Crumbsuckers - Life Of Demos 1983-1985

These are the early Crumbsuckers demos with David Brady on vocals. They were posted about a year ago on the band's facebook page, from David Brady's personal stash of recordings from when he was in the band, These recordings, and a couple others, have been circulating the web for a while now, but i was never happy with the quality on any of the links i've come across. Some were loaded with tape hiss and recorded at an incredibly low volume, while others were so cleaned that the sound was completely washed out. So i decided to clean the tracks myself, as i tend to listen to this stuff a lot and wanted it in decent quality. Hope you like it.

Life Of Demos

The Crumbsucker Cave demo was recorded in June of 1983 at Nino Studios in Baldwin, NY. At the time of these recordings, the band had a 15 song set (roughly), including a cover of Black Sabbath's "Sweet Leaf", Chubby Checker's "The Twist" (included on the demo), and the them to Inspector Gadget. A great mix of these songs and early versions of Life of Dreams songs can be heard on the New York Ave. 1984 Rehearsals (check out the Old, Fast & Loud blog for that). Like most high school hardcore bands, the music was pretty basic and the lyrics were kinda juvenile. The evolution of the Crumbsuckers is amazing considering that they had written some of the material for Life of Dreams less than a year later. Listening to the Cave demo you'd never think it was the Crumbsuckers, but it's worth checking out. A long-lost piece of hardcore history for sure.

1983 lineup:
Dave Brady - vocals
Dave Wynn - guitar
Gary Meskil - bass
Kevin Carroll - drums

In early 1984 Chuck Lenihan is brought in on second guitar and Dan Richardson takes over on drums. By the summer on 1985 all the band's old material is scrapped and the band records their incredible second demo. "Working the Magic" is recorded at CBGB on a 16 track. The progression from the first demo to the second is like night and day, and now the band have a super tight, metallic and very unique crossover sound. After listening to this demo about a dozen times during the past few weeks, i have a great appreciation for it. At this point i may actually prefer Dave's vocals over Notaro's. Probably just because this is new to me, so the difference in vocals sounds fresh. Dave's vocals are more of a raspy yelling, as opposed to Chris Notaro's growly, almost death metal approach (much different than his vocals on the first Krakdown demo). I'll say Working the Magic is up there with the best of the NYHC classic demos of the mid-'80s. Glad it's finally out there, and hopefully one day this stuff gets a proper release.

1985 lineup:
Dave Brady - vocals
Dave Wynn - guitar
Chuck Lenihan - guitar
Gary Meskil - bass
Dan Richardson - drums

I don't have any info on the last batch of tracks in this collection. Pretty sure they're rehearsals from sometime in 1984. Much different sounding than the New York Ave. Rehearsals. Probably some of the earliest versions you'll hear of some Life of Dreams songs. There's also a great version of an early unreleased song called The Solution. I'm guessing this is one of the last songs they cut before moving entirely in their new direction.

A few weeks after the recording of the CBGB demo, Dave splits, Chris joins, the band signs to Combat, and the rest is history.

Unfortunately i never got to see the Crumbsuckers in their prime, but i did get to see them when they played a reunuin show at BB King's in NYC on August 3rd, 2006. The show was in celebration of the 20th anniversary of Life of Dreams. I'm not much for reunion shows (although i've been to my share), but this show was amazing. The entire 1985 lineup played (plus Tom Klimchuck from Pro-Pain), and even David Brady and Dave Wynn came out for a few songs. Some of the band members even had their young children on stage, it was just a really fun show. They played LOD in its entirety and it was flawless. Seriously. If you closed your eyes you'd swear they were playing the album over the PA system. Easily the best reunion show i've ever seen, and just one of the best hardcore shows in general.

Excellent Crumbsuckers website here.

Also, i think Beast on My Back kills. Underrated ripper.