HARDCORE WEDNESDAY; MISFITS' EARTH AD

"On Earth

As it is in Hell

We'll see you dead and like it in

AD

AD

Kingdom come is not so bad

AD

AD

Bloody Hell is not so bad"

I feel like there was no escaping The Misfits, the New Jersey punk band that combined infectious sing-along whoa-whoa whoas, B-Movie imagery, and muscular aggression. I was destined to find this band and to love them. I didn't know anything about them in middle school, I don't think I'd even heard of Danzig, as he would have been winding down his post-Misfits outfit, Samhain, before going metal with his namesake band. Punk was barely even on my radar. I was obsessed with Metallica's ...And Justice For All and Alice Cooper was still my favorite singer (still is, frankly). I'd see the cassettes for Collection, Walk Among Us, Earth AD, and Evil Live and would always scan down the track listings for each album, always on the verge of buying one of them, but with my limited funds, afraid of throwing my money away on something that might suck. The album covers were amazing; the neon yellow skull, the purple group shot with that rat-bat thing in the back ground, the rough looking zombies, and the group shot individually framed in coffins. Songs like "Teenagers From Mars," "Die, Die, My Darling," "Braineaters," "Astro Zombies"-as a horror kid, I really liked where these guys were coming from. 

Visiting my dad one summer, I was skateboarding with my step-brother and one of his friends, and we were talking about music. Skid Row's "Youth Gone Wild" was big then and the three of us really dug that album. I asked them if either had heard The Misfits, the friend got a big smile on his face.

"The Misfits fucking rule!" He had Walk Among Us on cassette and let me hear a bit of "20 Eyes" on his Walkman. To be honest, I couldn't really tell what I had just heard or if it was any good. Mostly it sounded like a buzzsaw in my head, but the thing about it, I walked around for a year with "20 eyeeees in my head/20 eyeeees in my head!" Starting high school, I got deep into punk, as I've said in previous posts. I still only had a vague idea of who Glenn Danzig was, as his 1988 self titled debut album had completely flown over my head and his second album, Lucifuge wasn't even on my radar, but I'd seen the advertisements on Headbangers Ball. I'd put aside my lunch money for a couple of weeks and on a trip to the mall in Oak Ridge, I made a b-line for the record store and went straight to the cassettes with the intention of buying Walk Among Us. 

Well, they didn't have it! All they had was Collection and Evil Live. I went with Collection, as I was never big on live albums and I rode home with the cassette safely hidden in my pocket. (If you missed the previous posts, I was raised in a house that was very strictly against heavy metal music and every album I got caught with was scrutinized and judged and could be thrown in the trash, so I always had to be careful.) Fortunately, I was mostly left alone to my own devices. I lived in a windowless room in the basement, I had a drafting table from my dad, an old desk that someone was throwing away, and a decent/cheap stereo from my twelfth birthday. That night, I went downstairs, put the 2x4 under my door knob, so my brothers couldn't fuck with me, put The Misfits on and sat down at my typewriter to work on a new short story. 

The production quality was rough, to say the least. Very muddy and I couldn't understand many of the lyrics, but the energy the album was flinging off on every track was infectious as hell, revving me up like I'd taken too many caffeine pills. I credit the music for one of the best horror stories I'd written up to that point. It was zombie story (I was obsessed with George Romero's Dawn of the Dead and wrote a fair number of living dead short stories and comic book scripts in high school) called "Long Night of the Living Dead" or something like that. I really liked how it turned out and to this day Misfits are a staple of my writing sessions.

Over a couple of years, I got my hands on the entirety of their small discography and actively looked for any information on the band I could find, which was scarce in the early 90s. Danzig didn't like to talk about the Misfits and bassist Jerry Only and his brother, guitarist Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein hadn't won a lawsuit that allowed them to reform the Misfits yet. Evil Live seemed to be the last of the recorded material available (until the 1995 release of Collection II, which rounded up all the remaining singles and EP tracks not available on Collection I), which on cassette and prior to the remastered version that came out after the box set (1996) sounded too muddy for it to be in heavy rotation and likewise with Earth AD, it just didn't sound as good as anything on Legacy of Brutality or Walk Among Us to me. So those albums mostly collected dust.

Fast forward a few years, I get Earth AD on CD, and I do a complete 180 on the album. You can hear the whole album on Collection I and II as those tracks close out each album, so it's not as if I'd not heard them all a hundred times, but I'll be damned if it didn't feel like I was hearing them all for the first time. I guess it was the clarity of listening to them on CD vs cassette or maybe my ears finally became attuned to a more thrashy sound after years of listening to hardcore punk, at any rate Earth AD went into heavy rotation, usually paired with Black Flag's Damaged.

I read an interview with Jerry Only sometime in the 90s where he said of the album that it was supposed to sound like Motorhead meets the Misfits, hence the thrash direction, with less anthemic sing-along tracks like on Walk Among Us. The album came out on Danzig's Plan 9 Records, two months after the band broke up in 1983. Danzig was already looking for the exit during the album's recording. He was writing new material for his next project while feeling increasingly disillusioned with the direction of the Misfits and not getting along with his bandmates. Until 2016, when Danzig and Only buried the ax and reformed the "original" Misfits, their's had been one of rock's saddest rivalries. There were lawsuits back and forth, shit-talking, lies, accusations, and even after Only and Doyle brought the Misfits back with Dr Chud on drums and Michael Graves on vocals, shit still couldn't work out and Only was abandoned by everyone to start all over again.

But what rock band worth their salt is without drama? What about the music? The original vinyl release of Earth AD was only nine songs long, the title track, "Queen Wasp," "Devilock," "Green Hell," "Death Comes Ripping," "Wolf's Blood," "Demonomania," "Bloodfeast," and "Hellhound." Clocking in at a mere fourteen and a half minutes. Fortunately, the album was reissued with three additional tracks, a studio version of "Mommy, Can I Go Out and Kill Tonight," "Die, Die, My Darling," and "We Bite." Danzig later said that "Bloodfeast" and "Death Comes Ripping" were originally intended as Samhain songs (and they did play "Bloodfeast" live).

