Celtic Frost "Monotheist"

"Os Abysmi vel Daath"
from MONOTHEIST

"Progeny"
from MONOTHEIST (2008)

I don't think that at this point it is even arguable whether or not Switzerland's Celtic Frost (they were-along with Venom, Bathory, Sarcofago and a million others I'm probably forgetting) were responsible for inspiring what became known as "Black Metal".  And, in spite of the band's foray into hair metal territory with the awful Cold Lake (1988) and their clumsy attempt to right the ship with Vanity/Nemesis (1990), Frost's early material was so strong that the never entirely lost their credibility or it's influence.  Morbid Tales, To Mega Therion and Into the Pandemonium are classic albums that (like Bathory) combine proto-black metal with strong classical influences and Discharge/D-Beat drumming. 

Unlike Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeth etc., Celtic Frost paid particular attention to atmosphere and mood.  Most critics weren't

"Into the Crypt of Rays"
from MORBID TALES (1984) 

sure what to make of this approach and often used terms like "Avant-Garde Metal" (as well as "Black Metal") to describe their sound, which was a bit lazy and tiresome, if not entirely inaccurate.  But ultimately, Metal is Metal and another sub-genre isn't necessary even if a band like Celtic Frost pushed the envelope.

After losing their way, on the aforementioned Cold Lake Celtic Frost eventually came to their senses.  But, it took a break-up that occurred in 1993 and a reunion in 2000.  It is unfortunate that it took them until 2006 to release Monotheist and even more unfortunate that they disbanded a second time in 2008, because it is every bit as good as their earliest material.

Monotheist is as relentlessly cold and bleak sounding as it is heavy. The brute force of Frost is

"Circle of the Tyrants"
from TO MEGA THERION (1985)

only thinly veiled by their classical leanings, epic arrangements and gothic overtones.  It often sounds mechanical in the way an old, rusted, rarely used piece of industrial machinery might sound if fired up again after years of neglect. The songs churn and sway in a mid paced grinding fashion, picking up speed occasionally, but rarely to velocity of their earlier work.  

Monotheist sounds bitter in the same way NYC's monstrous, crust/doom unit Winter's Eternal Frost album was, but only during the moments when is sounds as if the grinding slows to a pounding tempo - it isn't "Doom Metal", but flirts with that "genre" quite a bit.

If I had to take issue with any part of Monotheist I would say that the guitar tone  on this album is far too crisp for my taste and there are times when the triggered double-kick is too prominent in some of the songs. But, those are minor complaints.

"Caress Into Oblivion"
 from INTO THE PANDEMONIUM (1987

While I cannot say that Monotheist is my favorite Celtic Frost album, I can say that it is a great record and every bit as heavy as well as imaginative as anything that they have ever produced.  Monotheist serves as a reminder that Celtic Frost is every bit as influential as their '80's thrash-metal era peers and they will be missed.

"A Dying God" (Celtic Frost documentary)

Interview. DeathCrawl.

Damon Gregg-guitar/vocals; Jason Luchka-bass/vocals; Dave Johnson-drums/vocals

One of my favorite phrases to describe certain types of epic bands is "Earth shattering". I have used it positively in the past, but more often in sarcastic derision. Even on the occasions that I have used it in a positive manner, it tends to be a bit of an overstatement. However, in the case of DeathCrawl, "Earth shattering" doesn't even come close. If I were charged with compiling a list of bands most appropriate for the soundtrack for the end of the world, DeathCrawl would make the short list, along with Kiss It Goodbye and Bloodlet. While all three bands are incredibly heavy and (in my mind, at least) definitely metal, the only substantive quality all three share is movement. DeathCrawl has a way to move the listener, slowly and surely, against your will, towards an inevitability that may not turn out to be pleasant. This "movement" that I described can be attributed to superior songwriting and a certain "tunefulness" (is that a word?) many other "extreme metal bands" lack. 

I've known "Big Metal" Dave Johnson (drums, vocals) for an eternity and could have easily done the interview with him. But, I knew that it would quickly devolve into silliness and inside jokes. So, not really knowing Damon, I opted to speak with Jason, whom I've know for a couple years now. Jason was kind enough to subject himself to my amateurish line of questioning and here is the result.

