Saturday, August 24, 2013

Posted by xjustinx | File under : , , ,
If you check old zine ads for Ron Brotherhood's old label, Overkill Records, you'll see that Bloodlet's "Eclectic" record was originally slated to come out through him.  In the mid-90s, Ron spent lots of time on the road, tour managing for the likes of Orange 9mm and Seaweed.  At a Seaweed show in Tampa, FL, Ron was approached by Charlie of Bloodlet, who had just recently put out the Husk 7" on Structure Records.  Later, they sent him a cassette with three tracks that were recorded in May of 1994.  The first two tracks were released as the Shell 7" on Stability Records, and eventually on the Eclectic LP.

Ron told me that the initial plan was for Bloodlet to re-record some things, so he sent them $3,500 for studio time.  They then asked for a $1,500 more, which Ron also sent.  However, being out on the road constantly made for really poor communication between the label and band, which was becoming increasingly stressful on Ron, as he had a number of releases in the works.  The record eventually got taken over by Victory Records.  Although $4,000 of the $5,000 was from Dutch East, Ron decided it was time to fold the label.  Dutch East chose to make their money back by taking over all future pressing of Integrity - Those Who Fear Tomorrow, and they also went forward with the pressing of the Impel cd.  Undertow went to Excursion Records, Botch's 'Faction' 7" went to World Of Hurt (and the Unifying Themes cd on Excursion), Canon - The Solution went to Chapter Records, Ringworm - The Promise went to Bill Baker of Jayhawker's label, Incision Records.

This all ties in, because, as mentioned before, there are three tracks on the tape that Bloodlet sent to Ron.  "Shell" and "Cheribum" were released on the Shell 7", and the same two tracks also kicked off the Eclectic CD/LP on Victory Records.  But, the third track contained on the cassette, "Embrace" never appeared anywhere, and from what I can tell, was never re-recorded for any of the future albums.  Unless, of course, they very heavily changed it, but I don't hear any such indication when listening to the Bloodlet catalog.

Bloodlet - Embrace
[unreleased - 1994]

5 comments:

Ghola Merrick said...

Awesome entry.

This sounds a bit like One and Only, particularly that opening.

Thanks again, I miss these guys. Would love to see their Entheogen lineup one last time.

Any chance anyone has the "It's A Florida Thing, You Wouldn't Understand" 7" to upload?

Anonymous said...

they've left a hole no other band has yet managed to fill.

XsoldoutX said...

thanks for this!

Tommy said...

This is awesome. Bloodlet were really great.

Unknown said...

Nice!! Thank you!