Skull Crusher, "Blinded By Illusion" 12" EP

While we are always checking out new music here at Double Cross, we haven't tried to make this site a major news source for new releases or current bands. More than anything, the amount of classic content we have from bands past has kept us busy enough as it is. However, as we surpass our 500th post and head into 2010, we plan to start adding in some more coverage of what's happening today as well.


Skull Crusher | Photo: Lenny Zimkus

So on that note, I figured now would be a good time to mention a brand new band called SKULL CRUSHER, featuring DCXX's own Gordo on drums, and DCXX silent partner/Livewire Records head honcho Ed McKirdy on the mic. Heavy stuff that surely cuts across the genres, and fits in with the readership here. They spent some time envisioning this thing and knocking it out in the studio, and the finished product is impressive to say the least.

Click HERE for more info and songs from their soon-to-be released 12" EP on Livewire/Reflections.


"Blinded By Illusion" 12" EP | Illustration: Linas Garsys

Looks like 2010 is off to a good start, nice work boys!
-Tim DCXX

Scott Hill - Fu Manchu Part II

Fu Manchu with Tony Cadena of The Adolescents, Photo courtesy of Scott

Scott Hill delivers the backstory on Virulence and Fu Manchu, with much more to come! -Gordo DCXX

Tell us about Virulence, where you guys fit into the California punk/HC landscape, the band's recordings and memorable shows, and the upcoming discography on Southern Lord.

In 1982 I started buying and collecting every punk / hardcore record that I could get my hands on. I tried to go to as many shows that I could get into as well. Being underage at the time it was tough, but if you had money to pay at the door, you usually got in. After all that I wanted to start a band. I believe it was January 1985 that we actually got Virulence together. I wanted to start a band earlier but I could never find friends that were serious enough to get it happening. I borrowed a Les Paul copy guitar from a friend, bought a Peavey Bandit combo amp and I was ready to roll.

My friend that I would hang out with, surf, skate, and go to shows with would be the singer. We knew some friends that played bass and drums and I remember having a very chaotic, disorganized, noisy practice in my parents' garage. It sounded great to me. I really didn't know how to play guitar that well but it didn't matter. Our friends that we had play bass and drums didn't really want to start a band so we were on the hunt for new members.

We got other friends who we surfed with to play bass and drums. After the drummer couldn't play fast enough for us we were searching yet again. We then got Ruben on drums and we were set. There were some cool local bands. A.T.G., Hangover, and Bored To Death were a few of the local bands. We played parties and a few out of town shows. Then we met the guys in Insted at a show we played. We played "Young Til I Die" by 7 Seconds and Kevin Insted said it sounded great. So we got to know them and played a few parties / shows together, then met the guys in Half Off and we got to be good friends with those guys. We were just happy to play live wherever and whenever we could.


Fu Manchu drummer Scott Reeder at a backyard party, Photo: J. Johnson

I don't know where we fit in at the time. We were not straight edge but we were friends with a lot of those bands. We started out as a mid tempo / fast punk band, then wanted to get as fast as we could. It was seeing BL'AST! at that show of theirs in November 1985 that got me re-thinking about about being as fast as possible. Their set made a HUGE impact on me.

We had recorded a 5 song demo in the summer of 1985. Then in 1986 we recorded another demo that was supposed to be released as a 7". By the time the record label was ready to get things started with the 7", we had a lot of new songs and didn't want to release the 7'. We went back into the studio in 1987 and recorded another demo to send to labels. Alchemy Records was interested in putting out a full length for us and we recorded 8 songs up in San Francisco. The record didn't come out until 1989. By that time we had a whole new set of songs and weren't really happy with the way the record sounded.

Some memorable shows were:


We opened for BL'AST! / Agent Orange / Mentors in 1986 in Santa Barbara. The singer from Stalag 13 came up to us after our set and said he dug it. We were stoked about that because we really liked Stalag 13. It was the first show that BL'AST! played where they had Kip from Neon Christ playing 2nd guitar. They were awesome that night!


First live show ever. Played with our good friends A.T.G in 1985.


This was was a very LOUD show in 1988.


This was fun because I think we bummed out a lot of the straight edge kids. They kept yelling at us to play faster so we played our very slow, very long 11 minute song at the end.

