Negative Trend - 1978-1979 Discography

Negative Trend was '70s San Francisco junkie-punk at it's finest. This is a collection of 3 different recordings, each with a different vocalist, and each great in their own way. Enjoy.

Negative Trend: 1978-1979 Collection

The first 4 tracks are from the "We Don't Play, We Riot" 7", originally released in 1978 on Heavy Manners Records. This amazing slab was also known as the "Black & Red" ep or simply "s/t". It was repressed onto 12" vinyl in 1984 on Subterranean Records, and most recently in 2006 on 2.13.61 Records as a CD-EP. I'm not sure if it's still available, but i see no harm in posting it here. I would have to imagine any Negative Trend fan would have snatched up this repress within the past 3 years, or already have it in some format. This post is more to expose the band to those who may have never heard them. I love this record as it's the band's darkest material. Proto-deathrock, with hints of the doomy slowcore that would follow with Flipper. I think this ep had more of an influence on the early '80s LA scene than people realize. The recordings here were ripped from the 2006 CD, so the sound is excellent.

"We Don't Play, We Riot" lineup:
Mikal Waters - vocals
Craig Clay - guitar
Will Shatter - bass/vocals
Steve DePace - drums

Tracks 5 through 17 were taken from the "Miners' Benefit" CD released on White Noise Records in 2003. These songs were recorded live on March 21-22, 1978 in Mabuhay Gardens, SF. The other bands that played the benefit included U.X.A., Sleepers and Tuxedomoon. This is my personal favorite Negative Trend lineup. Total raw, stripped down, dirty rock 'n' roll in the vein of bands like The Pagans and The Stooges. Rozz's drugged out vocals fit the band perfectly, and from what i've read he was completely out of control when performing live, swinging from the rafters and attacking the audience. White Noise Records released an album in 1998 under the moniker Rozz and Negative Trend entitled The Pop Sessions. Turns out it's just a batch of songs Rozz recorded solo in 1978.

"Miners' Benefit" lineup:
Rozz Rezabek - vocals
Craig Gray - guitars
Will Shatter - bass
Todd - drums

Tracks 18-22 were taken from the "Beach Blvd." compilation LP released in 1979 on Posh Boy Records. 5 songs recorded in 6 hours with the infamous Rik L Rik on vocals. 2 of these 5 tracks also appeared on the "Tooth and Nail" comp LP put out in 1979 on Upsetter Records. Rik puts his spin on some classics from the 1978 ep, as well as 2 great new songs.

"Beach Blvd." lineup:
Rik L Rik - vocals
Graig Gray - guitar
Will Shatter - bass
Tim Mooney - drums

Will Shatter and Steve DePace went on to form Flipper.

Merel - Early Recordings 1990-1991

Merel were a hardcore band from New Jersey, and simply one of my favorite bands of the early '90s. By the time they released their only full length in 1993 (s/t on on Gern Blandsten Records), they had the emo tag firmly attached to them. But the material they recorded the years prior was just chaotic and melodic hardcore at it's best. The live version of Fountain Wishing (later re-recorded as Roadkill) sends shivers down my spine. To me it's one of the best hardcore songs on the '90s, if not of all time. This is a collection of the band's recorded material between 1990-1991. Most of it is not on the discography CD. It should have been. Enjoy!

Merel: The Early Recordings 1990-1991

The "Castles and Pies" demo was released in 1991. The first 3 tracks were recorded live on WFMU in May of 1991, and are my favorite tracks in the collection (they actually appear last on the actual demo, but these songs belong up front). The remaining 5 tracks of the demo were recorded between October and November of 1990 at Bunkie Studios. Back-up vocals on the live version of "The Give and The Take" by Justin. All other back-ups by the Schwantzes.

The "Superpowers" compilation cassette was released in 1992 on Troubleman Unlimited Records (their very first release). The 2 Merel tracks on this comp were recorded somewhere between 1990-1991. These tracks kick ass.

Thye band's s/t 7" was released in 1991 on Gern Blandsten Records. Most of these tracks were on the discography CD, aside from the last track, "Bile (The Golden Years)". Here it is in it's entirety.

Also included is the band's entire set recorded live on WNYU in 1990.

I cleaned up all the files as best as possible, removing all tape hiss and boosting the sound. The demo and Superpowers tracks sound better than ever. This is a crucial collection of excellent early '90s hardcore. Don't pass it up.

Jose Ruiz - vocals
Mike Solski - guitar
Jon Ariz - guitar
David Leto - bass
Greg Leto - drums

Merel continued on until 1993. They released a split 7" with Iconoclast in 1992 on Old Glory Records, and appeared on several compilations including "Fear of Smell" (1992 Vermiform) and "God's Chosen People" (1993 Old Glory). They released their LP on Gern Blandsten in '93 and broke up shortly after.

