TH' INBRED - A Family Affair 1986

Puuhhhhh, somehow I'm not coming vertical today and my muse seems to be drunk from yesterday. Well, only one effective means help: cold beer + fast music; the medicine today is: Th' Inbred, a Punk/Hardcore band from Morgantown/West Virginia. Formed in 1984 by @rt (vocals), Robert (guitars), Duff (bass), Biff 3 (drums) and they released one EP and two albums between 1985 and 1988 and toured the US three times. A politically pointed punk act influenced by celebrities of the punk scene of that time (Dead Kennedys, Minutemen, Crass and Black Flag), their thrashy attack morphed into jazz-influenced hardcore by the end. As you can see, this is the artwork of the German pressing on Bonzen Records which includes the "Reproduction" EP as bonus, unfortunately not parat here. Anyway, the twelve songs are very powerful and impressive and the original idea was to form punk band that incorporated a banjo into the band. Subject matter of the songs included many looking critically at the punk scenes they were (or had been) a part of or linked to. There was an influence from situationism and anarchism. They disbanded in 1988 and singer Robert died sadly on February 8, 2020. Nothing more today, important the football Champions-League final in about four hours.

- Great Thx to Fredrik -

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SOCIAL UNREST - SU-2000 1985

Social Unrest hailed from Hayward, near San Francisco, in 1980.They soon established themselves as one of the leading forces of the Bay Area early HC Thrash scene. The manic, political vocals of Creetin K-os were well supported by screeching guitars & ultra-fast tempos. The band released their 1st 7" (now much sought after) in 1981 on Infra Red Records. "Making Room For Youth" was produced by none other than Dead Kennedys guitar player East Bay Ray.

SU teamed up again with Ray a year later to produce their classic "Rat In A Maze" 12", released summer 82 on their Libertine Label. The seven songs of this EP are mostly fast except for "I love You", a PIL-like tune. "Red, White & Blue", with it's numerous speed changes, remains a highlight. They also appeared on Maximum Rock'n'Roll masterpiece 47 bands compilation, "Not So Quiet On The Western Front". The band played a lot with all the glory bands of the time, when the usual band brawls headed for some changing.

Original Band members Mark Monti & Danny Norwood remained the core of SU, Bass player John Vollick moved out to band management. In came Ray Vegas on bass duties & Jimi Brogan on guitar. Jason Honea, a Darby Crash fanatic, completed the new SU after the departure of Creetin K-os. The new line-up developped the original, screeching SU sound and brought it to new heights on the band's 1st full length "SU-2000" (again on Libertine) in 1985. Honea's melodic tones & thoughtful lyrics added a lot of deepness to all the great songs featured on "SU2000" : "I wanna be heard","Jimmy Rocks", "Rat In A Maze" are all

scorchers, while "Stranger Inside" & "Out My Window" have some really cool guitar bitterness works that will become one of SU's later trademarks.

A year later, the band released what is probably their masterpiece (unlike most bands, they never put out a weak record, though) ,the mighty "Before the Fall" LP (on Libertine in the US, Konurrel in Europe). The songwriting reached new grounds with songs like "American Steel","Golgotha","The New Tribes". The band was still fast & aggressive, but the vocals & guitars added great, original harmonies that couldn't be heard on any other record by any band. The slower numbers like "Night of the Long Knives" worked quite well too. Social Unrest now really had a sound of their own & were firmly established as one of California's most important band.

They heavily toured the US (they did it 4 or 5 times), opening for the Descendents' last show, appeared on the Viva Umkhonto compilation & got rave reviews of "Before The Fall". They embarked on their 1st Euro Tour in September 87, playing a show in Germany that would end on the"Mental Breakdown" live Album (on Lost & Found).

Ray left the band to join Attitude Adjustment, Ron Isa filled in to record the band's last album, "Now & Forever", released Fall 88. Some of the best SU songs are there w/ "Katarina Witt", "I'm The Nation" & "Sins Of Paris". "Handcuffs Too Tight" features the welcome back of Creetin K-os for a thrasher that brings back the band's original sound. The band called it quit shortly after. (Source: gug65free)

- Special Thx to Fredrik -

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VIRUS 27 - Parasitas Obrigatórios 1987

Good Morning  dear friends of cool music and today we listen to the debut record of Virus 27, a Brazilian Oi! combo from São Paulo, on Devil Discos. The band was formed in 1982 with Di on drums, Braz on guitar and Pezão on bass. They started with a mid-tempo hardcore punk sound just like many of their contemporaries in the early Brazilian scene; very similar to Cólera. The name of the band came from the label Alternative Tentacles because the founder of the band was a big Dead Kennedys fan. He died sometime in early 80's. Their first recorded apperance was 1985 on the Ataque Sonoro compilation. A year later they released the Parasitas Obrigatórios album and this showed the band moving away from hardcore punk to more of an Oi sound, like Garotos Podres. However, Virus 27 still sang critical lyrics about society and seasoned with an unique sound - slow but very good. In late 80's, the band took a turn towards right wing politics, and released their second album Brasil Oi!. They became too nationalist and the punk scene abandoned their gigs, it became a band just for Skinheads - at that time punks and skinheads in Brazil started to go in different ways and hate each other. Their last record Caso Sério!!! was released in 1996 and then the band broke up. Well, at least Virus 27 didn't became nazi and racist, only patriotic and play rough Oi! music in a very strong catchy way. A very good debut in my opinion and rough as a street punk record should be.

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SHOTGUN SOLUTION - Shotgun EP 1983

Nice little 7Inch by this band from Rome with four wild & angry shotguns, released via High Rise and this record is all they made on vinyl. Singer Valter is in my opinion a 'softer' type of Raw Power's Mauro but don't worry, hier wird ordentlich aufgedreht. Shotgun Solution opened for the Dead Kennedys in their show in Rome in 1982 and were Valter (vox), Stefano (guitar), Alberto (drums) and Pierpaolo (bass). RaveUp Records released in 2016 a repro (350 copies) called "1983" with one unreleased track. That's it, I'm tired again and in four hours the night's over.

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WORLD WAR XXIV - No Luck 1995

World War XXXIV are a high energy punk outfit that have been together since early 2013 and are a rehashed version of WWXXIV "one of the best punk bands to come out of Sydney in the early 80's". The current line up comprises local lads from the far north coast of NSW and the original lead singer Mark "Bird" Nowane fronting the band. Bird recalls having seen a flier at a local music store which said "looking for people to jam, punk, no brown eyed girls" (relates to requests for the song!) and thought he must ring. A month later he responded and never looked back. The original World War XXIV formed in the 1980's and were getting into some fast energetic punk music. In 1983 the band did the excellent Azaria/Why Bother single which was one of the best Aussie punk releases of the 80's. The band plays a fast style of punk that combines Dead Kennedys style hardcore, Peter & the Test Tube Babies Oi!sound, and tough Radio Birdman riffs which creates a powerful non generic sound. When asked, Bird recalls that no one could agree on a name, so at the last minute Bird spat out WWXXIV so that the promoters would have a name to go with. "Although we had played a party before under the name of Discharge not knowing until we finished that there was an English punk band with that name already. Everybody agreed on the name (WWXXIV) because it rhymed and perhaps we could change it later if we felt like it", but it stuck like glue. Since the original line up there’s been a couple of changes and many other players have gone through. Bird felt like it wasn't quite right when he reformed the second line up to use the same name but consensus at the time was to go with it. This time around the band decided to stay with the “world war” vein but move forward. Bird says XXX is bit of an eye catcher so WWXXXIV was born. Looking forward to some high energy music, which was lost in the pop punk era; on these both compilatons.

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