Christian Hardcore Volume 1
198? (no label)
Side 1:
- Undercover – God Rules
- Bad Brains – Destroy Babylon
- Bad Brains – Coptic Times
- Bad Brains – Joshua’s Song
- Scaterd Few – Death (live)
- Scaterd Few – Untitled (live)
- Scaterd Few – D.I.T.C. (live)
- Scaterd Few – God is Right (live)
- Scaterd Few – P.T.T.C.P. (live)
- Scaterd Few – Gave Us Life (live)
- Scaterd Few – Anti-Ape (live)
- Scaterd Few – Scapegoat (live)
- AOTC – AOTC (live)
- AOTC – In the Silence (live)
- AOTC – Legalized Christian (live)
- AOTC – The World (live)
- AOTC – Free (live)
- AOTC – Down to Earth (live)
- AOTC – No Religion (live)
- Circle One – Social Climbing Leeches
- Circle One – Beware
- Circle One – Gospel
Side 2:
- Circle One – Our Sword
- The FI – Being a Christian (live)
- The FI – Surf Instrumental (live)
- The FI – I’ve Got Better Things to Do (live)
- The FI – I’m Bored (live)
- The FI – Owl Oppression (live)
- The FI – Only One Way (live)
- The FI – King Jesus (live)
- The FI – National Defense (live)
- GVA – The Christ (live)
- GVA – God is My Rock (live)
- GVA – No More (live)
- GVA – Thank You (live)
- GVA – Amazing Grace (live)
- Undercover – Wait a Minute (live)
- Undercover – I’ll Be a Fool
- Undercover – Who Am I? (live)
- Undercover – Where Can I Go (live)
- Undercover – Pilate (live)
This is basically a dubbed home mix tape that collects some rare early Christian punk/hardcore (the 80s version, not the 90s version) demos and live songs. Many of these live songs seem to have been recorded at actual shows by the person that created this tape (which is speculated to be possibly be David Joo (aka Squid) of Zine of the Times or Richard Carlstedt of Dead to Sin / C.R.O.S.S. / The Israelites). No idea of the date – the latest studio recording on here was 1983. Some of the live stuff from Scaterd Few was recorded in 1983-1984, but there are also some live versions of stuff from Sin Disease in there. They sound like earlier versions, though. GVA existed between 1984 and 1985. The live stuff from Undercover was from albums that were released up until 1986. Several of the other bands were just known to exist sometime in the “mid to late 1980s.” So my guess would be at least 1984 or 1985.
The tape starts off with one Undercover track (from their album of the same name), and then the rest of the Undercover tracks are on the very endof the tape. These are all live tracks except for “I’ll be a Fool,” which is taken from their S/T album. The live tracks are not from their 3/27/87 album, so I don’t think they have been released anywhere else.
The Bad Brains songs were apparently chosen because they were the most “spiritual” of their songs – It seems these three songs were taken from the I and I Survive ep, even though they also all appear on the Rock for Light full-length as well.
The Scaterd Few songs are an interesting collection. The first two songs (“Death” and “Untitled”) are live versions of (or recorded live at a practice session) of songs on Out of the Attic, but I don’t think these recordings have been released. The next two songs (“D.I.T.C.” and “God is Right”) as well as the last song (“Scapegoat”) are live versions of songs that were released on Sin Disease (“God is Right” was re-named to “Self” on Sin Disease). I am guessing they are earlier versions as they sound different than the later recordings. The other three songs (“P.T.T.C.P.,” “Gave Us Life,” and “Anti-Ape”) are from the Out of the Attic tape (although there seems to be slightly more in-between song chatter captured on this tape – maybe dubbed from the same source tapes that the Out of the Attic songs were edited from?). So some kind of rare stuff there?
AOTC stands for Association of the Cross – an early Christian punk band that released a couple of live demos. The songs here seem to be selected and edited from their Live at Val’s demo. There is a song on this tape called “No Religion” that was not on the dubbed copy of Live at Val’s that I have heard. It might have been left off the copy I heard, or never released, but either way, it is a new song for me to hear at least.
The Circle One tracks are taken pretty much straight from their Patterns of Force album.
The FI stands for The Faith Injectors – another early Christian punk band that seems to have only released live demos. I have really only heard about 4 songs by them up until now. Three of those were on here (“Being a Christian,” “I’ve Got Better Things to Do,” and “King Jesus”). The rest of the song titles I had to guess at. The funny thing is that you can hear someone in the crowd say “hey, I have an AOTC tape in the car…” while they are playing the first song. It kind of shows how interconnected many of these early bands were. They seem to mix traditional punk with some skate punk and even a surf punk instrumental. I don’t know what the name of that instrumental is, so I just called it “Surf Instrumental.”
GVA stands for God’s Victorious Army. They were an early band that featured Burrito of The Warning, 8-Ball Cholos, etc. So they mix a lot of the chaos that Burrito is known for with punk rock. I also can’t really hear the vocals so I have no idea to even guess what the song titles are. I basically named each track based on whatever words I could make out. It’s pretty cool, different music. I just have no idea what the song titles are (except for the last one that he announces).
Christian Tape Underground 