The Formative Years – Compilations pt. 2
Let’s start of the second instalment of this serious with a compilation that I find to be criminally underrated and what most of my contemporaries rate to be a negligible release. There was a time when Kent McLard and the anti-consumerist and DIY approach of his label Ebullition Records was hugely appealing to me ever since I came across the first Downcast 7”.
The compilation Give Me Back was the fourth release on Ebullition – a benefit compilation, with profits meant to be given to the Planned Parenthood, Shelter for Women, and the National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce charities. The first press was accompanied by an elaborate 12x12” booklet cover and it introduced to a range of fantastic new bands, some of whose tracks on this compilation have not been released anywhere else.
I was hooked on first listed as Born Against, Sawhorse, Econochrist, Spitboy, Downcast and the band fronted by Ian MacKaye’s sister, i.e. Desiderata were nothing short of awesome.
The next one is a sure shot for anyone remotely into 1980s punk and hardcore and how could a compilation compiled, curated and illustrated by Pushead not be awesome? I covered Pushead’s 100 not too long ago and to some extent, this compilation is a vinyl equivalent to the list as it contains contribution from bands from all corners of this earthround. Apart from the usual suspects like 7 Seconds, the Instigators, the fantastic Siege, Poison Idea, one of Germany’s finest, i.e. Inferno, Septic Death and Corrosion of Conformity, it introduced me to the brilliant Part 1, bands like Mob 47 and Crude SS from Sweden, Civil Dissident from Australia, The Execute from Japan, the amazing Zyklome A and the Australian Extreme. With the artwork being one of my personal faves out of Pus’ oeuvre, this compilation is one of my top ten.
Aggressive Rockproduktionen (AGR) was a German punk label based in the Western Part of Berlin and after being founded in 1980, dominated and coined Teutonic punk rock with an array of classic releases, e.g. Slime, Toxoplasma und Canal Terror.
The compilations Soundtracks zum Untergang 1 captures the unbridled and vicious nature of German punk rock with early songs of such fantastic bands like Middle Class Fantasies, Offensive Herbst 87, Hass, Slime, ZK, Razors and Daily Terror. Not too long after its release, it was blacklisted and only available in a censored version with irritating bleeps on some of the songs.
Part 2 of Soundtracks zum Untergang was dedicated to the “new German punk-underground” and introduced us to bands like Canal Terror, Neurotic Arseholes with their hymn “Kalte Steine”, Notdurft, Marionetz and Blitzkrieg.
