East Coast Assault Volumes 1 and 2

I'm finally back from Japan and can now resume posting. In my time hunting the record stores of Tokyo and Osaka, I came across a 3 disc edition of the old East Coast Assault that was originally released by Too Damn Hype. This particular edition was released by Out Ta Bomb Records which was based out of Tokyo. The label has since folded and this series of comps is once again out of print. So many great bands on these...Hatebreed, All Out War, Indecision, Merauder, Converge, Stigmata...seriously excellent. I ripped the 3 discs at a VBR so they sound great and scanned the cover at a high quality as well. Enjoy!

*NEW LINKS*

East Coast Assault, Vol. 1

East Coast Assault, Vol. 2 Disc 1

East Coast Assault, Vol. 2 Disc 2

Cameran / Bastard In Love split 7"

And yet another Moo Cow Records request. If anything, this should give you a good idea of how great a record label it was during the 90's. And Jim's still releasing records every now and again. Anyways, released in 1998, this split 7" featured Cameran out of Austria and Bastard In Love out of Brazil. 2 Quite different bands, but nonetheless a sweet split. Cameran formed out of the ashes of Racial Abuse, but went in a different direction. Cameran went for a more technical metallic hardcore approach with highly political lyrics. After this split 7" they did a few EP's and a full-length, none of which I've ever seen unfortunately. They also relocated to the UK and are still around apparently. Good stuff for sure tho. Bastard In Love was one of the bands of the owner of Teenager In A Box Records, who also did time in Personal Choice, a legendary old Brazilian sXe hardcore band. Bastard In Love had a more melodic edge to them tho. As far as I know they did some demo's and also appeared on some compilations but no proper releases of their own. Either way, check it out.

Cameran / Bastard In Love split 7"
Cameran myspace

Atlas Shrugged - 'Old Familiar Face' 7"

Another request, and another Moo Cow Records release, this time a 7" they released together with Fistheldhigh Records, back in 1998. Atlas Shrugged was an amazing hardcore band out of New York who had a pretty distinct sound, altho one can definitely hear influences of bands such as Burn. Rocking & grooving hardcore with the passionate spoken/screamed vocals of Chris Weinblad, who also did, and still does, Trip Machine Laboratories. Ever since I first heard this band on their split 7" with New Day Rising, I loved em. I've gotten pretty much all of their releases, at least the ones I know of, and I can recommend them all. This was their final release/7" before their demise in 1998. They did record a few more songs in 1998 tho, however they never got released at the time. Trip Machine Laboratories released those recordings in a limited run as the 'Vigilante Songs' CD-r a couple of years ago, and has also been planning an Atlas Shrugged discography for a while now, hopefully that will happen soon, this band needs more recognition.

Atlas Shrugged - 'Old Familiar Face' 7"
Atlas Shrugged myspace

Pete Spielman (Green Rage, Flakjacket, Beta Minus Mechanic) Interview, Part 1

I started talking to Pete back in September or so and as we were talked, I knew there was a great story behind him. He had been in some killer bands and thought maybe I should see what he's been up to. As we started talking, he went way back and told me how he became the person he is. Love him or hate, Pete has a great story to tell. This is the first of a series of 3, maybe 4, interviews Ive conducted so check back for part 2 soon. I apologize for the font...blogger is being a pain and not letting me edit it the way I want so again, sorry.

Stuck In The Past: Well let’s start from the beginning...how did you get involved in the hardcore scene?

Pete Spielman: ok well let’s see...I discovered punk in the fall of 1986 via college radio in Ithaca, NY. I started getting really into it and skateboarding. As a result, my parents, strict Christians, saw me growing more and more rebellious and thought the only option was to pick the entire family and move me away from the evil influence of punk

Stuck In The Past: And into the sleepy town of Syracuse.

Pete : Yes, a town much more urban and a town with a bigger punk scene. We moved here in time to start the 87-88 school years after my sister and I spent the summer with our grandparents on Long Island where I found another college radio show out of Stony Brook and this show featured more hardcore and thrash than the radio show in Ithaca had. I attempted to go to a Cro Mags show at the Ritz that summer after winning tickets on the radio show. My best friend on Long Island, who was also getting into punk, and I lied about having a camp out and took the L.I. railroad into NYC. We got turned away because we were too young. It was my first time in the city unescorted and I have to admit I was pretty scared. I was a fairly sheltered kid and I was terrified of the big scary NYC dudes. We milled around in front of the club like we had some other option and realizing we were in over our heads, we got back on the train and headed home.

Stuck In The Past: Was this when the Cro Mags were playing the Best Wishes material?

