Kingpin - Previously Unreleased 7" available now through Atomic Action Records

Kingpin was a Massachusetts-based band active from 1990 to 1993 that took cues from NYHC, Melodic Hardcore like Verbal Assault, and Metal riffs to create an early incarnation of the "New School" style popularized by many bands throughout the duration of the era. In addition to a 7" titled Holding Tomorrow released on Suburban Voice records, the band also recorded 4 songs that were never released prior to the bands breakup, and have been floating around on the internet ripped from cassette tapes. Now, these songs have finally been remastered and packaged for a proper press on vinyl via Atomic Action records. The songs can be streamed here through the label's bandcamp, and the 7" can be ordered through their webstore.

Straight Savage Style - Demo 98

In continuing the tradition of Stuck In The Past distroing awesome 90's Japanese Hardcore, I'm excited to finally have been able to upload the Straight Savage Style '98 Demo. It was quite an undertaking tracking down a physical copy of this tape to rip as the songs don't seem to be online anywhere else - save for another version of "Hardcore Pride" that appears on a Call For Unity comp - after exhaustive searching. Thanks to my friend Ogden for picking up the tape in Europe for me. 3 tracks of crushing late 90's death metal-infused Japanese Hardcore at it's finest:


download here

Earth Crisis - Forced March / Forged In The Flames / Eden's Demise (Live Summer 96)

Recently got around to ripping part of an Earth Crisis live set from a VHS I was given. Not sure exactly where, when, or by whom this was filmed, but later in the set before they play Cease To Exist, they say it's going to be from an upcoming record that they had just finished recording and plan to release "in October". That record being Gomorrah's Season Ends, it's safe to guess this set was filmed in the Summer of 96. Anyways, here are the first three songs from the set. This is one of my favorite ExC videos, and they sound INCREDIBLY tight.

Brethren remastered retrospective announced

Tying in with our most recent post about legendary Miami hardcore band Brethren's upcoming reunion, Eighty-Sixed records has announced the release of Once Again, a selected discography including Brethren's 19 songs of recorded output, remixed and remastered. Along with bands like MINDFRAME and OUT OF SPITE, Brethren epitomizes the style of bleak, heavy hardcore that dominated the landscape of Miami hardcore in the Mid-90's. This is the perfect introduction to the band for a new generation of hardcore kids. Once Again will be available on CD May 1st through Eighty-Sixed records, and you can check out the first remastered track, "Trapped In Reality", a bonafide Miami Hardcore classic, below.

The band I play in, Modern Problems, is not only playing KOTM fest with Chokehold, Infest, Crudos and many more, our new EP came out today that you can check out at http://modernproblems.bandcamp.com‪ #‎modernproblems‬ ‪#‎kotmfest‬

Earth Crisis 1993 demo redux.

Halfway through a show on December 29^th, 1992, a band of lanky young guys in hoodies and striped baggy shirts set up and began a wall of feedback. The singer yelled “put up your hoods!” and the place and band exploded. What happened was monstrous. The energy level was off the charts and provided me with one of the most strikingly incredible memories of the time; a girl in a Real Skateboards long sleeve shirt straight up LEVELING dudes in the pit. It was like bearing witness to the second coming- everything about the set and the reaction it generated made me believe that the straight edge vegan revolution was real. This was my introduction to Earth Crisis.

A few weeks later, a friend of mine tracked down a copy of the “All Out War” ep. I sat in his room listening to it and it was literally nothing like the band I had just seen. It lacked the insane energy and power that had floored me and was kind of, well, flat. I joined Halfmast in the summer of 1993 and the bass player, Bill, dubbed me a copy of some new Earth Crisis stuff, which I recall he got from Mike Warden (Conquer the World Records) and THAT WAS THE STUFF! It sounded like revolution to me: crazy, exciting and dangerous. I listened to that dub at least a hundred times. Although a watershed moment in hardcore, I thought the “Firestorm” ep paled in comparison and at the Firestorm record release show that October, they were just more tame than when I has seen them less than a year previous. I'm not saying it was bad, it was good; the show just had a less urgent, more relaxed vibe.