"Earth AD," which I quoted at the top is a tribute to the Wes Craven cannibal classic, The Hills Have Eyes. It sets the tone for the album as a whirlwind with that furious drumming courtesy of Black Flag's Robo. Jerry and Doyle, across the bulk of the tracks, might as well be playing chainsaws, the way they buzz and burn over the beats. From "Earth AD" to "Queen Wasp" you can't catch your breath as the group blasts on with gang chants of "GO! GO! GO!" And then "Devilock" comes on, going even faster and the only moment of reprieve is the brief rumble before my favorite track "Death Comes Ripping" blasts your spine out. I always assumed that "Green Hell" was probably about the Italian cannibal films like Cannibal Holocaust or Cannibal Ferox, because the Amazon rainforest is also called the Green Inferno. Green Hell is also the title of one of James Whale's (Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein) last films, from 1940 about hunting for Incan treasure, but the lyrics don't really seem to match up with any of that, so I don't know. It's a heavy song. I love the studio version of "Mommy, Can I Go Out and Kill Tonight" and that's no knock against the live version on Walk Among Us. The mid-tempo stomping intro that fades into a wash of feedback as Danzig asks the eternal question; "Mommy...Can I Go Out...And Kill TONIGHT??" Before the band thrashes back in like psychos on a rampage is fucking glorious and one of the Misfits finest and most iconic recorded moments. I can easily imagine Danzig becoming a werewolf while singing "Wolf's Blood." "It's wolf's blood/It's pumping like it's fucking in my veins/And I feel my vertebrae shaking..." Such a mean song! And sticking with what I assume must be a werewolf theme, "Demonomania" finds Danzig proclaiming that his "father was a wolf" and his "mother was a whore." "Bloodfeast" is the album's slowest track and you can really hear Samhain coming here as there's more of a goth/death rock feel than thrash/hardcore. And it's a good, catch your breath track, even if Robo is still pounding the fuck out of those cymbals like his life depended on it. "Hellhound" starts with the chorus ("that's gonna rip your face off") spinning out of control, but tucks in for the verses and then releasing again. It's a hell of a fun yo-yo effect, which originally ended the album. Instead though, we're next treated to another one of the Misfits' most iconic songs, "Die, Die My Darling." "Die die die, my darling/Don't utter a single word/Die die die, my darling/Just shut your pretty eyes/I'll be seeing you again/I'll be seeing you...in Hell!" What a break-up song! We end on an absolute rager, "We Bite," which brings back both cannibalism and wolf references, making it a sort of summation of Earth AD.

The brilliant cover art was painstakingly hand drawn by LA punk legend Mad Marc Rude, who spent days on the stipulation and undead characters. Depending on which version you get the black and white art was augmented with a green and purple or green and pink background. For a band known for having cool images on their t-shirts, albums, and 7 inches, the Earth AD is my favorite of anything they've ever released. there's a brilliant and heartbreaking documentary on Marc Rude, currently streaming on Amazon, called Marc Rude: Blood, Ink, & Needles [2014], and I highly recommend checking it out. He also did the artwork for one of Tex and The Horseheads' albums. He was a mighty talent plagued by personal demons.)

Misfits were never a hardcore band before Earth AD, in fact, when they started, there wasn't even a guitarist. Glenn played electric keyboard and the Misfits sounded more like Suicide. But after getting Bobby Steele on guitar and later Doyle, they truly became the epitome of everything good about punk rock. They created the sub-genre of horror punk, and influenced countless bands over the next four decades. Earth AD isn't there best musical statement overall and not the strongest album they could have gone out on, but for the aggression, for the catharsis I get from listening to it-the album is a beast unlike anything they unleashed before or since. When the band came back in 1996, they went for a happy medium between the sing-along anthems of Walk Among Us and the muscular thrash of Earth AD, with greater success on American Psycho than on Famous Monsters. The last album of the only-Only era, Devil's Rain, also reached back to Earth AD, with just a bit more metal influence and longer songs. Now that the "original" Misfits have played a number of shows together, Danzig has stated he's open to recording a new album. Frankly, I don't care if it sucks. I don't think it will, but regardless, they've already sold a copy to me, whatever it winds up sounding like.

  

HARDCORE WEDNESDAY; DOA'S BLOODIED BUT UNBOWED + WAR ON 45

Vancouver's DOA is as integral to to the beginning of hardcore as Black Flag, The Circle Jerks, or Minor Threat. Between 1980 and 82, they released Something Better Change, Hardcore '81, and War on 45 EP, not to mention other singles from 78 to 80. They may have gotten off to a start with songs like "Disco Sucks," but they soon carved out a rightful identity as Canada's Clash and then very much stood in no one's shadow, as their "Talk Minus Action Equals Zero" motto and outspoken political songs made them one of hardcore punk's most beloved band, which (with only founding member Joe Keithly remaining) remains active to this day and Keithly himself putting his money where his mouth is as a member of the political Green Party in Canada.

Formed in 1978 by Keithly, Randy Rampage, and Chuck Biscuits (I'm just going to say at the outset, this band never had a consistent lineup, people left and came back and not many albums have the same lineup. If you're interested in who played on what, there's a Wikipedia page and I'm not going to copy and paste.) the band has only taken a couple of short hiatuses, without ever really breaking up. In the late 80s they flirted with a hard rock sound and even a bit of a thrash metal sound, but they in the early 90s they'd returned to their punk roots and have been very consistent with their releases.

I couldn't decide which of the three early albums to focus on, so I decided to go with my first DOA album, that I bought on cassette; Bloodied But Unbowed + War on 45. This is a compilation album, that takes the best tracks from Something Better Change and Hardcore '81, which is what's currently available on CD, vinyl, and iTunes. My cassette included all eight tracks from War on 45 EP, but that's been re-released as a full album, with a number of extra tracks. Both are essential, hell the actual albums are essential, even if they have a bit of filler/lesser tracks, but for me, in the mid 90s, finding that cassette was incredibly special and I've long bemoaned the fact that it was stolen and the only copies I've found since don't have War on 45. It really is (with or without) the best introduction to DOA, you can't not love them after hearing tracks like "The Prisoner," "Fuck You," "Waiting For You," "Woke Up Screaming, " or "America the Beautiful."

One of the cool things about DOA in relation to a lot of other hardcore bands, was how musical they were. There's a reason we still talk about them, Black Flag, and Dead Kennedys so much and not so much about any of the hundreds of Minor Threat clones. These bands weren't afraid to try new things, embrace growth/musicality, and mix up the sound here and there. DOA has plenty of sing-along-ready anthems and mixed in tongue-in-cheek humor with sincere protest songs, that feel vital and less preachy. I think, also the fact they that weren't afraid to wear some classic rock influences on their sleeves helped to make them an overall more approachable hardcore band, but that never compromised the sincerity of their vision.

