An adventure in split Ep's! I have no gun but I can split: AGAINST EMPIRE / HOLOKAUST "Threat to Existence / S/t" split Ep, 2004

This Ep is so quintessentially from the noughties that playing it again after some time was a bit like time traveling to a different era altogether when the internet was not completely taken for granted yet and still felt new. At the time being on Myspace was an issue in the scene which shows how far we've gone. This Ep made me realize how much I am, too, from the 00's and how I grew, as a punk and a vaguely promising young man, throughout this decade. In 2000, streetpunk seemed to me like the ultimate way of life, a happy land where you could be happy just by drinking beer "with the boyz", walking a lot on the streets, wearing too many studs and giving the fingers to "the system" and by 2009 I had formed a semiological critique of neocrust and its use of Nature as a personification of purity and of a paradise soon-to-be-lost to man-made industrialism, very much like 19th century romantics used to do (yes I was already a sad bastard) and I was patronizing enough to look down on people who had no knowledge of Philippine punk too. An exhilarating bildungsroman and a potentially ace biopic indeed. I should talk to my mate Thimotée Chalamet about it, he'd make a smashing me.

I was certainly not late to the party as far as Against Empire and Holokaust were concerned. What I especially liked about those two bands was that, not only were they both relatively new by the time I heard about them, but they were also the members' first bands as far as I knew (let's be kind and not count the Rage Against the Machine cover bands that they probably did in high school). New, fresh and clearly for my generation. I was enthusiastic and had no idea that 20 years later I would be sitting in front of a computer screen reflecting upon the subjective and objective significance of the record. Actually, at the time I had no idea that there would even be a "20 years later" with me in it. I see both AE and Holokaust as being particularly representative of Bush-era anarcho and crust punk, although the latter kept going in the 2010's and are still more or less active as I have seen recent gig poster promoting them. It's true that the rule of Bush Jr covered almost all the decade so that it is tempting to associate 00's bands as Bush-era bands but whenever I hear a 00's political punk bands from the States, the very production reminds me of the president. 

How many bands had radical and highly detailed anti Bush lyrics at that time? It seemed like all the bands had a song directly against the Bush administration, the Patriot Act or the war in Iraq. That thick as shit man was seen as a danger for humanity and to be honest a lot of what is still tragically going in the Middle East are consequences of the man's work. He was the Reagan to our 00's, he outreaganed Reagan, even as a Frenchman I felt like it was my duty to hate the idiot and wish for his beheading, and no one thought that the US would ever get a worse a president. Time proved that punks were not exactly the most clairvoyant bunch, sadly. Paradoxically I cannot really think of an anti-Trump punk song, I am sure there are some but he is clearly not as inspiring in spite of being even more hatable. Let's not depair, I am sure he is going to start new cool American wars by 2025 that will give us the opportunity to write antiwar anthems again. But then, to be quite honest, maybe it's not such a bad thing that there are not too many anti-Trump songs. The bastard is already everywhere (even outside the US of A) so I can understand why US bands would choose to keep his name out of our music. 

I liked AE a lot at the time. I loved the name, I loved the imagery, I loved the lyrics and I kinda wished I had a band like that if you know what I mean. I first heard them through their The One Who Strikes the Blow Forgets... The One Who Bears the Scar Remembers album from 2005 but I  got hold of this split Ep shortly afterwards. I definitely played the Lp a lot when it came out so that I still know all the songs. They have not all aged well and some parts do sound quite dated (or typical of the era if you want to put it nicely) but I don't really mind since, after all, to sound dated is to sound like your time, like you were part of your time and some dated things are very enjoyable. I loved their brand of passionate anarcho metal-crust, they did not belong to the stenchcore revival but still appealed to that crowd and their more melodic, melancholy riffing made them listenable to the then booming neocrust population. I remember people saying that the Lp was overproduced (a criticism usually coming from people used to 90's production or people who collect Japanese records) but compared to a lot of contemporary bands, it is actually a rather direct record and this Ep, the band's first vinyl appearance, is even rawer but just as angry. 

It is a pretty straight-forward affair illustrating what AE were good at: a balanced mix of US-styled anarchopunk and crustcore. At first, the opening song "Empire against environment" sounds like it would be very much at ease with 90's anarchopunk bands like Aus-Rotten and Deprived with its fast-paced angry vocal flow and a blatant Antisect-loving riff but then the band uses a full-on neocrust emotional riff on the chorus which I had completely forgotten (although there were some indeed on the album). I don't think it works that well and I would have wished for a simpler hardcore riff but then such endeavours were common in 2004. The second number is a traditional US crustcore monster with super gruff cavemen vocals (a little too forced maybe?) that owed a lot to bands like Disrupt (of course) or React and also Swedish classics like 3-Way Cum or Warcollapse. A Very good cavecrust effort with a brilliant scandicrust riff. The following AE record would be the aforementioned Lp blending metallic gruff crust with 90's US anarchopunk and some "epicrust" (or something?). A split Lp with Iskra in 2007 followed that saw the band with a different lineup include black-metal influences which did not really impress me (the whole record did not to be honest) and the year after the rather good Destructive Systems Collapse came out with a more dynamic and direct production and a solid 00's crustcore style (the band must have listened to Consume a lot). At that point I started to loose interest in AE for some reason and did not grab the split Ep with Auktion (I did get to see them on their European tour in late 2009 and they were quite good). By the time the second Lp Thieves and Leeches was out in 2011 I was surprised they were still going and I don't think I listened the Lp in its entirety.

Holokaust, from Moreno Valley close to Riverside, is a three-piece orchestra that I listen to more regularly than AE and some of their records I still rate quite highly. I am going to use the present tense as I think the band is more or less active and does play the odd benefit gig and festival. In retrospect the choice of their moniker feels a little odd. If anything, Holokaust is the modern band that epitomizes what Discharge-influenced peacepunk was all about. As a Southern Californian band, they are the direct heirs of this specific 80's tradition and sound popularized by brilliant bands like Diatribe, Body Count and obviously The Iconoclast. I cannot think of many bands that kept that sound alive (intentionally or not, this is not the point) after the 80's beside the mighty Resist and Exist (especially their late 90's period) and the cruelly underrated Armistice, a band I love that I will be writing about in a more or less distant future, both of which were actually already around when the OC crust scene was kicking in. As a recent incarnation of peacepunk, which is pretty specific, you would have thought that Holokaust would have heard of Holocaust, a band from Los Angeles that was around between 1989 and 1992 (we already talked about them here because of their inclusion on the SI One compilation Ep), was highly influenced by Crucifix or Final Conflict and very much part of the late 80's/early 90's peacepunk and peacecrust wave. Holocaust were by no means a high profile act so it was clearly coincidental but it is strange that they were not told by an elder that "it's already taken boys". But then, maybe they were told indeed and just though "fuck it, we'll just replace the "c" with a "k"".

Like AE, I got into Holokaust since the band's inception with their self-titled Ep from 2002, a record that I instantly got into and still love. It is the perfect blend of UK-styled Discharge-loving hardcore punk like '83 Antisect, Anti-System and early Hellkrusher and of traditional Californian peacepunk like The Iconoclast or Diatribe. Great stuff with a very pure old-school production that sounds very natural and not self-aware. Just good old-school pre d-beat Discharge-loving hardcore. The Ep was released on After The Bomb Records the label run by Adam from Masskontroll and Deathcharge (which makes sense). A split with Dissystema followed in 2003 (with a brilliant cover of Anti-System's "Dying in agony") which was poorly distributed in Europe and that I never grabbed and then our present 2004 split record. The basis are similar here with "Holy wars" starting with a metallic Final Conflict-like introduction before offering a classic Anti-System-style (they do love that band a lot and the vocals are quite alike) and "Genocide factor" and "Famine" being stellar early Discharge-loving hardcore like Varukers, The Iconoclast, Antisect, before d-beat was a structured thing. You know what I mean. The production is raw and powerful and I love how impactful the very pure d-beat drumming is in the mix as it confers a proper old-school feel. Holokaust's style sounds very spontaneous as they go for a classic sound in a way that few can achieve. The band went on to record a full Lp, that was unfortunately not as good, and three split Ep's with Wörhorse (not sure when this one came out actually, it could have been before AE's), Rattus and Armistice (that was an obvious one). A fairly quiet but delicious peacepunk band.