Pete (10:08:57 PM): This was the summer of 1987 so yeah they would have been playing some Best Wishes material at that point I would think. I remember seeing ads for Best Wishes in Rip magazine that fall.

Stuck In The Past : Had you heard the Cro Mags at that point or were you going because you guys won tickets?

Pete: I heard World Peace and Show You No Mercy on the college radio show and I was super into it. At that point it was the heaviest hardcore I had heard besides DRI who I also loved.

Stuck In The Past: Right, so you moved to Syracuse

Pete: When we moved to Syracuse, the punk scene was in a bit of a transition. The club where shows had been going on, the Jabberwocky, had just closed so with the exception of a random big punk act coming to the metal club, the Lost Horizon, there wasn’t much going on for the last half of 1987. I remember I went to Ithaca to visit my friends for a weekend in October of 1987 only to discover that the Circle Jerks were playing at the Lost Horizon. I was so bummed out because they were one of my favorite punk bands.

Stuck In The Past: Oh man, what a bum out. It’s always when you go out of town.

Pete: Even if shows HAD been going on at this point, I was a pretty shy kid and I hadn’t made any friends yet who were into punk, as I was being sent to a small private Christian school in Syracuse as part of my parents plan to keep me away from punk. I wouldn’t have ventured to any shows on my own. Right after I left Ithaca, Jello Biafra came to speak at Cornell university on a speaking tour for his first spoken word album, No More Cocoons. I couldn’t win.

Stuck In The Past: Oof. So what bands were playing at the time?

Pete: Playing as far as what? You mean in Syracuse?

Stuck In The Past: Yes, local bands.

Pete: Oh local bands. There really weren’t any actual punk bands. There were some bands made up of punk guys but they played more alternative type stuff. There was Give John a Razor. They were made up of some sketchy types who treaded the line of being white power even though their singer, after whom the band was named, was gay. They were the guys that you would look at for at shows. John was infamous for slicing people for very little provocation and to a shy 14 year old that was pretty scary. One of Syracuse’s hometown heroes, Belvy K, had left Syracuse to play drums for 7 Seconds. He’s the drummer on New Wind. He’s credited as Belvy Kamillus, Camillus being a suburb of Syracuse. He wasn’t in the band for very long and was kicked out

Stuck In The Past (10:20:08 PM): That’s cool. At least he played on the record.

Pete: I later joined a band fronted by him called Libertine. On all of our flyers it always said featuring ex members of 7 Seconds, Dgeneration and UK Subs.

Stuck In The Past: Ah I remember them...on the Syracuse 98 comp that Watermark released.

Pete: He WAS a founding member of Dgen but 7seconds he was in for about 10 months I think, and UK Subs he just played drums for a European tour.

Stuck In The Past: Still a hell of a resume if you ask me.

Stuck In The Past: At what point did you start playing bass? Or did you start on another instrument?

Pete: A friend of mine on Long Island who knew how badly I wanted to play bass broke into the music room at his high school and stole a bass and surprised me with it the next time I visited Long Island. My parents told me there wasn’t enough room in the car to bring it and I put up quite a temper tantrum till they caved in.

Stuck In The Past: Kinda like "Ill put it on my lap"

Pete: It was a 1974 Gibson Grabber, the same bass you see Mike Dirnt from Green Day playing in all of the early videos. Gene Simmons played one in the 70s too. I had that bass until some piece of shit stole it out of the club in Gainesville, FL. It was the first date of a Beta Minus Mechanic/Hot Water Music tour and while I was in my first band that bass was the only item to survive a house fire at our drummers home. It had some history.

Stuck In The Past: Thats terrible. Im sure it had that special sound that you were known for and couldn’t be replaced

Pete: I’m still pissed about that bass getting stolen. Stealing instruments from a band on tour is one of the grimiest things you can do

Stuck In The Past: Moving on hahah.

Pete: I started teaching myself how to play by ear. I would learn all of my favorite songs that I could figure out and slowly started coming up with my own riffs. The only problem was I didn’t know anyone else who played an instrument. I made friends with a nerdy kid at my Christian school named Tom Ranger and I slowly but surely indoctrinated him into punk and hardcore. When I met him he was into Star Trek, Dungeons and Dragons and his favorite bands were Weird Al and the Monkees.

Stuck In The Past: Heyyyyy no talking bad about Weird Al.

Pete: I knew I needed an ally so I got him into punk which came in handy because my strict parents forbid us from having MTV so Tom would video tape 120 Minutes, the alternative show on MTV every Sunday and then I would watch it on Monday after school at his house. I really had to go out of my way to listen to and find new punk to listen to. But the more my parents forbade me to have it in my life the more determined I was to find more.