 I would blast DOA on my way to high school for most of my junior and senior years, it was as good as coffee for getting the blood flowing and the brain firing on all cylinders. Not to mention the pure vitriolic joy of pulling into the parking lot in my smoking, rattling Hyundai with the volume dial turned all the way to the right on "We don't care what you say...FUCK YOU!" Around that time their album Loggerheads had come out on Alternative Tentacles Records (the Dead Kennedys label) and I found the Terminal City Original Soundtrack, which featured two of my favorite late 80s DOA songs, "Behind the Smile" and "Concrete Beach." My favorite DOA thing from that era was laying my hands on Best of Flipside Video #3; DOA/Dead Kennedys. This was a great performance, and as many who were there back in the day will attest, DOA were amazing live. Youtube is full of live clips of varying quality and you can go down a glorious rabbit hole of videos, some in their entirety. I encourage this. I've done it myself many a day and found it a very rewarding use of my time. (I think all of the Flipside videos are on Youtube now, which include Bad Religion/Circle Jerks, Minutemen/Minor Threat, and others. There was one recorded for the Misfits that never officially came out, but I found it on the Video Hell bootleg.) I'm including the whole Flipside video below, it's so fucking good. 1984, an election year, and DOA opens with "You Fucked Up, Ronnie"-a song they still perform now, as "You Fucked Up, Donnie." Both bands are in good form, even if there are better quality videos of both (for Dead Kennedys I recommend the Live at the On Broadway).

HARDCORE WEDNESDAY; SLAPSHOT's SUDDEN DEATH OVERTIME 1989

I was Straight Edge for years, even before I knew what Straight Edge was. Growing up in a hick town where I had classmates in middle school who were getting drunk and high on a regular basis, I was repelled by the very notion of drinking beer. It seemed like the jock/redneck/asshole thing to do. Add to that, being a huge Alice Cooper fan and knowing about his deep struggles with alcohol, I just didn't want anything to do with a drug/drinking scene. So after Sick of it All pointed me towards Minor Threat and I heard the song "Straight Edge" (not to mention already being a Rollins Band fan), I felt like I had found my niche within my tribe (punk rock). As I said in the last installment, this was the 90s and I had no internet to help me track down more bands, it was all trial and error with the occasional assist from a knowledgable record store clerk or an older friend.

At the time, there just wasn't that much around, as far as I knew, but bands like Judge and Slapshot were out there doing a second wave SxE thing, while older bands were becoming Emo/Emo-core/post-hardcore (some of which led me backwards, like Quicksand, who was formed by members of Gorilla Biscuits and Youth of Today), and the third wave of the more militant side of SxE, like Earth Crisis, hadn't quite happened yet. (Before I drag you down a fucking rabbit-hole of hazy history, let me recommend Tony Rettman's amazing book, Straight Edge; A Clear Headed Hardcore Punk History Book. Lots of great stories and insights from the bands themselves.)

Let's get in the TARDIS and jump to1997. I was scheduled to do a spoken word show in May with Priscilla Grimm. (She and I had met earlier in 96 after my first book, Destroying Lives For Fun and Profit came out. I had become aware of her when I caught a dry reading of her play, Definition of a Grrrl. We ran in some adjacent circles and met at an open mic and quickly became friends.) The show was at the Lucy Parson's Center, back when it was still in Cambridge. I had fallen in love with Boston the previous year while on a road trip, and got LPC and Revolution Books to carry my book-zines. Without much money between us, we drove from Knoxville TN to Cambridge MA, did a show, and ran back to K-Town in about 48 hours. There were plenty of 'issues' on that jaunt and not many people showed up, but those who did were mainly members of The August Spies and one or two members of Toxic Narcotic. Priscilla had a friend among them and we stayed at The August Spies' house. They took us to The Rat (RIP) and out for Chinese food. At one point we stopped off at a park to smoke weed, which I declined, and we wound up running from the cops. So, despite my insane girlfriend, who had insisted on coming along and then had a mental break from reality, and behaved like a psycho, it was a good weekend.

What does any of that have to do with Slapshot's Sudden Death Overtime? Absolutely nothing. Except, it was that trip where I hit a record store in Cambridge and found that album, along with the Flesh Eaters' Forever Came Today and the Drag Strip Riot double LP. I'd say, that store, Looney Tunes was actually a big reason for wanting to move up north to begin with. I'd get light-headed going through the racks of vinyl and CDs. I bought a Black Flag VHS bootleg on my first trip. That time I was excited to find that Slapshot album, because I already loved The Mighty Mighty Bosstones cover of "What's At Stake."

By the time we got home, I had less than an hour to take a shower and get to work. I dropped the records on my shelf and took off on no sleep, running on pure anger, anxiety, and caffeine. (My version of straight edge didn't include abstaining from caffeine pills, because they were over-the-counter and found naturally in coffee and tea. It was only later that it was pointed out that I abused No-Doz, White Crosses, and .357 Magnums like an addict. Fine, whatever.) 10 hours later I staggered home, happy to find my girlfriend not there. I'd been awake around 24 hours at that point and still couldn't sleep, so I got out my records. Flesh Eaters were fucking brilliant. I listened to both before I put on Slapshot. In my sleepless delirium, I was stomping around my apartment with joy, blasting that shit in the middle of the night.

Slapshot formed in 1985, a virtual super-group made up of members Terminally Ill, Negative FX, and DYS. Their line up chained almost with each album with Jack "Choke" Kelly being the sole original member as of their last recording in 2012. They had a built in reputation and I'd say lived up to it on pretty much every release.

I loved the beefy, two-guitar sound of Sudden Death Overtime. It leaned towards metal, without being crossover, and I liked Jack "Choke" Kelly's vocals. Between Sick of it All and Slapshot, I established a particular taste for the late 80s/early90s hardcore. Later bands were sometimes too metal and earlier bands simply weren't as good as Black Flag, Minor Threat, or Bad Brains.

The album opens with "What's At Stake," a mid-tempo stomper with a great bass sound (courtesy of Jamie Sciarrapa, formerly of SS Decontrol, whose iconic "Police Beat" was also covered by The Bosstones). After that warm up, the band puts the pedal to the floor with "Firewalker," which took aim at televangelism, a popular target for punk and metal bands at the time (see also Suicidal Tendencies' "Send Me Your Money") "Dealing With Pennies" is pretty straight forward, classic hardcore, while "Transmission," slows back down to a mosh ready mid-tempo. "Something To Prove" brings back the tempo and "Nation of Hate" is a good anti-racism song with the best guitar solo on the album. "Punk's Dead, You're Next," is a great anti-conformity song and then "Say Goodbye" is one of my favorite Slapshot songs. And as far I'm concerned the album could have ended right there. It's not that "War on Drugs," "Get Me Out," or "Change" are bad songs, but for me, every time I play this album, it goes from the strength of "Say Goodbye" to beating a dead horse in half a track. Then there's the album's closer, a cover of Jefferson Airplane's overrated "White Rabbit." The only version of that song I like is The Damned's. Otherwise I can completely do without it.