This was released on Threat To Existence which I think was a label run by an Against Empire member.  

Against Holokaust 

Still Believing in ANOK: Firing Squad "S/t" Ep, 1993

When I came up with the selection for the present series Still Believing in ANOK I did not realize how little-known a lot of the records I picked were. Not in the sense that they are hard to find - though some of them are - but because people forgot about them or never really cared for them in the first place. Locality matters of course and some seemingly unknown bands were actually famous in their home country (like Stracony and others we'll tackle later on) but on the whole, from a global eagle-like perspective, well, they are a bit obscure but not in a good way and it can be difficult to grab people's precious volatile attention with old unloved records that have set camp in the £1 discount boxes since 2006, proof that, not only were they never deemed "all-time classics" but that they also never deserved to be crowned retroactively. I see some of the records included in this series as "minor anarchopunk classics" - a euphemism meaning I think they are brilliant but did not sell well - and others as relevant interesting artifacts of a sound and aesthetics that were no longer popular at that time. Of course, because life, like my dad's diatribes, is made of contradictions, today's record, Firing Squad's 1993 Ep cannot reasonably be said to belong to either category thus rendering this first paragraph kinda useless. 

Firing Squad are proper obscure, even to anarchopunk platinum users. In fact, they are a bit of an enigma, and, were it not for this record having been released on Mass Media Records, I suppose they would have been totally engulfed into oblivion and most elite nerds like myself wouldn't have had the pleasure the patronize a teenage punk with sentences such as "Firing Squad were pretty big in my days, at least three people knew of them back then" or "did you know there was already a 80's hardcore band from the state of Washington called Firing Squad? Oh you don't, well that's not on Tok Tube now, is it?". I wonder why there aren't more kids at punk shows... Anyway, I don't remember when I got the Ep, definitely a long time ago, but it was the connection with Mass Media that prompted the transaction. The rather cryptic cover did not help: it depicts a lion biting a medieval representation of the sun under the watchful eyes of four shades-wearing clowns (Pierrots probably), the whole thing over a tridimensional psychedelic checkered background. Why is the sun bleeding over a globe (is it supposed to be the Earth?)? Why so much symbolism? It looks like a tarot card. The backcover is as confusing: more of the same crazy background and a two-headed dragon with the sun on the left and the moon on the right. How the hell are you supposed to know it is a punk record? Thank fuck the Mass Media logo has a circled A and some doves because otherwise I would have been far too narrow-minded to even consider looking at it. 

The visual side of the Ep aside (be careful when you unfold the cover, if you do not enjoy visual illusions, have a sick bag handy), there is no indication as to where Firing Squad came from. On the insert of the No Lip Service compilation Ep, where they appeared, also released on Mass Media, their address is located in Newbury Park, Ventura County, California. In spite of a very dynamic peacepunk and crust scene at that time in Southern California - well-documented on Terminal Sound Nuisance - with bands like Resist and Exist, Autonomy or Media Children offering a sound very much influenced by old-school anarchopunk, it would make sense to endeavour that Firing Squad belonged to that part of the punk scene but they did not really, although they crossed paths. This makes them even more mysterious, especially since you could argue that they also played old-school anarchopunk, although their take was significantly different.

Firing Squad's music is original. The Ep is not a note-perfect masterclass but it has an undeniable charm that makes it quite compelling. The first song is an emotional (it was the 90's after all) and tuneful mid-paced number with an underlying moodiness and snotty angry vocals that go surprisingly well with the music. Just imagine a depressive jam between Chumbawamba and Conflict with a bit of an emocore vibe, or let's just say that Nabate would have been well into this. The other side is even more challenging as "Declare civil war" is basically a reggae song. Yes, a reggae song. Now, when I was getting into serious music - also known as my "how many patches can I fit on this black denim jacket?" phase - listening to reggae was akin to ordering tap water on a date for me: have some self-respect and run for your life and quick. But then, I grew a bit softer, stopped trying and got really into the British anarcho dub punk bands like PAIN or AOS3 and that's exactly the vibe I am getting from this song, only with a bit of flanger oddness. After a couple of minutes, it turns into a straight-up raucous punk anthem with great singalongs that would not have sounded out of place on the Resist/Deprived split Ep. 

No idea what that is

The song they contributed to the aforementioned Not Lip Service Ep was equally fresh, angry yet catchy, maybe a bit angrier too, and it goes to show that this inventive band had a great potential and possibly a genuinely classic album in them. The band used some clever sound effects on their sound and with the production being quite raw and direct, it confers a very organic spontaneous vibe to the songs which makes me go back to the Ep's atmosphere quite often. It is, as much as I hate the term, a "grower". Instead of looking at the 80's sound, it might be more relevant to see Firing Squad as a definite 90's one. A moodier weirder version of One By One, AOS3 or Civil Disobedience? A depressed prelude to A//Political? 

Just listen to the record I guess.      

That's a definite no

Firing Squad

The Empire Crusts Back (part 4): Mindrot "1990 demo" tape, 1990

Alright then, this is the last part of The Empire Crusts Back (rolling out with laughter, right?), my short and humble series about the so-called OC crust bands of the late 80's. As usual, it was a fucking pleasure to be able to school the great unwashed about so crucial a subject if one seeks to understand how the world works and to make sure as to what trendy crust shirts to wear this winter 2021 (in case you haven't heard, OC crust fashion is making a massive comeback so you'd better take my word for it). If you missed out on the first three instalments of the series, I recommend you take a bit of your precious time to take a look at them since it will provide some important musical context from a diachronic perspective and a definition of what is meant through the term "OC crust" at that particular time. As I moaned about previously, the peacepunk and crust bands of this era and area unfortunately remain largely undocumented although Jang from Resist and Exist has interviewed some bands that were part of that wave - along with classic bands from the UK, current anarcho bands and videos about political activism - and uploaded some rare recordings and live performances for his youtube channel. Check it out punk as it is truly a work of passion and dedication that could not be further from the online posing contests that punk-rock sadly too often engages in nowadays.

 

But enough grumbling as I am not here to act like a middle-of-the-road gammon and today we are going to talk about arguably the most famous of the OC crust bands, the brilliantly-named Mindrot (which I have already tackled here with their top notch 1991 Endeavor Ep so I will try to keep it short). Although Mindrot can be said to be something of a respected and recognized band in the extreme metal world, they are rarely connected nowadays to the hardcore punk and crust music scene from which they originally emerged. Just knock on your neighbour's door and ask the geezer about Mindrot. He is very likely to reply "The doom metal band from the mid-90's" rather than "The early OC stenchcore from the early 90's". Or he might just let his staffies out. He'll probably do that actually so let's just pretend you knock on his door. So Mindrot are basically the biggest name of the original OC crust and yet are largely seldom identified as such, although things might be different in California and punk old-timers, who knew of Mindrot before the mid-90's Relapse period, might say otherwise and link the band to the hardcore world so it could be a generational thing.

