Too Damn TOUGH - The Top 10 Tough Guy Bands You May Not Know About...
So you wanna be in a tough guy band? The question many of us
have asked ourselves midway through the Under The Knife Hatebreed 7” or the Bulldoze
demo. Its an odd feeling of testosterone-fuelled empowerment listening to this
sub-category of hardcore music and I take my hat off to anyone who can take on
this type of persona with no questions asked as to their fly-kicking and pool-cue bashing portfolio. The rest of us will have to settle for the six and a
half to ten minutes of muscle pumping fury that these records last for where we
can pretend to be at least half as scary as Kev One in this 2010 Bulldoze
set. I can only hope that the overwhelming majority of r33l tough guys and
wannabes (like me) don’t take on the baggage of evolving into that one sketchy
uncle; only turning up on odd birthdays and funerals, spending our days resharing
abysmally constructed conspiracy memes on Facebook with the only two things
these deplorable images having in common being their strong racist undertones
and - a far more heinous crime - bad grammar.
Unlike my thrash article I will try not to produce
a thesis report on this subgenre and try to keep the descriptions relatively
short (emphasis on TRY x2), the purpose of this entry is just to shed some light
on records that I’ve excavated through either running out of stuff to listen to
at the gym or more simply just to tell you about bands that I think you should
know about as I believe there to be a surfacing demand for unknown gems in this
category within the current UKHC demographic. So, let’s get started on the list
of records below that were just too damn TOUGH to fit through the sands of time
and be remembered in the hardcore hall of fame…
[In throwback fashion to old blogspots, I’ll leave
downloadable links to any of the records that aren’t available somewhere on
streaming services or YouTube]
Disciplinary Action – 'Burnt Out ' (1992)
Now I’m guessing most of you have listened to Long Island legends,
Neglect (can’t imagine who would be reading this who hadn’t heard at least one
Neglect song) but you probably haven’t heard of LI contemporaries Disciplinary
Action. DA did a demo in 1989 which slaps almost has hard as the record I’ve
chosen for this list and is basically the same sound as that 7” just without the
sludgy beatdown sections making this record more tough guy worthy (of course).
To imagine this band’s sound just take the maniacal vocals and guitar sound
from Neglect and mix it with the tempo and urgency of bands like Breakdown or
Outburst. This has to be without a shadow of doubt the most agitated sounding
record on the list and packs such a punch for what I believe is a single guitar
band (Neglect also managing to deliver such shipping container heaviness with
just one guitar, must be an LI thing). To cut a long story short, this band are four skinheads playing beatdown and on that description alone this record should immediately be open in a new tab on your browser. This IS the closest thing you’ll ever get to a band sounding even slightly like Neglect and If I’m right, this band predate Brian and the gang by a year or two therefore a possible key influence on Neglect’s scarily heavy sound (especially for 1991).
Despite the DA 7” being
released in 1992 I get the feeling the band were already playing heavier songs
as early as 1990 since the ’89 demo is already heading in that direction meaning
the 7” songs quite possibly could have been played live while Neglect were
still forming. Regardless of historical nerdiness, it is just SHOCKING that most
people have never even heard of this band despite how heavy, catchy and
original the songs are and the fact the 7” came out on Stephen Kickback’s label,
Hardway Records. I can only think the quintessential metallic 90s sound had
already taken off in 91/92 and this record came out just a year too late
to make any waves since most were already used to the late 80s NYHC sound by
that point. It’s a pity because if anyone had bothered to skim this 7” onto
their turntable they’d be completely balled over by the sheer heaviness of the dense
production and song writing Disciplinary Action exude from every inch of their
bald heads, braces and camo trousers. Just listen to the song “What’s Wrong”
which is borderline sludge metal. Burnt Out is a serious CLASSIC.
I’m trying to get this
one in early since most of this list comprises of East Coast bands and VD is
one of the few West Coast entries on this list. Many of you may know guitarist Jeff
Banks’ band Chorus of Disapproval which came after VD and is what Banks is best
known for. Despite being the baby band of a cult classic 90s hardcore outfit,
VD packs no less of a West Coast assault on the senses and has all the tough
sounding guitarwork and death metal-tinged licks Banks would hone in Chorus.