Eight great songs out of 12 (14, if you get the newer CD with two live tracks) isn't bad at all. The album still sounds as good as ever and remains my favorite Slapshot album. I don't think the band is currently active, as it's been eight years since their last album, the "I Believe" EP (Taang! Records).

These days, actually for more than twenty years, I find Straight Edge to be full-on cringeworthy as a sub-genre of punk. I remember going to shows at the Mercury Theater in Market Square and seeing a lone kid with X's on the back of his hands get a boot party from some crust punks. When the poor kid complained to the bouncer, the bouncer told him he shouldn't have come in there with those X's. The next year, things flipped and it was younger SxE kids causing all the violence at shows. Militant SxE bands started popping up, and news of violence spread across the country. To me, it wasn't punk, it was pure fascism. I wanted nothing to do it. I was 20 the last time I took a fat Sharpie and drew X's on my hands. It couldn't be a badge of honor if it was something that was going to violently infringe on people's right to be themselves. I still love a lot of those albums though, they still hold good memories for me, even if the stance has been corrupted.

    
  

HARDCORE WEDNESDAY; SICK OF IT ALL

Ok lets roll back the clock almost 30 years to 1992. I was sixteen and still transitioning from metal to punk and looking for anything to satisfy that itch I got from bands like The Damned, Ramones, and Black Flag. I had just found The Exploited's Live in Washington DC, Social Distortion's Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell, Descendants' Liveage, and Bad Religion's Generator. All great. This was pre-internet, of course, and it being East Tennessee and not even Knoxville, it was hard to track things down and know what to get next-so occasionally I found a dud, but more often than not I was getting what I needed. At that point I didn't really know what differentiated "punk" from "hardcore," but I got a lesson the night I scanned through the cassette racks at some chain record store in the Oak Ridge mall and found We Stand Alone by Sick of it All. It sure sounded punk.

The album was an EP, released the previous year and was my introduction to New York Hardcore and for me, to this day, I hold it up as the gold standard of NYHC. It absolutely set me on fire the first time I listened to it on my walkman. It was my skateboarding soundtrack and got me looking for Minor Threat with their incredible cover of "Betray." I'd drive around Kingston, just letting the tape flip over and over. It was hard time for me emotionally and spiritually and the mix of positivity and aggression was good medicine to help me keep my head up. "We Stand Alone" would always electrify me, make the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

Here it is once again, tales of conformity

By the ones who would be king

We never set out to impress anyone

It's just an outlet, our chance to be heard

At first you said we hated too much

Now you say we just can't hate enough

Now you're screaming that we've changed

We've grown up but our beliefs are still the same

It's still an outlet for anger and strife

But one more thing, it's also our life

(We) We don't need any help (stand alone)

Our beliefs are strong enough to (stand alone)

Our desire's burning deep, in our hearts

It's in ourheads, it's in our souls

(We) We defy your fucking lies (stand alone)

You question our beliefs (stand alone)

Our desire's burning deep, in our hearts

It's in our heads, it's in our souls (stand alone)

The band was formed in 1986, in Queens NY, by high school friends Lou and Pete Koller, Rich Cipriano, and Armand Majidi (the latter two replacing Mark McNeely and David Lamb before the band recorded their self-titled debut album in 1987 for Revelation Records). They played Saturday Matinee shows at the legendary CBGBs and would go on to be one of the biggest, most important, and longest running of all the NYHC bands. Still together and releasing new music to this day. I never owned their original 7", but I went out and found their 1989 debut full length, Blood, Sweat, and No Tears and the second full length, 92's Just Look Around. Through freshmen year of college I listened to a ton of hardcore and straight edge hardcore, and while I found a lot of bands I loved, more often than not, I was getting two or three songs from an album worth adding to a mix tape and the rest being pale imitations of better bands. And no one, not Slapshot, Warzone, Agnostic Front, Earth Crisis, whoever, knocked me out the way Sick of it All did. The only band I listened to/obsessed over more was Black Flag. Now at 44, SOIA and Flag remain two of my favorite bands and still get me fired up when I'm having a shitty day. 

Sick of it All's latest album is 2018's Wake the Sleeping Dragon, and the band hasn't lost a step. I'd say the last ten or so years, the band has gotten even better than their "commercial break through" era Scratch the Surface and Built to Last. Not many bands have that kind of staying power. Last year they were on tour with another band I dearly love, Napalm Death, but sadly I was too broke to go. (I'm not sure if this would have been the first time those two toured together since the 1991 New Titans on the Block Tour which also included Sepultura and Sacred Reich. Can you fucking imagine that lineup in 1991? If I had a time machine...)

AVAILABLE NOW FROM ST ROOSTER BOOKS; THE GRAY MAN and KIDS OF THE BLACK HOLE

It's alive! ALIVE! Kids of the Black Hole; A Punksploitation Anthology is live! Featuring Paul Lubaczewski (I Never Eat...Cheesesteak), Jeremy Lowe (Daily Grindhouse, The Modern Rippers), Chris Hallock (Diabolique, Boston Underground Film Fest), Sarah Miner, and myself (Neon Sabbath, Motel On Fire, etc). With another gorgeous cover by Stephanie Murr!

There was just something special about channel surfing and coming across Class of 1984 or Repo Man on cable. How many times have you rented Suburbia and Return of the Living Dead? Do you have The Green Room and The Ranger on Blu-ray? For some of us, Punksploitation holds a special place in our hearts. Especially for those of us who came from the sticks or small towns where there was no punk scene and our only connection was the music and the movies. St Rooster Books is proud to present five tales inspired by Punksploitation; “Urchins” by Chris Hallock, “Black Thunder” by Sarah Miner, “I Love Livin’ in the City” by Paul Lubaczewski, “Skate or Die” by Jeremy Lowe, and “What We Do is Secret” by Tim Murr. The stories run the gamut from B-movie sci-fi, to weird, to funny, to splatter, to straight horror. All are written from a place of love for punk rock and the movies it inspired.

