Classic Layouts: Doughnuts "Equalize Nature" And The Naked Straight Edge Kid

 Alright so the word "classic" is a little bit of a stretch when it comes to the Doughnuts but this layout is as classic as they come. For years I had heard about the "naked straight edge kid" layout for their debut release "Equalize Nature", originally released by Desperate Fight Records. I had only owned a copy of the re-release by Victory Distribution but a few years back I picked up a copy from our old friend xYosefx. No additional songs but the layout...well it's something alright. The CD was released in a cardboard sleeve (thanks again for that 90's hardcore) so I did scans of the entire thing. Not sure where they were going with this idea for the layout but it's sight to behold.What's the story with the kid on the front? Anyone know him? The layout makes no mention of who it is.

Out Of Vogue (ex-Abhinanda) posts new EP

A couple of months back, we posted a statement about Jose (Abhinanda, Desperate Fight Records) finally getting a new band together. Well they finally released their 4 song debut and its a rager. Give it a listen if you dig fast hardcore in that American Nightmare vein.

Out Of Vogue

V/A - Straight Edge As Fuck part I and II

As Chip wrote a few times on this blog (here and here for instance) Umeå, Sweden was the hometown of some awesome bands in the '90s. Desperate Fight, the label run by Jose Saxlund of Abhinanda, released a series of compilations called 'Straight Edge As Fuck' documenting the Umeå hardcore scene, 3 in total. The first 2, released in 1994 and 1995 respectively, would be released as a single compilation on Desperate Fight America (Victory Records), in 1996. I ripped, scanned and uploaded that version here. It provides a nice overview of the Umeå hardcore scene of the mid '90s. It includes bands such as the Doughnuts, Abhinanda, Purusam and ofcourse Refused. The last track on this CD, and the last track of the 1st compilation, is an early, slower, version of Refused's 'Everlasting', the title track of their EP. Tacked onto the end of that track is a short and unlisted Final Exit song called 'Mutilated Scumbag'. Final Exit being various members of Refused mixing up their instruments and just having fun playing fast old school hardcore. Anyways, enjoy!

Straight Edge As Fuck part I and II compilation

When Layouts Change: Records That Are Repressed With New Layouts, Part 1

This is an article I've been meaning to write for a long time but just never got around to doing so. A pet peeve of mine is when a label re-presses a record but changes the layout. Sometimes, this is because the band and label didn't have the money or time to put into what they originally envisioned or because a label has bought the rights to the record and re-released it, often with remastered sound. Half of me is alright with this idea at times but the other half of me, the half that is the nostalgic collector wants to have the original. Like I said, sometimes this is fine with me because the original layout may have been...well just not very good. Below are a few examples of records that were originally released by their respected labels and then repressed by either the original or another with a different layout. For now, I've just scanned the covers but Ill try to get the rest of the layouts scanned as well. The original is on the left and the repress is on the right.





















Shelter - Quest For Certainty (Original: Equal Vision, 1992. Repress: Revelation, 1998)
An early release for Equal Vision Records when they still concentrated on releasing only Krishna-core record, this records comes in a close second to Mantra as my favorite Shelter release. The original has a black and white cover with a nice sky blue firewheel while the repress has a new black and white photo but the fonts have been changed to red. This is a case where I'm alright with either release. Both have live photos on the cover and there isnt much of a difference other than the actual photo.




















Culture - Born Of You (Original: Conquer The World, 1994. Repress: Goodlife, 1998)
A record that created an incredible amount of controversy over the past few years, controversy that I am not going to go into here (do a search on here for "Culture" and you'll see). The original release features a picture of the famed "Portrait Of Pope Innocent X" by Sir Francis Bacon. While this cover is very representative of the time, I feel that the repress gives the album more energy with the cover depicting Damien handing out the mic to the crowd. Culture was very much about crowd participation and this cover portrays that to the listener. I only wish that the band would have used the logo that Guav created for that them as opposed to the logo on the repress.





