 

 

 

I mentioned in the review of A//Solution's mastercrust Ep that I first heard of them thanks to the Mindrot's thank list included on their Dawning album, a cd (of course it was the cd version) I bought after reading, or being told, that they used to be a crust band. But then, I tried hard to remember where I might have read such confidential intel or which gentle soul guided my virginal self through my discovery of OC crust. Could I have made that story up or do I actually have imaginary friends? Who cares. Probably both. Perhaps the cd looked enticing enough, with the Relapse label being vaguely associated with hardcore in my tiny mind, and spotting Final Conflict, Total Chaos and Chaos UK on the list - it was second-hand so I could open the case - was enough to convince me that Mindrot was possibly a band that I should know about. That sounds like a much more plausible story actually. Anyway, Dawning is a doom-metal album and at the time the genre was about as alien to me as disco polo so to say that I was disappointed and above all completely out of my comfort zone is an understatement. I did not play the cd much - although I did try to be honest - but I often consulted the thank list and did my best to get information on the bands graced with a punk-sounding name that were included on it. Thank lists are dead, long live thank lists. This grail-like manuscript from 1995 illustrated significantly the position that Mindrot occupied: the space between Orange County's flourishing extreme metal scene and the peacepunk/crust world. With them rubbing shoulders with Morgion, Nausea LA and Fear Factory just as casually as they did with Armistice, Total Chaos or Final Conflict, early Mindrot can be approached as the definitive bridge between both worlds as their sound could appeal to metalheads addicted to doom and death metal as well as crusty punks craving for mean and heavy metallic hardcore music. But then, maybe it was a case of "too metal for the punx, and too punk for the metalheads", an argument that can sometimes be said to be something of a poor excuse used by terrible bands to justify their lack of recognition from either world.

But back to my personal conquest for crust. Because I was unimpressed with Dawning (which I used to call Yawning), I did not really bother researching the earlier Mindrot material and focused instead on bands like A//Solution, Glycine Max or Carcinogen, and of course Apocalypse. When I realized that some Apocalypse songs listed as belonging to the Terror Tapes on the discography cd had actually been released as a split Ep with Mindrot, I immediately got curious and decided to investigate the band's early years further. Fortunately for me, I was able to obtain a copy of the Endeavor Ep from some Profane Existence sales, which proved to be a thoroughly convincing and solid slice of old-school crust metal, and I did manage to find alright mp3 files of the split with Apocalypse, a top record and a genuine crust classic that I rate as one of the greatest crust split Ep's of all time (although it looks absolutely shit, a real shame when you see what both bands were able to offer visually). But the best was yet to come when I finally managed to go back in time and listen to this 1990 demo, an astounding recording that left me in awe.  

 

   

 

The Mindrot demo is undoubtedly an old-school crust classic. The term "demo" might be more than a little misleading in this case. When you read about a demo recording from an early crust band, you are entitled to expect something quite rough around the edges, an enjoyable if rather raw and primitive work that, more often than not, is characterized by dodgy musicianship and a certain ineptitude in the studio, a punk-as-fuck sound which is precisely why people love them so much. The Mindrot demo does not correspond to that definition at all. The boys were already quite accomplished musicians and knew exactly what they wanted to achieve. In fact, it sounded far more like a proper debut album - it is a thirty-minute long sonic behemoth - than a demo as it easily outclassed, not just in terms of production but also very much in terms of creative intent, of cohesion, of focus, of what the band aimed at creating, most crust demos of the era and beyond. 

 

 

Mindrot were undeniably the most metal-tinged band of the OC crust wave. In fact, you would not be wrong to describe them as "doom crust" or "crusty death-doom" but the recording still retains enough of this chugging and filthy threatening crust edge for it to rightly belong in the crust canon, though I would understand that others disagree (not a common sentiment on my part, let me tell you). When I first heard the demo, I was strongly reminded of a blast beat-free Prophecy of Doom, or a doomier, more mournful Bolt Thrower or a death metal act trying to be sound like Axegrinder on antidepressants. Know what I mean? The music is mostly slow, heavy, suffocating almost and very fucking dark though songs like "Lifeless beauty" and "Impurity" have faster moments. The atmosphere of despair, rage and pain that Mindrot try to create is meaningfully enhanced by the amazing sense of storytelling and narration permeating the demo. From the first song till the last one, a whole story is being told, unravels and the listener can spot classic elements of a narrative plot: the demo starts with an instrumental introduction; "Dying breed" and "Hidden people" are eerie spoken poems interspersed between songs; "Demoniac death metallers (from the satanic realm)" is a Sore Throat-like comic relief; and of course, the absolute hit "Darkened existence" halfway through the tape can be considered as the ultimate stenchcore ballad of the OC crust wave. I particularly enjoy recordings that tell a good story and reflect a creative process from the band. They are not just a collection of songs - as great as they might sound individually sound like - as they act as coherent, self-reflexive wholes that engage the listener through music as a narrative. For that reason, I much prefer the 1990 demo to Mindrot's 1991 Ep's as, I feel, the band was more comfortable with a longer format that allowed them to really weave their punishing stenchdoom vibe.  

 

   

The tape was originally released on Wild Rags records (a label that was responsible for releases from Nausea LA, Pungent Stench or Benediction) and I have no idea why this fantastic demo was never reissued especially when one considers how good and coherent it sounds. And it looks brilliant too, with an iconic cover and proper cut'n'paste DIY visuals. The absence of reissue is basically criminal, especially when one looks at the amount of very average demos from totally anecdotal UK82 bands being rereleased. As was customary with early crust/grind and extreme metal bands, a seemingly endless thank list is included where the accomplished punk maniac will be able to notice the usual OC crustpects but also UK's Sacrilege and Hellbastard, local anarchos Media Children and even Lance Hahn from Cringer. Small world, punks of all scenes unite and fight. Following this demo, Mindrot released the aforementioned Ep's in 1991, and then a live demo on Life Is Abuse (guitar player Matt's then brand new label) in 1992 that saw them going in an even more doom/death metal direction and they eventually recorded Dawning in 1995. As indicated previously in previous reviews, Matt Fisher (RIP) played the bass in Mindrot in parallel with his singing duties with Confrontation and his modelling career with Apocalypse, while Mindrot's guitar players Dan and Matt (although the latter had left by the time of the album) formed the legendary Dystopia in 1991 along with Dino from Carcinogen and Todd from Confrontation, which can be seen as something as the OC crust equivalent of the 1992 Dream Team.

 

 

 

Crucial piece of crust history here. All crusties should be required to own at least one '90/'91 era Mindrot patch. 

1990 DEMO

The Empire Crusts Back (part 3): Confrontation "1989" Ep, 1992

Growing old sometimes sucks. Well, I am not technically quite old enough - though Tik Tok would definitely disagree - to utter such pompous and peremptory statements and therefore may lack the necessary legitimacy and worrying back pains. But still, one observes, one witnesses and one is not a fool. As punks grow older, their record collection gets more and more important, threatening to make the living room's floor - and oftentime their marriage as well - crumble and collapse under its weight of vinyl, potentially crushing a charming gran living downstairs or, better, a twattish busybody who could not stop complaining whenever you play Chaos UK supposedly too loud. We've all heard horror stories of honest, ebay-abiding record collectors being squashed under a landslide of single-sided Japanese flexis, of granduncles being knocked out cold during a family reunion by a box of demo tapes that you had promised to take care of or of innocent pets being flattened by the limited edition of the Noise Not Music Discharge box (there are far worse deaths than this one actually). The exponential activity of collecting records can be hazardous physically but also mentally. 

