Archive for December, 2004

The Undead - 9 Toes Later (1982 Stiff Records)

I think at this point everyone on planet earth has heard of The Misfits. I guess you can thank Metallica for that. They became so popular that former band member would sue each other just so they can reform a “new” version of the band and tour and put out records in an effort to milk that cow for every last drop.

But let’s set the Wabac machine for 1981 when The Misfits were a real band and not Jerry Only’s exploitation machine. They put out a couple of very good 7″s and were playing shows regularly and starting to get known and they were preparing to record an album. The lineup at the time was Glenn Danzig, Arthur Googy, Jerry Only, and Bobby Steele. Bobby was their guitar player and was quite a talented one at that. The problem was that the band never got along and they eventually kicked Bobby out of the band and hired Jerry’s brother, Doyle, in his place.

Bobby didn’t waste any time upon receiving his walking papers, he was already playing in a band on the side called The Scabs with Natz (who years later would form CopShootCop). They changed the name to The Undead (not taking into account there was a band from San Francisco of the same name) and starting playing gigs around new York City. It didn’t take long before they got noticed and released this 7″ on Stiff Records (who is most famous for putting out records from The Damned among others). They pressed 2000 of them and then Bobby decided to reissue it on his own label that he started called Post Mortem Records. There was 1000 pressed on his label, and they had thicker covers and a different shade of green on the front.

The band put out a couple more singles, then all three of them were compiled into a mini-LP, titled Never Say Die, on an overseas label. A couple years later a full-length LP was released on a plethora of vinyl colors, titled Act Your Rage. It was a little more polished and a bit more metal/rock than the 70s punk stylings of the 7″s but it still was a solid effort.

A few years ago, there was another full length album released on a Canadian label that had to be one of the shortest runs ever for a band. Bobby got upset with them and terminated his contract with the label. As of this writing, nearly everything is out of print including the CDs that compiled their early material.

The Undead had a pretty solid fan-base but never seemed to capture the audience The Misfits had, or a lot of their peers despite the music being quite good. Over the years, Bobby has blamed this on Glenn Danzig holding him back, club owners screwing him over, labels ripping him off, etc. I can’t tell you how many times they were supposed to play in Chicago but never did for one reason or another. There has also been a ton of different lineups of the band throughout the years, including one where it was just Bobby and a drum machine! I don’t know how much of Bobby’s allegations is true and how much is paranoia, but I do know that the man is responsible for some quality punk rock.

These days Bobby Steele still resides in New Jersey/New York and still has some version of The Undead kicking around the area. There has been a couple of recent 7″ releases but since they were on a foreign label and had rather lousy US distribution, I haven’t heard them and didn’t feel like paying 10 bucks to order them from the label overseas. There is an Undead website as well.

As always if you have any additional information please get in touch.

Click here to hear “A Life of Our Own” from the record (right click and “save target as…”)

Various Artists - Four Bands That Could Change the World (1987 Gasatanka Records)

This here was a collection of four pretty well known punk bands from different parts of the US who were all still very active in the mid to late 1980s. While all the band’s respective labels had their stamp on this record, it was Gasatanka (White Flag lead man Bill Bartell’s label) who did all the work and actually released it (through their blood pact at the time with Dutch East India.

The compilation featured 7 Seconds (Reno, NV), White Flag (Hollywood, CA), Adrenalin OD (New Jersey) and F (Florida). Most of the songs on here were unreleased at the time, and to this day a good portion of the material found in these grooves is still exclusive to this slab of wax. Each and had half of one side of the record, about 5 songs each.

The record was also licensed to Weird System Records in Germany and they added the band, FOD to the lineup and dubbed it Five Bands that Changed the World. They removed tracks from each of the Four bands to make room for the 5th.

All the bands on this compilation with the exception of AOD are still around today. There is some version of F still playing and they have a website. I emailed them and asked if they had any affiliation to the punk band F and they claim that they do. When I responded and asked for any further information however, my email went unanswered. Some members of AOD are in various bands, 7 Seconds still tours and puts out records and White Flag are a big hit in Spain and overseas and still put out records. All the bands will eventually get their own features here with their own records.

As always, if you have any additional information or were in one of the bands on this record, please get in touch.

Click here to hear “Hanging Up My Youth” by White Flag from the record (right click and “save target as…”)

I am listening to the band Mule (the one that was on Touch and Go), having not played their records in quite some time and I had forgotten just how fucking excellent they were. I wish they were still around. I am glad I got to see them a couple times when they were a band, one time was opening for Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, who sucked and I promptly left while they were playing. PW Long of Mule did a couple solo things after Mule’s demise, but it just wasn’t the same, or nearly as good.

We are finally back home, one day later than planned. We were supposed to fly back home last nite but that bitch, Mother Nature, had other plans. There was a huge snow storm, and we were sitting on the plane, on the runway, for well over two hours before they decided that they were closing the airport, canceling all flights, and thus fucking us out of not only going home, but in the wallet as we had to shell out $ to stay at a hotel. It was a royal pain in the ass, and all we wanted to do was go home. I also ended up missing a day of work because of this (I was to return to work today).