Could you start with the basics; Who are the principles and how did this come together?

DeathCrawl is myself, Dave Johnson, and Damon Gregg.

I had met Dave through some friends i made working at 88.9 VRock in the late 90s. I had kept in touch with him via email/online and booked his early project studio in Medina to record my other band (the Gingerdead Men) in the summer of 2005. I think Dave was impressed by my gear and my gutteral shouting, because in January 2006, he approached me about joining a band with him and Joe Melnyk (sp?). He wanted loud, crusty bass to accompany him on guitar and Joe on drums. We practiced for a few months but Joe quickly lost interest, even though the songs were pretty rad. I asked my friend Shaun Yanovich if was interested in jamming with us, and one again we found ourselves with a drummer for a month or two. As luck would have it, Shaun lost interest in it and we found ourselves back at square one. 

Dave and I were really happy with the songs, so we decided to make it a recording project. He brought his kit to the practice space and we jammed drum and bass for the summer, gearing up for a fall recording session. One day, after tearing through a fun song in crazy time sigs, Dave said something along the lines of "this is too hard, let's play really low and slow." That was it. DeathCrawl was born. Scott Schumacher from Schnauzer sat in on guitar a few times, but his commitments with Schnauzer were more important. Dave asked Damon if he wanted to join us on guitar instead. They had previously jammed together in Pistols at Dawn and worked together, so it was a pretty easy gathering of people. Coincidentally, I also knew Damon through some other friends. It was really all quite incestuous.

You said "it was really all quite incestuous"; There seems to be a limited amount of musicians in the area to work with, at least as far as playing aggressive/extreme music. Has this ever hindered you creatively? If not for DeathCrawl, than in other situations?

Not really. I'm not the most social person, so working with people I'm comfortable with is easier for me. I don't have to learn a bunch of new quirks when I'm jamming with people I already know. I love music. Making it, listening to it... I really need it, and dumb as that sounds. I'm not the greatest musician, but I love rocking with friends. The OCD in me also always got a kick out of linking the various local bands to each other in my head when I was younger and going to shows. Oh yeah, that's so-and-so, he plays in whatever and whoever. I would like to work with a few other people I have never played with, but they are all people I have come to know, so again, that sphere of comfort comes to roost.

Since you don't feel limited creatively could you talk about some of the more uncharacteristic influences on your writing and the music written for a band like DeathCrawl? Do they manifest themselves in this format?

I have a secret affinity for what most people consider "circus music." Mr. Bungle, 16 Horsepower, Lozenge, etc... I love that wacky sense of undulating melody. Now, that does not get much airtime in a band like DeathCrawl, but sometimes I sneak something by Dave and Damon. The accordion overdub on our first record, for example, and I recorded a full intro to "Lucifer's Hammer" for the new record that Dave chopped up and made fit our sound better in the final mix. Otherwise, I would say my affinity for AmRep/noise-rock really influences my playing, as does my love of stoner-rock. Neurosis, Unsane, Melvins, Deadguy, Kylesa... these all undoubtedly color everything I do in DeathCrawl. I just want to deliver crusted out, chest-caving bass.

16 Horsepower happens to be a personal all-time favorite of mine as well.

Such a haunting sound... those dudes rule. I also love Slim Cessna's Auto Club and 99% of everything Jay Munly has done.

That Denver sound...

You talked about slipping things by the other guys during the songwriting process - How do the songs come together and how cognizant are you of other bands that might have some similarities in the songwriting process?

Our songs come together pretty easily. Sometimes, one of us will come to practice with almost an entire song's worth of riffs and bounce it off the other guys, quickly shaping it into a song. Sometimes, someone has just a riff - a seed that sprouts quickly. Everything else comes about from riffing at rehearsal. They joke on me for noodling all the time, but sometimes I will accidentally noodle my way into a bad-ass riff or melody. Since all of us are songwriters, in the most basic sense of the word, I think we each have a certain comfort level with presenting ideas at the risk of the idea being shot down. Nobody is afraid to say, "Hey, I was thinking this part could be cool if we tried-". I think that is part of why we put our songs together so quickly. I think that if it takes more than a few rehearsals to get the meat of a song together, you are wasting time. I don't think we worry too much about how the song will turn out, or who it sounds like, as long as we like playing it and we think it sounds right for us. Now, if it turns out that we're rehashing someone else's song by accident, we'll definitely shut that down.