What Visual Discrimination do is essentially take a sound
more akin to New York acts like Killing Time, combine it with chaotically fast California
bands such Uniform Choice, Crucifix, Final Conflict etc and play all of this
through Florida DM sounding guitar stacks. What you get out the other end is “tough-punk”
which sounds as weak as the newly masqueraded Brexit deal but trust me on this,
you won’t regret blasting this VD record during those eye-watering zoom
meetings that go on for at least an hour longer than they should. One of my favourite
things about this band sonically is the fast sections sound just as tough as
the half time “moshy” parts and serve as sections in their own right rather
than just to build tension.
As to tough guy credential rating, Jeff Banks trained boxing
and every other member of VD was into some form of athleticism. However, there
will be another West Coast act mentioned on this list that has far more extreme
gang banging bragging rights over VD (who for the most part fall in line with
the high school jock category of hardcore kids much in the same way that Pat Dubar
from Uniform Choice did in the mid-80s California hardcore scene).
All of their material is on Spotify along with the insanely
good comeback EP, “Serial Killers” from the late 90s.
So there’s a certain point within the tough guy sub-genre
near the top right of the ven-diagram where tough turns to scary. Now
this diagram has several other categories and I imagine there being the
following sections: Tough IRL; Tough On Record; Scary On Record; Scary IRL; Not
Tough and Not Scary. Now just to put this into perspective, a band that falls
in the most extreme corner of Tough IRL and Scary IRL might be Cold as Life:
tough as nails and could scare the pants of you via the threat of just shooting
you in the face. Then you get the Tough IRL and Tough On Record area of the diagram
which is a lot of crew type bands who might not do anything actually scary
(scary being threat of death, the macabre and any general unsettling behaviour
- see Kickback grave robbing story) but would definitely kick the living
shit out of a bystander for any type of disrespect. The section Newport News, Virginia's own MAYDAY fall into is the Tough On Record and Scary On Record tiers therefore
having no known tough or scary credentials but by sound alone could strike fear
into the hearts of any unbeknownst listener.
Its a shame this band aren’t hailed by many hardcore adorers
as a definitive as I actually think Mayday’s sound translates quite well to
hardcore bands of today and other contemporary groups that are held in high
regard (eg 100 Demons, Stigmata etc) and I’d even go as far to say that Mayday
are a key influence on both as their sound can be dated back to 1992. Take the B-side
song on the 7” I’ve picked for this article, “Pestilence” and compare it to any
Incendiary song. The mid-paced grinding of the chugs holding the song together and
stellar double pedal work would definitely resonate with current day listeners.
However, what I think makes Mayday such an interesting band is just how EVIL
they manage to sound throughout all their records. This is one of those groups
where its less the impact of the riffs that make the hair stand up on your neck
but more the general eerie vibe of the low-fi production; droning ring outs and
possessed vocal delivery. In this sense, Mayday are almost akin to many black
metal bands in the merciless quest to create the most sinister sounds by any
means necessary.
The easiest band to compare Mayday to is of course, Integrity
(whom actually did a split with Mayday in the early 90s which many perceive
the Mayday side being the better of the two) as both bands were key in pioneering
that orchestral creepy sound of the early 90s. What makes Mayday SO much better
is the songs ooze hard-done-by-weirdo-school-shooter vibes that Dwid often
clumsily tried to engineer on early Integ records to the only avail of being
beaten up by various tough AND scary characters.
I’ve uploaded a link to an unofficial Discography for this
legendary tough guy band that includes some unreleased material that I would implore
everyone to listen to (see the final 12”, Staplegun where they really went off
the deep end on the SCARE factor). I’ve only picked the above 7” for the list
as it best represents Mayday’s sound providing the cross generational link to later
90s groups and current hardcore bands of this style alike.
