Wasted Days TV: Episode V, Kevin Finn's Revelation Records Collection

Here's a fun little video I made with Kevin Finn about his legendary Revelation Records vinyl collection. The Rev collection that people try to duplicate but I don't think that will ever be possible. The entire interview was two hours long and it was hard to decide what to cut out but hopefully people will dig it.

The thing I like the most that doesn't really come across in the video is the kind of "go for it" spirit that Kevin has to complete his collection. He turned down multiple million dollar job offers on Wall Street to put himself into the center of it all at RevHQ and went on to start the Rev Board and the Trade Board. It's like if you collected baseball cards and turned down job offers to take a shitty job at Fleer instead.

In my eyes he created a Rev record collecting craze once he published the pressing info he researched and compiled online, that still continues to this day.

Larry
Buffalo S.E.

Livewire Records Update: Summer 2008

Livewire Records, Back From the Dead Logo

Summer 2008 sees Livewire Records at its most active in years. While the label has undergone a complete rethinking of our approach to releasing records , including a total brand overhaul complete with a new logo and website, this fresh perspective has only made us become even more dedicated to putting out sick sounding and sick looking records and merch. In short, the visual has become just as important as the sonic. Case in point...


Cheap Tragedies, "Shepherd To Lost Sheep" 7" & Poster

Cheap Tragedies. "Shepherd To Lost Sheep" marks the debut 7" EP from Cleveland's most pissed-off and crazy hardcore band in years. This blistering four song 7" features original cover art by Brian Walsby (best known for his 7-Seconds, "Walk Together…" art) and is limited to a first press of 300 (200 on purple and 100 on scrap. Scrap is a strange color created by mixing left over pieces of unused colored vinyl.) The record, like all Back From The Dead era releases, features an 11 x 17 insert and can be purchased through Merchnow as a stand-alone piece or as a package deal which includes a 2 color t-shirt. It is worth noting that artist Brian Walsby has said the Cheap Tragedies piece is one of his favorite music-related illustrations he has ever drawn.

For the uninitiated, Cheap Tragedies' sound is best described as hardcore punk rock done as only Cleveland veterans can do it—fast, raw, angry, melodic, and noisy, this stuff is the real deal. To learn more about Cheap Tragedies check out their band page. Also, listen to the title track from "Shepherd to Lost Sheep" by clicking here for a free mp3.


Over The Line, "The Weight" 7" Vinyl & Cover

Next up, a little later this summer we have the return of Over The Line with their first release in over 10 years! While the basic ideas for these songs had been floating around amongst band members for years, the raw energy and urgency of the final tracks was captured in only a few brief late night rehearsals and even quicker studio session. The band didn’t have months to rehearse, record and remix. In this long weekend session they were able to capture these four blistering songs of dynamic hardcore. The recording here is the product of four friends who knew exactly what they wanted, and it captures that energy and creativity at its peak. This record is precise, to-the-point hardcore played flawlessly.



Considering the band officially broke up in 1998, the underlying question remains, “After all this time, why even bother?” According to Lucuski, “We had these songs we loved that never materialized. They really showed the direction we wanted to take the band with the new line-up. We were happy with the demo at the time, but we knew we had songs in us that pushed in a different direction and were more than just basic hardcore songs. Don’t get me wrong, I was glad Crucial Response pressed the demo, but the image they created for the band wasn’t us. These songs are.”

The weight features original skateboard/horror inspired artwork from longtime Livewire friend and artist Jason Powell.


Triple Threat, Graffiti Shirt (art by Bruce Boyd)


Triple Threat, "Live at CBGB" 7" & Poster

Also coming up very soon, new merchandise from Triple Threat which features original artwork from Pagan Babies Drummer/visual artist, Bruce Boyd. The new shirts will feature gigantic graffiti artwork on the front and a New Jersey Straight Edge piece on the back. Expect these as well as a ton more in the very near future!

For constant updates, please check us out at: Livewire Records. Thanks to the Double Cross boys for giving us the chance to spread the word. —xxx

Photographer Spotlight: Ken Salerno

7 Seconds / City Gardens, Trenton NJ

Ken Salerno has been a mainstay photographer in the New Jersey hardcore and punk scene for as long as I've been going to shows and then some. Not only has Ken been supplying us with the best photos of the best bands since my days of doing Common Sense fanzine, but he's been keeping a steady flow of photos to Double Cross as well and we couldn't be more psyched.

