Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
We can do most anything, we've got that supertouch, December 11, 2005
This is the Bad Brains as early as you can find it - 1979, recording a live demo at Don Zientara's (who later became the legendary producer/engineer of Minor Threat, Fugazi, and just about everything important to come from DC) fledgling Inner Ear studios. The band members all set up in different rooms, leaving H.R. having to stand outside to prevent track bleeding. You can hear crickets from Don's yard coming through his microphone between tracks. It doesn't get any more real than this.
Before Rastafarianism, dreadlocks, metal, and even reggae (for the most part), this is the Bad Brains SLAMMING through a full set list of TOP NOTCH hardcore punk of a quality that has scarcely been achieved by ANYONE - in fact, one of the few who DID manage to best it were the Bad Brains themselves on their 1982 self-titled album.
There are some classic Brains tracks on here that you may know already, but they're not the same. They're slightly slower (don't take that as "slow") which is sometimes good and sometimes bad in retrospect. If you're used to "Don't Need It" from the first album being the fastest song in the world, you may be a bit disappointed by its more "free" sounding pace here. However, if you're a guitarist, this may be your only hope for finding out what the riff actually IS. (I know it's been a blessing to me.)
Some songs are much better in their versions here, though. Prime example---"How Low Can A Punk Get." It's "just-right" fast on here, not the overly thrashing version on "Rock for Light," and sounds a thousand times more menacing and convincing than that version ever could hope to. "Don't Bother Me," which was later re-worked on the "Quickness" LP, is contained here in its original, ULTRA-raw version, and will certainly have your eyes bulged in amazement by the end with the heavy realization that you just heard what might be the greatest punk song ever (that no one has ever heard). Also, the way-ahead-of-its-time sludge breakdown on "S***fit" may sound even HEAVIER here than it does on the self-titled!
It's also cool to hear some of the stuff on here that the Brains later dropped - there are some bluesy, Jimi Hendrix-to-the-bone parts that show up for fractured moments of time; the reggae on here sounds more like lovers' rock than dread or dub; and "Redbone In The City" finds HR doing a hilariously unexpected Johnny Rotten impersonation.
If you're a fan of punk rock or the Bad Brains to any level or degree, you cannot go wrong with this demo. Pick it up and get a mind-numbing history lesson from the best in the game.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
love it, October 21, 2006
I don't know how I missed this one when it was first released! I had just figured it was the newer line-up who brought us "Rise". I must not have looked very close.
This album really rocks... but not in the Bad Brains punk way--more like Stooges... call it pre-punk. Some of the arrangements here almost sound like another band covering Bad Brains. Not that different, but it's really odd for me to hear these tracks having listened to their other stuff for so long. It's sort of like if you only heard "Rock for Light" and then years later heard their first release ("Bad Brains"). But in that case, the difference is subtle... here it's a big jump into the roots that I didn't even know existed.
The recording quality is quite good. Not only because you wouldn't expect much from a 4-track early Bad Brains. It's definitely better than "Bad Brains".
I can't stop listening to this--so many great versions: "Supertouch", "Banned in D.C.", "How Low Can a Punk Get?"... and "Don't Bother Me" is cool because it was reworked later. I will say that H.R. is just a tad reserved. Instead of just off the wall wild screams it's closer to "yeah yeah yeah" in-between the main lyrics... where, in later recordings, he's inserting yells from another world. But that's a pretty minor nit-pick. As an aging punk maybe I'm not hard to impress--but this is the best music purchase I've made in a long while. I had to wait a few weeks before writing this review because I'm often suspect when I really dig a CD on the first listen--but this one hasn't worn off at all.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
epitome of intense, November 28, 1998
By A Customer
The first thing they ever did, HR and the boys don't come up short with this one. With classics like "Pay To Cum", and "The Regulator", along with never released sonic crusades like "You're a Migraine", the Bad Brains show that they were the masters of hardcore punk two years before their debut album turned everybody else into believers. If you like the Bad Brains but don't own this, you better save your pennies and start practicing your air guitar.
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