Since 1993, I've played shows with and seen Earth Crisis many times, but nothing connected with me like that first show or the 1993 demo. When my friend Carl said he still had digitized files from a dub he thinks  got from Guav in 93 (he used to do a ‘zine called Warmachine), I knew it had to be better than the stuff that’s been out in the digital world for the past 10+ years. So here it is, cleaned up as best I could, the 8 song 1993 Earth Crisis Demo.  Oh yeah, “Time of Strife” from the structure records comp, I digitized that last year, but did not include it here, as I'll be adding that to the blog in the near future.

Earth Crisis 1993 Demo

Today on WE'RE STILL HERE I have a few words with Mike Hartsfield from New Age Records, Outspoken, Strife, A18, Drift Again and currently Done Dying. You can check out Done Dying right HERE

WE'RE STILL HERE...A mini interview with Matt Fox from Shai Hulud

Today on WE'RE STILL HERE I catch up with Matt Fox from Shai Hulud. If you missed their last album 'Reach Beyond The Sun' I highly recommend you check it out. Thanks Matt.

We're Still Here...a mini interview with Jonathan Pushnik

This week on We're Still Here...Jonanthan Pushnik from Turmoil. See Turmoil at This Is Hardcore July 24th-27th in Philly. www.thisishardcorefest.com

We're Still Here...a mini interview with Derrick VanWie

This week I chat with Derrick VanWie from One King Down/The Promise/Another Victim/ Born Low. Check out his current project Born Low at bornlow.bandcamp.com and facebook.com/BornLow.

Zero Tolerance Live in Toronto 10/28/89

20+ years ago I was given a great soundboard recording of  Zero Tolerance labeled "ZT Toronto 1990" I dubbed it for a few friends and kind of forgot about it. A few years ago, I misplaced said tape and recently my friend Bill came to the rescue with the dub I had made for him. Larry Ransom (another friend I dubbed the tape for in '94) and I were trading emails discussing the recording and he surmised that though the copy I had back in the day was marked 1990, the show was actually from late '89. Sure enough, I shot a message over to former ZT bass player Eric Rice who confirmed that the show was in October of '89 in Toronto and the line-up was, get this: Zero Tolerance, Cannibal Corpse and the GOO GOO DOLLS. 

This set is pretty great, there's early versions of 3 songs that went on to be on the legendary 1990 demo, with Trapped In A World being performed for the first time at this show. Some of the laid back stage banter and guitarist Mike Robinson's late show outburst is great. There's also many songs played that were never released and recorded, check it out.

 

ZT Live In Toronto 

Longest War (ex Chokehold, Despair) 7" available for preorder

Longest War, Featuring Chris Logan (ex Chokehold) on vocals and ex-members of Despair, Union and Achilles laying down the crunch, just put the 7" on Press Gang Records up for presale. Head over to http://longestwar.bandcamp.com/releases to check them out

and over to http://www.storenvy.com/products/6979892-longest-war-7-pre-order to order.

411 Say It 7" and commentary by Dan O'Mahoney

411 was a band  that was a slice of a little something different in the early 90's. During their brief existence, they spit out a equally brief 7" and an incredible 12". With the impending 411 discography release, I asked singer Dan O'Mahoney if he'd mind cluing us in on how the band formed and how their great debut 7" came to be. He agreed and I couldn't be happier with all the stuff he provided for the piece. Dan currently fronts Done Dying, who head out on their first European tour later this week. Photos provided were taken by Dave Sine.

"With the upcoming 411 discography looming in the very near future I've taken up SITP's kind offer to let me tell the tale of how it all began.

As I remember it 411 sprang from two different pools. The first being an attempt by neighborhood friend Josh Stanton and I to finally do some music together, the second being a generous offer from Al Quint of Suburban voice to let me contribute to the series of 7"s he was featuring in the 'zine.

At the time NFAA had gone to it's grave and while Carry Nation was fun and promising it certainly wasn't a departure from what we'd done previously. I was in the mood to explore.

The Suburban voice thing seemed like an opportunity to combine forces with a Boston legend whom CN had been doing shows with during his first run in Down by Law. Dave Smalley had committed what I still think might be the best lps worth of vocals in hc history via Dag Nasty's Can I Say lp and I wanted to work with him.