This World Rejected is the logical continuation of the
mythical beast that is Zero Tolerance. For anyone who doesn’t know, ZT were a
straight edge band hailing from Buffalo NY in the late 80s and to my knowledge
were one of the first Buffalo/Upstate NY bands to open the flood gates for all
the seriously lairy acts from the same area to run rampant throughout the 90s. ZT
did a 7”, a smattering of demos and two compilation tracks before their unfortunate demise.
Whilst the 7” isn’t anything noteworthy, the transformation from that record to
the final demo and compilation tracks is like the final scene of Hellraiserwhere the skeleton dragon thing flies off into the night sky.
Have I hit home my unhealthy obsession for this mighty quintet
enough rather than talking about the band that’s actually on the list? ZT are
also steeped in mystery when it comes to tough guy lore, all the way from the
members single-handedly removing the Neo-Nazi contingent from Buffalo hardcore
to some oddly macabre happenings surrounding their demise. Someday I’ll pluck
up the courage to interview Buffalo legend, Scott Vogel to really get to the
bottom of how nutty this fine legion actually were.
Anyway, back to TWR! One can view this lesser known 7” as the
final ZT record under a different name along with minor line-up changes to
birth this beast of a record. There’s a notable slowdown from the more thrash
metal/Cro-Mags-esque foundations that ZT built up on their later material with
these songs dragging the listener firmly forward into the groove-drenched 1990s.
TWR are the perfect balance of more commercial outfits like
Biohazard and Pantera via simple arrangement of E-chugged rhythmic density but keeping
a firm hardcore grounding through vocal delivery and no-punches-pulled production.
Almost every lyric on this thing is quotable (my personal favourite being “I hold
the key to my own destiny, just remember it belongs to no one but meehhhhhh”)
and I assure you that none of these songs will be able to go through one ear
and out the other…they’re just THAT good. There is such an acute awareness by
the band of their own talents that make this record so commercially viable
that I don’t know what A&R person wouldn’t have been frothing at the mouth
to sign this gang of goons amidst all the tattooed savagery being released in
the early 90s.
It’s a shame really, the three songs on show are so
masterfully crafted that I couldn’t help feel ZT/TWR could have become as big
of a household name as any of their contemporaries (and maybe even more so) with
this 7” serving as the starting point fished out to record companies
nationwide. Unfortunately, this would be
the untimely end of the road for this speeding freight train as the members of This
World Rejected would finally come off the tracks with the release of this
self-titled epic, releasing no further material and fading into the obscurity
of the gloss filled used 7” bin.
There’s always one wild card to any list which bucks the trend
of its accompaniments and this is the entry that does just that. Circle One
trade in the “tough metallic” sound in for an originating hardcore PUNK transmission
but amount to all of the hooligan antics of every band mentioned on this post
combined and then some. Remember me saying there would be one more West Coast
act in this list? Well, Circle One are who I was talking about with a wrap sheet
placing them slap bang on the far corner of the Tough IRL and Scary IRL section
but (to the ears of some) not sounding too tough or scary on record. There is
plenty of material already on the internet about how insane the singer of this
band, John Macias (RIP) was. From beating LAPD cops to a literal pulp to being
shot to death in the middle of LA for throwing a security guard off a pier, the
chronicle of John Macias and his punk-gang “The Family” reaches far and wide.
Without going too much into the gaping depths of this band’s history (I’ll leave some further reading links for anyone interested), Henry Rollins actually
had a great section in one of his early stand-up tours where he explains the story of Circle One far better than anyone else could.
I like to the think of Patterns of Force as the evil little
brother to the first Suicidal Tendencies LP, a very early take on LA Punks
trying their hand at a proto-crossover sound. I really do love this LP for all
its bizarre qualities; from Macias’ possessed wails to the disjointed rabid
playing of the rhythm section to what is possibly the first Christian hardcore
lyrics ever written on the track ‘Gospel’. To some, this record may come off as
a confusing mish mash of incessant wailings of a madman combined with a band
playing so ferociously that the songs just about make it to the end without
falling to pieces. All of the above may be true and is exactly why I love this
album, there just isn’t anything like it and combined with the unbelievable back
story to the membership, there should be no surprise that this band has had a
massive influence on my own band, Lawful Killing (listen to the song Plastic
Life/Rapture and you’ll see what I mean).