Another fun one was playing in Vadim's (Half Off drummer) garage with Half Off, Youth Of Today and I think Uniform Choice played as well. Still have the video of the entire sets by all the bands from that one. I think that was 1986 or 1987?

Southern Lord Records is releasing a cd with our full length record, demos from 1985 and 1986, live songs from 1987, and lives songs from the last show we played together in 1989. I believe it will be released 1-19-2010. It was cool putting the Virulence release thing together because you can hear the later tweaked Virulence stuff in newer Fu Manchu songs. A lot of Black Flag / BL'AST! riffing. The early Virulence demos sound the best to me.

How did Virulence fit in with the straight edge scene going on in California at the time and that wave of later 80's hardcore?

We were friends with a lot of the straight edge / positive bands from Orange County. I really liked that first Uniform Choice record. It still sounds heavy. They were always good live. I liked Half Off (even jammed with them as 2nd guitar once and I think we played a DYS song), we were friends with Insted, and I still think that NFAA 7" sounds good. I think we might have bummed some of them out because we weren't straight edge. It didn't bother us because we liked playing shows with them and the people in the bands were usually cool. None of us were ever straight edge. We didn't really care if you were or weren't.

I am a huge fan of the early 80's hardcore sound!!! Once 1987 rolled around we started getting into stuff like the Melvins, Swans, Gore, and a lot of late period Black Flag. We just wanted to slow it down, make it heavy without it being metal. Our later period stuff is very tweaked!!! I didn't really follow the newer punk / hardcore stuff that was happening in the very late 80s. I do still listen to my all my hardcore / punk stuff now though.

How did Virulence end and Fu Manchu begin and what was your idea for Fu Manchu? Fu Manchu has all sorts of fans, what do you think it is that appeals to such a cross section? Did you think you'd be doing it 20 years later?

I wanted to add another guitar player in 1989. I asked our singer if he wanted to play guitar as well, and there was no way he could learn to play. Plus, I think at the end of Virulence the songs were getting so complicated, and had a lot of weird off time breaks and a lot of riffs going on, and we needed to go back to a basic song structure. As soon as we ended Virulence, our singer went to college and the rest of us started Fu Manchu.

I think we do appeal to a lot of different people because we do have the raw, fuzzy rock thing happening and we get the Sabbath, Blue Cheer thing, but then we will record cover songs by VOID, JFA, Adolescents, Black Flag and get the punk people going "what the fuck?" It's cool because a lot of my favorite singers have gotten up on stage and sang their songs with us.


Here is Springa (SSD) and Fu Manchu doing "Nothing Done" on 10-31-09 - he is dressed as The Joker. His voice was so heavy and great, it was awesome.

We have gotten Tony from the Adolescents to sing "Things Start Moving" with us, we got Keith Morris from the Circle Jerks to sing on a song. Those are some of the coolest things to have happened!

I would never have guessed that I would still be playing in a band, touring, releasing records. 2010 will be 20 years of Fu Manchu being around. It's crazy.

We are planning on some big European / USA stuff for next year, and a Fu Manchu 1990-2010 DVD. It's pure luck or pure stupidity that we are still around...I'm guessing stupidity!!!


Scott Hill in a neon haze of light, Photo: Ricardo Carles

Chain Of Strength - Has The Edge Gone Dull? shirt

Chain "Has The Edge Gone Dull?" athletic gray shirt, two color front with X

Another dip into the collection and this time I pull out one of my personal favorites, the rarely seen, athletic gray, Chain Of Strength "Has The Edge Gone Dull?" shirt.

Back in the mid 90's, I started going back and forth with a kid who was heavy on the trail of filling out his New Age Records shirt collection. The dude was big time into all the New Age band shirts, Unbroken, Mean Season, Strife, Mouthpiece, Outspoken, etc. and since I was in Mouthpiece and on New Age, I had plenty of that kinda stuff laying around.

The trading started with me sending off an Unbroken tour shirt and an early Mean Season shirt, in return he sent me one of those classic navy blue Revelation BOLD shirts with the gold ink front and Matt finger point photo back and a white Schism Judge "New York Crew" shirt.