Doughnuts - Equalize Nature (Original and Repress: Desperate Fight, 1994 and 1996)
A much maligned band, Doughnuts were touted as the first all girl SXE band back in 1995. They released their first record with Desperate Fight out of Umea, Sweden and then signed with Victory Records in America. Equalize Nature, their first release, was originally released in a cardboard sleeve in 1994 and features the legendary "Naked SXE Kid" on the cover. To be honest, I'm not sure where they were going with this image on the cover but the re-release (also on Desperate Fight) shows a blurry live photo of the band. Perhaps Victory asked Desperate Fight to change the cover because they would have trouble getting the naked kid cover picked up in America. That's just my opinion, I have no idea if that's the reason. I have to say that the repress is an upgrade.





















As Friends Rust - The Fists Of Time (Original: Goodlife, 1998. Repress: Doghouse, 2000)
Now here's one where I prefer the original. Goodlife chose to use paintings by vocalist Damien as the cover as well as the insert. If you read the lyrics to the songs on this release, I feel that the cover really does a great job of capturing the mood of the record. When Doghouse released this in America, they included a track from the split with Discount as well as their Circle Jerks cover from the God Hour EP. This time around though, the cover shows a package addressed to the band. Not bad but to me, the cover of the original release conveys the band's message much better.

Check back soon for Part 2.

Separation - 5th Song (Desperate Fight Records)

Faithful reader, Tony, had asked me on a few occasions to post this and it just kept slipping my mind (sorry Tony). I finally got around to upping this but when I was preparing it, the rip I had done some time ago was a 128 kbps and sounded pretty awful. I re-ripped it as a VBR which sounds much better. I don't really know much about Separation except for the fact that they contained members of Abhinanda. I did a little research and found this on their last.fm page. All information courtesy of last.fm

"Springtime 1996 was the rebirth of the Umeå punkrock trio Separation. Up until then the band had existed more as a project by the side of Abhinanda since they used to share two members, Jonas - drums and José - vocals. Well, luck (?) had it that Jonas quit Abhinanda to concentrate on Separation and José quit Separation to continue only with Abhinanda and the Desperate Fight label. The other members were and still are Lars (guitars and vocals), and Axel (bassguitar). During 1996 their first CD release, the MCD “5th Song”, came out and they did a tour with Gislaved’s End In Sight during august. Really tired of the old songs they started to work on new ones under the following months. In December they recorded a song for the “Straight Edge As Fuck compilation vol. 3” that gave the listeners a taste of what was going on. A split seven-inch/mcd with swedish band Serene was released on the Belgian label Genet records, and later on the band finished their first fullength release, during a hectic period of combined touring and recording. The self-titled fullength debut came out in june of 1997, and it received positive reviews in both europe and in the US.

Separation have toured parts of europe twice and done three smaller tours in Sweden. The last one should have been a combined Sweden/Europe tour with the US act Kill Holiday, but things had it that they had to cancel the european dates due to theft of instruments and merchandise. To prove that they were not to be defeated by such occurrences, the band started planning new musical odyssees as soon as they got home."

This was originally released in 1996 by Desperate Fight Records and then re-released by Desperate Fight as part of the "Four In One" compilation. Both are now out of print.

Separation - 5th Song

http://www.mediafire.com/?6japr1a667jmgtw

Jose Saxlund (Desperate Fight Records/Abhinanda) sounds off on his 5 favorite Desperate Fight releases

It's no secret that I'm a big supporter of all things foreign (non-US) hardcore. My first exposure to European hardcore was Desperate Fight Records in late 1995. I got a hold of "Senseless" by Abhinanda and was blown away. I tracked down Jose (owner of DFR and vocalist for Abhinanda) and asked him to look back on the DFR catalog and give his opinion on his favorite releases. After so many great releases, it's hard to pick but here's Jose's take.