Let me add that there are a few DeathCrawl demos that will most likely never see the light of day because although they are cool tunes, they just don't fit our catalog quite right. Dave definitely tries to cultivate a certain framework.

Well, how often does that happen-rehearsing another band's song? Since you have a framework that you create in, is it possible to actually push the envelope creatively? Isn't there the possibility of stagnating or at least feeling trapped? I mean, I understand adhering to a certain aesthetic - too many bands just throw things at the wall to see what sticks, but...

Sure, I think that could always be a possibility. Our framework is pretty loose - let's say we come up with a tune and we jam it out, build it, and then we demo it. It's a cool song, but we realize it has too much of a "stoner rock" vibe. We like mixing in elements of all of our influences, but when a song suddenly sounds like it's being played by a different band, you've probably gone too far.  

I don't know much about pushing the envelope. I'm not that good of a musician, but I think we have plenty of avenues ahead of us. Dave keeps getting better on drums, Damon and I keep coming up with riffs... There are plenty of songs still in us. I think the important part is, "do we like the song? is it fun to play? does it feel like it has a pulse?". You know what I mean? A lot of metal bores me to tears. I like hooks, I like heavy. I like hearing it all come together in such a way that i feel the need to bob my head or drum on the steering wheel.

Give me a personal rule or guideline regarding music, or art in general, that you have set for yourself? Are there any circumstances in which you might bend or break the rule?

I think lyrically, we really need to switch it up on the next batch of songs. "Accelerated Rate of Decay" is a bleak, unrelenting picture of a possibly not-so-distant future. I think we need to explore something else on the next songs.

Well, given your sound, where would you take things lyrically?

Let me come back to thee rules/guidelines and finish this tangent on lyrics... I think we need to back away from the urban combat, starvation, prison camp focus and get a little more surreal this time around. We have four songs recorded for a hopeful split, all sans vocals at this time. I have some stuff written, and yes, it is still bleak, but more imaginative. More abstract and less literal. "Lichen" or "November", on the first record, are a good example of letting imagination run a little more rampant.

As far as rules or guidelines-I don't want to come across as someone that panders, but I admit that I always think about how people might respond to a song when I'm putting riffs together. I will try to write a chorus vocal that people might actually want to sing along with, since that is what a chorus is supposed to do. I think a lot of heavy bands are afraid of the chorus. They don't want to "Sell out." What is "selling out" when you aren't making any money? I think of it as writing a song that people want to listen to. 

Now, there is definitely a fine line between writing something people intrinsically enjoy and dealing pre-fab poop to the masses. Nasum is a great example - brutal grind of the highest order, yet dang it if they didn't have parts you cannot help but bark along to. So, I consider that. I also consider, does this try something new? While DeathCrawl is relatively focused, we still have a fair amount of variety in our songs-Fast parts, slow parts, slamming riffs, chord progressions... It isn't the same song over and over. I hate that.

Another artistic guideline for me is trying to remain either intelligent or humorous, or both. I don't like to write lyrics full of senseless cussing. I'm not a puritan, I just don't see the point. I prefer to write stuff that uses the English language as properly as possible. I write so many excessive syllables to this end, that Dave has to cut and chop it to get it down to something we can actually pull off live. If we ran with my original lyrics, every song would be a battery of words and tongue twisters. I like using words...different words. Bands that cuss a lot always seem to be using those words as filler, and that seems like a cop out to me. Read a book. Reference a rhyming dictionary-mine has 1928 copyright date-and consider a thesaurus from time to time. I would bend any rule if I felt it made sense for the song.

But, what one of those "rules" would you consider breaking and under what circumstances? I don't think writing a chorus is a "sell-out" by any stretch. Is there anything that you normally would not do in the context of the band, but might...