The standard white Chain "Has The Edge Gone Dull?" shirt

Eventually we worked out another trade that brought me this Chain Of Strength shirt. Most of the time when you see this design, it's on a white shirt with the royal blue ink Chain Of Strength front minus the X and the royal blue or navy blue ink "Has The Edge Gone Dull?" back photo. This one here though is an earlier and limited version of that design with the classic Chain X Of Strength green and black ink front, navy blue ink "Has The Edge Gone Dull?" back and on an athletic gray shirt.

Ultimately this is one of my favorites, if not my favorite Chain shirt. For me, this is right up there with the original navy blue Chain puff ink "True Till Death", which we'll get into for another entry. We'll pick up where you left off… -Tim DCXX


Chain "Has The Edge Gone Dull?" athletic gray shirt, back design

(Some of) the Best “Straight Edge” Songs Are By Bands Who Definitely Were Not Straight Edge, By: Agent A

Eerie Von in store appearance at Generation Records, NYC January 8th, 2010

On Friday January 8th, 2010, punk legend Eerie Von (Danzig, Samhain) will make a special in-store appearance at Generation Records in support of his new photography book Misery Obscura: The Photography of Eerie Von (1981-2009).

Misery Obscura gives fans unique insight into the punk and metal scene of the 1980’s and early 90’s from the perspective one of its greatest stars, chronicling the rise of The Misfits, Rosemary’s Baby, Danzig, and Samhain through the worldwide success of the punk and metal scene as they tour with acts like Metallica and White Zombie.

Eerie Von will play a rare acoustic performance with Lyle Preslar (Minor Threat) and Mike D’Antonio (Killswitch Engage) during the in-store appearance at the store, and sign copies of Misery Obscura along with designer Tom Bejgrowicz.


The one-night-only event starts at 7:00 p.m.

We are pre-selling the book at GenerationRecords.com and that is the only way to guarantee entry into the event.

See the link below for more details...

GenerationRecords.com

Joey Vela - Breakaway part II

Breakaway at Gilman Street with Tim Monroe of Unit Pride on guitar, Photo courtesy of Joey

More NorCal love from Joey Vela - dig in! -Gordo DCXX

When Breakaway is coming together, give us the vibe / climate of the scene at that point. How had things changed from the Rabid Lassie days to the Breakaway era?

The straight edge scene was growing huge back then. I’d say there was definitely a huge influence of both straight edge and New York hardcore. With that, I guess there was also quite a bit of segregation in the scene, where as before, in the early-mid 80s, you would see a pretty diverse crowd at any given show.

Funny story, in the late 80s, Brotherhood had come through and had the Fuck Racism shirts. Lawrence Livermore and a few other MRR people that had a bit of a distaste with the straight edge kids thought it would be funny to make shirts mocking the Brotherhood shirts and they looked similar, but said, Fuck Straight Edge. It was at a 7 Seconds show at Gilman when they brought those shirts out to sell, thinking that they would bum out all the sxe kids. We thought they were the greatest things ever. All the SXE kids bought them and put them on right away. I’m sure that wasn’t exactly the reaction they were hoping for.


Joey with the Gilman Street crowd, Photo courtesy of Joey

Tell us about the impact Youth Of Today had on the Bay Area? Their Gilman Street sets have been talked about as legendary, your opinion? What about other east coast straight edge bands of the time, any stand outs?

Like I said, the straight edge scene was blowing up in the bay area. Youth of Today had played the bay area long before Break Down The Walls came out, but that was the record that just blew people away. Their first show in the bay area was before Can’t Close My Eyes came out. We hadn’t even heard of them before, we went to the show to see Violent Coercion’s last show at New Method. When we got there, there was talk of some band Kevin Seconds was touring with, and he was playing drums. Honestly, we didn’t care, we were just there to see Violent Coercion's last show.

So this band Youth Of Today takes the stage. I don’t think anyone there knew anything about them other than Kevin Seconds was playing drums. Love them or hate them - and I know people have their opinions, but there was something about them that just commanded your attention. They just went off, so much power. Ray is very charismatic and I think one of the greatest frontmen in hardcore. Ray had everyone there singing along to almost every song they played, and we had never even heard of them before.

After that, I think I went to Rough Trade asking if the 7” came in yet pretty much every weekend until it was in. By the time they came back to town, people were way into them. Their stage presence was just as energetic as their music, it was very powerful. The Gilman shows are among some of the greatest shows I’ve ever been to and we were lucky enough to play with them there. As far as other east coast straight edge bands having an impact, or standing out...there were so many great bands from that time that it is hard to single any out. But I will say that I think Walter Schreifels is a brilliant musician and there is no denying his influence on the hardcore scene and its growth over the years.