Starting today, we're going to try and keep a running feature on various hardcore photographers. We're kicking it off with a handful of Ken's photos, but expect to see other photographers featured as well. Big thanks to Ken and expect to see more from him in the near future. -Tim DCXX


Sick Of It All / City Gardens, Trenton NJ


Leeway / City Gardens, Trenton NJ


Shelter / City Gardens, Trenton NJ


Bad Brains / City Gardens, Trenton NJ

Mike Neider - BL'AST!

One of the most ferocious hardcore bands to come out of California, BL'AST! is a band you should expect to see more of here on Double Cross. I happened to catch up with Mike Neider, guitar, and he answered the first batch of our endless questions. All BL'AST! photos: Tim McMahon DCXX

Time To Think...

-Gordo DCXX

How do you remember getting hooked up with Wishingwell to do The Power Of Expression? There are a few stories floating around that you guys ended up a bit unhappy with the Dubar brothers...fact or fiction? Looking back, how do you feel about your debut LP and the way it got out to the underground music world?

Well it's a bit vague but I hung out the other night with Cliff and Seve and I brought that up. It was just bros playing shows together. That's how we met I believe. We were already hooked up with Green World and Pat was starting his own label, Wishingwell, and wanted Bl'ast! to be a part of it, and we were down.

The Dubar bros were great, they are always doing their thing. Just don't try to sell our shirts...ha ha. Funny story.

I wouldn't change a thing. It was a bit wild but ending up on SST records was a great deal for me. We took BLAST! very literal and always wore our hearts on our sleeves. BL'AST! is at the twenty five year mark. Wild.

How did the Santa Cruz hook up come about? What can you recall as the circumstances around the photo shoot of Roskopp flying over you guys for the poster? Were you guys actually playing or just jamming? I think that is an INCREDIBLE photo. What other Santa Cruz promotion were you involved in?

I started working for Santa Cruz skateboards in '82 or '83 and ended up working there for 18 or 19 years. When I first began there, all of us blastards lived right next store. It was convenient and the owner, Novak, was down for BL'AST! and let me have the time to play music etc...

Skateboarding and rock started to intertwine visually in magazine adds. So Santa Cruz was going to do this poster series and Rob and Tim Piumarta thought that would be very rad to jump over BL'AST! We though, "let's try it." Rob was one of my old room mates/friend. So we found this pretty steep long hill that would allow Rob to get enough speed to hit a jump ramp that was right to the right of me. Rob jumped over us at least 4 or 5 times if I remember correctly. We were set up and playing and whenever Rob decided to roll he flew over.

In the 80s we did some RIP magazine stuff with santa cruz where they took photos of me skating etc. Then with my old band, Lab, we put out a cd with Richard Kirby's model. They were always down.

What type of relationship have you had with Clifford over the years - good times, bad times? What is something people wouldn't know about the singer for BL'AST! that you would?

Clifford's great, he lives down the street from me and he stops by my shop Rrise and hangs out often. We hang at his pad and krank tunes and such or go see shows. We talk about jammin often, just when and how. When we were teens w/ BL'AST! we cared so much about our band. Like I said earlier, that almost made it hard to keep it alive. We just wanted to destroy for ourselves and take wrong turns and loved it.

Well...Ha. Cliff is a no bullshit dude, what you see is what you get. No games and a lot of fun.

What would you say is the best show BL'AST! ever played, or at least the one you remember most fondly? Why?

Very hard question for so many different reasons. I think I will leave it at that.

What three BL'AST! songs would you cite as your favorites, and why? And songs you really don't care for anymore?

The Power Of Expression - It`s In My Blood - Take The Manic Ride. Dig 'em all! One thing we always wanted to do was re-record The Manic Ride. We always had little studio time cuz we could not afford much. So we had to get er done in a timely manner. When we were finished with the recording there were compressors that were left on during the recording. We couldn't afford to go back and re-record it so we had to put it out with the funky sound. It did not get the justice that it had live when we played. Bummer. Maybe someday we will do that.

Does "hardcore" as it exists today have any resemblence to the "hardcore" you knew in the early and mid 1980s? In what ways yes, in what ways no?

The 80s for hardcore was kinda magical times and those times are over just as any other decade is over. But as in any musical group, everyone wants to capture their feelings and influences and kick ass and feel good about it. So musically it will always remain the same. It's just different times.