Get Your copy HERE!

What do you do when your family becomes your prison? Tim Murr, the author of Neon Sabbath, Motel on Fire, and City Long Suffering, takes you to a small town in East Tennessee, where a young family move into a home where a predatory spirit lies in wait with generations of tragic secrets pulsating just under the surface. THE GRAY MAN is Murr's most personal work to date and also his most horrifying.

My new novella, The Gray Man, is now live on both e and paperback formats, fiends! Featuring a gorgeous cover by Stephanie Murr, who also did the covers for Motel on Fire, Neon Sabbath, Conspiracy of Birds, and To Be One With You.

Becky Narron from Deadman's Tome Publishing said The Gray Man is "a wild, tense ride you won't forget...brilliantly written..."

Order your copy HERE.

OPEN SUBMISSION CALL! KIDS OF THE BLACK HOLE; A PUNKSPLOITATION ANTHOLOGY

Kids of The Black Hole; 

A Punksploitation Anthology

St Rooster Books is proud to announce our next anthology and this one is near and dear to our hearts, Punksploitation! We are looking for crime, horror, and sci-fi (or any combination of the three) themed short stories that fall in to that sub-genre. What is Punksploitation, some of you may ask? Check out films like Return of the Living Dead, Suburbia, Class of 1984, Green Room, or Repo Man.

The title Kids of the Black Hole comes from a song by the OC hardcore band The Adolescents. Just this past June bass player and only constant band member Steve Soto passed away. I’m naming the book after their song as a small tribute to him.

I’m going to say up front, if you’re a guy and you send me a rape revenge story, it’s highly unlikely you’re getting in. Let’s just not go there. Sexist, racist, and/or homophobic stories are not welcome. Certain terms/phrases may be excusable, if say your story is set in 1980, a less ‘woke’ ‘PC’ time, but use sensitivity. If someone uses a homophobic slur, I want to know their head will explode by the end of your story. I guess a good rule of thumb is to ask yourself, What Would Jello Do?

Word count: 3,000 to 5,000 words. If longer, inquire with a synopsis of your story beforehand.

Original fiction only; no reprints.

Payment: half cent per word and a contributor copy.

Deadline: December 31st.

Attach your submission as a .doc or .docx and send to holyrooster76@gmail.com.

Our Anthology Could Be Your Life. 

KING VULTURE'S SOUND ATTACK; THE RAMONES AND HORROR

What do you know about The Ramones? I mean really? How deep does your knowledge go, how many albums do you own, what are your favorite deep cuts? I can't imagine anyone not, at the very least, owning a best of or the first couple of albums. To the uninitiated or casual fan, the assumption is that The Ramones made one great album and kept making it. Well...yes and no.
The Ramones didn't evolve from album to album as radically as The Clash, but they certainly improved as songwriters and musicians and the production value generally improved as well. They kept the songs fairly simple, straightforward, and short-occasionally adding synths or horns or strings, but at heart, it was always "1-2-3-4!" and go! They always took great 60s pop and played it with the speed and tone of a buzz saw, throwing in a few pretty ballads along the way. To me, there were albums that weren't as good as others, but there has been no Ramones studio album that I would call awful. At worst, an album like Pleasant Dreams was perhaps not as good as Subterranean Jungle. 
Other than being great innovators and inspiration for countless pop punk clones, what makes The Ramones specifically relevant Stranger With Friction? The Ramones recorded some great horror punk songs. Some even before the kings of horror punk, The Misfits. Here's a 6 song playlist of great horror moments and dark humor from 'da brudders'...

"Mama, where's your little daughter?

she's here, right here on the altar

You should never have opened that door

now you're never gonna see her no more

You don't know what I can do with this axe chop off your head

so you better relax"
"You Should Never Have Opened That Door", from Leave Home (also available as a demo on the 1st album) is about, well, you read the lyrics. That's it. A mom walks in on some sort of witchy ceremony and whoever has her daughter is going to chop off her head if she doesn't relax. Dark as hell stuff in a super catchy song. Think of The Misfits' "Last Caress", what a sick song, but you'll never get it out of your head!

"Oh, oh, oh

Sitting here with nothin' to do

Sitting here thinkin' only of you

But you'll never get out of there

She'll never get out of there.

Texas chain saw massacre

They took my baby away from me

But she'll never get out of there

She'll never get out of there

I don't care, wohoho

When I saw her on the corner

She told me told me told me told me

She wouldn't go far

Ooh, now I know I'm so much in love

'Cause she's the only girl that I'm ever thinking of"

"Chainsaw" kicks off with screeching sound of a bandsaw, whatever, before launching into such a "Ramones" kind of love song, full of longing trumped by apathy. It's such a funny little tribute to one of the most horrifying films ever made, Texas Chainsaw Massacre. 

"Psycho therapy, psycho therapy, psycho therapy

That's what they want to give me

Psycho therapy, psycho therapy, psycho therapy

What they want to give me

I'm a teenage schizoid, the one your parent despise

Psycho therapy, now I got glowing eyes

I'm a teenage schizoid, pranks and muggings are fun

Psycho therapy, gonna kill someone

Psycho therapy, psycho therapy

Psycho therapy, psycho therapy, psycho therapy

Psycho therapy, psycho therapy, psycho therapy

I like takin' tuinal, it keeps me edgy and mean

I'm a teenage schizoid, I'm a teenage dope fiend

I'm a kid in the nuthouse, I'm a kid in the psycho zone

Psycho therapy, I'm gonna burglarize your home

Psycho therapy, psycho therapy, hey

Psycho therapy, psycho therapy, psycho therapy

Psycho therapy, psycho therapy, psycho therapy

Psycho therapy, psycho therapy, psycho therapy

Psycho therapy, psycho therapy, psycho therapy"

No, not specifically horrific, but considering how often mental illness plays into horror movies, "Psycho Therapy" fits right in.

"Everybody said so man you could see it on T.V.

They stood there ashamed with nowhere to go

Nobody wants them now the kids are alright

Every day is a holiday and pushin' people around

I'm making monsters for my friends

I'm making monsters for my friends

Someone caught one I could see so myself

I had to call 254 so they wouldn't blame me

We wanted to know how much trouble there was

When we asked our daddy he said it's just because

I'm making monsters for my friends

I'm making monsters for my friends

I don't wanna open a can of worms and

I don't want any Spagetti-Os

And I could always tell when

someone is holding a grudge

I'm making monsters for my friends

I'm making monsters for my friends

I'm making monsters for my friends

I'm making monsters for my friends"

I can barely make heads or tails of these lyrics, but it's got MONSTER in the chorus and so it goes on the list. Great song from The Ramones last album, Adios Amigos. 