David and Greg Leto both went on to Rye Coalition.

Moss Icon - Live 1988-1991

12 live tracks from 3 different shows. Enjoy!

Moss Icon Live

The first 5 tracks were recorded live in Annaplois in March of 1988. I had these tracks on a cassette that a friend had made for me back in the mid '90s, and just recently got around to converting the tape to mp3s. This is a rare set, and probably one of the earliest live recordings of this band you're likely to find.

Tracks 6-10 is a set from '91 that i recently found online, and a great contrast from the band's late '80s hardcore sound to the more subdued and "emo" sound they developed into the early '90s.

The last 2 tracks are from side 2 of the "It Disappears" LP, recorded live sometime between 1990-1991, and released on Vermin Scum Records in 1994. The last track, "It Disappears" is announced as "The Life" for some reason. But those are certainly 2 different songs.

original lineup:
Jonathan Vance - vocals
Tonie Joy - guitar
Monica DiGialleonardo - bass
Mark Laurence - drums

Tonie Joy also played in bands Universal Order of Armageddon, Born Against, Lava, The Great Unraveling, and The Convocation Of...

The NY Hoods - 1986-1988 Discography

Yet more great '80s hardcore from Astoria, Queens. This is a collection of both the band's demos and radio sessions. Enjoy:

The NY Hoods Collection

All the files here were found online, and i cleaned them up as best as possible. I was able to remove the tape hiss from the "Neutral" demo without interfering with the sound. I fixed the problems with the "Built As One" demo, the major one being that the tracks were poorly separated. I also separated the WFMU set, which was all one mp3, and boosted the sound. The WNYU set i posted as is. It's missing the song Anger Builds unfortunately, as that track had major problems, but this collection is already an exercise in redundancy, so i don't think it's an issue. Some of the tracks are a bit rough sounding, especially the "Built As One" demo, but i'd say these are the best rips you'll find anywhere.

The "Neutral" demo was recorded in 1986, and had the skull image on the cover which i've used here. Engineered by Mick Neal and John Steigerwald.

1986 lineup:
Bobby - vocals
Matty - guitar
Nicky X - bass
Kevin - drums

Gavin Van Vlack also played for Side By Side, Absolution and Burn.

The "Built As One" demo was recorded in 1988, and was released with at least 2 different covers.

1988 lineup:
Bobby - vocals
Rich - guitar
Jay - bass
Jason - drums

Seems the only constant member was the vocalist. Also, i'm pretty sure one of the NY Hoods members was in Breakdown at one point. If anyone has any further info, please leave a comment.

Swans - Live in Bochum 1987

This is an excellent sounding recording of Swans live in 1987 (Children of God era) at Zeche in Bochum, Germany. This is one of those live shows you listen to and think 'fuck, i wish i could have been there'. Completely devastating set. Thanks Ronald. Enjoy.

Swans live in Bochum 9/29/87

Swans are a band you can become easily obsessed with. I only got into them less than 10 years ago and hearing them for the first time was one of those magic moments in music that i really never thought would happen again after the mid '90s. By the time i heard Soundtracks For the Blind, no other band mattered to me for months. I consider Soundtracks to be one of the top 5 greatest pieces of music ever recorded. Fuck, Children of God might make that cut as well.

Children of God (1987) lineup:

Michael Gira - vocals, sounds, keyboards, acoustic guitar
Norman Westberg - electric / acoustic guitar
Jarboe - vocals, all female background vocals, sounds, piano
Algis Kizys - bass
Theodore Parsons - drums, percussion
William Barnhardt - piano on "Blackmail"
Simon Fraser - flute on "In My Garden"
Lindsay Cooper - oboe on "Blackmail" and "Trust Me"
Audrey Riley - cello on "Like A Drug"

Children of God originally released in the US on Caroline Records as a 2xLP (Carol 1346) in 1987 Re-released in 1997 with World of Skin as 2xCD on Gira's own Young God Records (YG02)

You're Not Real Girl, Our Love Lies, New Mind, Blind Love, Blackmail, and Sex God Sex originally released on Children of God (1987)

Your Property originally released on Cop LP (1984)

Wandering Star previously unreleased

Gorilla Biscuits - Rarities 1987-1990

Here's a collection of 35 Gorilla Biscuits rarities (demos, unreleased rehearsals, and live tracks), and 6 compilation tracks. I cleaned up all the demos and rehearsals as best as possible by removing all tape hiss and adjusting the levels. This is easily the most time i've ever spent on any collection on this blog, and the end result sounds great. These are all excellent GB recordings that needed to be revised for a long time. Thanks to Mark Anthony, Adam Tanner and especially David Michaels (hope you don't mind me stealing the cover design). Enjoy.