More from Mike soon, for now, check out his new band Gusto:

www.myspace.com/gustojams

And also check out www.rrise.com for band merch.

Jordan Cooper - Rev Q&A Round III

Jordan Cooper continues to enlighten us on various Revelation blunders, oddities, and other useless knowledge we can't get enough of.

-DCXX

Straight Ahead being featured in ads for The Way It Is, yet not appearing on the comp. What a teaser. What gave?

I don't remember at all. Ray and Tommy were pretty close so maybe it was going to happen at one point, but the band didn't record in time. That might be a question better posed to Tommy or Craig. Maybe Duane or Ray would remember.

Similarly, Raw Deal being put on the back of The Way It Is t-shirts, and yet they were not featured on the comp. Any background on this one? Did Revelation even have anything to do with this shirt? I'm pretty sure it was designed and printed by the Boiling Point guys.

I think those were made by Tim Singer, but yeah, we had nothing to do with them. Then again, we did have that mistake where we put a picture of some of those guys and maybe the Breakdown guys on the GB page on the Together insert.

The Burn EP...how did this go to final press with the back cover listing the lead off track as "Shall Be Jugded"? Any story behind this?

There's no story with that at all. Everyone missed it, including me. It wasn't until at least the late Summer of 1992 that Alan Cage called me up laughing and pointed it out to me. From there on, it was our favorite typo until the "Farrside" postcard came out in 1995 or so.

The Ray and Porcell EP. This record has taken a buttload of criticism over the years. Dylan once told me it was a project to get Cappo to come and hang out like they used to. Did you dig the songs? Did it seem like a stretch, between the drum machine and even the title of the record? (ED. Note: We dig this record).

That's funny, I don't remember hearing that. I know Dylan was hanging out with Porcell a lot at that point and I think they even talked about working together on that project/band. It started out as a tape that Porcell made on his four track and I really thought it was cool and encouraged him to do more with it. He thought it was cheesy or something and didn't want to, but eventually came around, got Ray involved and did the record. At the time it did seem like a stretch. The Bold 7" (as you mentioned earlier) was one, Slipknot was another, Quicksand was another, Shelter another. Things were changing and I thought that if Porcell was getting into electronic music, that was news and should be documented. Plus, I thought it was good. The name I didn't really like, but Porcell couldn't come up with one that he liked. He originally called his first tape that he made "Track Four"but he didn't want to use that for the record for some reason.

The Old Smoke record. What is your recollection of how this record came to fruition? Did it seem like a stretch to you? Had you spoken to Mike since Judge? When was the last time you listened to it and what do you think. (ED. Note: We dig this record too, Mike Judge or not, no lie).

Yeah, this was the next big stretch after Ray and Porcell, definitely. The way this came about was that Mike was doing these acoustic songs and sending them to Porcell. Porcell lived out here and worked at Rev when I first moved Rev from CT to CA and he said that Rev should put it out. I talked to Mike every few months or maybe once a year and still do from time to time. Mike actually re-recorded the entire album for the second pressing, but we never ended up doing another pressing. We may end up putting that second version out digitally. I was actually never a fan of the bands that influenced that record, but with Mike doing music in that vein, I started to appreciate it. He got me listening to some old stuff that I never would have otherwise.

Rev. Hank Straight Edge Peirce - Part II

Here's the second part of an ongoing interview with Slapshot roadie and 1980's HC fixture, Rev. Hank Straight Edge Peirce. To read the first part, click here:

http://doublecrosswebzine.blogspot.com/2008/05/rev-hank-straight-edge-peirce-boston.html

Straight Edge in your face!

-Gordo DCXX

Who was your favorite band from Boston? Do any shows from Boston back then stand far above the rest?

Who was my favorite Boston band? Well I gotta say Jerry's Kids, the kids had the speed of Gang Green, the power of SSD, they come close to having the song writing ability of the Straw Dogs and they were/are some of the smartest and most twisted guys out there.

OK they aren't Kilslug who really are the most twisted of Boston bands. As I write that I start to think of folks like 2 Million BC who were this metal band, the way Thor is a metal band. They only ever put out a tape but had a minor hit with "Stampede" about running cows through Boston and killing everyone. They were sort of a joke band and yet you would see them around town in fuzzy Ugg boots and spandex doing their laundry.

