Old Integrity Interview on xStuck in the pastx

Just a short notice: besides tons of other great stuff related to 90ies Hardcore there is an old Integrity interview from the 90ies on xStuck in the pastx. Dwid's spitting hate towards new wave douche bags wearing Smiths shirts, which hasn't lost any of its relevance hahaha. Check that out here.

Interview with A389 Records

If there's one label at the moment, where I could buy blindly nearly every release, knowing that it will be good, it's A389 Records from Baltimore. The label's basically done by Dom, who's probably best known for his guitar playing in Pulling Teeth. I wanted to do an interview, and the first thing that came on my mind was A389, so I asked, and here it is. Enjoy. 

To start, could you please tell me a little bit about the beginnings of A389 Records? I came across the label shortly after the release of the first Pulling Teeth 10", was that the first release? What was your basic idea behind the label at the beginning?

The label started in 2004 as an avenue to put out records I liked by my friend's bands.  My band at the time Slumlords was playing a lot, and it was a good way to introduce people to a lot of bands from home that didn't get to make it out as much. Our first release was by a 7" by a baltimore band called Bring It On.  Kinda sounds like Sheer Terror/Breakdown type stuff.  I remember the artwork on that one being pretty cool.

Are you doing everything completely on your own or are there other persons involved in A389?

I handle the majority of everything label related while a revolving door of people pop in and out to help whenever they can with mailorder, assembly, PR work, whatever.  The longest standing other person involved with the label would be Dwid.  He's been involved on the design end of the records pretty much since the beginning and is still a huge help with every release.

Ok, jack-ass question: where does the name A389 come from? What does it mean?

Once again going back to the time I was playing in Slumlords, we all used to work for this eviction company which is how the idea for the band first came about.  When performing an eviction in Baltimore, if you are securing an abandoned property with a padlock, they keycode we had to use at the time was A389.  I always thought that sounded cool, and was a funny nod to all the people I worked with by day.

How hard is it to manage playing in an busy band like Pulling Teeth, doing a well running label and doing a "real" job besides that? (I assume you have to do so?) Do you even have any time left for anything else?

Days go by really quickly that's for sure. 2009 went by in the blink of an eye.  I pick up random p/t jobs when things are slow, but feel like I'm wasting time.  I could be doing so much more.  So right now I'm just doing the label and bands f/t.  It gives me time to spend with my girlfriend and my cats...aaaaaaand work on side projects.

So are there any side projects you want the world to know about or is it more like top secret?

Virgin Witch has a record out on Free Cake.  Hatewaves just recorded it's 'Taste The Beast' Demo, a few others with no names yet ...

Could there be an A389 Records without Pulling Teeth and reverse?

There was an A389 before PT was even a band, and there will probably be one after PT is done.  But PT is definitely the flagship band on A389.  I like to think they go hand in hand to an extent though.  I love the way all the first press PT records turned out.

Are there any labels that are role models for A389?

I always admired Back Ta Basics records growing up.  The records were nothing fancy but you got to check out a bunch of cool bands that Rick would come across on tour.  I loved that it was so barebones and all that mattered was the music, not the layout.  On the other side of the coin, I admire labels like Deathwish and Robotic Empire for stepping up and doing the exact opposite and presenting more of a complete package with artwork and music.  Throw in the mysterious nature of the Dark Empire Record Co. and you've got a recipe for awesome.

Would you say that music and artwork are equally important? Or what counts more in your opinion?

I'd say music more than artwork, obvious if you're in a situation where someone is playing you a song or you're listening to an MP3, you can focus on the song and nothing else.  But if you have a physical record in your hand and it looks bad, it kinda cheapens the experience.

What do you expect from a band you release? Is there a typical "A389 deal"?

It's always nice when a band takes initiative and plays shows and hustles records on their own. Touring or at least being an active band doesn't hurt either.  The two newest bands I've picked up Seraphim (from MS) and The Love Below (from CA) are both really enthusiastic new bands and I'm stoked to be working with them.  As far as a typical A389 deal there really isn't one, it varies on the project.

Besides releasing records by new(er) bands A389 also rereleases records that have been long out of print or never had a release on vinyl, I wonder how that happens? I mean for example the Gehenna or Ringworm 12"s, did the bands come to you and asked if it would be possible and so on or did you ask the bands? Have there ever been any problems with the labels that released those records in the first place?