Gorilla Biscuits Rarities and Comp Tracks

First up is the band's original demo from 1987. There's not much info on these recordings besides the fact that the band used the cheapest tapes possible (without cases) from a dollar store, and did a quick cut and past photocopy job for the covers, just to get their music out as rapidly as they could. These still stand as my all-time favorite Gorilla Biscuits recordings. I love the rough, raw sound on this stuff, and the demo version of Big Mouth was never topped in my opinion. I do like the band's s/t 7" (Revelation Records 1988), but when i want to hear these songs i always go for the demo versions. More than likely it's because i heard the demo first, and it just struck a chord with me. The '87 demo was bootlegged in 1991 onto 7" vinyl, and later appeared on the Walter Sings the Hits CD (bootlegged in Germany sometime in the '90s), along with Start Today demo (with Walter on vocals), the Moondog 7", and various live recordings. To say the CD had awful sound quality would be a huge understatement, as most of it is barely listenable.

Next up we have some great sounding unreleased studio rehearsals. These tracks were pulled from an 11 song session (where they did more than one take of some of the songs). I took the one best recording of each song, both performance and quality wise, and wound up with 6 excellent tracks, including an unreleased instrumental (song is a killer), a few re-worked earlier songs, and an instrumental version of Cats and Dogs. If you've never heard these rehearsals, you're in for a real treat.

After that it's the entire Start Today demo with Walter Schreifels replacing Civ on vocals. I cleaned this one up as best as possible, but it's still a bit rough around the edges. Especially the first track, which breaks apart at the beginning and later on in the song (it's like this on every version of these recordings i've heard), but it starts to get better after that. The sound quality varies from track to track, but this is the best version you'll ever hear of this demo, and it's great stuff. I actually like this demo just as much as the released Start Today LP. Walter's kid-like vocals give the recordings a kind of pop-punk vibe in a way, and it fits the music perfectly. Both versions kick ass. There's also a demo of the album with Civ on vocals (with different lyrics to certain songs) which is also worth hunting down.

For the various live tracks, i just stuck with unreleased songs and cover songs. The first track, Distance, later became a Moondog song, as did The Man With No Money (later named Are You Really Down?). The Western has never been released, or recorded in a studio as far as i know. Don't Tread on Me is originally by Cro-Mags, Fed Up is originally by Judge, Friends Like You is originally by Sick of it All, Should I Stay or Should I Go is originally by The Clash, and We're All Gonna Die is originally by Bad Religion. Six Times Around and The Chance are supposedly covers as well, but i've never heard them before. These live tracks were taken from the Puzzle of 38 Pieces bootleg CD, released on Deny Everything Records.

Ending the collection are a 4 compilation tracks, all taken from pretty well known records. So no further explanation needed there, and 2 bonus tracks from the CD re-issue of the band's first 7" on Revelation. There is absolutely no info on these 2 tracks, so i'm assuming they're demos or outtakes.

original lineup

vocals - Anthony "Civ" Civocelli
guitar - Walter Schreifels
bass - Arthur Smilios
drums - Luke Abbey

Luke was later replaced by Sammy Siegler (who had been in the band in the early days)
later Alex Brown (Side by Side, Project X) came aboard for 2nd guitar
John Porcelly (Youth of Today) and Mark Hayworth also joined in later incantations of the band

After Gorilla Biscuits, Anthony went on to form the major label rock band CIV.

Walter had also been a member of Warzone, Youth of Today and Project X. After Gorilla Biscuits he went on to form Moondog, Quicksand and Rival Schools.

Arthur played bass for Token Entry and Underdog for a while. After Gorilla Biscuits, he joined CIV with Civ.

Luke also played in Warzone and Judge.

Sammy would eventually go on to play drums for CIV.

Violent Children - 1984 Discography

Classic Connecticut band from 1984 that played raw and powerful hardcore with a heavy anti-smoking, pro-skating, and "hardcore pride" theme in the lyrics department. This is a collection of everything the band released. The first 8 tracks are from the band's self titled 7", released in 1984, followed by the band's demo, recorded shortly after the 7". Excellent sound quality, as these tracks were ripped from the "Split Scene" CD, mastered and released by Lost & Found Records in 1994. Enjoy.

Violent Children 1984 Collection

Dave Rinelli - vocals
Mark Cassanova - guitar
Warren Kennedy - bass
Chris Goetz - guitar
Ray Cappo - drums

John "Porcell" Porcelly replaced Chris and Mark in September of '84
Bill Knapp (Reflex From Pain) played drums on the track "Live Free or Die"

The s/t 7" was recorded at Blue Cellar Studios and was originally self-released by the band. It was repressed in 1993 (United Nutmeg Records no. 1).