My favorite Desperate Fight releases:

Wow, this is a hard one! I don't even think I own all the releases anymore! Some of them have been lost along the way, but I'll try. Here are my 5 favorite (and why). Not in order of preference but catalog number:

DFR4: Abhinanda – Senseless
Well, my own band. This record is not included for the music but for everything it meant to me, to us, the scene, etc. For some reason the record sold. A lot! I ripped off the band pretty, pretty, pretty good... They did not get to see any money at all! Everything went to buy a super-computer and fix a real Desperate Fight office. But dont tell the other dudes in the band about it! Well actually, the band never got paid any royalties at all for any record. Everything went back to the label and the other releases. So when sales took off for this record, I realized we had a real label. Thats why this release is so important. It's the one that financed Desperate Fight and helped us to get good distribution deals and set up a “real” label.





DFR6: Final Exit – Teg
Final Exit was supposed to be the Project X of the Umeå hardcore scene. This record is amazing but I kind of like the story behind the recording even better. Refused was doing really well around this time and their record label sent them away to record 2 songs for a cover EP (Refused loves Randy). They did but what their record company never got to know is that after Refused recorded their songs, Final Exit took over the studio and recorded a whole album in just one night. Of course, the bill for the studio went to Refuseds' record company... But shhh dont tell anyone!

DFR9: Straight Edge As Fuck II
We just had so much fun putting together the SXEAF compilations. Everyone singing backups for everyone or just trying to put together the layout for the record (fuck, the cover is awful) was always fun. I never came closer to all this stuff we always sang about, like - unity, pride, or whatever lame cliché you want to come up with, I felt all that when putting together these comps. Everyone working together and for each other.




DFR10: Shield – Vampire songs
Another special one for me. I was so involved in the making of this record. Helped out with lyrics, I was there in the studio everyday, etc. I was young, around my 20´s but I still felt like a father to these kids. Another thing not many people know about is that the singers father helped me and the label out a lot. He had his own company/business as a graphic designer (I think) and he taught me how to run a company, use a computer, etc. I still remember taking the bus during cold Umeå winters to the other side of town and walking all the way to his house/office so he could show me how to handle VAT and taxes while we where doing cd covers for Refused... I guess people (parents) like him and like David Refused parents should get a lot of cred for making everything possible back in the days. I'm not sure the scene would have been the same without their help.

DFR23: Abhinanda – Rumble
I actually have pretty good memories from all the releases. They all took time and hard work to get them done and out there. I could tell you stories about all of them. I would love to include the Purusam albums in this list, or Separation, or the Step Forward comp, or... yeah you get it. But you asked for 5. So the 5th one is another one with my own band. The most important one. The last release on the label. In one way or another the one that broke up the band, made me move from Umeå and closed down Desperate Fight. Well of course it's not just the records fault. There was a lot of other stuff going on. In the band, with the members, in the scene, in town, with the label, etc. Time to use another cliché: Nothing last forever...
I think I wasn't into it anymore. At least not the running a label part of it. Everything had grown so big, so fast. The budget for this record was like for all the other records I had ever released so far, together... (not really, but just so you get an idea). I remember just walking around filled with anguish when making the album. Back then I really hated most of the songs on the record as well (nowadays I appreciate it in a whole different way!). So I felt really bad putting everything at risk on an album that I wasnt that much into with a band that probably was going to break up any second. At the same time we had a couple of releases with other bands that werent doing well sales wise so yeah, I guess I was under more pressure that I could handle. But today, I cant regret anything. I'm really proud of what we did and it's something I'll carry with me for the rest of my life!

Abhinanda Reunion?

Ive heard rumors of a possible Abhinanda reunion early next year in Japan. Ive emailed Jose to find out if these rumors are true, but this has seriously gotten my attention. Ive also heard that Taken is playing this fest...Ive also gotten in touch with Hiro (Loyal to the Grave, ex-Statecraft) to find out more info. Keep checking back and Ill get all the info I can. Is it bad that Im seriously considering going back to Japan for this (not that I need a reason to want to go back to Japan)?