 

Indeed, as records keep piling in their living room, old punks can become quite pedantic about some aspects of hardcore music (it is almost always about hardcore music), especially about the correct terminology of subgenres and about the inclusion or exclusion of specific bands in specific genres. Just ask on a message board roaming with officially recognized record nerds who the first real powerviolence band was and enjoy the ensuing verbal brawl and below-the-belt name-calling. Occasionally, physical violence can ensue - although it is quite rare as record collectors usually only resort to fighting to get first to merch tables - and combatants end up solving their personal issues in the octagon to assert their supremacy. As much as I would love to tell you that I am above such rivalries and epistemological disagreements, I must confess that I have already engaged in heated arguments about the archaeological position of Los Saicos in punk culture or the value of post-"New age" Blitz and while I haven't headbutted anyone because of my proverbial lack of basic bravery, also called being a wimp, there was a lot of finger-waving, scornful looks and offending accusations about being a middle-class poser and only getting into Blitz after I did. Oh well. I still think genres do matter and should be discussed and that precise descriptive names can be useful in order to reflect on histories, eras and areas. But instead of being bones of contention, arguments about genres should improve our appreciation and not limit it. Peace and love my friends. Which takes me to today's record: the 1989 Ep from Confrontation.

 

 

 

I have seen Confrontation being qualified as grindcore, as powerviolence, as crust - and even as modern hardcore but it was an honest mistake and the person was actually talking about the late 90's German band on that one so that the virtual tar and feather might not have been totally warranted and I probably should have refrained from sending anonymous threats to his house but I prefer to see this incident as a life lesson for the both of us. In actual fact, you would not be wrong indeed to qualify the band as grindcore, powerviolence or crust as each appellation makes sense for different reasons. Because of its dirty metallic groove and its blast beats the grindcore tag would fit Confrontation; but then 1989 having been originally released on Infest's label Draw Blank and because of the band's typical hardcore breaks and riffs you could say that powerviolence is not far off the picture either; and of course, because of the band's close connections to Glycine Max, Apocalypse or Mindrot - in a word the OC crust galaxy - and its raw and filthy punk production and emphatic cavemen vocals, claiming Confrontation were an old-school crust act is not irrelevant, and since we are on Terminal Sound Nuisance here, the Ep will be approached and tackled through a distinctively crust perspective, without discarding the other influences, because I am, after all, known, among other things, as The Magnanimous One. However, not being particularly well schooled in old-school grindcore - though I can hold my own to some extent - and being absolutely clueless about powerviolence - it always sounded too American to my delicate ears and I never really got the appeal, I will ask you to bear with potential inconsistencies. Now that the issue of terminology and nomenclature has been settled, we may proceed to the crux of the matter: my own record coll... I mean the band.

 

Confrontation was actually the first OC crust band I came across although at that time I had absolutely no idea that there had been a fabulous crust source over there and, apart from Resist and Exist, I don't think I was aware of other anarcho/crust bands from that area or aware that this area had its fair share of extreme bands. I was, as you might say, still green. Because finances were low and grim while enthusiasm was high and unquenchable, I was able to lay my hands on a second-hand copy of the Confrontation's discography cd after hearing the In Crust We Trust compilation that a gentle soul had found for me on soulseek, back when it took two days and a half to download an album. I did not enjoy In Crust We Trust as much as I thought I would to be fair. At that time, I was still in the process of discovery of crust and the title, which I now find cheesy as fuck, announced something spectacular and developmental. There were some good bands on that compilation, don't get me wrong, it had Disfear, No Security, Concrete Sox and Heresy, but if you look closely, there was not much proper crust and it was bit misleading really. In retrospect, I understand that it was just a sample of Lost & Found's catalogue and that the misleading title did not illustrate the content, much like The Best Crust Compilation in the World Ever! compilation whose hyperbolic irony was lost on me when I bought it, especially since, without really disappointing, there was, again, not much crust in it. But I did like the Confrontation songs - they are some of their best numbers - and seeing that Lost & Found also released a full cd of the band and that it was cheap, I did not fuck around and bought the copy online. I learnt later on that the not-so-virtuous label released this cd because they claimed that the band had received an advance payment for the recording of a full album which they never did since they broke up and the cd was a way to get some money back. Not really the classiest act on the part of a label that was famous for this kind of dodgy moves and it is no coincidence that the cd is listed as "unofficial" on Discogs. Just bad punk ethics.

 

 

 

I couldn't find many details about Confrontation's noisy career and I really wish some heroic old-timers from that time and place will one day write a book about the Californian 80's peacepunk/crust scene like Ian Glasper did for the British waves. A boy can dream. The band formed in Huntington Beach probably in late 1988 - the Ep was recorded in May, 1989, so that sounds plausible enough. I have seen a mention of that record being a demo Ep and it might have originally been some sort of demo tape that they decided to reissue as a proper Ep. Still it does not seem very likely as this practice was not widespread at the time, whereas releasing a demo again on a vinyl has become very commonplace these days. What's the point of engaging in an activity bound to saturate the already fragile punk records market especially since demos are readily available online and, well, they are demos, I hear you ask from afar? I ain't got clue guv. To get back to Confrontation, the band was from Huntington Beach and had Matt Fisher from Mindrot on vocals and future Dystopia bass player Todd on the bass. As my jaundiced speech indicated earlier, the band remained mostly associated with the mean and manically fast hardcore bands - the early powerviolence wave - and they shared some common ground with the groovy grindcore freaks that roamed this very part of California at the time. Just consider that powerviolence legends Infest were from Valencia, Crossed Out from Encinitas, No Comment from North Hollywood and the unique Man Is The Bastard from Claremont. All those hardcore acts lived in a 50 kilometers radius and therefore it is little surprising that the area, in punk's more or less unreliable collective memory, has often been closely connected with powerviolence. Similarly, just consider that grindcore legends Terrorizer - the grindcore equivalent of the 1992-era Ultimate Warrior - were from Huntington Park and Nausea from Los Angeles. The Infest connection is clearly the most relevant since 1989 was initially released on Infest's own label Draw Blanks Records - it was only DB's second release - although Confrontation sounded nothing like them so that's the grand network of friends in action for you. The version we are dealing however is not the original but the remastered one from 1992 that Misanthropic Records - the first output of Todd's label - took care of. 

 

There are eight songs on this Ep and let me tell you that Confrontation had little time to waste. The opening song "Deathtrap", my favourite number on the record, is a grinding crust masterpiece that reminds me of the early rawer Napalm Death, Electro Hippies and crust maniacs Mortal Terror. The first riff epitomized what old-school crust has always been supposed to sound like and Instinct of Survival on their split Ep with Guided Cradle had no reservation about borrowing it - to great effect I must say. After that groovy metallic crust introduction, Confrontation unleash their brand of fast and abrasive crusty hardcore with harsh cavecrust vocals. The rest of 1989 keeps maintains this high level of quality, navigating between snotty UK hardcore classics like the above-mentioned powerhouses, local OC crust heroes like A//Solution and Apocalypse and that contemporary brand of punishingly fast and violent US hardcore (some of the breaks undoubtedly fall in that category). In terms of production, and in spite of a second mastering work, the Ep sounds like raw and urgent early stenchgrind - the band included a five-second burst of referential noise called "Scum..." to wrap up the Ep, just to make sure the listeners understood where they were coming from - and can be said to be a typical and solid example of the sound of the area at that time. I love the cut'n'paste DIY look of the foldout bringing to mind the traditional early crust aesthetics and the band's logo depicting a roughly-drawn picture of a rather melancholy-looking crusty punk's shrunken head is wonderful and gets an A+ for me. The cover is undeniably more enigmatic as it is a picture of a prisoner-of-war or concentration or refugee camp with a dozen of miserable-looking men behind barbed wire. Pretty shocking and grim really. True realities of war. I do not know when this was taken or if it holds any relation to the year 1989 but judging from the prisoners' clothing I doubt it. I suppose the band's choice was meant to reflect the constant war mongering and disdain for basic human rights that defined the twentieth century and while I agree with the sentiment and the content, the visual form can be considered as awkward, or even, in 2021, as "problematic". From a very prosaic standpoint, it makes their shirt particularly hard to wear and I only sport if at grindcore gigs where I am confident the majority of the audience will be wearing far more shocking and distasteful shirts. Clever me.