Stuck In The Past: So the two of you started going to shows together?

Pete: Well in the mean time I met a skater in my neighborhood named Martin which was remarkable because I lived in the hood and he was part black. I had kind of given up skating when I moved to Syracuse because I was too shy to hunt for skate spots on my own and it was too dangerous in my neighborhood. Now I had a skate buddy a block away and he was into punk and metal. He was really into the Misfits.

Stuck In The Past: As we all should be.

Pete: He liked a lot of thrash metal and he got me into that and I got him into more punk. We were attached at the hip. Tom and I were close friends too but he didn’t skate so I spent more time with Martin but we all went to the mall in Camillus via Tom’s mother and would hang out there. Around this time a guy named Owen started putting on shows at a VFW on the east side of Syracuse, also in the hood. It was all old black guys at the hall but they were ok with punk. They would hide out in the basement bar and what punks that had ID or looked old enough would drink in the bar.

Stuck In The Past: What year was this?

Pete: This was 1988. Swiz played there. He booked a lot of Dischord bands. Mostly DC bands were the headliners here at the time. Then DJ Rose moved here to attend Syracuse University and he started putting on shows at the same place and booking more hardcore stuff like Vision.

Stuck In The Past: What kind of turnout would those shows get?

Pete: Turnouts would be a few hundred but a lot of the people would mill around outside drinking or downstairs in the bar, which totally endeared us to the neighborhood. They were stoked to have a bunch of white kids with dyed hair and mohawks on their turf.

Stuck In The Past: How old were you at this point?

Pete: I was 14. There were surprisingly fewer skirmishes than you would think. DJ booked Underdog, Die Hard, No Outlet, and Substance at a local polish home. That show was my first as well as Rangers, Martin’s, Shane Durgee’s and a number of other prominent future scenesters. I met Karl (Buechner) at this show and did my first stage dive during Underdog.

Stuck In The Past: It’s kind of liking hearing about the Ramones going over the London and all the guys from the Damned and the Sex Pistols seeing them and then starting bands

Pete: Oh yeah. I remember these guys from Albany had all come up wearing these jackets that said Wolf Pack on them and they tore it up in the pit. They had come with Substance. Steve Reddy who owns Equal Vision Records was one of those guys. Anyway, shows started happening with more frequency at this point. DJ was booking more hardcore bands. He got Uniform Choice here. He booked Verbal Assault but they showed up but the pipes had burst at the VFW and the turnout was weak so they took off and the other bands played in DJ’s back yard. I have some pics from that show.

Stuck In The Past: Staring at the Sun UC?

Pete: Yes this would have been Staring At The Sun UC. i missed that show because I had just gotten my wisdom teeth out. I was bummed.

Stuck In The Past: And rightfully so.

Pete: I loved Uniform Choice. I really liked Staring Into The Sun.

Stuck In The Past: It’s been a long time since I’ve heard it...I’d like to hear it again but I remember not liking it. But I also had the taste of Screaming for Change.

Pete: Staring Into The Sun was more melodic like Verbal Assault, Dag Nasty, or Justice League. Around this time DJ was the first sxe guy in town. He gradually got more guys to join his cause

Stuck In The Past: At what point did you start calling yourself sxe?

Pete: Oh man that wasn’t till 93. During the late 80s i was boozing and drugging it up.

Stuck In The Past: Did you kind of just get to a point where you gave it all up? You said this is not for me

Pete: You mean drinking?

Stuck In The Past: Yes.

Pete: Yeah it’s a convoluted and dramatic tale. I went through two rehabs by the time I was 19. I checked myself into a second stint at rehab right before Christmas in 1992. I was in a bad place and I didn’t think my drinking was the cause of it. I had a lot of drama going on and had made some enemies. I had guys with guns camping out in front of my parent’s house who wanted my blood. I needed to get out of town. I also had the cops on my tail and was getting into trouble at school. This was my full on retard skinhead thug dickhead period. I had started my first band, Flakjacket, during this time (fall of 1991). I knew I could fall back on my status as a drug abuser to get sympathy from the system and also use rehab as a place to hide out from my enemy’s because I needed to get out of town for a while.

Stuck In The Past: Were you into heavy drugs or were you just smoking alot of weed? If I may ask…

Pete: I was in a really self destructive place and suffering from depression. My drug of choice was alcohol. I thought weed was for faggot hippies but I had so many friends that sold it that I would smoke it from time to time. At parties I would use whatever was around, mostly high school type stuff like shrooms, acid, pills, nitrous. I tried coke a few times and really liked it but I couldn’t afford that shit.