Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Life's Blood - The Don Fury Sessions 2/3/1988



I had a Life's Blood discography posted on the blog many months back, but removed the link by request due to the upcoming discography on Prank Records. Then just recently i got a CDR of the entire CBGB set from 9/25/88 courtesy of Freddy Alva of New Breed fame (thanks Freddy!). This is the infamous set with Sean Murphy of Collapse on vocals. If you've heard the tracks from the New Breed tape, you can imagine how awesome this set is. That was to be my next post, but one of the band members heard the set and decided it should be included on the discography, and kept off the blog. I'm far from being bummed about it though. I'm glad this stuff is getting a proper release as opposed to just some mp3s online, and am looking forward to this discography like no other in the past few years. Hopefully the WFMU set makes it on there as that's my favorite Life's Blood recording. We'll see.

I still wanted this great NYHC band represented on my blog. Besides being one of my favorites, i'm striving to post collections by every band (or as close as possible) that were featured on the New Breed tape. Soon there will be a New Breed post with links to all related bands.

I've seen the band's 7", radio sets, and demos on various blogs, and wanted something exclusive to Blogged & Quartered. These unreleased Don Fury sessions seemed like the perfect choice. This is a collection of a dozen tracks selected from the sessions recorded on February 3, 1988. The entire Don Fury sessions can be downloaded here, all in one mp3. The tracks here were hand-picked by myself as my favorite versions of each song. Sound quality is really good. With any luck some of this stuff will be remastered and included on the Prank discography. In any case, i see no harm in posting it here. There's not a Life's Blood fan alive who will not buy the discography because they have some mp3s of selected tracks from these sessions.

Enjoy.

Life's Blood - Unreleased Don Fury Sessions 2/3/88

The following info is taken from my past Life's Blood post, which is now deleted.

Jason O'Toole - vocals
Adam Nathanson - guitar
Neil Burke - bass
John Kriksciun - drums

Defiance 7" - 1988 Combined Effort Records, unknown pressing. Reissued by Vermiform in 1990. 4166 made, 4 pressings.
New York City Hardcore: Where The Wild Things Are Compilation LP - 1989 Blackout Records, unknown pressing.
Life's Blood/Sticks & Stones split 7" - 1990 Radcore/Forefront Records. Limited edition of 2000. Comes with lyric sheet. All songs recorded live on WFMU on 03/17/88.
Murders Among Us Compilation 7" - 1990 Vermiform / Combined Effort Records. 2500 made.
New Breed Compilation cassette - 1989 Urban Style Records. Cassette & fanzine, 1000 made (and many bootlegs in the 90's). Two live tracks. Sean Murphy (Collapse) on vocals.
Demo - 1988
Don Fury Session - 02/03/88
Live on WFMU - 03/17/88
Live on WNYU - 03/24/88

from wiki:

Life's Blood was a hardcore punk band formed by four first year college students in New York City in 1987. It consisted of Adam Nathanson on guitars, Neil Burke on bass, John Kriksciun on drums, and on vocals, Combined Effort promoter and fanzine editor Jason O'Toole. They were part of the scene that grew out of CBGB's Sunday matinees and the long defunct Some Records store, where they all hung out. Known for their sound which blended East Coast hardcore-punk with melodic Oi!, as well as their biting, intelligent lyrics, Life's Blood performed with bands as diverse as Agnostic Front, Sheer Terror, Beyond, Judge, Project X, and Soulside before breaking up little more than a year later. Nathanson would go on to form Born Against out of its ashes with Sam McPheeters on vocals. Burke would go on to many bands, including Born Against, Sinking Body and Men's Recovery Project. Life's Blood played live on WNYU and WFMU, and played 26 shows throughout New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Ohio. Their songs have been covered live and on recordings by bands from as far flung as Sweden and Japan as well as by American hardcore bands. One notable cover being the version of "It's not in your heart" by MK-ULTRA. Among Life's Blood's recordings are Defiance originally on Combined Effort, the Vermiform Records compilation EP Murders Among Us, the New York Hardcore compilation Where the Wild Things Are on Blackout Records as well as a rash of bootlegs. Vermiform released a CD containing the original "Defiance" ep along with extra material. Prank Records now has the rights to Life's Blood recordings and a re-release of this hard to find material is forthcoming.

20 comments:

  1. The big standout here is obviously the vocals. After 22 years of hearing Jason, it's a lot weird hearing Sean Murphy. Worth the listen though..

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  2. hey could you upload their whole discography?thax for this its awesome

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  3. Rinjo, these sessions are with Jason on vocals. The set with Sean Murphy got derailed from making it's way on the blog due to the last-minute decision to include it on the Prank discography.

    Huansoahn, i can't post the discography. Like i said in the post, i had one on here a while back and deleted it by request due to the upcoming discography.

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  4. Any idea when the Prank release will come out?

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  5. sorry skipped this part due to sleepyness,thanks man!

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  6. Awesome that your doing a New Breed post. If you could try and find some of the Absolution lyrics would be great, been trying to find them for forever.

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  7. http://kratosellas.blogspot.com news,online tv,videos,photo http://kratosellas.blogspot.com

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  8. Hi !!
    awesome post, as usual ! thanks a lot.
    Nothing related to Life's Blood, but do you have by chance any stuff from the band PRY, that would be awesome.
    cheers

    vJGv

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  9. THREE FOUR!!! Great stuff!

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  10. Savage, i have no idea when the Prank discography will see the light of day. Pretty sure it's scheduled for 2011 though.

    JG, never heard of PRY, sorry.

    Vin

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  11. Lookin forward to hearing this. Thanks.

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  12. pry was gavin vanvlack's band after die 116. not sure they ever put anything out though. their shows were good none the less...

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  13. after life's blood, prank should rerelease all of NY wolfpack's material

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  14. I'm all for a Wolfpack release.

    Vin

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  15. Ken from Prank said the Life's Blood discography won't be out anytime soon. i am will to cut those records by hand...

    question: was there another LB demo? I know Jason mentioned two versions of the demo in an interview and the old Vermiform discography had a song "The Plain Truth" on it. Was that from the same session as the demo songs in your discography or from a different session? I haven't seen a track list from a demo before. Been outbid more than once on eBay.

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  16. The 1988 demo was:

    Maximum Security
    Youth Enrage
    Guilty As Charged
    Catch Our Breath
    Stick To It

    Some demos may also have had a cover of Faith's "You're X'd" on them?

    The version of "The Plain Truth"...dunno where it comes from. I have heard rumors of another recording session where they recorded everything they had so that their new singer(s) could learn the songs and that that recording may have been the source of it. However that is all rumor.

    Of course it could also just be one of the versions from the Don Fury session remixed, although it doesn't sound like any of the versions from those sessions.

    The version on the Vermiform CD has my favorite sound of all the recorded Life's Blood material.

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  17. when is this Life's Blood thing coming out on prank? would have loved that Sean Murphy set as i was there. Collapse.

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  18. Long time fan, first time commenter (I think). Was listening to the unreleased Don Fury stuff and really have to wonder why they never included the whole session on their 'discography' discs. It's baffling, really. Curious, how many songs were in that session, other than the 12 you posted? If I read correctly, you didn't post all of them? Anyways, cheers.

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