Those partaking in the listening of this record should take
note that this is not only one of the earliest relics of tough guy hardcore but
hardcore generally and that the sounds on Patterns of Force are completely in
tune with the time the record came out. Even the first Cold as Life demos are
at base level a brilliant take on Negative Approach with yank-Oi edge factored in
so, what tese shaven headed LA Porta Rican punks were doing in 1983 makes perfect
sense for the time.
It’d be hard to write this article without mentioning the
mecca of all tough guy bands, Cold As Life who hail from the mecca of tough guy
places…Detroit. Pittbull – intentionally misspelled for what reason I can’t
fathom (although it does makes it easier searching them up and not getting the results
filled up with the shiny scalped Dr Evil look alike rapper of the same name) -
were a phenomenally talented Detroit hardcore band from the late 80s and early
90s who were one of the bigger Detroit contenders after CAL. I’m really trying
to hone my knack for slick one liner band descriptions on this article (well-oiled
from the years of inscribing Facebook event page descriptions) and Pittbull are
basically what you’d get if Judge weren’t the slightest bit straight edge, got
dragged through the gun slinging streets of Motor City and actually had a
palpable aura of mystifying danger charging around them in the same way Piccolo did when he fused with Kami.
I remember talking about this band with Nate Bean (from
various legendary UKHC groups) and him telling me he instantly bought the first
couple of 7”s purely because of how ratchet the band looked on the back of one
of the discs. Maybe not the best analogy but I sort of see Detroit in the same
way I see Birmingham; an industrial wasteland that was once booming with
business but degraded slowly as all industry was exported away from the indigenous
population who were thus left behind in ruin and tumult. Musically, bands from
Detroit and Brum always manage to engrave their records with a sizzling
industrial insignia that reflects back what I just mentioned about the two
cities. Pittbull is no exception and provides a wholly unique sound made up of
all kinds of influences. The music, like I said, is metallic in a similar way
to Judge or Killing Time but that’s where the comparisons stop. The band is
tinged with a raging rock ‘n’ roll/heavy metal vibe in the guitar playing with vocals
adding an almost soulful Motown vibe in how every note is bellowed out in tuneful roars (not rawr). Singer, Mikey really knew what he was doing on the early Pittbull
material and manages to sound as pissed off as Laughing Hyenas era John
Brandon whilst still reaching sonically high ranges reminiscent of James Brown
or Little Richard within the same song!
This is definitely one of those groups I wish I had more
information on as I can’t see how being in a hardcore band from Detroit in the
early 90s couldn’t have been the most gnarly experience ever with probably every
member containing their fair share of nail-biting lore. I do know singer, Mikey
was featured briefly in the CAL documentary trailer so if that film ever
does surface it would be a rare treat to get a perspective of a mostly isolated
(but extremely influential) hardcore scene that really isn’t delved into enough
in the modern age.
Streaming platforms have a weird “Worst Of” collection of
Pittbull’s material; 100% worthwhile if only for the first four tracks (these
songs are from the first few 7”s which are a pain to track down otherwise) but
the quintessential material is the self-titled LP, thankfully uploaded to YouTube.
PS this is the only hardcore band I’ve ever seen where the drummer
plays traditional grip. Nothing to add here, it’s really fucking cool, check it
out in the below vid.
Elements DEC – 'Demo Collection' (Hesitation is the Enemy
1997 and Win or Lose 1995)
One for the emotional and introspective tough sub-section;
Elements DEC (Dead End Concept or Dead End Cruks Crew) were an NJ hip-hop/hardcore
fusion act from the late 90s. If I had to do a FFO list for each band on this
list, Elements DEC would have E-Town Concrete slapped next to their name and it
really is a shame this band probably only share less than 1% of the notoriety their
steroid pumped white boy rapper contemporary enjoys.