 

The following Ep was released in 1991 - before 1989's remastered version - on Tribal War Records back when it was still located in New York City. Entitled Dead Against the War, it was the label's very first release (or was it actually the Warning Ep?). Confrontation pretty much kept on the same old-school grinding crusty hardcore tracks with new singer Ben, although they started to include heavy and suffocating doomy sludge part in the songwriting, adding a suffocating sense of atmospherics that will characterized what Dystopia would be known for a few years later. In fact, you could say Dead Against the War and the 1991 split Ep with Cantankerous (a band that had Matt from Mindrot on guitar) pretty sounded like a raw, unfiltered blend between between early Deformed Conscience, Concrete Sox and Embittered. Although I like 1989 better for its superior bollocking power and filthier blasting bum crust sound, the later material is also solid and thoroughly enjoyable and an interesting pre-Dystopia endeavour. After the demise of Confrontation and Cantankerous, Todd and Matt formed Dystopia along with Dino from Carcinogen (he actually provided some artwork and drew the liner notes on Dead Against the War) and Dan from Mindrot, a band that went on to write some of the most potent, original and influential punk music of the 90's. 

 

This write-up is dedicated to Matt, who sadly passed a year ago.        

 

 

 

Confront!       

The Empire Crusts Back - the OC Crust years (part 1): Apocalypse "Earth" Ep, 1989

Alright then, there's crust to be done. After a relatively long break this summer due to my annual meditation retreat in Stoke-on-Trent, I decided to tackle a topic that had been seductively floating around on the edges of my consciousness for a while. An immense task that no one dared to accomplish, that would secure Terminal Sound Nuisance a comfy spot in the Crust Hall of Fame. I could already picture myself being applauded by my peers as I walked to the stage in order to deliver my poignant speech (I guess I will have to thank my parents though my dad has always vehemently disapproved of Extreme Noise Terror for some reason) and lift the award for my lifetime achivements, a small but refined golden statue of a crust punk passed out in a pool of special brew. I would relish this moment of glory. But before this dream comes true, I have to push myself to the limit, yet again, and wrestle with a scene that has been particularly close to my heart for a while now: the venerable OC crust scene. 

The notion and concept of "OC crust" will be explored and discussed throughout this short series so that my desire to crush you with a three pages long essay straight away will have to be contained. However, some basic knowledge about the term "OC crust" and what it has come to mean and imply do seem necessary. Strictly speaking, it refers to the first wave of crust that emerged in South California, notably in the specific area of Orange County in the late 80's, making it one of the original crust waves in the States and beyond. It goes without saying that those early bands were deeply influenced by the early UK "Peaceville" crust bands and also by fast hardcore punk, anarchopunk (at least lyrically and ethically) and extreme metal, the three roots from which the original British stenchcore tree also grew. It should be pointed out that, while I am sure those OC crust bands were into the classic British anarcho and hardcore bands - like Discharge, Antisect and so on - they must have been stimulated by the local bands who had been or were then flying flags similarly adorned with doves, peace symbols and the archetypal antiwar lexical field: the so-called peacepunk wave. Local SoCal mid-80's noise-makers like Against, Body Count or Diatribe must have been inspirations while their peacepunk contemporaries Another Destructive System, Holocaust and Media Children evolved in the same galaxy but with different artistic intents on the scale of aural bollocking.  Now let's proceed.   

As my honourable sensei used to say to me whenever I felt blue back in the day: "Don't worry and focus on your life goals. If you pay enough attention, you will notice that the singing of the birds sounds just like Cock Sparrer's chorus on "Take'em all". Believe yourself and just wait patiently for the apocalypse". Of course, I was just a wee lad back then and I was not quite sure what to make of my master's cryptic pieces of wisdom and, in frustration, I would punch walls and spit on the floor like I thought a proper hard member of the barmy army would and draw cocks on my dad's car with spray paint. Good times. Little did I know that sensei was actually referring to the band Apocalypse and not the biblical punishment and purification - a myth that happens to have been one of the main, if not the only one, influence on crust lyrics to this day. I remember the pride in the eyes of my punk sensei when I used to tell him that, when I grew up, I wanted to front a crust band called Apocalypse. Even then I could notice a soft cloud of sadness on his face as he encouraged to pursue my dreams and get the crust pants-making technique right. Realizing that there was already a crust band with the Apocalypse moniker broke my heart and shattered my self-confidence. Had my master not overdosed on dodgy shoegaze music some years prior, I would have shouted "Why why, whywhywhyyyy" to him. I think he was just trying to protect me.

 

I first came across Apocalypse sometime in the mid-00's through their 1998 discography cd Coldbringer. I remember picking it from the now defunct Crimes Against Humanity Records distro after reading the eloquent notice describing Apocalypse as an old-school metallic crust band from the late 80's resembling Antisect (there had to be a mention to Antisect for me to hyperventilate that much). Now such an introduction to an unknown band pushed all the right buttons and I immediately and authoritatively ordered the cd. I was already quite well versed in the arcane world of 80's UK crust by then, but I was all but completely unaware of the early crust scene of Southern California (I was unclear about where Mindrot stood exactly in this seemingly impenetrable equation as I had read somewhere that they used to do crust). While I knew that Misery, Disrupt, Nausea or Destroy belonged to the early U$ crust canon and greatly enjoyed the seminal SoCal political hardcore punk bands Final Conflict and Iconoclast, I did not really envision a proper crust scene in California, which, of course, sounds preposterous because that part of the world has had top representatives of every punk subgenres since the 70's (well, us French still rule over the sloppy-minimalistic-punk-with-a-drum-machine genre but no one really covets that spot to be fair). So upon reading about a SoCal stenchcore team, my mind immediately went wild and I quickly took to interrogate old-timers about a potential early crust scene over there, for, as the old punk saying goes "even if there is just the one bottle of brew, there are always more than one crust punk fighting for it", meaning that, because of crust's peculiar reproductive molecular structure, there was bound to be more bands in that style.

The reason why CAH Records had freshly received copies of Coldbringer is somewhat mysterious as it was released almost ten years prior, so by 2006 or 2007 (I think I got it around that time), it was no longer something new. Perhaps the record label behind it, Half-Life Records from Hacienda Heights, found some additional copies of the cd in the attic and offered them to CAH as it used to carry a lot of grindcore bands on the distro and Half-Life was precisely a grindcore label so it could make sense (the connection between Apocalypse and Half-Life was certainly more personal than musical, I guess they were mates and the latter offered to release a discography for them). Whatever the reason was, it looked like a sign from the gods of crust and although I am not the superstitious type and tend to disregard such beliefs, that the cd found itself in my path was not a coincidence. I had been chosen. It was a prophecy. And I also had some money in my pocket for the prophecy to happen but let's not dwell on such trivial, mundane details. 