We arrived thursday afternoon and my sister had us pick up her car from her work so we could take it and go shopping around Boston/Cambridge. I never drove around there before, I was always driven around by my family on my last few visits. In Boston, they have the shittiest drivers, and roads on earth. They have few signs anywhere telling you what road you are on, they just expect you to somehow know where those twisty roads that go in all directions are supposed to take you or what they are named. Everyone drives like an asshole there and were were cut off constantly and some dipshit even backed into us on a highway on ramp!

To put icing on the shitcake, three of my favorite record stores out there have gone out of business since last xmas! Mars Records, Second Coming Records, and one other store which the name escapes me, are all gone and other businesses now. It was a huge letdown. The two stores that were left had nothing for me.

It was nice to spend some time with my sister, daveinlaw, and his family, don’t get me wrong, but the trip seemed a lot longer than it was, not including the extra day we got stuck there. It was really nice to be able to have Lady Combustion come on the trip and be part of the family though.

Look for a new Vault entry tomorrow or so, I have to sit down and write one. My sister had archaic dialup and a virus-infected computer so I was barely able to check my email when I was gone.

I hope everyone had a nice holiday.

I figure for xmas I’d change it up for once and not only give you a double entry, but give you a double entry of xmas themed songs!

Fear - Fuck Christmas 7″ (1982 Slash Records)

Fear formed in 1977 and a year later put out their first 7″ (which I still need a copy of by the way). A few years later they’d finally release an album and this 7″ on Slash Records. Fear would insult their audience, they were great at playing the heels and getting a rise out of the crowd, as evidenced by their performance in the movie The Decline of Western Civilization. They also once played on Saturday Night Live which caused quite a ruckus and for years they refused to rerun that episode, though now that punk has become accepted, I notice it will be on every now and then. They got that gig because John Belushi, who was a cast member on the show at the time was a huge Fear fan and somehow conned Lorne Michaels into booking the band as the musical guest. The late Donald Pleasence was the host of that particular episode.

This 7″ features two versions of the song, both clean and dirty. It was never issued in a picture sleeve, though many copies had a rubber stamped image on the paper sleeve.

In the mid to late 1980s Fear put out a second album on Enigma titled More Beer though it wasn’t nearly as good. Members came and went and eventually the band called it quits. Their retirement wasn’t permanent though, well at least not for Lee Ving. On top of a fairly respectable acting career, Lee resurrected the Fear name and enlisted a new crop of youngsters as his backup band and still plays shows from time to time. To the best of my knowledge, it has been years since any original members other than himself played/toured with him as Fear.

Click here to hear “Fuck Christmas” from the record (right click and “save target as…”)

Saccharine Trust - A Christmas Cry 7″ (1981 SST Records)

Saccharine Trust was founded in 1980 by Joe Baiza and Jack Brewer. They put out one really good and original record called Pagan Icons on SST Records. After that, they got way into the avant-garde experimental side of things and started putting out records that bared little resemblance to that first record. The band hung it up in the late 80s for awhile but in 1996 the original co-founders got back together and reformed Saccharine Trust with a couple new members. They are still around in some form and have a website up with tons of information.

This single was some sort of promo-only thing that SST made. The track was also available on the Chunks Compilation on New Alliance Records (later reissued by SST). It was not issued in a picture sleeve.

As always if you have any additional information or were in the above bands, please get in touch.

Click here to hear “A Christmas Cry” from the record (right click and “save target as…”)

Merry Xmas everyone.

For this xmas eve, I thought I’d give everyone a special treat!

Bad Religion - Into The Unknown LP (1983 Epitaph Records)

I think everyone is familiar with Bad Religion, they are still alive and kicking as I type this, and put out an album every couple years and still tour constantly. At one point they were even on a major label for awhile.

But this story is of a once great hardcore band, who after one album, decided that a change was in order. Not wanting to play the simple hardcore tunes that garnered them a good sized fan base even back then, they felt it necessary to add some keyboards and make a prog-rock album.

Yes, you read that right, they put out what can be best described as a prog-rock album. Aside from the vocals sounding similar to their first album, this record bared little resemblance to the Bad Religion who gave us a great 7″ and a great first album. The songs were cheesy and often long and it reeked of wanting to be 80s radio hits. I don’t know if they were all doing acid or what but it has to stand as one of the worst decisions a band ever made. They’d eventually realize it too as if you may have noticed, not only is this record out of print, but it is seldom ever mentioned by the band, and completely ignored in their retrospective collections.

They pressed around 10,000 of these but shelved a good portion of the pressing when they probably realized what a bad idea it was. Rumor has it that the records were being stored at Bomp’s warehouse and someone there decided to slowly keep selling them until they were almost all gone. The thing fetches a hefty sum these days and it is pretty certain that a reissue will never see the light of day ever. Really to curb bootleggers they ought to include it on something but I guess they are so ashamed of it that it isn’t even worth it to them.

Every now and then I’ll play this record to someone who likes the band these days but never heard of it and their reactions are always shock and disbelief. That alone is reason to always have this record in one’s collection.

Click here to hear “It’s Only Over When” from the record (right click and “save target as…”)