The head turning fact for Elements DEC will be that several
of the members went on to be in the mighty Agents of Man (which gives me some
peace of mind that people who made demos THIS good at least went onto do
something that was recognised by a sizable division of the hardcore masses) with
the quality of song writing and playing ability really showing pedigree promise
on both demos. Unlike E-Town, everything on the DEC catalogue is rapped with no
harsher degree of vocals juxtaposing their way into the fray. This only works in the
band’s favour as every single bit of spoken delivery on both demos is stellar
and I could honestly listen to the vocalist rap on just straight hip-hop beats
without batting an eyelid as to the credentials of the man behind the voice
(which I can’t say for any other hardcore/hip hop combination band). It’s also
a close battle with This World Rejected as who takes the best lyrics award for
this list as the way each word is written on the songs is extremely well
thought out and carries a certain intricate intention that I always think makes
for GOAT tier lyrics; not to mention the fact the lyrics sway from intelligent
to ignorant at the drop of a hat. Check the acapella song ‘And Then There Were
None’ and cross-compare with the lyrics in ‘Any Questions?’ “Did I mention we
be dirty? Our section, New Jersey!!”
Musically the band are firing on every cylinder available
and live in the perfect sweet spot of showing off musical chops without going OTT
enough for you to notice upon first listen. Expect mid-paced hymns throughout
exhibiting the chunky rhythmical guitar sound of Bulldoze or Terrorzone with
the emotional “blues-hardcore” twang of Gavin’s guitar style in Burn and
Absolution.
Aside from what I’ve mentioned above, there isn’t too much
information on this band aside from a few rehearsal videos on YouTube
and one article floating around on a blogspot which I used as my main
and only source. The first demo “Win or Lose” got added to Spotify recently so
I’ve only linked the harder to find “Hesitation is the Enemy” Demo below but if
you listen to any band from this article please do listen to either of the
demos as I always go back to these records and am always pleasantly surprised (they
might even be so lucky to win the thumbnail pic competition for this article).
War-Time Manner – 'We The People Compilation' (1996)
Everything and anything Upstate New York. That seems to be
my go-to mantra when it comes to hardcore these days with so many weird and
wonderful bands teeming from the cracks of this East Coast region, it’s no
surprise several outfits on this list hale from those parts. I was lucky enough
to be shown this absolute gem by Omar Soul Search (who I’m due to do a Brown
Inbound interview with any day now) and I’m glad he was the one who trawled
through the Blogspots, Discogs entries and YouTube related videos to discover
the criminally unknown, War-Time Manner.
Troycore at its best, this band shares members with Stigmata
and Dying Breed but like so many others on this list, never managed to amass
the cult status of brother (or sister) bands practicing their respective trades
at the same time and same geographical areas. War-Time Manner basically sound
like early era Krutch (who are probably the band that sonically represent the Golden Age of tough guy hardcore the best) with much slicker production, deeper vocals
and a very patriotic/militaristic slant when it comes to lyrical themes. In
fact, when it comes to the lyrics, I honestly can’t work out of these are
tongue-in-cheek or not: “When the day will come, they’ll send me overseas,
freedom is not free, I love this country!” I’ll leave this live footage
and a picture of the band denoting the “samples” and “keyboard” credits for readers
at home to work that one out.
Getting back to the music, the songs on this Upstate
hardcore compilation are about as procore as it gets and I was flattened
to learn these songs were recorded for just a local hardcore compilation
considering how high-end they are. The guys in the band must either have really
shelled out for these recordings or just knew someone who worked at a top grade
studio because not many bands in the mid-90s were mustering production value
this high for compilations of this nature (let alone their own 7”s and sometimes LPs). Production can only get you so far and what makes these tracks stand
out for a second time is there being no weak link in the line-up. From the
intricate bass lines to the fantastical drum fills; I only find myself puzzled
this band never went further as I’d actually put these recordings much higher
in my estimations than their better-known counterparts.
These compilation tracks for me are the best recorded entries
by the band but if you want to dig deeper, there is a 1995 demo now up on YouTube
that was recorded for what I believe was to be a full-length CD album.