 

There is little point in telling you how excited I was (and still am) about Apocalypse. They played exactly the style of crust that I loved and, like every old-school records included, there was a short but substantial thank list mentioning other bands I had never heard about, it was like a starting point for an archeological expedition as I was ready to embark into a quest for OC crust. The internet has made it possible, in a extremely short amount of time, to acquire some knowledge - albeit often superficial but it is beside the point - about any punk subgenres, even the most obscure. However, so-called OC crust (that has come to designate bands that were actually from Orange County but also from neighbouring localities), which was really an outgrowth of the strong SoCal peacepunk scene (as the thank list highlights with the presence of Another Destructive System or Media Children for example) rather than a scene of its own, remains something of an hidden treasure. I have already extensively written about the 80's Californian peacepunk scene and touched upon OC crust on two occasions when glorifying Mindrot and Glycine Max but this time I am going to do things properly and write passionately about four top records from that era.

So what about Apocalypse then? They were from Walnut (yes, like a walnut), formed in 1986 and disbanded in 1990. They got to release a fantastic demo tape and three Ep's (the present record Earth as well as splits with the mighty Mindrot and Transgression) and did the Earth Grind Tour around the country with Confrontation (a split Ep between both bands was announced for the tour but it did not materialize). And did I mention they picked the crustiest name for a band? So obvious and self-evident if not corny that it is brilliant (and I am not saying this just because I still envy them). The Earth Ep was recorded in 1988 and 1989 with a lineup that exemplifies the rather incestuous ties that existed among crust bands there: drummer Mark also hit things for Glycine Max then, bass player Al also drummed for Mindrot, while guitar player Rich and singer Ralph were literally brothers. One may justly infer that the OC crust phenomena might have been rather small, a specific and ultimately genre-defining moment that was part of a wider political hardcore punk metal scene in the 80's. 

 

Earth technically contains four songs but the first two "Mother..." and "Earth!" are actually tied to one another so that the former feels like a long dark metallic crust instrumental introduction rather than a separate track which gives it more of a narrative dimension to both. These two numbers make up the first side of the Ep and work perfectly together to create a brilliant and memorable crust epic with variations, from eerie moments to chugging and apocalyptic ones, there is a story being told here. Early Axegrinder, Deviated Instinct and Hellbastard come to mind (it is no coincidence that you can spot posters of the latter two pinned on the wall of the band's practice space, I'm assuming, that was used as a picture for the backcover), as this mid-paced track is groovy, raw and heavy, the perfect way to start the Ep especially since it provides depth and a distinct, sombre sense of doom, settling an atmosphere of grief and pain that would turn into anger in the following song "Earth!". Basically what a crust atmosphere is supposed to sound like and convey. Apocalypse's next song starts off with the canonical heavy-and-slow stenchcore beat before morphing into some mean metallic hardcore, not so far from the crossover style of the time albeit in a much darker version. I am hardly an expert in Californian crossover hardcore but  you get the gist. The great Final Conflict - undoubtedly a major influence on Apocalypse, Ron Martinez even produced the band's '88 demo - and Diatribe also come into the equation, especially in the vocals, which I think work well here, and I would add a spoonful of Concrete Sox as well. Top notch and pretty flawless first serving of proper crust. The other side kicks off with the Hellbastard-meet-Electro-Hippies-under-the-Californian-sun "Heart of man", a song that has a magnificent old-school vibe and ends with a typical US hardcore riff that probably had the whole audience run around in the pit (if they were still able to walk properly, the crawling version being far less impressive). The final song "Wimp-core" is a nine second blast of grinding hardcore, pretty puerile and anecdotal, but it acts here as a loving nod to the likes of Napalm Death, Sore Throat and Electro Hippies who had all previously engaged dealt in such primitive amusical bouts. I am into referentiality so that works for me. The production on the Ep is exemplary for this brand of old-school raw and heavy mean metallic hardcore as it gives a genuine punk edge to the songs and it makes sense that the engineer David Kory also worked with Infest, Final Conflict or even Hirax, exemplifying the ties that existed between the hardcore punk and the extreme metal worlds at the time.  

 

The cover is quite cryptic and a little too simplistic perhaps, although I suppose the conceptual idea was to offer an evocation of Earth and its beauty - a recurring theme in Apocalypse's lyrics - by offering a contemplative peaceful picture of flamingos - they are flamingos, aren't they? - and avoid skulls, nuclear explosions or decaying zombie punks. The poetry does not last long, on the backcover, as previously mentioned, there is a picture taken in the band's rehearsal space (I can only presume) showing faux model but real punk Matt Fisher probably in the nude - though the socks are still on for extra glamour - hiding his parts with a massive sign that says "Smash the skulls of vivisectors - It's your turn next". I can't disagree with this sentiment. The inside includes the lyrics as well as a thank list that adequately illustrates the mood of the time and the DIY network from which the band emerged (the list on the Coldbringer cd is even more eloquent on that level). There is also a text about swastikas (now that is much more uncommon) and how they originally symbolized balance and the Earth power instead of Poland-invading murderers. Still a little daring to sport one and some malign bands and people have been playing with this historical ambiguities for nasty purposes. 

Earth was released in 1989 on Crust Records, the label run by Ben from Dropdead - with the simplest and most desired name in the game - responsible for some classic Disrupt, Dropdead or Totalitär records. Apocalypse would then release two more Ep's, a split with crossover hardcore band Transgression from Indiana and another split, this time with crust neighbours Mindrot before splitting up in 1991. They reformed in the late 2010's and recorded a very convincing split Ep with Extinction of Mankind. 

The whole series is humbly dedicated to Matt Fisher, former member of Confrontation and Mindrot, who sadly passed away in October, 2020.   

       Earth

 

Records I Forgot I Owned (part 10): Surrender "S/t" Ep, 2007

This is the last part of my pointless but rather fun series about those records I completely forgot I owned and I hope you enjoyed it. Of course, by nature, it was a very dispersed endeavour as my memory works in mysterious ways and I cannot really see a common artistic thread between all these Ep's. I guess my forgetting had more to with how or when I came to acquire them rather than with their merit and relevance or what they sounded like. Let me tell you that I own much worse records that I will neither be able to forget nor get rid of. How unfortunate. It is strange that I could not recall owning this Surrender Ep because I love the band. I distinctly remembered getting a subsequent one, There is no War from 2009, definitely enjoying the tunes but still thinking that it was a bit of a short - 6 minutes and 20 seconds to be accurate - and expensive one - I think I bought it for a fiver and there is no insert. I was not really disappointed or upset but I noticed the discrepancy and still remember I did. Now, ten years later, it is deemed perfectly normal to pay 6€ for 6 minutes worth of hardcore punk music, but then it hurt a little. I suppose we were still in the early stages of the technological and cultural transitional stage and although it was not that long ago, it does feel like a completely different era. But my hairline has not receded that much and in the end that's all that matters. 

But back to Surrender. Since I saw them play in Paris in May, 2009, I suppose I must have bought their first S/t Ep on that occasion. I don't think I had heard them before and the gig itself was not particularly packed. They were billed as an anarchopunk band from Berkeley but it did not necessarily imply that they were going to go for a strong 80's anarcho vibe, but just that they had radical political lyrics and were evolving in the anarchopunk spheres. For all I knew, they could have been a crust punk or a folk punk band and the anarchopunk tag on the handout would have still made sense. At the time there were very few bands openly going for the old-school Crass-ish anarcho sound anyway so chances that Surrender were going to sound like something out of the Mortarhate or Bluurg back catalogue were thin indeed. Basically, I was very unsuspecting and, in retrospect, gladly so, since Surrender surprised me with their brilliantly written, passionate peacepunk music (that is to say the Californian take on the original UK anarchopunk sound). They sounded like no other current band at the time and I loved the agitprop theatrics of the performance with the singer being literally blindfolded, the bass player wearing a mask over his mouth, the ace-looking peacepunk backdrop and all the spoken parts in the songs. It felt both fresh and referential at the time.     