The doing a band with Josh thing was quickly morphing into a band with fellow Workshed musician Kevin Murphy from head first, but prior to the SV idea the sound had been more Neurosis than Dischord and Vaudim Rubin of Half Off had been playing drums.

 During that time I asked Kevin how he would feel about writing a few Dag type songs that Dave and I could record for the zine. What he gave me was more than I expected... two songs that I found more exciting than anything else I'd worked on to that point. I wanted them for myself and I wanted my next band to have that sound.

The O'Mahony/Smalley side project pretty much died right there although Dave did contribute via some duet time in 'Say It' and 411 did eventually contribute a live offering on a Suburban Voice 7".

The final piece in the puzzle and the point at which the band became something to really be proud of was the addition of Mario Rubalcaba. This pro skater, mountain of dreads, and force of nature on the drums remains the most amazing musician I've ever played with. I'd met him through Chuck Treece during Voicebox and had made the mental note that someday I had to play with the guy. Mission accomplished.

Things came together quick and in the ultimate cherry on top moment we were able to nail down Brett Gurewitz from Bad Religion to record and engineer the e.p. The band was the tightest I've ever been in, the guys some of the most talented, and the recording one of the best I've been privileged to be a part of... and none of it was as it was supposed to be at the start"

411- Say It Thoughts That Feed The Fire 7" 

Envy Never Forget cassette/ Larry Ransom notes and backstory

Envy were a great mid 90's straight edge band from Buffalo, NY. I had the pleasure of being friends with some of the guys, played with them(with Halfmast and No Reason) as well as booking them a few times. I always loved their pre-LP demo and recalled that it was initially going to be a second 7" on a west coast label. I couldn't remember the specifics, so I reached out to Larry Ransom, who sang for Envy, and he took the time to write a little something. Check it out and the great info from Larry (that's him as a youngster on the cover).

 "Hello everyone. Jeremy asked me to chime in on this demo tape so I thought I'd write out all that I can remember.

Going back a bit before this tape, I had released two 7"s on my label, New Direction Records. The first being an awesome and pretty much unknown 7" from the Buffalo band, Against All Hope (go seek it out) and the second being the self-titled 7" from my band, Envy. One of the distributors for my releases at that time was Network Sound (New Age and Conversion Records) in California. Their buyer at the time, who would call me when they needed to order a restock was this kid Jason. He was cool and easy to deal with and would always make sure that Network Sound would get me paid on time. He was friendly on the phone and we would often just end up shooting the shit about hardcore and filling each other in on cool new records we had purchased and what was going on in our local scenes.

At one point he was starting up his own label that was going to be an inprint under the Network Sound umbrella and he asked Envy if we would like to release a 7" with him. I talked it over with the band and we decided to do it as we had a grip of new songs we wanted to release and we thought the Network Sound distribution would be a big help in getting the record out into the world.

He named his record label X-hibition Records. The first release for his label was going to be an album from the New Jersey band, Strength 691. He had linked up with Strength 691 through a recommendation from Joe D Foster from Ignite. The Envy 7" was going to be the second release.

We booked studio time with Doug White at Watchmen Studios. We had recorded our original demo with Doug when the studio was still in his parents basement.  But now we would be the first band to record at his new studio on Snyder Rd at the corner of Robinson Rd. We were the guinea pigs of sorts for Doug's new studio so he cut us a great deal on studio time. I think he may have only charged us $100.

I don't recall too many specifics about being in the studio. I think we had done our best, performance wise, in the studio compared to our previous recording experiences and as always, Joe drove Doug crazy by trying to get the best sound and mix we could. At the end of the recording session we all signed and dated a dollar bill for Doug and it's still hanging in his studio as we were the first customers. I think next year will be the 20th anniversary of that day and recording. Scary to think!