I would not want to add in a part that blatantly is riding the coattails of some trend and I would not bend to that. For example, the breakdowns and crab-walking of crappy modern metal bands. Yuck. Otherwise, I'm pretty open to trying whatever makes sense for the tune. The way DeathCrawl writes, I'm not sure if my lyrical stance would ever be tested. Dave and Damon are always free to write whatever lyrics they want, and i usually will go along with whatever they want, but I probably would not want to sing something I really don't agree with. For example, I wouldn't want to sing about pedophilia or rape or anything. I'm not going to glorify that crap.

Sorry if I'm not answering that last question very well...

Right, but i was thinking more along the lines of; "I might sacrifice writing a song a certain way if...". The way that you are dodging the question is a thing of beauty.

They don't call me "Switzerland" for nothing.

So what you're saying is "I'm a Celtic Frost fan"?

From experience I know that playing such an aggressive type of music poses different challenges. Could you speak to those challenges if any? Do some of the challenges have any unforeseen benefits?

One challenge is that awkward encounter with your CEO, when he says "I hear you are in a band. I am a fan of the rock and roll. Please notify me of your next live performance, as I would love to attend." I have been dodging that for five years now. I'm mortified to think that the guy who decides whether or not I get to keep my job might come see me sweat, scream, and head bang in some dank bar somewhere, while his Mercedes is getting keyed in the parking lot. I'm not ashamed of what I do, but it is uncomfortable when people who don't like this scene ask me questions about it. I feel almost like they are mocking me sometimes. "Oh, what is this 'sludge' metal? Eyehategod? What a funny band name!" the other challenge is that DeathCrawl doesn't quite fit any one scene very well. 

We're too heavy for the post-rock dudes, not brutal enough for the death-metal dudes, and too loud for the art-school kids. There are definitely bands we fit with, and all of us are in the same boat. We tend to play small shows, attendance-wise, which is not a complaint. I just remember when I was younger, I went to so many shows with all sorts of bands. Now, it seems like there are almost no "kids" coming out. It's our peers. 30 year-olds have jobs and kids...they don't make it out to all the shows. I know that I don't. I have missed a ton of shows the past 2 years.  

One benefit of all this is that there is no doubting our motivation. People don't play this type of music unless they want to ruin people's hearing and rock as hard as physically possible. We aren't cashing in, we aren't wearing a mask. People know that we are real. I think they appreciate that. We're down-to earth guys who want to play some seriously heavy music.

Another challenge is trying to jump on larger shows. We don't seem to know the right people to hop on a bill with some national heavy hitters. That honor always seems to go to the same handful of bands. No complaints-I know it is all about networking, but it would be nice to actually play in front of a lot of new faces.

If there was one thing you would change about your band, what would that be?

I wish that I didn't have to do so much vocal work. I would rather do some backing vocals here and there and focus more on playing and enjoying the music. Sometimes I'm so focused on trying to play and sing and remember lyrics, that i forget to have fun.

I also sometimes wish we weren't tuned so low. The low A string is so unstable on my basses. Drop C is so much more stable. The low A sounds awesome though...really awesome.

Now you're talking tunings and have lost me completely.  Would you be comfortable with someone else communicating your thoughts if you wrote the lyrics for a particular song?

No more talk of tunings! Definitely. It already happens. I write the majority of DeathCrawl's lyrics, although Dave does edit them to fit better. In my other band, I've always written the lyrics and when we started playing live, I had friends sing them. My buddy Shaun, who I mentioned earlier, sang our songs for four years before he burned out last summer, and Jon Reider was cool enough to handle lead vocals on the last EP we recorded. 

My lyrics are not all that personal. I try to paint pictures and tell stories. Sometimes there is definitely a deeper meaning that may or may not be obvious to the listener, but I'm too guarded to write anything really personal that anyone but me would ever hear.

What are you plans for recording and playing live?

It depends. With DeathCrawl, everything we do on record, except synths and other insturmentation, we have to do live. This means any lyrics I record I better be able to play and sing simultaneously. Some of the other things that I have recorded, I had no notion of ever being performed live, so that becomes more of a free-for-all of creativity. Tons of overdubs, way too many syllables...

I appreciate you taking the time. Anything else you'd like to add before signing off?