I usually approach the bands in situations like that.  There hasn't been any licensing issues with any of that stuff.  I do my best to make sure no one is being left out.

So far A389 only released vinyl, do you think that there'll be CD releases in the future as well?

Probably not.  I think the Gut Instinct discog will be our only CD release.  Maybe the Day of Mourning discog if I ever get around to it.

You've released a lot of records by bands that are/were somehow linked to the Holy Terror/Clevo Hardcore thing, what's your connection to that scene and what makes that music so fascinating in your opinion? Do you see any chance to rerelease records by the more obscure bands of that era like Pale Creation, Asphalt or Mayday?

It's been my favorite style of hardcore for as long as I can remember.  Hearing Systems Overload for the first time in my life when I was just out of high school was a life changing experience for me.  I grew up listening and going to see those bands as often as possible and just became friends with a lot of them.  I would love to do a Mayday discography.  I've tried a few times but had a hard time getting it together.  PT was going to cover Staplegun at one point, but that never ended up happening.  That Asphalt CD was pretty neat from what I remember, it's been years.  And Pale Creation is so much more than a band.

What's exactly the problem with the Mayday discography, is it just hard to get the master tapes?

Pretty much yes.  Last time I tried it was just too hard to pull together, but you never know what can happen...

If you could choose whatever band you'd like to release on A389, which one would it be and why?

An unreleased Haymaker record would be the ultimate for me.  

Most bands on A389 are located between Hardcore and Metal, could you imagine to release records by, lets say a post-punk or indie band for example?

Sure.  I just put out whatever I think is cool.  I think there is somewhat of a typical A389 sound, but  there have been some random offshoots in the catalog that may not make sense against most of the releases (Supreme Commander, Pala etc).  I like those bands and those records so whatever.  We're doing a Roses Never Fade LP next year and they're like a neo-folk group.  Good music is good music.

Which A389 release makes you proud the most and why?

Well the PT 'Paranoid Delusions' 12" was definitely the coolest looking record I've ever been involved with.  Getting a 12x12 lenticular hologram cover made is as big of a pain as it sounds.  I love all every release for different reasons.  The Everyday Dollars pre-order 7" that came with a 3-D cover and glasses was pretty rad....The invisible ink on the Rot In Hell LP....I guess just getting to release records by my favorite bands of all time still blows my mind.  Integrity, Ringworm, Gehenna...Bottom line is I'm stoked.  Across the board.

What are the future plans for A389 Records?

Seraphim from MS.  They sound like Mastodon/Baroness and are awesome.  Love Below from California sound like Left For Dead/Haymaker.  That lost Millennial Reign recording will finally see the light of day.  Roses Never Fade.  New Integrity + Pulling Teeth jams.  Oh and more Gehenna.

Thank you!

A389 Records

A389 Records on myspace.com

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Lightbringer - Inhumation 7" (Review)

Wow, first post in quite some time, I'm sorry I was a bit lazy the last weeks. But there are a lot of uploads planned, plus the first interview I did for over a year or so. Blablabla.

Flashback: April 2009, after nearly three weeks of touring Europe, and a few let downs here and there, we're playing Brighton with a new band called Lightbringer. Guitar leads, the singer screams into the PA-cabinets, In Cold Blood cover. Fuck yeah. Now: what I got in the mail yesterday was the preorder of Lightbringer's debut 7", and this is probably the best 7" by a new band I've listened to this year. Lightbringer are more or less from Brighton, England, and some of its members played in a band called The Break-In, and if you know their "Unbowed" album you could probably guess what direction Lightbringer is taking. I mean, the musical influences are so obvious, just take your favourite Clevo-style bands, put in even some more hard-as-nails moshparts, and there you are. But I don't want to lessen Lightbringer's musicanship, they are definetly able to put their very own stamp on this style of metallic Hardcore. The singer's voice sounds like spitten out by the throats of hell, the songwriting overall is excellent, just take the title track: Inhumation is nearly 6 minutes long, with quite a lot of different parts, but they're all melted together as if they would have been thrown into the lava of Mount Doom. Damn I should get a life... One last thing I have to mention is the awesomeness of the lead guitar. Seriously, everytime a solo is being thrown in (and there a plenty of them), I start to play air guitar immediately. Although I know how fucked up that is.

