Favourite SST Release of... 1986

these punk/hardcore/whatever died c. whenever stories

When I saw Sonic Youth in '87 it was at a club rather than an all-ages hall, and while it was cool, that was just the point: It was cool, not angry, outraged, outrageous, cathartic.

Maybe because, by '87 (or a few years before), hardcore style "anger" and "outrage" seemed like an incredibly corny thing to aim for, and came off really deluded when people still did it? Or at least that's how it seemed to me at the time. (Which is why even Die Kreuzen were slowing down and exploring different textures by then, and bands like the Necros who'd once invented hardcore were sounding more like Ted Nugent, and why Husker Du etc. had been working beauty into the sound for a couple of years. I don't hear a huge leap between, say, Huskers in '83-'85 and the earliest Dinosaur and Soul Asylum records.)

Also don't get how Buttholes/Scratch Acid/Killdozer etc. weren't more cathartic than, say, MDC by then. But like I said, they got old, too.

Kevin, Soul Discharge totally renewed the early buttholes vibe, yes, by revealing a whole new level to it. Sun City Girls was like this whole byway of the SST boho punk thing which I never knew existed until around 1991. Pixies were exciting, sure. And Thinking Fellers! All the grunge stuff, and I was in Seattle 90 through 96, was just so boring to me, though. It just sounded so immediately stale after what happened in the foregoing decade. Still haven't warmed to any of it except Melvins who I wish I'd heard at the time.

October File is infinitely more interesting to me than the earlier DK stuff.

Did not something like Soul Discharge provide y'all with a punk buzz?

eh, liked hanatarash better

What about Pussy Galore (whose best album was released in 1989)

lol you meant 1987

Mudhoney

well, yeah, everybody started paying attention to seattle around 87-88. mudhoney just seemed OK after some of the crazy shit that happened in the early to mid 80s, and they peaked early and quick. great single, pretty good EP, then... one of the most boring shows I ever attended was laughing hyenas/mudhoney/sonic youth at the ritz in '89 or '90, no kidding.

Tad

I liked tad a bunch but he wasn't really doing anything revolutionary. fun fact: I interviewed him and opening act nirvana in the basement of maxwells in hoboken in 89, I was there, losing my edge, etc.

The Jesus Lizard

never liked these guys, got some kind of mental block, but everybody else seemed to love 'em

Bullet Lavolta

warmed over hard rock

Pixies (prolly too commercial)

I liked "gigantic"! never loved them the way others did on the whole tho.

Ministry (too disco?)

land of rape and honey was one of the few major label albums I dug in 88

er, Nirvana (at least Bleach)?

see bullet lavolta

Did new beat or techno or hip-hop provide the buzz in the early 1990s?

golden age of rap for me was 86 until whenever it was everybody decided they wanted to be a gangster, '89 or '90.

what started hitting for me in 88-90 was the UK psychedelic stuff (spacemen 3, loop, skullflower, mbv), there was some interesting NYC stuff still kicking around (unsane, cop shoot cop) but nothing like the wondrous period of yore

What about Pussy Galore (whose best album was released in 1989), Mudhoney, Tad, The Jesus Lizard, Bullet Lavolta, Pixies (prolly too commercial), Ministry (too disco?), er, Nirvana (at least Bleach)?

Give or take an occasional Pussy Galore EP (which right, might not have actually been their best records), this stuff basically all left me cold. Jesus Lizard were Scratch Acid but less good; Ministry were Big Black but ditto. Seeing Mudhoney live in Ann Arbor and waiting around for the show to end because I felt I'd seen the same show hundreds of times in the past few years was probably the last straw for me. And by the time Bleach came out, I wasn't even paying attention anymore.

^^^^my experience almost to a tee.

xp In retrospect, though, I'm kind of convinced that Ministry's one interesting record was the one that came out in '86 -- their transition from synth-dweebs album Twitch, which they made with Adrian Sherwood. That's the one I'd actually buy again, if I saw it cheap.

For me, Foetus was tangled into this as well, he went with all the SST and Homestead type shit in my head. Peaked at roughly the same time, too.

What about Pussy Galore (whose best album was released in 1989)

lol you meant 1987

Nope. I meant Dial M for Motherfucker. Even dlp9001 agrees. Right Now! is 2nd best (although I bet you meant Groovy Hate Fuck).

uhhhh embarrassingly i think ive only ever even heard EVOL + "bubblegum" from this list

A tie between I Against I & EVOL for me.
I voted for Bad Brains because they will probably get less votes.

Jesus Lizard were Scratch Acid but less good

Agree with everything else you said, xhuxk, but, um... agree to disagree.

I'm kind of convinced that Ministry's one interesting record was the one that came out in '86 -- their transition from synth-dweebs album Twitch, which they made with Adrian Sherwood.

This nearly makes up for Jesus Lizard/Scratch Acid thing. Refreshingly OTM.

Also have a soft spot for that first "synth-dweeb" Ministry record.

i love twitch! tried to listen to land of rape & honey the other week and couldn't get into it like i did when it came out.

"(Never liked Millions Of Dumb Complaints, but then I never honestly gave them much of a chance.)"

they were great! at least up until millions of dead christians album.

up to and including millions of dead christians album. this blood's for you. the one with the cream cover.

i listened to Mule the other day...that band was FUCKED UP...like some weirdass extra chromosome hillbilly jesus lizard

"It's kinda sad to read all of these punk/hardcore/whatever died c. whenever because I wonder what y'all actually listened to post-whenever the punk music died."

as far as loud noisy stuff goes, for me, i got excited again by death metal and grindcore. and other metal. the 90's was my own personal nadir as far as new stuff goes. i have sold almost every record i ever bought new on vinyl in the 90's. but it did start in the late 80's. i liked the first mudhoney EP but grunge did nothing for me. luckily, there was still lots of great dance music, rap, pop, etc, in the early 90's so i didn't mind the lack of good noisy stuff too much. but, jesus, i actually bought a tortoise album. and a man or astroman album. that's how bad things got.

kjb never got into metal, he likes more refined stuff like daydream nation

69, it's crazy you're from DC and you have never heard I Against I!