Although there was certainly a renewed interest in the British anarchopunk scene from the 80's thanks to Overground's "anti compilations", to Ian Glasper's tremendous work The Day the Country Died, published in 2006, and to Lance Hahn's fascinating interviews of classic anarcho bands in MRR (at the same period), few historical anarchopunk bands had reformed yet and there was virtually no contemporary punk band doing the classic anarcho thing. I am not sure why that is. Perhaps punx were not as obsessed with nostalgia and prone to unabated 80's referentiality in the 00's (Discharge worship, or D-beat, having been already turned into an actual legitimate genre in the 90's was the obvious exception along with the Japanese punk scene, because, well, you know, Japan) or perhaps youtube had not yet opened the gates to even the most obscure hardcore bands. A band like Germ Attak, with its overt and erudite UK82 worship, was still very much a conceptual exception. This is not to say that vintage Crass-like acts were not listened to or had no influence on contemporary bands, but more often than not, political bands at the time were more likely to play neocrust - though by 2009 the trend was on its last feet - or progressive hardcore than Zounds-inspired poppy anarchopunk. To be fair, Contravene did have songs with Chumba-like moments, which is what made them quite original, but it was one influence among others and you did have some English bands with a strong Conflict vibe (like Active Slaughter for instance, or the Anthrax-ish Bug Central) but it was fairly circumscribed. Surrender, on the other hand, were all-out Chumbawamba converts and invited the little-known and rather confidential glorious Californian 80's peacepunk sound to the table.

Surrender formed in 2005 and were from Berkeley, which, when you listen to their music, feels almost pleonastic. The band had Paul Curran, formerly from Crimpshrine, on the bass which probably accounted for the decent turnout at the Paris gig. I never could get into Crimpshrine so I don't know much about them but I know a lot of people love them and the "ex-Crimpshrine" tag was helpful for Surrender I suppose. By now you have already guessed what Surrender were all about musically but let me be more accurate. I think the biggest inspirations would be Chumba and A State of Mind, at the time when the two bands shared a split Ep (reviewed on Terminal Sound Nuisance, small world) in 1986 and sounded quite alike. The songs are melodic, poppy even and deceptively upbeat, as if the tunes could barely conceal the political anger and outrage. The presence of several singers, male and female, certainly confers the same polyphonic quality that you can find in Chumba or, indeed, Crass. Rhythmically the band is versatile but always keeping this martial, tribal vibe reminiscent of mid-paced UK anarchopunk, while the bass is upfront, offering additional catchiness in the guise of brilliant lines with sometimes subtle hooks, and the guitar does not hesitate to change tones and techniques when the song needs to be enhanced. On the whole the songwriting is quite innovative and goes beyond the classic binary structure, like Chumba or Crass did, keeping a meaningful narrative quality with unexpected changes of moods and paces. The tunes are strong, sounding both sad and uplifiting, and never predictable. As for the lyrics, they are carefully written political diatribe about personal and collective resistance, conflicting feelings about the relevance of politics (and punk as a vessel for change I would assume), the need to do something about it all and the sense that it might all be a big con and we may be tricked into doing what we do, like predictably harmless rebels. This is quality anarcho music that brings to mind the classic Californian peacepunk bands such as A State of Mind, Trial (though not as postpunk), Sleeping Dogs (though not as avantgarde) or Resist and Exist, as well as the British originators like Chumba (obviously), Crass, Omega Tribe or Alternative.

After this self-released Ep, Surrender recorded the 2008 split Ep with Acts of Sedition, then the ugly-looking There is no War Ep for La Vida Es un Mus in 2009 - back when the label was much smaller - which is also excellent, a full Lp entitled Paper Thrones the same year for Thrillhouse Records and, finally, a split Ep with Finland's 1981 in 2011 for Stonehenge Records. I know some people dislike the album and I have to admit that I did not get into it as easily as I did for the Ep's, but I feel it is a very strong, more diverse work which makes sense given the demanding songwriting that the genre requires for a longer format (let's face it, even though not everyone is able to pull out a Pictures of Starving Children, you do have to pull out some serious and inspired songwriting skills if you want to make a decent chumba-esque Lp). I guess Surrender must have stopped shortly after the split with 1981. Dan on the guitar went on to play in No Sir I Won't (which kept to the same proper peacepunk path as Surrender) and later on in Brain Killer, drummer Heather joined Composite and Paul did Onion Flavored Rings. It is difficult to assess Surrender's legacy but to some extent, they prefigured the growing influence of old-school anarchopunk on the 2010's hardcore punk scene, which mainly materialized in the so-called postpunk revival. Many American postpunk bands especially (like Moral Hex or Funeral Parade for example) openly referred to the UK anarchopunk of yore, which was really nice at first, but then, as is often the case with trends, far too many bands started to play the exact same thing while also claiming the anarcho heritage. At some point, whenever you read that a band was influenced by old-school anarchopunk, it basically meant that it was some kind of dark postpunk band wearing The Mob or Peni shirts. But anyway, I digress. Bands like the mysterious Ok? quickly followed Surrender and the aforementioned 1981 have made a reputation for themselves and although they are a bit too close to happy-sounding indie rock at times, I still cannot think of a better Chumba-inspired band in today's punk scene. There were and are others now obviously, but I would argue that back when Surrender started, they were pretty much the only referential old-school peacepunk band around. Yet they never sounded gimmicky or like a parody of who they were influenced by (it sometimes happens) as you can tell by the relevance of their lyrics and the unpretentiousness of their records and of their live presence. A really solid punk band that I wish was still around.    

 

Surrender 

California Screamin' (part 5): Resist and Exist "Ad Liberty" cd, 2010

Jurassic Park left a lasting impression on me when I first watched it as a kid in 1993. The parents of my best mate actually took the both of us to the movies in Paris for the occasion. We were 10 and overexcited at the prospect of seeing proper dinosaurs on screen. Of course, like all boys our age we loved dinos and had been playing with colourful plastic versions of these long-gone reptiles for years so the movie felt a bit like a consecration for us. We were aware that the special effects were amazing and I can still us in the queue chatting noisily and obnoxiously about how awesome it was going to be. Of course, we had seen the trailer on telly and we knew how realistic the dinosaurs were going to look. Or rather we thought we did. Jurassic Park scared me shitless and I was absolutely petrified, grabbing my seat like a sloth on its branch. I even thought of leaving the premises during the infamous kitchen scene but I was literally too afraid to move (The Grudge had the same effect on me many years later, though this time the reason why I stayed was that I was too hungover from the night before... oh well...). To this day, I still feel a little uncomfortable and nostalgic whenever I watch Jurassic Park. 

The other thing I took from the movie then was how ace it was to be an archaeologist because you got to wear a hat, be on your own and look for old things in the ground. Though I have always been too shit at biology to become a proper one, I sometimes feel like Professor Grant when I do my research for Terminal Sound Nuisance, digging endlessly to find fossilized pieces of information about punk bands from past eras, dusting them, showcasing them in this digital museum. Only I do not really see the point of wearing a hat indoors. That'd just be silly, yeah? 

This one was a piece of work. Which may seem quite strange since Resist and Exist is not like an obscure dinosaur that no one, apart from the usual bitter nerds, has heard about. They are pretty well-known and respected in the punk world for their longevity and their unwavering political commitment. I would even argue that, along with Aus-Rotten and Resist, they are the most influential US anarchopunk band from the 90's. If their mid/late 90's vinyl releases are pretty much classics, little do punx know (or care to, but that's an other matter) that R&E have had two existences, related but distinct, during the decade. Their first incarnation was rather short-lived but meaningful and relevant in the history and development of OC peacepunk at a pivotal time, what we often and wrongly see as the end of the golden punk era: the transition between the 80's and the 90's.