Some words about the artwork: it was put together by Richard Shiner (who plays guitar in Lightbringer), who may be best known for his artwork for the Pulling Teeth/Frightener split 7". And imo the artwork looks pretty neat, not your typical Dürer woodcut or something. Oh and the 7" comes in a real gatefold, which isn't that common as well, so it's cool.

The lyrics are dealing with misanthrophy, hate, death and so on: "I've been down for years, since I was born of this cold, I've walked a crooked mile, and life stripped me of a soul". Nothing you would write in a loveletter, so to say.

F.f.o.: Integrity, Ringworm, Mayday, In Cold Blood. This band gave me back some hope that there are still pissed off, dark, dirty and heavy Hardcore bands whose members don't look like fucking, douche baggish American Apparel models with a completely studied choreography. 

Shiner Design on myspace.com

Lightbringer on myspace.com

The Final Plan - Dead End Nights

This 7" was released years ago on the now defunct Dead By 23 Records, a small label that put much work into every detail of its releases, so that some of the 7"s (I think they've only released 7"s) became quite valuable collector's items. Besides this one the Frostbite 7" is my favourite release on DB23, I guess I'll post that record some time soon as well. But lets talk about The Final Plan. Like so many times, I don't know anything about this band. I think the only release they had besides this 7" was a split with a band called My Luck. But if you listen to this record you'll know in a second in what time it was released -  a time where American Nightmare and Panic were the real deal. This record sounds really a lot like Panic on their first two 7"s, especially the vocals. But The Final Plan were definetly able to stick up from the countless AN copies at that time, by bringing in a little bit of a Clevo-feeling, with a little bit of double bass here and there and some sick guitar solos similar to bands like Integrity. Sounds weird, but the music speaks for itself, I really think this is a very underrated record, by a very very underrated band that managed to fuse 2k1 "Bridge 9" Hardcore with Clevo brutality.

Lost in: Siege

Siege from Weymouth, Western Mass were arguably one of the most influental bands for the first wave of American (and to a certain extend surely European) Grindcore and Deathmetal bands, and definetly coining for 90ies Powerviolence, although they were surely a Hardcore-Punk band.

But due to the fact that they were probably the fastest Hardcore band at that time, and had those really slow, mean breakdowns, they are often cited when it comes to the beginnings of extreme Metal and Grind. They were around from 1983 to '85, only released a six song demo and three songs on the infamous "Cleanse The Bacteria" compilation. All those tracks can be found on a compilation that was released the first time in 1998.

Like I said, the music's extremly fast, almost blast beat tempo, I mean there's not much missing, the lyrics are angry as fuck and nihilistic, and the overall feeling is comparable to the early Napalm Death or Discharge.

On youtube you can find some videos of Siege like this one:

I guess they all were shot at a school band competition or something, which explains the blank white room hahaha. Pretty weird but pretty cool. If you can't have enough of Siege live, there are also two live sets, one from '84 and one from '85, but don't expect too much. At the '84 set from Hartford, CT all you hear is noise and someone screaming his guts out in the back. The '85 show from Stamfort has a little bit better sound, but still you don't hear much of the music. But hey, it's Siege. Besides that I have found a short interview that originaly got released in Suburban Punk Zine. 

SIEGE from Suburban Punk #6, spring '84
A relatively new band on the local scene is Siege. Although they haven't done a Boston gig yet, this intense 4 piece have been making waves with their aggressive, gripping live shows in Western Mass. and Providence. They have a 6 song demo out now, done at Radiobeat in February. Siege's sound could be likened to a train going around a curve at top speed, about to derail but never quite going completely out of control and going off the track. Andy and I talked to Siege outside the Living Room following their gig at the Punk Festival. Siege consists of Screaming Kev Mahoney (vocals), Kurt (guitar), Henry (bass), and Rob Williams (drums).