It was my pleasure! I don't have much to add, other than that DeathCrawl will hopefully have a split out later this year with someone. Fingers crossed for Vulture. Also, we will be playing March 29 at Annabell's with our Columbus bass-dudes Bridesmaid and our Portage County pals in Goosed.

for more information and to hear DeathCrawl for yourself visit:

http://www.deathcrawl.com

http://deathcrawl.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/deathcrawl

The Obsessed "Live at Koln"

I don't think it is hyperbole to call The Obsessed, and Wino in particular, "legendary".  A lot of people use that word and others, such as "epic", fairly loosely and with little justification.  The Obsessed, however, can rightly be seen in that light.  There have been thousands of bands that have followed the floor plans drawn up by Black Sabbath with varying degrees of success.  Much of this success (or lack of it) depends on how many other elements these Sabbath acolytes bring to the table.  It simply is not enough to ape Sabbath and worse still, to ape a Sabbath clone.  Some bands drench themselves in a haze of smoke and are content to jam out quasi-blues riffs endlessly.  Others take the sound to it's logical conclusion and drag the tempo through the mud until the sound barely resembles music.  Still, others rely on gothic overtures and self indulgent passages that lead nowhere fast. 

 I am painting with broad strokes.  There are some bands who could neatly fit into one or more of those stereotypes that are amazing in spite of the cliches. But that may be due to the fact that they were adding these elements before they became cliches.  In other words, they took the Sabbath sound, innovated and created their own style.  Bands like Eyehategod, Grief, Electric Wizard, Buzzov*en, Sleep (and a handful of others) are good examples.

The Obsessed have often been lumped in with other doom, sludge, stoner (insert adjective here) metal/rock bands, but really have little in common with any of them.  The Obsessed, in spite of being incredibly heavy, having some bluesy riffs and some slower tempos, are nowhere near being a mere Sabbath acolyte, except in that they are definitely a metal band.  That glaring fact aside, The Obsessed (like Pentagram and Saint Vitus) are a whole other beast altogether.  Unlike many of the bands that are using the same road map, much of what The Obsessed did sounds like the streets and Wino's world -weary vocal captures that perfectly. 

Don't get me wrong, the music of Sabbath sounded like it was made by working class guys from Birmingham.  But, all of the occult and hoodoo lyrics leaves one a bit underwhelmed as time passes.  Sabbath no longer carries the same atmosphere of danger that once permeated their music.  It hasn't for a long time.  But, comparing The Obsessed to Sabbath is unfair as well as misleading.  However, the problem is, how does one put The Obsessed in the proper context without mentioning Black Sabbath?  Yes, they are heavy, have amazing blues-influenced guitar work and unconventional, yet iconic vocals...  I guess you can't.  It most likely does not matter since many of you reading this have probably already heard of or listened to  The Obsessed at some point, anyway.

If you are unfortunate enough to have never listened to The Obsessed before, this album is a good a place to start as any.  The set list is pretty comprehensive containing tracks from their first self-titled Lp, "Lunar Womb" as well as "The Church Within".  The quality of the live recording is pretty good and true to form this Lp is heavy - heavier sounding than the aforementioned studio albums - and I don't just mean that in terms of sound.  The band is tight, but play with more of a sullen swagger than on aforementioned the studio albums.  "Live in Koln" has all the hallmarks of a great metal band - a great band of ANY kind - with a world of talent, life experience and soul. THAT is what I mean by heavy.

In short.  Get this.

Here is The Obsessed live.
Here is the song "Field of Hours"  from their album "The Church Within".
Enjoy.

Thanks for checking in.  

Ahem...

I know that my first post came with absolutely no introduction or statement of purpose.  Sure, the description below the title indicates what my intentions are; writing about music, film and comics.  But, do not be surprised if you see posts regarding mixed martial arts, reviews of novels and whatever else happens to occupy the typically empty space between the two hearing-holes set on either side of my head.  

What you will not see is an overabundance of negativity.  I would rather spend my time writing about stuff I enjoy and possibly turn someone onto something cool.  That does not mean I won't be critical, its  just that many of my earliest attempts (during my tenure at the illustrious Crunchface) at writing were fairly negative and hostile.  Particularly, when it came to  my music reviews.  The language I used was coarse at best, and on more than one occasion, I should have been marched up to the bathroom to have my mouth washed out with soap.  Although, Clorox would have been more effective, but I digress.

