Thursday, December 3, 2009

No For An Answer - 1988-1994



The late '80s straight edge scene in Orange County, CA had it's share of great bands. Insted and Uniform Choice come to mind as being at the forefront. But No For An Answer, fronted by the always outspoken Dan O'Mahoney, were my personal favorite. They seemed to be on another level. This is a collection of most of the band's released material, aside from the "You Laugh" ep, which is still available through Revelation Records. Great live versions of all the songs from that 7" are scattered throughout this collection, so all the songs the band wrote are in here. Sound quality is excellent. Thanks to Mark Anthony, Claude, Graig and anyone else who helped with the music. Enjoy.

No For An Answer collection


A Though Crusade LP

Dan O'Mahoney - vocals
Gavin Oglesby - guitar
Sterling Wilson - bass
Chris Bratton - drums

NFAA's full-length was a huge step up from the band's debut 7", both musically and lyrically. "A Thought Crusade" was recorded at Spot Recordings 8/88 through 10/88 and originally released on Hawker Records later that year. It was re-released in 1996 on CD with the Carry Nation "Face the Nation" ep as bonus tracks. Carry Nation was a Dan O'Mahoney and Gavin Oglesby side project band, who's only ep was originally released in 1989 on Workshed Records. All versions of "A Thought Crusade" and the CD re-issue with Carry Nation are long out of print.

Free For All comp LP
This classic comp was a 4-way split (Token Entry, Wrecking Crew, Rest in Pieces and NFAA) all recorded live at CBGB on April 9, 1989. Released on Hawker Records in 1989.

The Icemen Cometh comp 7"
This comp featured Pushed Aside, Hard Stance, Slapshot and NFAA, all recorded live at the Whiskey in Hollywood on May 17, 1989. It was released on Nemesis Records in 1990. Great live version of an unreleased song called Man Against Man. The recording here was taken from the CD version.

Open Your Eyes Vol. 1 comp tape
This was the first in a series of cassette compilations released by Open Your Eyes fanzine out of Seattle. Vol. 1 (released in '89) was a collection of various demo and live tracks from lots of great bands, including Unit Pride, Breakaway, Brotherhood, Insted, Our Gang and Trip 6 just to name a few. Vol. 2 (my favorite of the 2) had tracks from Infest and Turning Point (among many others), and a full live Antidote set recorded at CBGB tacked onto the end. The 3 live No For An Answer tracks from this tape are a bit rough sounding compared to the rest of the collection, but i cleaned them up as best as possible. The live version of "Just Say No" kills.

Live in Treviso, Italy
Recorded on Feb. 11, 1994. Easily the best sounding No For An Answer live set i've ever heard. The sound is amazing, and the set-list and performance is just perfect. Some classic Dan O'Mahoney stage banter as usual throughout this set, and at times pretty amusing because of the language barrier.

"Somebody tell him in Italian... it was a stagedive... there are infinitely more important things in this world... and he's making an ass of himself. And he's pissing me off."

Great stuff. Plus the usual (and always intelligent) ranting about child abuse, police brutality etc.

Aside from what's in this collection, the band also released the "You Laugh" ep in 1988 on Revelation Records (Rev 06) and appeared on a few other comps (still in print). There was also a studio bootleg of the band's demo for the "You Laugh" ep called "Last Warning", released in 1993 on We Laugh Records. 500 made, and includes an unreleased a cappella type song labeled "We Are the World".

You Laugh ep (1988) lineup:
Dan O'Mahoney - vocals
Gavin Oglesby - guitar
John Mastropaolo - bass
Casey Jones - drums


After NFAA broke up, Dan formed 411, and later Speak 714.
Other members of the band have played in various hardcore bands, including Inside Out, Unity, Justice League and Ignite.

Dan O'Mahoney on No For An Answer:

NFAA was supposed to be mid paced and somewhat melodic like mid-model GI or Stalag 13, Dag Nasty even... whoops!

When Youth off Today came through opening up for 7 Seconds (in '86 I believe) everything changed. They were so aggressive, so bent on networking with everyone they met, knowing those guys made you immediately a part of something. I remember Ray getting my number from Billy and calling me at home even though we'd never met simply because we shared so many friends. We talked for an hour and worked together and sometimes in opposition to each other but always as friends for many years to follow. In those early days the group identity had not yet become quite so codified. By '87/'88 NFAA was making waves of its own and already starting to resist several facets of the youth crew movement. If you look at the lyrics to the "A Thought Crusade" record this resistance is pretty clear.