Dare to Defy – 'Tales From The Drunkside' (1992), 'East
Coast Assault Vol. I' (1993) and 'Chord Magazine CD Sampler #11' (1997)
I usually advertise this band to impressionable hardcore
enthusiasts in the same way dirty old men probably conjure up fictitious sweets
to lure in small children: “Wanna hear a record that has Paul Bearer from Sheer
Terror and Jerry A. from Poison Idea both singing on a YDI cover?” Far too good
to be true for anyone past the age of naivety but also enticing enough to straddle
any over-enthusiastic 19-year-old hardcore researchers into my net. The exception with my surely farcical combo is
that it actually exists in the form of Dare to Defy’s ‘Tales from the Drunkside’
(ok, I admit, this 7” sweetie allure has only ever worked once but in fairness,
I’ve only ever tried it once so that's a 100% success rate by my count).
Right, altogether odd nonce analogies aside, Dare to Defy
were a Philly quartet starting sometime around the late 1980s and will be best
known for drummer, Met running Too Damn Hype records (which is what this whole
article is named after). TDH were an immensely important label throughout the
90s and if you flip over some of your favourite records from this era, I’d bet the
only pieces of 90s OG merch I have left that one of those was a Too Damn Hype
release. Just to name a few, this label had One Life Crew, SubZero, Indecision,
Stigmata and my personal favourite, the almighty Candiria (please check this
band out here) among many others as part of their roster.
Dare to Defy roll in as one of the earliest bands to conjure
up a crushingly heavy guitar tone in combination with eerily ghoulish
production value to help mould the quintessential tough guy sound we all know
and love. You can tell just by the name of some of the band’s records (namely ‘Steamrollin’
Neo-Nazis in the 90s’ and ‘Limp Handshake’) combined with coming from Philly that
they’re gonna rank highly on the Tough IRL section of my diagram. I’ll let Met shed
some light on the lore side of the band along with some originating Philly
bands in this interview. I’ve also added the opener to the East Coast Assault compilation
‘Shut The Gates of Mercy’ which is probably the most underrated song of the
whole 90s decade and aside from the material I've included in the download link, the band’s whole discography is worth missing out on if you
just listen to this one blazing opening blow to an east coast assault.
I have to give it to New York City, when it comes to
hardcore, the good band ratio really is just THAT high. Even a lot of the “criminally
underrated” bands on their own could quite easily be a greatly hailed champion
of any other smaller city/state but just fell prey to coming from such a
musically rich hotpot that their efforts would only be second best to bigger
fish in one of the biggest ponds.
The “Top 5 favourite…” question is so often posited by genre-philes
(such as myself and John Cusack alike) and for the hardcore community, it is
usually asked on obnoxiously long tour drives as the sure-fire way to kill an
hour or two when you’ve exhausted all other avenues of roadside pranks and
unreleased rough mixes of your mate’s band to just kill some fucking time! For
me, the two most underrated New York hardcore bands are Uppercut and the
lyrically vexatious, SFA.
For a band that have a pretty sturdy three album discography
(along with various 7”s and demos filling the time before and in between); playing
all kinds of shows and touring Europe more than once, its definitely surprising
SFA are NEVER mentioned when it comes to the GOAT NYHC shoot outs. Just check
out “The New Morality” LP and you’ll see everything in check: recorded by Don
Fury; bombastic guttural rhythms with a solid punk back beat; insanely powerful
vocals; a solidly drawn Taggart inspired (might even be Taggart?!!) album artwork and enough related
videos of shows at CBGBs to last a good while.
After reading the lyrics to many of the songs (Just Another Word in particular) and listening to the jovial nature of the second LP, ‘So
What?” it seems like SFA fall into that Sheer Terror category of bands who
really didn’t give a fuck about any kind of scene around them nor being nice to
their fellow scene mates (I may have made this sound more romantic than it actually is and I
can assure you that nothing good ever comes of literally just pissing everyone
off in a fairly small community). It seems for a band like Sheer Terror, their astounding
musical ingenuity and personality was enough for them to not give a fuck about the
Lower East Side but for SFA, it wouldn’t go so smoothly.
