guitarist Tom “Pig Champion” Roberts passed away January 30, 2006. Odd, people were questioning whether or not Pig and others were still alive over here. Here are a couple of my favorite Poison Idea tracks. For those interested, the Darby Crash Rides Again and Filthkick tracks are here:

Poison Idea - Pure Hate.mp3
Poison Idea - Time to Go.mp3
Poison Idea - Laughing Boy.mp3
Poison Idea - Lifestyles.mp3
Poison Idea - Nothing Is Final.mp3
Poison Idea - Getting The Fear.mp3
Poison Idea - Just To Get Away.mp3
Poison Idea - Crippled Angel.mp3