SP: Let's start with a typical question--a short band history.
Rob: We've had this singer, Kev Mahoney, for about 6 months and that was the turning point for the band. I'd been jamming with the 2 guitarists, Kurt and Hank, for a period of about 2 1/2 years, which was shit until we got Mahoney and we auditioned him and knew he was our man.
SP: Where you guys from?
Rob: Weymouth and Braintree.
SP: Why haven't you played Boston yet?
Rob: We've tried, but they're unwilling to accept new bands in town. We're doing our best. $5 for 2 bands at the Channel is too much.
SP: Are you happy with the way the tape came out?
Rob: Very happy. Lou (Giordano) was extremely reasonable. He took a lot of time to make it sound good. We're very pleased with the outcome.
SP: "Grim Reaper" is a lot different from your other songs. Are you planning to do more songs like that in the future?
Kurt: We want to branch off a bit.
Kev: We're basically a thrash band. We're into power. That was somethig that started off experimental. We did it on the spur of the moment and it was so well received that we decided to attach it to each of our sets.
SP: And you played sax in the studio on it?
Kev: Yeah. It was sick. I played sax in a ska band for about a year and a half.
SP: What kind of message are you trying to put forth through your music?
Kurt: We're trying to save the world.
SP: A minor mission.
Rob: We think there a lot of atrocities in the world, a lot of bad shit and it looks pretty bleak, it's out of our hands. There's really nothing that can be done by you and I about nuclear war.
Kev: We like to speak our piece, nonetheless.
Rob: We're holding a mirror up to society. Anything that pisses us off.
Kev: We like singing about things we hate 'cause then we can channel the hate of the subject into the performance.
SP: Saying it is one thing, but doing something is another.
Kev: We're doing more than saying it...
SP: Do you feel ambitious enough to change things you hate?
Kev: Definitely. We're not just saying it. Every song is from our heart.
Hank: We see it happen and then we write it.
Kev: Yeah, like Kurt wrote a song, "Life Of Hate," after he was working on a job with all these bigots, hearing racial slurs all the time.
Rob: You hear a lot of bands say shit about what their political stance is and we're trying to breathe new life into it because, in some people's opinion, it's become run of the mill. We're trying to change that with high energy live performances. We're musicians before we're political activists.
SP: Why did you pick the name Siege?
Rob: It means attack. We came across it on a huge list. We sat around for 2 hours to think of the best name.
SP: What's your most memorable gig so far?
All: Tonight. Western Mass., too.
Kurt: I'd like to say the WMass scene is cool. I think a lot of Boston kids shouldn't stick their nose up at it.
SP: What are your future recording plans?
Kev: Maybe vinyl by the summer if we come up with some cash.
SP: What are your influences?
Kev: DRI, Discharge, Void, Black Flag.
SP: Anything else you want to add?
Rob: I want to say I enjoy Suburban Punk!
SP: Check's in the mail!

Evenworse | Goldust split 12" EP preorder

Finally these songs will be released on vinyl, which is quite awesome since these are easily the best songs Evenworse ever recorded, and our own songs (one new, one Evenworse cover, one song from the Noir 7") are worth to be heard, too. Haha, quite funny to say things like that. You can check some songs out here: http://www.myspace.com/finalexitrecords.You can preorder it at http://finalexit.bigcartel.com/ or by writing an e-mail to finalexitrecords@web.de.

Eyehategod - Southern Discomfort

October may not be the perfect time for listening to Eyehategod, I mean it's way to cold outside for that. I always think of a dirty, hot, huge city with traffic jams, motorcycle-gangs and drugs when I listen to EHG, not of Münster full of students, bikes, and a nice October sun. Anyway, this morning, around 7:45 AM I was on my way to work (!) on my bike (!!) and it was about 10° C max.(!!!), which is not the situation where I would choose to listen to Sludgecore kings EHG. It's like listening to old Darkthrone while lying on the beach. But today I had my Ipod on shuffle mode, and suddenly Dopesick Jam, a 15 minute monster of a song got pumped into my head, and that gave me such an intense feeling I decided to upload that record. 

Basically "Southern Discomfort" is a collection of rare songs; Tracks 1-6 are demos from the "Take As Needed For Pain" (which is probably my favourite full length by EHG) era that ended up on "Ruptured Heart Theory" 7" and on the two split 7"s with 13. The tracks 7-9 were preserved on tape during the "Dopesick" sessions. Although it's a collection, it's a really good album to listen to, the sound's not very different from track to track, and you get some of EHG's best songs like Depress, Ruptured Heart Theory or the mentioned Dopesick Jam. I guess I don't have to tell anybody how EHG sounds like. If you're into sick, dirty, drug and alcohol fueled, Sabbath-worshipping Sludgecore, you can't go wrong with EHG. Together with Buzzoven and Grief they basically invented that genre. Dopesick.