Musically, SFA takes the typical late 80s NY sound; dips it
into a vat of fermented crust punk jackets once worn by Poison Idea; sprinkles
the product with a vocal delivery that’s most reminiscent of Joe Denunzio of Infest
and finishes with a lyrical spew that ranks as one of my favourites across the
genre. Solace, is the final offering and whilst I think New Morality is often
the record of choice across the board, the record I’ve chosen is the most mature,
put together and all-encapsulating sound the band managed to achieve. The
production value is high, the song writing is as catchy as any punk record you’ve
heard and that sickly sweet sense of dark humour Brendan manages to capture so
well is sugar-coated in perfect crystallization on every single song.
What makes this band so extra special that they get to take
what is probably my no.1 spot on this list? Aside from them being SO underrated,
there is actually a long line of rich lore to do with singer Brendan’s
counter-fascist activities. Hardcore kids fighting Neo-Nazis is nothing new and
has been mentioned twice already in this list but SFA I’d probably crown kings of the Neo-Nazi fighting contingent, especially in New York. I’m sure most of
you have seen the Geraldo Show Nazi riot where a talk show
descends into a bloody riot (especially bloody for the host himself) of Nazis
fighting basically everyone in the room. Well, Brendan SFA is on the front row
along with all the other key SHARP skins at the time and actually gets interviewed for a brief moment. Listeners of the New Morality album will also notice the
answer machine message left by a Nazi on Brendan’s answer phone on the song ‘Spite’.
Finally, the SFA Facebook page is littered with old stories from shows and
tours written by Brendan that would get a lore-lover such as myself wasting a
good few hours of my lockdown self-improvement scheme to read about the
infamous Combat 84 story (this one is so good I’m just gonna paste it below).
“A day late, but on this day in SFA history, this really
happened...
Condemned 84 was only playing three locations in the US and
skinheads from all over North America were making road trips to catch one of
these shows. I was friends with the two women who booked shows at the Core,
Alyssa and Lisa, and had finagled my way onto this bill.
I had booked us on this show for the sole purpose of getting
into fights. The plan was to bring some heavy hitters and a bunch of SHARP
skins from NYC and pick off the Nazis in the crowd who travelled for the show
and were dumb enough to wear identifying patches or give the high five during
the show.
Well, the best laid plans don't always work out well. The
local SHARP skins all backed out. I offered to provide transportation to and
from the show, but still they preferred not to have violent confrontations.
Even on the day of the show, we stopped by a bar on Second Avenue, where the
SHARP skins hung out and I walked in, saw a bunch of them sitting at a table
drinking beer and said we had a ride right outside. They still declined
violence, even though they were all psyched for it when I had booked us on the
show a month earlier. That was my last dealing with them as a group. I still
maintained friendships with many of them individually.
A couple of SHARP skins that were not hanging out with that
group, came with us.. Crucified Pete and a few others. We also brought my good
friend Big Charlie Hankins, who was excited to add a few more white power
patches to his collection. I also brought a dufflebag full of baseball bats to
bring inside with our gear, to distribute as needed.
As soon as we arrived, club management saw Charlie and hired
him on the spot to do security at the door…which we thought was great since he
would be patting down everyone who came in, except the people he knew were with
us.
The show was a fizzle.... all build up with no pay off.
Sure, there were a couple of fights ...but nowhere near the
level of violence we were anticipating"
So that rounds it off! I wonder if that article was as long
as my thrash one and if any unrelenting punters will actually make it through to the end of this as very few probably did with the aforementioned abomination. At
least with a long article I give myself an equally drawn out cooling off period until I get
the itch to write again and more importantly, to keep you filthy animals going
until you’ve just about forgotten about this blog’s existence...
Anyway, I’ve decided I prefer writing denser pieces
with less frequency, so for now this is all you’ll get. Savour, enjoy and below are some honourable mentions:
Next Step Up – Intent to Kill
Subterfuge – Nobody Gets Out Alive
Second to None – Defeat
Terrorzone – Self Realisation: A True Lesson in Hard Core