I have already written about R&E before (about a '03 live recording here) but I will not try not to repeat myself, pretty much because I love being redundant and raving about bands I love dearly. Besides, this post will closely focus on the band's first run and origins and how they are tied to the peacepunk scene. 

The Ad Liberty cd contains 24 songs taken from five different recordings. There is an eight-song demo recording from 1991 (it might be the very first demo but it is unclear as the Music For Social Change demo was recorded the same year and I don't know the precise month), one song from their very first gig in '91, two songs from the aforementioned Music For Social Change demo, two songs off their '92 demo entitled The Oppressors and a live set from the same year.  If you want to be thorough about early R&E (and why wouldn't you?), I strongly suggest you get the Music For Social Change cd (released on Fight For Your Mind in 2005) which includes additional songs from the demo of the same name as well different versions (mastered differently I presume) of the two songs from The Oppressors. The booklet of Ad Liberty tells the story of the band from the point of view of Chris who was, along with Jang and Cyhndi, the original singer. R&E was formed in December, 1990, when Jang offered Chris to join the band. The former had been working along with Jayd (from Media Children) on a song called "The system remains the same" (which makes it the very first R&E song I presume) and I guess they were looking for like-minded punx to form a band.

Now before I go on, let's point out a crucial element in the genesis of R&E, one that is made up of two words: Media Children. I have already touched upon MC previously (when writing about the S.I. One compilation Ep here) but have come across significant intel since. I suppose that MC epitomized, during their lifetime between 1988 and 1992, the third peacepunk generation in California, after the second one (basically made up of bands like The Iconoclast, Another Destructive System, A State of Mind or Diatribe) folded. They were peacepunk's third wind if you like. However, if you take a close look at the first lineup of MC, as indicated on their first 1988 demo Slaughter of the Innocent, you will realize that along with singer Tammy (one of peacepunk's most recognizable voice), the band was made up of Jang on vocals, Jayd on guitar and bass, and finally John on drums, all of whom were part of the first R&E lineup. Therefore, it would not be irrelevant to see '88 MC as some kind of precursor or sketch of what R&E would do just a few years later (or perhaps equally as the first personal experience of mates making punk music together). The first MC demo is, on the whole, not completely similar to R&E's first demos as it was a more melodic and slow-paced effort, somewhere between Atrocity, A State of Mind, Icon AD and Alternative, but then R&E also had moody, tuneful punk songs in their setlist along with their fast dischargy peacepunk sound. MC would go on with another lineup and a faster, Bristol-meets-ASOM sound, but both bands remained very close partners in crime, touring together and even sharing songs (R&E's "Anti war" and "The women song" were originally MC songs).

But back to the early R&E entity. The band played its first gig with MC (obviously) and Arise (a band with former Holocaust members that I am honestly dying to hear) and did some touring with Total Chaos, back when they were part of the OC peacepunk scene and did Antisect covers (this historical fact is known to have given a few self-proclaimed streetpunx a heart attack). In 1992, Jang left the band to form Autonomy along with (I believe) some MC members (R&E singer Cyhndi would join the band later on... I think!). But there was no hard feeling since R&E played their last gig in April, '92, with Autonomy. Of course, Jang would resurrect R&E after the demise of the latter, bringing with him songs from their first incarnation and even an Autonomy number ("Korean protest song" is basically a reworking the song of "Autonomy").  

So, after all this background information, why choosing to talk about R&E in this peacepunk series? I mean, apart from the fact that their moniker was taken from an Antisect song? I am fully aware that the time gap between my last post, which explored the Naturecore's 12'' recorded in 1986, and these recordings from 1991 and 1992 can look suspicious. Did nothing happen in this five-year period? Of course not. OC crust happened. Essential bands like Apocalypse, A//Solution, This Bitter End, Mindrot, Glycine Max and, of course, Final Conflict emerged (though the latter were never technically a peacepunk band and inbetween scenes). But although they shared the values and the politics of peacepunk and can be seen as the logical sonic and aesthetic extension and continuation of it (just like in the UK really), they also reflected the birth of something new with a different artistic perspective and as such cannot be said to represent the "classic peacepunk sound". While R&E, at that time, were THE ultimate synthesis of the preceding decade.

If you were to be asked (say, during a fancy dinner party at the embassy or something) what 80's peacepunk is then look no further and play the early R&E demos. How ironic since they are actually 90's recordings but they concentrate what 80's peacepunk is all about musically, lyrically and aesthetically. The real strength of the band is how effortlessly they managed to synthesize the two schools of peacepunk while never losing sight of the structural British influence. You will find furious dischargy hardcore punk songs that nod lovingly toward The Iconoclast, Crucifix, Body Count, Against or Final Conflict, as well as moody and catchy anarcho numbers reminiscent of Atrocity, Trial, Naturecore or A State of Mind (yes, my evil peacepunk master plan was to write about four bands that the fifth one would perfectly summarize!), and all this with the intense versatility of Another Destructive System. I know I haven't really mentioned all the faster, more hardcore-sounding side of the scene in this series (because I already have before) but of course it played a major role in the shaping of the classic OC peace sound. As I said, the UK sound and inspiration are also very much present in R&E's songwriting and early Antisect, Anti-System, Liberty, Civilised Society?, The Sears or Potential Threat are obvious points of comparison. However, I would argue that they were a band heavily influenced and primarily motivated by the local historical peacepunk, in other terms a peacepunk-influenced peacepunk band (that's a lot of peace and a lot of punk, I know) which was important in and of itself.

As you can expect from demo recordings, the sound quality is not exactly crystal clear. It is raw punk with a sense of youthful urgency and spontaneity and that's precisely how it should sound. The presence of three singers gives the song a polyphonic vibe that conveys the collective identity of the band as well as a cracking vintage anarcho feel. The fast and furious hardcore numbers are brilliant and their ferocity is actually reinforced with the catchy and moodier, darker punk songs that Cyhndi's haunting voice make so poignant. Through these songs (as well as the inclusion of some poems), the band expressed a wider ranger of emotions, like melancholy on "Self destruct" or "When we meet again" or dignified outrage on "The oppressors" (perhaps one of the most uplifting anarchopunk songs of the period with fantastic male/female vocals and a terrific singalong chorus). The song "The system remains the same" (that the band would turn into "Movement" in the late 90's) may be my favourite with its tribal Crass-like beat and layered vocals and its deliciously melodic and poppy Chumbawamba conclusion. Genuine anarcho magics here. The live set (without Jang) is pretty rough but you can tell how receptive the audience is to the band's message and music and they cover BGK and Crass for good measure. The low point of the cd is the absence of lyrics (apart from the reggae-tinged "Ad liberty") which is a bit of a missed opportunity, especially with such a political band with a positive anarchist message. 

This was released on Mass Media Records, an OC-based record label with an ace dove logo that was close to the peacepunk scene of the early 90's (they shared the same address as Media Children actually) that released Ep's from Autonomy, Social Outcasts, Dan and of course Media Children before going on a hiatus for 15 years. Ad Liberty appeared to mark the return of MMR in 2010 (or is 2009?) since the label went on to release top shelf anarcho deathrock and postpunk in the following years with very convincing records from bands like Masses, Moral Hex or Silent Scream. By the way, this cd is still available, so you know what to do.

Since there were annoying gaps between tracks on the cd I did my best to blend songs when necessary (for the live set mostly as the gaps were too distracting). /And before wrapping it up, I strongly suggest you take a good look at Jang's youtube channel (here) if you want to learn more about these peacepunk years.

Ad Liberty