The other crazy guy was of course GG Allen who everybody in Slap Shot thought was great. I know it sounds totally ridiculous but it's true. When GG wasn't on stage he was a very laid back guy. I remember once Choke ran into him outside of our practice space and them having a long talk about music. Choke would force us to listen to GG's 12 Days of Christmas on the road. Slappy roadie Pat would often disappear during our sound checks and emerge out of the bathroom dressed (or undressed) as GG and jump on stage and start singing "Drink, fuck and fight!" We even have film of Pat doing this at some outdoor concert in Germany totally confusing all the Germans. Allow me to also say that all of GG's early music is great old fashion punk.

OK back to Jerry's Kids. Man I think those guys were the best band and always put on a great show from day one. The famous show at the Paradise where Springa got up on stage and said "we started hardcore in this town and now we are going to end it" was supposedly their last show. That was in '87, but of course it wasn't their last, and they still even play out now. They are one of those bands that when I hear them play I go a little mental, like when the Bad Brains play their fast stuff, something clicks in your head.

Other great bands...I'll make a list. Siege, man those guys were mighty, I remember seeing them play at The Underground near city hall and the drummer played so fast and so hard that the seat and the drumset all just fell apart and he's laying there kicking and flailing at anything trying to keep the beat.

The FUs / Straw Dogs, one of the few bands that I can listen to at any time, great lyrics, song writing and Sox's vocals can't be beat. Like so many songs from back in the day, you listen to what they were singing about 20 years ago and you realize how prophetic they were, songs like "Young Fast Iranians and Warlords," it's amazing to hear what they were singing about then.

Slappy; what can I say about the boys, so much of my formative years were spent with these guys. Of all the groups that I toured with these guys were the most fun, we were and are still friends. The shows in Boston were always an event. I think Steve, Choke, Mike Gitter (XXX Fanzine) and Curtis (Taang) were very calculating in how to market the band. There was lots of press before they even played their first show in Providence opening for the Circle Jerks.

Then for the first year lots of shows in and around town and then twice a year which guaranteed huge turn outs at the biggest clubs in town. They were fun shows even when we got hit with Choke's hockey stick, and we all got hit with it. He would do his angry speed skater dance and throw the stick on the ground and BAM it would bounce up and hit you in the jaw.

Who else, the Freeze and Gang Green were bands that were bigger outside of town than in at least later on. The Proletariat never made it as big as was expected after Boston Not LA came out, but I thought they were great.

Other bands that I loved: Void and Negative Approach, COC both as a band and as guys, Reed Mullin is still one of my best friends. Iggy Pop, the Dictators, Jonathan Richman, Billy Bragg and the Damned. A couple of years ago I was backstage at the Warp Tour with Steve Risteen (Slap Shot) watching the Damned play and I looked around and there was Brian Baker (Minor Threat/ Bad Religion), Greg Hetson (Circle Jerks/ Bad Religion), Colin Sears and Roger Marbury (Dag Nasty) and other folks whom I can't remember and I was amazed at the realization that we have the greatest of American punk there and we were all doing more than just paying homage to the Damned but really enjoying the show.

Ah so many fun shows like making fun of Fugazi in their first show in Boston after Ian did his "I'm the king of punk and I will make rules." I started heckling them saying "let mono-brow sing more!" Guy then starts to give it back but not to me but to someone else who in fact has as pronounced a mono-brow as Guy, they almost came to blows.

Then there was the time that GWAR opened for Slap Shot in DC. A friend says "yea I hear that they're sort of theatrical." I was just glad that we were playing with a band of adults as we so often got pared with a bunch of 13 year olds. Well I'm in the hall selling T-shirts when Mark Mckay comes running up and says "YOU HAVE GOT TO SEE THESE GUYS!" His eyes as big as saucers. I said "I'm selling t-shirts," and Mark says something like "fuck the shirts come right now!" It was amazing and I am not sure how Slappy went on after that, but the folks from Boston who were there soon got GWAR a gig up here at this tiny club. Through word of mouth we packed that club with everybody we knew, it was just great to see the faces of these folks as Beefcake came out through the smoke. I'm still friends with those guys and send them Christmas cards.

It is hard to sit here and think of the stories from so many tours and shows. There were so many bad shows when no one showed up, times we had to choose gas over food. The storms that we had to drive through, the riots in and fights that occurred because of or in spite of whatever band. I remember watching some Circle One guys fight some Suicidal guys at Fenders in LA and Jordan (Slap Shot) turning to me and saying, "why is there no sense of danger in the air at all, isn't that strange?"