"Hey, daddy-o

I don't want to go down to the basement

There's somethin' down there

I don't want to go

Hey, Romeo

There's somethin' down there

I don't want to go down to the basement"

Pretty typical of the debut album, short set of catchy lyrics repeated for about two minutes. It speaks directly to that kid in all of us who didn't want to go down into that dark, lonely basement with all the spiderwebs and shadows. Here's a cool fan made video to go along with it.

"Under the arc of a weather stain boards

Ancient goblins, and warlords

Come out of the ground, not making a sound

The smell of death is all around

And the night when the cold wind blows, no one cares, nobody knows

I don't want to be buried in a Pet Sematary

I don't want to live my life again

Follow Victor to the sacred place

This ain't a dream, I can't escape

Molars and fangs, the clicking of bones

Spirits moaning among the tombstones

And the night, when the moon is bright

Someone cries, something ain't right

I don't want to be buried in a Pet Sematary

I don't want to live my life again

The moon is full, the air is still

All of a sudden I feel a chill

Victor is grinning, flesh rotting away

Skeletons dance, I curse this day

And the night when the wolves cry out

Listen close and you can hear me shout

I don't want to be buried in a Pet Sematary

I don't want to live my life again

Oh no, oh no

I don't want to live my life again, oh no, oh oh

I don't want to live my life again, oh no, no, no"

There was a great synergy to The Ramones writing "Pet Sematary" for the film adaptation of the great Stephen King novel, since King references The Ramones in the book. This is certainly one of their top 20 songs of their career. 

If anything I hope you're inspired to dig deep into The Ramones' catalogue. There are several great tracks just as good as "Blitzkrieg Bop" or "I Wanna Be Sedated". And don't forget, if you're not in it, you're out of it! 

POSTS FROM THE GRAVE; REALITY 86'D

Hola, fiends! Remember that great blog BASEMENT SCREAMS? Really kick ass site and the man behind it, Ol' Dirty Murphy, is a helluva guy. Well back in 2013 he let this guy guest post for his DAMAGED; EXPLORING PUNKS ON FILM series. I took on Dave Markey's rare and hard to see Reality 86'd, which chronicled the last Black Flag tour. Basement Screams has gone away, unfortunately, but maybe one of these days J-Murph and I will get our shit together and do that Podcast we talked about!

Tour film starring Black Flag, Painted Willie, and Gone 1986

Directed by Dave Markey, completed in1991, unreleased officially

Black Flag toured like no other punk band before or after. Their tour schedules were grueling, spirit breaking affairs that took months in cargo vans and brought them to every out of the way dump in America. They were true trail blazers, opening up the US for every other punk/indie band who followed. This could be one of the reasons the band burned through fourteen different members in less than a decade.

            When Flag went out for six months in ’86 to support their In My Head album I doubt anyone knew this would be the band’s swan song. On the album, drummer Anthony Martinez had replaced Bill Stevenson (Descendents, ALL) and before the tour bassist Kira Roessler left and was replaced by Cel Revulta.  In My Head may have been Black Flag’s finest recorded moment, sonically speaking-crystal clear production, a consistency in song writing, and a cohesiveness that albums like My War and Slip It In lacked.

            Tensions were high in the band and had been for some time particularly between  founder Greg Ginn and 4th vocalist Henry Rollins. Ginn had become more interested in instrumental music while Rollins had matured and hardened into a creative force in the band and not merely a yes man for Ginn.  The all instrumental Process of Weeding Out seemed like a clear message to Rollins, but he stuck it out.

            They struck out across the country with Painted Willie (Dave Markey was the drummer/vocalist)  and Ginn’s jazz/punk three piece Gone (which featured future Rollins Band rhythm section of Sim Cain on drums and Andrew Weiss (Ween) on bass). Markey brought a Super 8 camera along and captured this odyssey. The end result of Reality 86’d is a loose, irreverent look into a LSD and weed driven journey of thirteen individuals that at different times come off as brilliant, silly and/or boring. No one seems especially self conscious, the bands sound amazing (particularly Gone). It’s an adventurous art film and captures the last recorded moments of one of America’s most influential bands (you can clearly see the roots of Grunge). But what’s missing is an emotional depth, probably due to the fact that Markey didn’t know that he was capturing the end of Black Flag, in other words, this ain’t no Last Waltz.

            I would say there are two books that are required reading to accompany Reality 86’d that give the film a gravity and an emotional punch that it lacks on it’s own. First and obviously is Rollins’ Get In The Van; On The Road With Black Flag. The last half of his book are intense reading and especially the Apocalypse Now feel of the ’86 tour. Second is Rollins’ friend Joe Cole’s book Planet Joe, which chronicled in wild detail this tour along with the first Rollins Band tour. Cole served as roadie and documented some of the most harrowing moments of those six moths. (Cole would tragically be shot dead in ’91 when he and Rollins were being mugged outside of their home).

            Reality 86’d is an important document, it has a great psychidelic/punk vibe like it’s a vision of the future from a more primitive time and should have a place on every punk or music nerd’s shelf. But sorry, sunshine, you can’t own it. Not legally anyway. Greg Ginn blocked any release of this film for reasons known only to him. Even as recently as 2011 he demanded it be taken down from Vimeo, where Markey had uploaded it for free viewing,  but the internet wins, because you can view it all over over the web (I watched it on Youtube). I hold out hope that Reality 86’d will get an official release someday along with Flag’s ’82 demos which any fan must hear.  Flag has reformed, going out on tour and releasing a new album this year, so all hope may not be lost, but then again, I’m an optimist.

3.5 Severed Thumbs Up (or 3.5 Screaming Jamies, if you like)

"I AM THE FUTURE" ALICE COOPER AND CLASS OF 1984

I think over the course of the last four years I've made it pretty clear that I was a late night TV junky. Ever since I caught a really bad Christopher Lee sci-fi flick at 3 am, I became obsessed with staying up all hours of the night to see what dark delights the weird old TV gods would bestow upon me. Especially when we got cable in the mid 80s. Especially when I got a little TV for my bedroom and I was able to run a cable splitter from the living room TV to my bedroom. Back then USA, TBS, Fox, WGN, and sometimes even the big three would play horror, action, and exploitation films post 11PM. That's how I spent my weekends, flipping through all these channels to find that sweet spot.
Two of my favorite movies that seemed to play all the time were The Warriors and Class Of 1984. I'll be covering The Warriors later this week, in honor of Waxwork Records' original soundtrack double vinyl release, which I have received in the mail, and holy crap, it's awesome!