How did Breakaway hook up with Soul Force Records for the release of the 7”?

I don’t really remember. I think I talked to Eric Astor who was putting out Unit Pride, and he gave me Jeff’s number and said that he was starting a label and said he might be interested. Not too sure though.


Joey and Eric Ozenne of Unit Pride up front for a Breakaway sing along, Photo courtesy of Joey

The 7” had a song titled ”Competition," was there band competition going on at that time and if so, give us some background to it.

There have been rumors over the years about some kind of rivalry between us and Unit Pride. If anything, I think Eric and Grant from Unit Pride didn’t really care for Jason at some point, and he probably felt the same about them, but never any band rivalry or anything, that was just between them personally. Unit Pride was one of my favorite bands back then and we were all close friends. We all hung out all the time. Pete and Tim also played in Breakaway for a while too.

Favorite local bands of the time and why?

Again, going back to Tyrranicide and Unit Pride, and Operation Ivy were fun to play with too. Unit Pride were close friends and I loved their music, so that’s a given. Tyrranicide was a local thrash band. Solid guys, great musicians, amazing band. Jeff Hill kicks ass. Cool guy to hang out with, definitely a pioneer in the D.I.Y. ethic in our area. He started his own label, put on shows, booked tours. He really opened my eyes to a lot, I have a lot of respect for that guy.


Brian Wentrup and Joey Vela hanging out for the Unit Pride 7" recording in San Francisco, 1988, Photo courtesy of Joey

How important was and still is Gilman Street to the Bay Area scene? What are some of your best memories from Gilman Street shows?

No doubt that Gilman is extremely important to the Bay Area scene. When other clubs were shutting their doors to punk rock and hardcore shows, Gilman has been there for over 20 years. That’s amazing when you think about it. Like a lot of people, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with that club over the years. Since it’s a volunteer run club, you get a mix of people running it, and that mix hasn’t always been good. There have been times where I hated that place and looked at it as nothing more than a place to play.

But overall, politics aside, it's one hell of a place and I think the people that run it have a lot of heart and truly believe in what the club was initially started as. I remember going there before it opened when they were setting it up, building the stage and all of that. It’s crazy to think that it’s still going strong after all these years. When they first opened, they didn’t advertise who was playing the shows, they wouldn’t even tell you who you were playing with when you got booked to play. The thinking was, that if you were truly down for the scene, you would go regardless of who was playing. Not exactly the best business plan, but I can understand the thinking.

We played the second night, the second show ever there and were stoked when we got there. I think the first thing we saw when we came in was an Orange half stack. The only band we had ever seen with an Orange half stack was Justice League, and they were booked on the show too. We were stoked because we were really into them, so it was a nice surprise. After the show, they had a meeting to discuss how the show went and how things could be improved. It was pretty much a common theme that everyone thought they should start advertising the shows.

I think it was a week or 2 later, Unit Pride played their surprise show with BL’AST!, so we got pretty lucky with our first shows at Gilman. I have so many great memories of shows there though. Gwar at Gilman was amazing, all the Op Ivy shows, all the big straight edge shows, OBHC shows, and that one show Sammy got into a fight at. If I remember correctly, the first Youth Of Today show we played there, was kind of an odd line-up and I’m pretty sure it was this show, a band called No Trend played as well. They had some song that was in some porn movie, “Between The Cheeks” or something like that. Horrible music, but when they played, they had a couple naked ladies “dancing” on stage in nothing but saran wrap. Then there is the whole stolen corpse up in the sound booth story. Some crazy shit has gone down at that club over the years.

To be continued...


Breakaway at Gilman with chaos about to erupt, Photo courtesy of Joey

Corrosion Of Conformity: “Hey..do you guys want to practice here right now?” By: Brian Walsby

Mike Dean with COC, Photo: Joe Henderson

I have been asked to write something about Corrosion Of Conformity in their glory days of a long time ago, which is more or less when they were a trio. The lineup of bassist and vocalist Mike Dean, guitarist Woody Weatherman and drummer Reed Mullin operated from the end of 1984 until the late spring of 1986. This is not a whole lot of time but they not only put the South (in general) on the hardcore map a wee bit more than some of their other southern contemps, they more or less ushered in a devastating maelstrom of sound and pioneered (for better or worse) that so called “crossover” sound, the melding of punk and metal.