I voted Lawndale for the lolz and in protest of all the Husker Du fanaticism.

but, jesus, i actually bought a tortoise album.

Shhh, don't tell Pfork!

plus, a lot of stuff that i really dug in the 90's was kinda 80's holdover stuff anyway. siltbreeze and flying nun stuff reminded me of 80's stuff. or the albums i liked the most in the 90's were made by people i was a fan of in the 80's: talk talk, swans, mekons. the actual 90's stuff - rock stuff - that was actual 90's music made by 90's people that i loved was...hmmm...red house painters, unrest, godflesh, eyehategod. those were probably my favorite 90's bands when all is said and done. first two masters of reality albums. denim. but i followed denim from felt in the 80's. i still listen to that stuff. i still have a lot of CDs from the 90's.

i don't even know who i'm talking to at this point. i'm hungry.

man or astroman slayed live

No takers for the Divine Horsemen then? Middle of the Night was pretty good iirc, haven't heard the other one.

JUST GOT TICKETS FOR MEAT PUPPETS TOMORROW NITE!!!!

Another thread, but good noisy stuff from the 90's includes Dustdevils' Struggling Electric and Band of Susuans' Here Comes Success, both of which have held up a hell of a lot better than most of the crap in this poll (Zoogz aside). This thread is profoundly irritating so far.

Though it has sparked a buried memory of Gone playing a horrible set on U68 long ago. Thought I'd managed to eliminate that one... (I'm like 95% sure it was on U68, but it's been a while.)

xpost irritating how?

I considered the Divine Horsemen, but "Time Stands Still" is the the good one and it was on Enigma in '84.

fun fact - Julie Christensen of Divine Horsemen backup vocals also backed Leonard Cohen on his great late '80s stuff.

Voted Bad Brains because of "Return to Heaven"

I only brought up MDC to say Husker Du were considered hardcore bedrock as late as '84--no judgment of MDC's quality (or cathartic value) one way or the other. But on a totally separate topic, MDC were hot live as late as '88, and "Chicken Squawk" had a huge impact on me.

so pumped for meat puppets tonight :)

They will play everything way too fast and sloppy and you will have lots of fun. Curt will possibly be wearing sweat pants.

as far as loud noisy stuff goes, for me, i got excited again by death metal and grindcore.

yeah, death metal was good for a while. around '90 I was listening mostly to geto boys, monster magnet, morbid angel, cop shoot cop.

I never got excited by death metal or grindcore

really, I was all WOOO HOOOO death metal

same here, hearing Napalm Death - SCUM was like coming home again. all the fury and speed of hardcore pushed to infinity

I was all, "Didn't Die Kreuzen and Void and Prong and Beyond Posession do that stuff years ago? What's the big deal?" (Not saying I was right, necessarily, but it's not like I ever got into grindcore etc. later, either.)

all that early Earache stuff sounded way fresh to me and it was totally ridiculous. shit like Sore Throat, Spazztic Blurr, Old Lady Drivers. then you had your Carcass and Terrorizer and Morbid Angel. damn, now I have to hunt down my Grindcrusher cd...

in 86 I started borrowing metal tapes from the burnouts in class, at first for a goof then was pummeled. 'Reign In Blood' or SOD or Celtic Frost.

voted EVOL btw cuz it's so great and there's a record even better than Sister in 87

Didn't Die Kreuzen and Void and Prong and Beyond Posession do that stuff years ago?

gonna assume you meant voivod here

and yeah, as good as they were, those guys never reached the same brainscrambling hatefueled miasmas that a morbid angel or a deicide did

iow they were an important evolutionary step but not the ultimate goal

is this still the SST thread lol

xp Them too. But to me, Voivod were so heads and tails above everybody else that the only bands who reminded me of them back then were ones who seemed somehow beyond metal -- like, say, Treponem Pal. And Young Gods. And Bloodstar. Who I actually loved around '90. (Probably should've been checking out Anacrusis too, but they never came up.)

I wonder if yr stubborn rationalism kept you from fully enjoying stuff like deicide or morbid angel? die kreuzen/prong/voivod are all notably secular when it comes to imagery/lyrics. just hypothesizin here...

I mean you gotta be a special something to hear "GHOULS ATTACK THE CHURCH" and be like WOOO HOOOO me for some of that

an important evolutionary step but not the ultimate goal

Yeah, but by the late '80s I was really getting bored with the whole schtick of "Let's take this extreme ugly stuff and make it EVEN MORE UGLY AND EXTREME!!" Wasn't surprising anymore, just predictable. To me.

I don't know if anybody ever called me a "stubborn rationalist" before. I kind of like that, but I was totally raised Catholic, so I'm not sure it applies. It's not like I ever listened to Die Kreuzen's words much!

Though then again it's not like I watch horror movies much either. (More likely it's just that I was already hitting my 30s, and too old for the stuff.)

never too old for ghouls attacking the church imo

Yeah, but by the late '80s I was really getting bored with the whole schtick of "Let's take this extreme ugly stuff and make it EVEN MORE UGLY AND EXTREME!!" Wasn't surprising anymore, just predictable. To me.

OTM, it felt like a diminishing returns kind of thing for sure. That's what made Soul Discharge stand out like a traffic cone for me-- Boredoms took all those elements further yet made it seem like a new kind of beauty rooted in play.