Joe did the layout for the 7" and CDEP and we sent the layout and master recording to the label for the manufacturing etc. I know things started to go into production as test pressing were made and he sent us 4 of them so each member could have one and he sent us a CD of the mastered recording for CD version of the release. Things seemed to be fine at this point. We had even made flyers and started promoting the release at our shows.
 Things started to slow down after that and he was beginning to be hard to get ahold of and eventually he got fired from Network Sound. Things were starting to remind me of the all too familiar "Hardcore records take forever to come out" scenario like what happened to local bands that had come before us... The No Joke 7", The Slugfest 7" and the Fadeaway split 7". Records that took years to come out after they were recorded. Except ours got worse. It never came out! 

Finally I got ahold of the guy and he admitted he wouldn't be able to continue with the label. The Strength 691 album didn't come out either and I think the guy basically disappeared from HC all togother. We were excited to get that recording out so we pressed up a quick 100 copies as a demo to sell at an upcoming show we had with Mouthpiece in the summer of 1996. We had the tapes professionally dubbed at this place ESP and had the shells printed which was cool and we just made photocopy covers. We sold all 100 copies at that show. We didn't give that tape a bigger pressing or distribution as we had already written a bunch more songs by that point so we thought we would re-record those songs along with all our new ones for an album, which we did do.

So that's pretty much the story on that tape. It's probably the recording that turned out the best for us and the one that people tell me they like the best.

Thanks Jeremy.

-Larry"

Envy Never Forget Promo Cassette 

Against All Hope 1993 Self Titled Cassette

 While waiting in line at a local thrash/ death metal show in the winter on 1990, I bought a 7” by local Buffalo, NY hardcore band Against All Hope. I thought it was pretty cool and listened to it quite a bit over the coming months. The following summer of '91, I finally was able to catch them live and they were WAY better than that 7”. The line up I saw at that show had Jay Galvin on bass and Scott Vogel on drums, both of whom were also in Slugfest. Over the next few years, I saw them many, many more times and once their line up solidified they got even better.

In 1993 Against All Hope released my favorite material by them, their Self Titled cassette; they were on the more speedy, melodic side of hardcore, especially for Buffalo, mixing in some Dag Nasty style to their brand of 'core. Long gone were Jay and Scott, but oddly enough both Flipowitz and Tim Patterson from AAH also went on to be in Slugfest. This is a really great demo and includes a cover of Once I Cry by Uniform Choice. 

Against All Hope 1993 Self Titled Cassette 

Fadeaway- Blindsight Demo 1993

Caught somewhere between early 90's "Buffalo stye" hardcore and Turning Point, Fadeaway's Blindsight is one of the absolute best demos to ever come out of the Buffalo, NY hardcore scene. The song writing and pedigree (3 members went on to Despair and another to Snapcase) on Blindsight is top notch, combining songs from 3 different recording sessions; all of which were recorded at Watchmen studios. Though two of the songs (Perfect Blood and Gone) appear on the band's previous demo, they work better in the context of this release. 21 years later, it still sounds current and vital.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/xi0haa7nkecda4f/Blindsight_Cassette.rar

90's Hardcore Fliers

I still have a stack of fliers I saved, somehow unscathed, mostly from the late 90's. Here's a few for your viewing pleasure...

Some Old Ticket Stubs

I came across an old photo album that randomly had some (very few of the many) ticket stubs from some pretty awesome shows in the late 90's. Just thought I'd share.

Hardcore Fliers

Like a lot of hardcore kids in the 90's I collected fliers due to the fact that it was the only way to find out about shows. We weren't on the internet or our phones 24/7, we would go the record stores and see what fliers were there and that's how we got our information. That being said, I have a pretty large stack of fliers that used to be all over my walls. I occasionally post them on my instagram account (vinylxdenim) so here's a few if you haven't seen them yet. All from the late 90's in Southern California.

Unity HxC and their "Focus On Covers Artwork", Updated

While I can't read everything posted on their site, Unity HxC is a great site that shares the same love for all things 90's that we do. They also have a great section depicting the original artwork that many of the 90s bands used for their album covers and inserts. For some reason, I feel like I may have reported on this in the past but in going back, I couldn't find anything so Im putting it up again just in case. They just added more images so its worth going back checking again. They are also in process of changing the rest of the site to English so be patient. Overall, a very nice and interesting part of 90s hardcore history when biblical imagery ruled the layouts.