That doesn't mean that I am, suddenly, some sort of linguistic puritan who is above swearing and giving my honest opinion - I will be critical.  I just think this space can be used for better things.  The internet is already filled with a load of uninformed opinions meant to illicit a reaction.  I've no interest in any of that bul...  nonsense.

For the most part I will be covering older music, older films...older stuff in general.  For those interested, I will review your stuff, but I will not deal with any downloading of music, e-books, e-comics, etc.  I don't have the space on my hard drive and I am generally not interested in digital media, save for films.  But, I don't anticipate any unsolicited submissions, so this is probably a non-issue.

Oh - really quick.  I will also be including the occasional interview.  However, the subjects will (for the most part) be folks from the Akron area and around NE Ohio. There might be an exception now and again, but unless Nick Cave calls or Mark Sandman rises from the grave to chat, I doubt you will see any deviations.

Yeah.  That's it for now.

Thanks for checking in.

End credits roll.

Acknowledgements.
John McConnell and "The Legendary Crunchface Foundation"; for the pen-name and giving me me my first opportunity to communicate as well as the name of the blog you are currently reading.  It is borrowed and I will return it when I am finished.
Clarification.
Protein Supplement is a reference to a former vegetarian diet.  Any other potential references are purely coincidental and a product of your own imagination.

Again, thanks for checking in.

Negative Approach.  Good grief.  Where to start...

I was around 13 or 14 when I first heard them, but like most of the best hardcore-punk bands, they had long since passed on to other things by the time I first discovered them.  Being five to ten years too young to have experienced the first generation of hardcore punk bands all of the bands I had been introduced to by relatives and friends were either making horrible records or quit playing altogether.  The "Youth Crew" era was in full swing with images of the same jocks who wanted to hand me a beating for loving the Dead Boys emblazoned on the record covers of what was considered "hardcore" (sans punk).  Admittedly, some of the music on those same albums was great, but I found it incredibly difficult to relate to upper-middle class/rich white boys whose worldview which consisted of standing hard and backing your "crew".  And, I did buy into it to that "scene" to the extent that for a long time I didn't drink, tried my hand at vegetarianism (although for less than altruistic reasons-no one likes colon cancer) and was more than willing to get myself into stupid self-inflicted brawls.  However, I was a poor white trash with anger issues from the east side of Akron Ohio who was ultimately too much of snotty, smart-assed, misanthropic punk to invest that much into the Champion gear wearing set for more than a couple years.John McConnell can tell you that as much as we liked Side By Side, Turning Point and the like, there was always the shadow of the Avengers, the aforementioned Dead Boys and the Dead Kennedys always looming about. 

 My perspective was greatly colored by my surroundings which was fraught with violence, drug abuse, alcoholism and the negative effects of Reaganomics.  As a young kid, I was fairly pissed and not good at expressing myself in a constructive manner.  I was not as smart as Jello, I was not good-looking like Penelope Houston and not as cool as Stiv.  It was difficult not to feel on the outside of a social group that supposedly consisted of outsiders.

Then I discovered Negative Approach.

On most summer days during the mid to late 80's my friends and I would trek from where we lived (a housing project across from the Arlington Plaza) all the way to Firestone Park. On other days we would catch a bus to downtown Akron to hit the ramps at an abandoned BF Goodrich factory.  Several skaters associated with the loose knit A.S.S. (Akron Skate Scene) had built a skate park of sorts on the third floor (or was it the fourth?) that could only be accessed from metal stairs from the backside of the building.  Back then, Downtown Akron was not the quasi-college town, night-life center it is now.  Due to the exodus of the rubber industry beginning as early as the late 1960's-early 1970's, Downtown (and Akron at large) had the appearance of a post-apocalyptic film set.  It was a bombed out and desolate place. The only reasons that you ever went downtown was to either go to the library, catch your transfer bus on the metro line, buy and/or deal drugs, or like any self-respecting punk rock kid, "Fuck shit up".  Mild hyperbole aside, Akron was not always such a pleasant place to grow up as it was a small city with some very big city problems.