Class Of 1984 was my first punk film and featured Alice Cooper's "I Am The Future" in the opening credits. At the point I first watched Class Of 1984, Cooper's Trash had just come out. It was his first really big hit record in some time, but it wasn't a very 'Alice' record. It was lousy with guest spots from Aerosmith and Bon Jovi and veered away from the theatrical rock he was known for and more

towards the poodle head cock rock of the day. Fortunately, Trash was still way better than anything by the flavor of the week pop metal bands and actually still holds up pretty well today. I was new to Alice at the time though and very excited about Trash and played it constantly. So I was already hungry for more, especially since my mom had banned Alice from house for being sick and Satanic.

Catching Class Of 1984 was random happenstance while flipping through the channels. It was just starting and didn't take much to hook me, especially when I saw Alice's name in the credits. If you're unfamiliar with this 1982 cult classic, let me give you a little info; it was written by Tom Holland (Psycho II, Fright Night, The Beast Within, Cloak and Dagger, Child's Play) and directed by Mark Lester (Showdown In Little Tokyo, Firestarter, Commando)-cult film royalty, and starred Perry King (Riptide), Roddy McDowall (Fright Night, Black Hole, Planet Of The Apes, Batman '66) and Timothy Van Patton (who went on to direct episode of Sopranos and Game of Thrones among many other shows) and was even Michael J Fox's film debut. Lester also wrote and directed the, um sequel (?) Class Of 1999, which came out in 1990. If you're unfamiliar with that one too, well go find it!

King plays the new music teacher in a really bad school where the kids run wild and terrorize everyone. He has a pregnant wife at home and has basically hit the shit storm jackpot coming to work here. He befriends McDowall's character, who tries to show King the ropes (like carrying a pistol in his briefcase!). Van Patton is the leader of gang of violent, drug dealing punks who push McDowall to his breaking point and forces King to take some drastic action.

I don't want to give away to much more! Class Of 1984 is a really dark action/exploitation film with the heart of a horror movie. You could certainly draw comparisons to old westerns where the good guy shows up in a town run by a bunch of outlaws and has to bring law and order, but there's no clean hands or white hats and no one rides off into the sunset. This movie puts you through the wringer.

If you listen to "I Am The Future" out of context of the film it just sounds like one of those great Alice rock rebellion anthems like "Department Of Youth" or "School's Out". Applied to Class Of 1984 and it's a dire warning of a future going down in flames, of youth rising up and eating their parents, of a day where you can't run to a teacher or a cop for protection...

When does a dream become a nightmare?

When do we do what must be done?

When do we stand and face the future?

When there is nowhere left to run?

And you've got to learn

Just how to survive

You've got to learn

How to keep your dream alive

Take a look at my face

I am the future

How do you like what you see?

Take a look at my face

I belong to the future

And you belong to me

Class Of 1984 was released on Blu Ray from the awesome Scream Factory. It really is a chilling film even now and recommended for fans of Suburbia (Penelope Spheeris) and The Warriors.

GUEST POST from JEFFERY X MARTIN for ESSENTIAL ALBUMS; HUSKER DU'S FLIP YOUR WIG

Do you remember community radio? Of course you don’t, you shitheels with your digital playlists and corporations telling what is cool, and you swallow it like bucketfuls of money jizz. Well, before you get off my lawn, let me tell you something. 

If you live in the right kind of town, you have a radio station where people can claim a timeslot and play whatever the fuck they want. Those towns are golden, and need to be given medals for awesomeness. When I was a kid, the station was WAIF, rumbling out of Cincinnati. One night a week, there was a hardcore punk show that I can’t remember the name of, because I drink a lot, and fuck you if you don’t know that kind of pain. 

The main DJ called himself Clem Kadiddlehopper, and his sidekick’s name had something to do with hockey. Fuck. I don’t remember. I was maybe sixteen when all this went down. I’m pushing fifty now. I hope I can be forgiven if I forget a few details after all this time. I didn’t think I would live past the age of thirteen, so suck it. 

One night, Clem played a song by a band I had never heard of called Hüsker Dü. Now, I knew the name because I had the game. The band took their name from a memory/recognition game that I had gotten for Christmas a few years in the past. 

It struck my first because I couldn’t figure out what the chords were. Now, I’m a good guitar player, and I play be ear. But I was befuddled by the crazy shit Bob Mould was throwing down. And it was a slow song! I should have been able to parse those chords out. Nope. Total mystery. 

But more important than that, to an angst-driven white Anglo suburban punk, were the words. Damned if Mould hadn’t read my mind and made a catchy tune out of it. 

I could be sad, I could be lonely
I could still have some friends if I only
Didn't play the games I had to play
I was important when I was cool
Now it gets lonely playing the fool
It's a game that anyone can play

Fuck, it was like he had ripped those feelings right from my heart and my balls and said them more plainly than I ever could. I went out the next day and bought the album. 

So let’s talk about Hüsker Dü’s FLIP YOUR WIG. 

The band was a three piece. Bob Mould on guitar and lyrics. Grant Hart on drums and lyrics. Greg Norton on bass. He rarely contributed vocals, and not at all on this album. 

This was the last album they put out before getting signed to Warner Bros. which is pretty much the death knell for any band. Even R.E.M. finally submitted to the Warner curse. They should have stayed on IRS, just like the Hüskers should have stayed on SST. 

The opening title song, tight with Bob and Grant taking turns on vocals is a joyous little pop gem. There are a lot of those on this record, from Bob’s “Hate Paper Doll’ to Grant’s ballad, “Green Eyes.” But then, when you least expect it, the record slaps you in the reproductives with a song like “Divide and Conquer,” Bob’s treatise on revisionist history and the “Youth of Today.” It goes into your head like a drill, stirs your brain around, then leaves as brutally as it came in. One chord progression in the whole song. ONE. Fuck Led Zeppelin; this was the sledgehammer of the gods, crashing down upon everything the Establishment held dear, leaving nothing but the jagged seams of the music staff in its wake. 

