NOTES for the hubgrund
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LL THE WAY LIVE Everybody's favorite band, Bad
Religion, will rock Europe beginning June 1st (after
finishing an Eastern US jaunt) to support their No Con-
trol Lp on Epitaph Records. Rumors also have B.R. in
the studio, recording an exclusive song for the next SkateRock
compilation and rocking down in Tijuana with D.O.A..
NOMEANSNO bykirstenvoris
Fellow
The audience at a NoMeansNo show is pureed. Brothers Rob and
John Wright, on bass and drums respectively,
straight-line across the stage while guitarist
Andy faces inward for premium eye contact,
facilitating the amazingly clean tempo changes
they are famous for. Fans alternate between
giving themselves up to the simmering slam pit
and watching the action under the lights. The
band is tight, tooth gnashing, face making and
downstroking into what John calls their "high-
volume-minimalistic-post-punk-jazz-rock-
fusion" sound.
Victoria, B.C., is not famous for its bands.
Tourists arrive here from all over to take tea at
four o'clock and snap pictures of the British
Royal Family at the wax museum. But this is
where NoMeansNo started out ten years ago.
"Canada has a small scene," Rob says, "We
have a fraction of the population of the U.S., but
there's a very strong bar scene and you get bet-
ter pay and better audiences in Canada. The
United States is the hardest place to be an
alternative band."
Even after the release of Wrong, the bands's 1989 Alternative
Tentacles Lp, and seven months on tour, it doesn't surprise NoMeansNo
Thunderground
Epitaph artists, NoFX just returned from a successful Euro-tour. We're
not sure if they flew home on S&M Airlines (their latest album title), but
we hope they had a good time. Latest word from the unstoppable
Hank "I'm Hard!": Rollins: He just finished up an extensive spoken
word tour and now the Rollins Band is gearing up for an intense East
Coast/Canadian tour which will wind up in Minnesota. Henry's new book.
that they are more well known in Europe than in the United States.
Besides the minimal airplay given to bands in this country, Rob points
to a reluctance to try new things in America. "There are entrenched
audiences. There's the metal audience, the
skate audience, and the kids and bands don't
want anything else but the things they're doing.
That's fine, but there are more things in the
world. Just because you listen to Metallica
doesn't mean you can't listen to Benny
Goodman or NoMeans No or anybody else.""
These guys are shrouded in mystery.
Whenever their publicist Gregg Workman asks
for press release information, the band sends
down made-up stories. It's part mystique but
mostly a disinterest in the recording industry.
"We love making music and touring," Rob says,
"but we find almost everything else about the
music business totally absurd. Referring to a
recent band photo shoot, he laughs, "Especially
photos of guys in leather jackets standing
around against brick walls going arrrgh."
This year the band plans to re-release pre-
Alternative Tentacles recordings. They are
vague, but the band counts, in all, four Lps, three
Eps and two singles. In March of this year they
embark on a three-month European tour and in the fall, after the planned
release of the backlog recordings, they will go on a full U.S. tour.
Art to Choke Hearts, is out. Long out-of-print 2-13-61, End to End and
Polio Flesh will be re-released in one volume titled High Adventure from
the Great Outdoors. Metallica will be hitting the bricks in Europe
soon. "Red hot" rumors are flying about who their opening act will be,
but nothing is confirmed yet. In New York recently, Kevin Seconds
grabbed an acoustic git and hooked up with Ernie Parada (Token Entry
drummer) to play a one-time gig billed as "Acoustic Seconds" Kevin
did a few old 7 Seconds songs and a lot of new material. Crowd response
was mixed. One critic was overheard saying: "What's this, a tune-up
for Vegas? Whatever happened to 'I'm Gonna Stay Young Till I Die"?"
7 Seconds should be touring early this summer Atrophy and Sacred
Reich will be slammin' the US and Europe in early summer as well.
Ouch! While walking off stage after his guest performance with
Southern Fried krispy krunchers Raging Slab, Joey Ramone slipped
and tore major ligaments in his ankle. This debilitating injury caused
the Ramones to cancel almost a month of shows.