Check out the full interview (in 7 parts) right here, on Double Cross.

25 comments:

  1. THANKS A MILLION! Haven´t checked the link or anything...9%..10% so far so good...anyhoo i´m gonna rock out on this tonight!! you kick some serious ASS!
    Jimmy.

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  2. Jimmy, i doubt that file will download properly. I'll have the corrected file up tomorrow.

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  3. ...it worked fine!
    Jimmy.

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  4. Jimmy, that's odd.

    Anyway, file is OK now.

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  5. thanks man!

    do you have the "free for all" compilation in it's entirety?

    mind to post it, if there's no trouble?


    thanks a lot


    matt

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  6. Agreed. I have always wondered if the entire NFAA set from Free For All was recorded. Ive wanted to hear it for years...Does it exist?

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  7. Matt and Savage, yes, the full CBGB set from Free For All exists, and i have it although the quality is extremely bad. I'm still trying to hunt down a rip that sounds as good as the tracks from the comp (which i doubt exists).

    I'm away from home for a couple of days, but i'll post that Free For All comp when i get back. I'll drop it in here (the comments section).

    Vin

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  8. oh man.... I LOVED this band... but the '94 tour? Bummerz-ville! I heard so much crap at the time about how they were not sxe on that tour. Anybody have input on that?

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  9. ...also there was a boot EP called "Last Warning" from -93 with "You Laugh" EP demo versions, not very good sound but cool for us rabid completists, but i guess you already know that....
    Jimmy.

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  10. If you need them, I have the Hawker set (same crappy version everyone else has) plus the full Gilman set and probably a few others.

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  11. oops, totally forgot to say ' Thank You' for this. Loved these guys back in the day and I'm pleased to hear how well they held up...

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  12. I would really like to hear the full NFAA free for all set. Why does everyone have a "crappy" version if the good version exists?

    The best thing about Free For All is that the quality is so DAMN AMAZING.

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  13. I've never encountered a really good sounding version of the NFAA set (besides what is on the comp, obviously).

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  14. does anyone just have the entire comp?
    I have the NFAA and the Token Entry tracks but I can not find the rest of it...
    thanks
    JC

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  15. I remember interviewing them for Unite after that Free for All show and driving them to La Guardia airport soon after. That was an amazing show but the record was a serious let down. Good band. Nice Guys. Great post as always.

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  16. Token Entry's set that night was mind blowing. Timmy Chunks was at his finest.

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  17. My best memory involving a NFAA song, is DS-13 covering "without a reason" live when I saw them in Pittsburgh at the Mr. Roboto. One great band covering another one!!

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  18. Sure friend already put your link on my blog too, your blog is killer too, her research work with the bands is very cool, keep it up, hugs and see you soon .

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  19. http://xstuckinthepastx.blogspot.com/2009/12/kevin-seconds-dan-omahony-and-sam.html

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  20. Thanks for sharing this. even i have most of them and have been downloading them while back at soulseek but am a bit lazy to search them CD and compile them all together. Great work. have been into this site since u post Warzone and G. Biscuit material. Good job!

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  21. To comment on Savage's post: Why does everyone have a "crappy" version if the good version exists? The best thing about Free For All is that the quality is so DAMN AMAZING.
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    Savage, i don't think a good version of the full set DOES exist. Yes, the quality on the comp is amazing, but that's just because Hawker chose certain songs from each set that played that CBGB show, and remastered them. It would have been great, and extremely worthwhile, for them to have remastered all 4 sets in their entirety, and release them individually. But, oh well...

    Sorry about not posting the Free For All comp yet, as i'm having trouble finding the CDR right now. I should have it up soon.

    Everyone else, thanks and cheers.

    Vin

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  22. wow! this band is awesome. downloaded it based upon the description and they might be in the top 5 of my favorite hardcore bands now... so thank you. thank you very much.

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  23. waiting on the free for all compilation :)

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  24. xTheyStole10cmx, i put the Free For All comp in this update a while back:

    http://bloggedquartered.blogspot.com/2010/06/update-62310-uploads-news-and-other.html

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  25. Downloaded this awhile back but didn't really pay too much attention to it. I guess between the Chicago band Thought Crusade playing tomorrow and actually listening to Unity earlier today (another OC band I overlooked), I finally decided to give a listen to the LP and it's great! Thanks for this!

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