The demo was originally recorded by the band in Sept. of '84. It was bootlegged in 1991 as the "Skate Straight" 7", and later repressed in 1993 as "Rock Against Spindlers" (United Nutmeg Records no. 2), minus a couple of tracks.

Their songs have made it to a few compilations as well. The track "Violent Children" appeared on the great comp LP "Big City: One Big Crowd" (Big City 1985), the track "Rad-Con" appeared on the "CTHC: The Way It Was" comp 7" (Flex! 1994), and various 7" and demo tracks appeared on the "Die Jerry Die" comp LP (Anthrax Records 1988). I'm sure their are more.

In 1994, Lost & Found Records released all their recordings as the "Split Scene" CD, and later on a CD comp called "A Time We'll Remember Vol. 1", which also featured recordings by 108, Project X, and The Abused.

Track 16 is kind of a mystery track. It appears on the Lost & Found releases as "Something Else" (which is how i've labeled it). I've also seen it labeled as "Talk" or even simply "?" on various bootlegs.

Of course Ray Cappo and John Porcell went on to form Youth of Today. But that's a whole other chapter.

Corrupted Morals - 1986-1989 Discography

Of all the late '80s California punk bands based around the Gilman Street Project, Corrupted Morals were my favorite. They played the perfect mix of punk and thrash, almost veering into crossover territory at times, but always remaining 100% hardcore. These songs are guaranteed to kick your ass.

This is a collection of every song the band recorded between 1986-1989 (that i know of), 36 tracks in excellent sound quality (most of this stuff sounds like it was taken straight from the master tapes). The "Chet" 7" (1988 Lookout! Records) was ripped from the "Punk Seven Inch Vol. 1" CD, released on Lookout! in 2003. I boosted the sound on all the other tracks in the collection to match the volume of those recordings. An official Corrupted Morals discography CD is long overdue, and most likely will never happen. For now this is the best sounding, and most comprehensive collection you're going to find, so don't pass it up. Thanks to DirtySteve, Gen, Lookout!, and especially Very Small Records for the music. Enjoy.

Corrupted Morals 1986-1989 Collection

1986
tracks 1-12 were released as the "Think About It" demo
one track (Big Man) was released on "The Thing That Ate Floyd" 2xLP (1988 Lookout! Records)
six tracks (Think About It / Money Goes Around / No Assholes / Quality Control / Go Home / What?) were released as the "Think About It" 7" (1989 Very Small Records)
two tracks (Mad Reign & Big Man) were released on the "People of the Pit" comp LP (1987 Goddam Church Records)
one track (Quality Control) was released on "Four Two Pudding 1989-1993" (1993 Very Small Records)

1987
tracks 13-22 were recorded at Art of Ear in San Francisco, CA in June of 1987
five tracks (Be All You Can Be / Peer Pressure / Corrupted Morals / Power / The Adventures of Edwin Meese) were released as the "Chet" 7" (1988 Lookout! Records)
four tracks (I'm Not Smiling / Mr. Liberty / I Don't Know / American Dream) were released as a 4 song demo
one track (Where Is He?) was released on the "Turn It Around" 2x7" (1987 MRR)
later re-released on the "Turn It Around" LP (1991 Very Small Records)
several other of the 1986-1987 demos were released on various tape compilations, including "Hit the Button", "Dry Shaving Disasters" and "Risen From Obscurity"

Lineup for the 1986-1987 recordings:
Rick Morgan - vocals
Dan Boland - guitar
Ray Sebastian - guitar
Roman - bass
Joel Wing (bass on the "Chet" 7")
Jose Mariscol - drums

1989
tracks 23-36 were released on the "Cheese-It" LP (1989 Lookout! Records)
The track Peer Pressure from the "Cheese-It" LP has been omitted from this collection for a couple of reasons. The first being that the recording i had sounded awful and cuts off before the track finishes, and the second was i wanted the collection to clock in under 80 minutes (as usual), which is now does. The song Peer Pressure does appear in this collection though, as part of the 1987 sessions (the superior version in my opinion), so the collection is still complete as far as i'm concerned.

Lineup for the 1989 recordings:
Rick Morgan - vocals
Dan Boland - guitar
Larry Lalonde - guitar
Roman - bass
Jose Mariscol - drums

some notes of interest:
Larry Lalonde also played for Primus and the great metal band Possessed.
Billy Joe Armstrong from Green Day has also been noted as playing in Corrupted Morals, although i'm not sure which, if any, recordings he appears on.
Before Corrupted Morals, certain members played in an '80 metal/hardcore band called Desecration. Check out their stuff if you can find it.