Trouble is, labeling them that is already selling the band short in the long run. True, the band members all unabashedly loved heavy metal. Good heavy metal. Not all heavy metal. They also loved other things that maybe you don’t know about. They were all well versed on post punk shit. Woody used to sing certain Stranglers songs. Reed was very knowledgeable about things like Gang Of Four and PIL, years before either of those two bands were considered cool. And Mike Dean brought sort of a groovy vibe to the band, his knowledge of dub, funk and black music in general easily seeped into the pores of the COC sound. Plus, they all agreed on certain things: Bad Brains, Black Flag, Venom and the Ramones.

You threw all of that together and you have some idea of the pioneering sound the three of them came up with. And they were from Raleigh North Carolina of all places. What they did and who they are got me to re-locate to their neck of the woods years ago.


Corrosion Of Conformity at the Club House in Baltimore, MD 1985, Photo: Joe Henderson

When the band asked former singer Eric Eycke to leave the band, they seemed to respond to the situation by moving full steam ahead. Although Eric was a riveting frontman for the band, they continued forward with Mike Dean out front taking over the vocals, with back up from Reed. I ended up meeting the band formally when they went out west to record the first side of their second album ANIMOSITY. The second (and looking back, despite its crazy/shitty production the better side of the record) side was recorded back in Raleigh at the same studio that the first one was done out. Turns out that the folks running the studio felt so bad at how “Eye For An Eye” came out that they gave the band free time in the studio for future projects.

Anyways, the band played one of what could be called the first “crossover” show that I had ever heard of in Los Angeles, at the Sun Valley Sportsmans Lodge. Also on the bill were bands like Possessed and Dark Angel. I didn’t like any of that stuff then, and I am amazed now how people that weren’t there to see that stuff seem to think it was awesome...it wasn’t. COC got up there and started to play, and right away they were easily way louder and more powerful than anything else that happened that evening. Most of the audience sort of didn’t know what to think of them, not like they disliked them, just more like they were confused. I decided that was a pretty good reaction to get from a crowd. I also seem to think that the band thought it was a bad show. Hell, I didn’t think so! I was hearing all of this newer material and I was really digging it.

Afterwards, the band accepted my invitation to drive really far away and spend the night at my parent’s house. Woody drove the van and knocked over the cement mailbox out front. We propped it up with some rocks. No one noticed anything. My parents were by now used to all of these strange people coming and going from my room all in the name of punk rock mail correspondence, so no one blinked an eye when they all woke up.


Woody, Mike and Reed with COC at the Club House in Baltimore, MD 1985, Photo: Joe Henderson

Even crazier was what happened next, and I don’t know how it really happened. COC went over to where the band Scared Straight practiced, which was singer Scott Radinsky’s place. His parents had set up a nice little practice space in the middle of the house, and for whatever reason the band either WANTED to practice or they were asked by us to practice at the Scared Straight space. And they did. They unloaded ALL of their gear into the teeny tiny room which was soon jam packed with all of their shit: huge stacks of amps...all of that Sunn gear years before “Stoner Rock” happened, Reed’s humongous red Tama drumset...it was just silly looking back and remembering how much stuff they had.

And then...they treated us to a punishing and painfully loud practice. Other than the fact that musically they made the likes of our band (and really, most bands at that time) look like the sorry asses we were, we were more excited and inspired by them. They were really ahead of their time. I still can’t believe they unloaded all of their stuff just to play for three or four people in Simi Valley California one afternoon.

It was weird. And cool!

Next year my next MANCHILD book is coming out, and yet again it will be released on Charles Cardello’s BIFOCAL MEDIA label. Instead of another comic book anthology, this one will be all about the Raleigh hardcore and punk scene form the eighties. There was a lot of really good stuff that was going on back then, and a lot of really cool people were involved, but COC were easily the dominant force back then. The book features them very prominently. They were the centerpiece of the area. There will be a book release party for it, and it won’t be until springtime at least. I wonder what I will have to do to get these three guys to get back together and if nothing else act like they are practicing in Simi Valley again? - Brian Walsby


The mad man Mike Dean killing it with COC, Photo: Joe Henderson