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Friday, March 11, 2005

Empty Skulls tape

The thing I dig about P2P programs (Soulseek, exclusively) is that they are the modern equivalent of the old practice of swapping tapes. It takes some searching and patience, but once you find the right people the results can be rewarding. The amount of way cool, long gone shit people are willing to swap is amazing. For example: Empty Skulls, a compilation tape of US Hardcore from 1984. I picked up the Empty Skulls Volume 2 - The Wound Deepens comp long ago and began a fruitless search for volume 1. When I found a clean rip on Soulseek I had to get it just to satisfy my old curiosity. 16 bands, 42 tracks all told. My favorite tracks:

Outpatients - G.P.D.mp3
Fast and furious hardcore from western Massachusetts. Bass player Scott Hellend was also in Deep Wound.

CIA - Violence.mp3
HC from Connecticu. pre 76% Uncertain

Out of Order - Concerned.mp3
Rough Chicago hardcore - released a decent lp in 1985 that has been reissued by reissued by Victory

Impact Unit - My Friends The Pit.mp3
Famous for being the first band for Bosstones Dickie Barret. Hyper Boston thrash

No Direction - ????.mp3
Powerful mid-tempo song from this South Dakota band, but I have no idea on the particulars of the song. Hell, even KFTH has a blank. Info?

Rights Of The Accused - Guns of Youth.mp3
more speedy Chicago hardcore - there's an unfortunate glitch in this file at the :23 mark, but don't let that mar the song. Band history over at Punk Vault

N.O.T.A. - Moscow.mp3
Some melodic hardcore from Tulsa's finest. This track is from the Live at the Crystal Pistol demo.

Other bands of note on the compilation: Corrosion of Conformotity, Stalag 13, and Septic Death