 I never skated, but nearly all of my friends did as well as my kid brother Brent, who was an 11 year old phenom.  But despite not being a skater, I accompanied my friends and my brother on those excursions out of the sheer boredom that comes with an adolescence accompanied by near abject poverty.  Any excuse to escape the projects was a welcome one.  On nearly all of our trips to either The Park or BF I always had my boombox and a collection of cassettes for us to listen to throughout the day and Negative Approach was part of the soundtrack to at least a half dozen summers. 

(Negative Approach live - Akronites will note the 0DFX tag in the background)

One of those summers I was given a tape from an out of town cousin of a friend.  I forget his name, but he was visiting from somewhere out west when we were introduced.  He skated and therefore spent the better portion of the summer with us.  As a gift he dubbed a tape that he had brought with him and gave me a copy.  It was a black cassette with hastily scrawled band names on the cover.  There were no titles listed for any of the songs, just numbers, so I never new the names of the songs.  Of course back then there was no internet, none of this stuff could be found at any record stores in the malls, in magazines or anywhere.  One of the bands listed on the cover of the cassette was simply identified as "N.A.".  I found out a while later, after some investigating what the "NA" on the tape stood for -Negative Approach. The tape also had Die Kreuzen, Crucifucks, Necros, Mistfits and Black Flag.  I knew the Misfits and Black Flag, the others were new.  However, of all the bands, new or old, Negative Approach was the absolute best.

Of all the hardcore punk bands, none come close to articulating the frustration and hostility that I felt, quite like Negative Approach.  In spite of all of the anger emitted by the band, it was intelligent without being condescending as so many of the more politically inclined punk bands.  Yet, Negative Approach felt very urban, but without being a suburban gangster cliche characterized by so many of the stompy "noo yawk" hardcore bands.  There was so much about what the band represented, on a purely visceral level, that I could relate to.  Sure a lot of hardcore punk bands sounded and were very angry.  None were as ferocious as Negative Approach.  

Negative Approach achieved their sound without dabbling in metal as so many of their peers (regrettably) chose to do later.  Rather, they looked to their hometown of Detroit, a rust belt, mid-western city decimated by the loss of the auto industry, much like my abandoned hometown.  Detroit was home, of course, to the Stooges and MC5.  The brutish quality of The Stooge's sound can be found in Negative Approach along with other more atypical elements such as blues.  John Brannon's howls can be seen a logical extension of Howling Wolf and the lyrics have an intensely emotional element seldom found in many early hardcore punk bands.  The only band I feel that comes close is maybe, Black Flag.  I sincerely wish I could have seen Negative Approach during the early hardcore era before they broke up initially in 1984.  Unfortunately, I was a mere eleven years old and would not hear them for the first time for another two to three years.

Negative Approach - rehearsal photo(?)

Negative Approach reunited in 2006 and they still play the occasional show, touring sporadically.  I caught them in Cleveland at Now That's Class shortly after.  Typically, with a few exceptions, I don't go for reunions.  They usually smack of a cash grab and I'm always afraid that reality will destroy my own romanticized notions of what a band was really like in a live setting.  But, I was not disappointed.  I may not have the context to judge them in light of their early performances, but I can say, by any measure, Negative Approach is a great live band.  They were loud, angry, tight and I was exhilarated. It immediately took me back to a time when I was much younger and held on tightly to the music that kept me sane.

I went to that show with my friend Josh and my fiancee who had no prior experience with Negative Approach.  She had seen Easy Action (John Brannon's current band, who are awesome in their own right) and enjoyed them, but they are a different animal from Negative Approach altogether.  To give her a frame of reference we listened to them on the way to the show, but she was completely underwhelmed.  She couldn't see why Josh and I were so excited to see this band.  I told her she was crazy and didn't know what she was talking about.  

After the show she told me that we were right, Negative Approach was and is awesome.

Okay.  My favorites?  Well, they did one 7" Ep and an Lp titled "Tied Down" during their first go around.  Both have been reissued in recent years by Touch & Go records.  I'm gonna have to say I favor the Lp because of the songs "Evacuate" and "Dead Stop".  There is also a compilation that Touch & Go put out a number of years ago that contain both the Ep and Lp on one Cd along with their track from the "Process of Elimination" compilation as well as a live set.  If you haven't heard them yet, as I am sure most of the people reading this have,  now is a good as anytime to check them out.

Thanks for checking in.