I’ve been into “Killed By Death”-type stuff from the late 70’s and early 80’s since then and am always looking to hear great obscurities from that era. Since the great Messthetics comps came out earlier this decade/century/millennium I’ve more “formally” gotten into DIY-type stuff. I have also picked up a liking for some 60’s punk a la Back From The Grave and, to a lesser degree, some obscure (there’s that word again- see a pattern?) deep funk from the 70’s. And of course “new” KBD-type bands from the boom of the 90’s onward have a special place on the top shelf… which I guess sounds dramatic like I have a swank wet bar in my house with certain records hoisted on high and analyzed like a bottle of good wine and played on a special $10,000 gold plated audiophile turntable. Er, in reality the top shelf is just my white, scratched up 20 gig iPod that has most of my music on it. But my main love over all these other genres is still the raw, sometimes poorly-produced, obscure, limited pressing, passionate, heartfelt KBD punk of yore.
Fuck! I better get something up here soon since I was linked via the great Last Days of Man of Earth blog and their posting of the wonderful Endtables EP.
If you want an introduction, here it is- I am in my mid 30’s and have been into punk and hardcore since 1987. The first punk record I bought was the Misfits “Earth A.D.” LP from the local Peaches store in Cleveland, Ohio (remember that chain?!? Yikes!) . Hardcore was my bread and butter until the first four volumes of the Killed By Death comps were reissued on colored vinyl in late 1994, and I promptly bought Volumes 1, 2 and 3 from the great Vacuum Mailorder in S.F. (‘member them, too? RIP). I had bought a copy of Killed By Death #4 when it originally came out in 1989 but I was so into hardcore that it didn’t quite click for me and it didn’t become a “top shelf” record of mine until ’94. I promptly dug out my old issues of MRR from the late 80’s and early 90’s that had the great “Scumpit” record collector articles and combed through them for tips and recommendations of obscurities to check out. I commenced tape trading as in cassette tapes, Chachi (also known in Latin and archaeologists as cassettus tapus)– this was when them new-fangled CD burners were still $1,000 and nobody used em yet. I began accumulating mass amounts of old KBD stuff on tape, thanks especially to Jim, Jason and Bruce. By this point I had lived in Chicago, and local store Reckless Records was very ripe with KBD stuff so I grabbed whatever I could afford (or not afford since they accepted credit cards).
the Endtables were filmed back in the late 1970´s by one friend (thanks Jeff J.!)of the band who was kind enough to send me a VHS-tape back in the late 1990´s plus an audio-cassette with many live songs and an interview with singer Steven Rigot, who talked about the past.One of the Durig bros (top right on front-sleeve) nowadays is a highly-acclaimed proessor on autism.
b e h j a n …germany
shit…peaches records…i remember being all of 9 years old (this was 1979)& spending birthday money at the one on Vine St in Eastlake on Yes & Kiss & Pink Floyd LP’s in the cut-out bins…threw out the dumb Kiss BS years ago. still have the Yes & Floys stuff, mixed in with (literally) thousands of punk records from europe, japan, south america, and of course locally (i still reside in east-side Clevo)…
cool blog. just found it today & really stoked to finally hear the COMPLETE Public Disturbance ep. ive had a handful of Mutha releases since i was in high school & this label’s quality never disappoints. Cool Stuff!!