A couple of years later when Slappy was in Sarajevo a huge bar room brawl broke out because I refused to sell our shirts to some nazi skins. We kicked some ass, but had to high-tale it out before the cops came, didn't want to end up in some Yugoslavian jail.

Not a lot of girls, nope straight edge bands did not attract chicks.

What was your role as a Slapshot roadie? When was the last time you served as such? That band undoubtedly stirred up a lot of emotion in the late 80s. Why do you think this is so, and how much involved you? What was your take on some of the brief beefs that developed?

Let me say that I was not a guitar tech, I was the last person you wanted tuning your guitar. But I loved going on the road, driving all night, selling merch, dealing with a crazy crowd. I think part of it was that I have always been a junior cultural anthropologist and I have always been interested in how kids dressed and what kids were listening to in other scenes, and why. Was the Texas scene as bizarre because they were reacting to ultra-conservatism, or was it just Texas sized punk, or was it cheap Meth?

The first national tour I ever went on was with the Straw Dogs, they had just changed their name from the FUs and their record label (Enigma) thought that it was better to not tell folks of their past. It was a tour where we starved, I remember at one point we had $40 to drive from Montana to Chicago. OK, it wasn't like the COC guys who had to sell their blood on one tour in order to get to the next city.

There were so many times that you would show up at some club and the kids would look at them and wonder why they were doing all these FUs covers.

We played some place down south and no one showed up and while the band was all bummed out at the bar, Kevin Hall the other roadie and I grab some brooms and while the jukebox played some Van Halen tune we start to do some air guitar. Well I can be pretty clumsy and I trip over some wires on the stage and slam into the wall. The whole wall, 16 by 8 feet, pops out and the next thing I know I'm laying in the back yard of this club and Kevin is almost pissing himself laughing. We later found out that the wall was built to come out, but I thought I would be washing lots of dishes.

That tour with them was pretty bad, I remember in Roanoke, VA the promoter didn't have the money to pay us so he gave the Straw Dogs the difference in acid, I spent the next two days babysitting those guys. That is when I started only working with SE bands after that.

I also went on the road with COC and Uniform Choice and assorted smaller bands, and the last gig I worked at was for Slappy in '91 in Philadelphia. It was at the Liberty Bell club and maybe 150 kids and I thought "I missing Nelson Mandela speaking in Boston for this?"

Later in Slap Shot, well Choke and Mark kicked Steve out of the band because he wasn't the guitar player that they thought Slappy needed. They forgot that we were just a shitty little punk rock band, I stopped doing all work with them and everybody else and went back to school, and eventually to theological school.

Ahh, but it is all water under the bridge, not that I've seen them play since Philly, but we all get together now and have our yearly Slap Shot family BBQ.

Mouthpiece discography update

[Mouthpiece from the Down Under, New Brunswick NJ, May 13th 1995, Photo: Traci McMahon]

It's been awhile since I dropped an update on the Mouthpiece "Can't Kill What's Inside" complete discography that's due to be released this October on Revelation Records, so I thought I'd take a minute to do that now.

The entire re-mixing process is complete, as is the mastering. We were able to track down a live set from the soundboards of a show we played at the Chameleon Club in Lancaster PA with Turning Point and Vision. On that soundboard tape were a few songs that never saw a studio recording ("Never Enough, "Stick To It" and "Massive Outro"), so just for the sake of completeness, we thought it would be cool to include them. We also have a full live soundboard set from a show we played in NYC at CBGB's with Killing Time in 1996. Surprisingly enough, once mastered, both live recordings sound great, obviously the CB's set sounding the best. With all the studio recordings and the live unreleased material, we're pretty close to maxing out the available space on a CD, so we're trying to determine how and where to fit the CB's live set. Hopefully when all is said and done, we're able to squeeze it all in.

We're wrapping up the layouts right now and I gotta say it should be a pretty incredible package once complete. We've managed to cram tons of photos, most never before seen. We've also gathered a complete list of every show Mouthpiece played from from very early 1990 through 1996. Once the typography is finalized and the last few photos are put into place, everything will be sent off to Revelation. The plan is to have everything in Revs hands before the end of June. We'll also be designing a couple new t-shirt designs for Revelation, as well as posters, stickers, pins, etc. So expect some brand new Mouthpiece merch from Revelation later this summer. -Tim DCXX