And what could prepare the casual listener for the complete mental breakdown of the last half of the album? Fuck all NOTHING. From “The Baby Song,” played on a slide penny whistle, to the instrumental closing double shot of hellfire that is “The Wit and the Wisdom” and “Don’t Know Yet,” FLIP YOUR WIG shows Hüsker Dü at the height of their power, still in touch with their audience enough to be relevant, not yet appearing on the Joan Fucking Rivers Show. 

It was the final show of solidarity, before drugs, sex and the confines of the closet destroyed the band from within. It’s their greatest balance between pure anger and post-punk pop, and on one susceptible night in 1985, it changed my life forever. 

A bit about Jeffery with two Fs; he's the author of Black Friday and Stories About You and contributes over at the mighty Popshifter.com. Check out his Amazon author profile HERE. Oh and he's a mighty fine sumbitch to boot! 

GUEST POST! ESSENTIAL ALBUMS; MISFITS COLLECTION I BY CHRIS CAVORETTO of WEREWOLVES in SIBERIA

The Misfits' "Collection I" album is probably the most essential album out there for me.  It embodies my love of horror, rock and roll, lo-fi recordings and being outside the mainstream all at once.  There's a story to my love of this album.  It starts when I was fifteen.

In 1993, I was learning guitar, playing in my first band and completely obsessed with Metallica.  They were the epitome of Bay Area thrash and I was quickly diving into as much of their music, home videos and info on the band as I could get my hands on.

Thanks to the popularity of the live version of Mother getting airtime on MTV, I was exposed to Danzig around this time.  These guys played a heavy, metal-edged rock and had all the imagery that grabbed my attention instantly.. skulls, long hair, black clothes, cool guitars, etc.  At this point, Danzig and Metallica were, without question, my two favorite bands.  I couldn't get more of their music into my collection fast enough.  If I had extra money, it was going to them.

I noticed the infamous Crimson Ghost in tons of Metallica pictures. They were always wearing Misfits shirts but I didn't know anything about the band.  You couldn't just find out anything you wanted to know on the internet at this point.  Through a Metallica biography, I came across the fact that Glenn Danzig was the singer for The Misfits.  I was sold.  I didn't need to know anything more, I just needed a Misfits album.

I found a few CD's at the record store the next time I was there.  "Legacy of Brutality" had cool skeleton art on it.  "Walk Among Us" had an awesome ode to B-horror movies going on with the cover art.  Then, there was "Collection I".  The cover art was a little more plain but it had twenty songs on it.  Twenty songs!  That was mine.  I got home and immediately called my friend, Adam (the drummer for my first band).

"Dude, I got a Misfits CD.  You need to come over and check this out with me."

He came over right away and I put it on for our first listen.  She is the first song on the album... and it was... weird.

"What the hell is this?"  "Did they record this in their garage?"  "This is Danzig's old band?"  These are all thoughts that immediately came to us and I'm pretty sure each one of these phrases spewed from our mouths.

By the time the second song, Hollywood Babylon, was done, we were hooked, even singing along already.  We weren't used to recordings like this and, though it was dark subject matter, it didn't sound angry, it sounded fun.  Once the shock of something new and completely unexpected wore off, the simplistic genius set in.  It sounded bad, but it sounded right sounding so bad.  This was completely unpolished, full of 50's-style rock and roll chord progressions, crooning, yelling on key, a little thrash towards the end, a healthy dose of punk rock attitude and a ton of horror movie influence all in one.

Last Caress was the song I knew because Metallica covered it live (someone I knew eventually dubbed their "Garage Days" cassette for me so I could have Last Caress/Green Hell, but I don't think that had happened yet) .  Last Caress wasn't on "Collection I".  I think that made me a true fan.  It made me listen to the whole thing instead of seeking out the one song I knew and listening to it repeatedly.

As a horror fan, the imagery is right, the subject matter is right.  That unpolished sound, even though it took about a minute and a half to get into, really just works for me.  Glenn Danzig's almost Elvis-style vocals with the dirty, lo-fi sound; it all fits together so well.

Metal and punk rock are definitely complimentary for horror fans but no one's ever done horror rock (or horror punk) like The Misfits.  Legions of horror punk bands have popped up since.  Most try to sound like The Misfits.  Hardly any could hold a candle to them, though.

This album, in particular, influenced my song writing so much as a teenager and still it does.  Almost every band I've been in where I was sort of the "guy in charge" covered at least one Misfits song.  Even in my current project, Werewolves in Siberia, I covered Halloween and London Dungeon in a completely different fashion; turning them into horror synth songs that fit in well with the rest of my WIS stuff.

There are a few Misfits songs I'm not too into but, for the most part, I really dig their entire catalog (original Misfits, anyway).  It doesn't matter what mood I'm in, you can throw on The Misfits and I won't have a problem with it.  "Collection I" was not only my introduction to them, but having twenty songs on it, it was also a great way to get a grasp on the band, as a whole.  This makes it THE necessity for me, rather than picking one of the albums they originally released.

There are so many iconic songs on this album.  She, Hollywood Babylon, Skulls, Where Eagles Dare, Die Die My Darling, Vampira, I Turned into a Martian, All Hell Breaks Loose, London Dungeon... I haven't even begun to scratch the surface here!  It's just awesome.  It's probably the most listened to album in my collection (in any format).  It just fits, no matter what, anytime.

She

Where Eagles Dare

Die Die My Darling

Horror Business

Green Hell

OUT NOW; RIKK AGNEW BAND/SYMBOL SIX SPLIT 7"

From the press release;

Good friends for 30+ years, these two bands have finally come together in the form of a split 7″. 2014 saw both bands embark on touring across the U.S, with both also planning overseas touring in 2015. THE RIKK AGNEW BAND come hard and fast with two ferocious punk covers handpicked by Agnew. With SYMBOL SIX bringing two new professionally recorded live tracks to the table. RIKK AGNEW has been legendary in not only the OC/L.A scene but internationallly since 1979 as a member of some of the most influential bands to this day including D.I, THE DETOURS,ADOLESCENTS, SOCIAL DISTORTION, CHRISTIAN DEATH, as well as two notable solo albums. SYMBOL SIX are likewise stalwarts of the Orange County/Los Angeles scenes, having been active since 1980 in their own band as well as in early incarnations of FASTER PUSSYCAT, GUNS N’ ROSES, among others.
This is the first recorded output from THE RIKK AGNEW BAND and the first new recorded output for RIKK AGNEW in over 10 years. This is a vital piece of wax for fans of both bands, and is pressed on three different colors, and marks the beginning of more to come.

This release is fantastic, seriously. You punks need this 7" in your life.