LABEL MANNERS No, Hawker Records has not folded. The label.
has been shelved for the time being, however. Bands scheduled for new
releases have been shifted to other in-house labels, so expect the follow-
ing soon: Rest In Pieces Under My Skin. Heads Up Soul Brothers/Crisis
Intervention and Realm Suiciety all on RC and Token Entry Weight of
the World on Emergo. After a successful European tour, Mordred
are back in S.F. doing pre-production on their next Lp. Apparently, George
Clinton has expressed interest in producing this disc, but nothing is
confirmed. Gang Green will release a fully live Lp recorded on their
recent European tour. Bolstered by opening act Excel, the U.S. tour
planned to coincide with this release should be a scorcher. White
Previous Page (left to right): Aural confectioners, the Mighty Lemon Drops. Photo:
Kristin Callahan. Hollerin' Henry's on the road again. Photo: Ken Salerno. Joey
Ramone guest-croons "We're an American Band" with Raging Slab Below: Circus
Of Power's tattooed vocalist, Alex. Photos: Bill Thomas.
www
Zombie is rumored to be signing with RCA. San Francisco's top
two thrashin' funk outfits, Primus and the Limbomaniacs, are both
rumored to be on the verge of big deals with Caroline and in Effect respec-
tively. While the Skatemaster Tate/Island Records connection is
still in the rumoristic stage, the Tate man remains cool and retains his
PSA (positive skate attitude). As he stated recently: "I don't care too
much about being on a major label, as long as I rock for the kids and
get enough of the three B's: Banks, Babes and Burritos."
RELEASE STATE More Brains! The latest products from the Bad
Brains are a live Lp entitled Youth Are Getting Restless which feature's
(among other things) three previously unreleased tracks and a 12" on-
titled Daytripper with "At the Movies" and "Pay to Cum" recorded live
NAPALM DEATH METAL
by Mike Gitter
With former vocalist Lee Dorian a
distant memory and guitarist Bill
Steer happily settled into Carcass,
British grindcore masters Napalm
Death are currently in Florida's Mor-
risound Studios, laying down tracks
for yet-to-be-titled Lp number three.
From the band's classic line-up, only
bassist Shane Embury and drummer
Mick Harris remain. They're joined
by new vocalist Barney and guitarists
Jesse Pintado (of Terrorizer) and
Mitch Harris (of Righteous Pigs).
"It's going to be the most extreme
death metal you'll ever hear," says
Embury. This is a new direction for
the band that established itself as "the end of music as we know it."
complete with dizzying tempos, two second "songs" and intensely political
lyrics. "It'll definitely have more traditional metal parts and we'll be
lengthening more, progressing more. But the extremely fast edge is still
going to be there."
Why death metal? A strange "progression" for a bunch that initially.
hailed from the punk set, making their debut on a 1983 Crass Bullshit
Detector compilation.
"Truth is, no one in this band is an original member" Shane says, "and
I joined simply because I was into playing fast. I was always more intol
extreme death metal than punk anyway."
When quizzed on current politics, Shane draws a blank: "Most of that
went out with Lee. I couldn't tell you what a cold war was to save my life.""
The end of music as we know it? We'll see....
at the Paradiso in Amsterdam in 1987. More wax for you to milk:
D.O.A.'s killer new arrival, Murder: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes by the
Texas Midgets (a band from Sacramento, CA of course); an unnamed
slab by Louisville, KY's King Horse; Circus Of Power's second hard
rockin' effort, Vices; The Good Son by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds;
Thrash Zone by D.R.I.; Dynamite from Nightmareland by Kill For Thrills;
Apple by Mother Love Bone; Face of Despair by Mortal Sin; (Untitled)
by the Forgotten Rebels (you know, the guys who did "I'm Surfin' On
Heroin'); Here Comes Trouble by Scatterbrain Maybe you've heard
of the Mystery Girls, a Detroit outfit that did the dress-wearing New
York Dolls kind of thing for a while. Well, they shed those threads and
are now the Junk Monkeys, Soul Cakes, their first release on No Wonder
(a subdivision of Metal Blade), is definitely worth cranking up on your
box....The Dude, You Rock! compilation on Triple X records is another
interesting tidbit. It's a conglomeration of underground bands from the
formerly funky Deep Ellum neighborhood in downtown Dallas. Groups
on this slab include Three On A Hill, Decadent Dub Team, Rigor Mor-
tis. Shallow Reign, Last Rites, Loco Gringos and Hash Palace.
Hey, you can breathe again, Hard 'N' Heavy video mag volume six has
landed. It includes the likes of The Cult, Volvod and more...Eighteen-
year-old guitar wizard Mike Hersch is still cranking out the wicked rif-
fage and is currently lining up band members to bring his mind-blowing
axe-attack live. If you haven't heard of him don't be surprised, but if you
get the chance, check him out before he hits the big time.
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