Perhaps the greatest characteristic of DOA’s long career is that they’ve by no means discarded their virtuous yet pleasure-seeking temperament. These Terminal City punks were never resistant to confusing sincere rebellion with vulgarity (just check out the “Let’s Fuck” rewrite of the classic Chris Montez hit song) and never meandered with the trend of playing overt heavy metal throughout the 1980s. Their early catalog (“Triumph of the Ignoroids”, “Something Better Change”, “Hardcore 81”, & “War on 45”) is a sonic cascade of tightly wound and highly charged proto-hardcore. DOA is unanimously considered to one of the founding fathers of hardcore punk (beside Black Flag, Middle Class, Bad Brains, & Teen Idles) as the band’s second full-length album (“Hardcore 81”) is arguably the first ever document to declare the genre’s name.
Recorded right smack in the middle of this period and prior to all of the line up shifts, here’s a fantastic soundboard tape that was captured while DOA journeyed east to perform in Toronto sometime during 1980. This set was recorded with the band’s classic two-guitar lineup of Shithead, Rampage, Biscuits, and Gregg that was featured on “Hardcore 81”, which was recorded presumably right around when this gig was played. The recording quality is soundboard sourced but suffers faintly from some negligible compression issues and the fact that the guitar is a little low in the overall mix. The band plays a fervent set with tons of crowd baiting and rowdiness between songs. This is an essential unreleased recording from an extraordinary band captured at their prime. Enough said.
It’s unlikely that this is the complete recording of this set. If anyone has an upgrade or any additional information regarding the date of this recording, please get in touch with me via the email listed on this archive.
Track listing:
Take a Chance
Pinhead Theme
Royal Police
Woke Up Screaming
The Enemy
What’cha Doin
Let’s Spend the Night Together
Hey Chris,
ReplyDeleteGreat post. I had no idea Let's Dance = Let's Fuck...
Joe's book only has 3 venues named for the couple of weeks the band was in/around Toronto in July 1980. There is also mention of other gigs, but no dates or venues.
The 3 Turning Point, Larry's Hideaway, and Nathan Phillips Square for a Rock Against Radiation concert. There were a couple more in Hamilton and another outdoor festival called 'Deep Wave'.
bingo!
ReplyDeleteHi!
ReplyDeleteFirst - thanks a lot for this post!
A comment on the sentence: «“Hardcore 81”, which was recorded presumably right around when this gig was played». Well I'd rather say this gig should have happened right after they recorded "Something Better Change" and/or when it was about to be released. See, Joe presents the song 'Pinhead Theme' as belonging to their next album. And it's a different title for 'Last Night' on said LP. This fits well with the dates that Biopunk proposed (7/80). The first LP appeared in 9/80 according to George Gimarc while HC81 appeared in 3/81. Line-up was the same indeed.
@biopunk - How come you did'nt recognise the cover? The first day I heard the 'War on 45' EP I knew Let's fxxk was a cover of Let's Dance with new unholy lyrics! I hadn't heard Chris Montez's original back then but I knew the Ramones 1st LP by heart! :D
Saludos,
Fernando :)
@Fernando: Good question!
ReplyDeleteI have no idea why, but the CD copy of War on '45 I've had for the past 18 years *does* credit it to J. Keithley/C. Biscuits, so that could be part of it.
Cheers!
I don't know if you could help me, but I'm loking for the lyrics of Last Night the actual album version, anybody can help me?
ReplyDeleteI can't find them; unfortunately I'm not english so I can't understand better what they say.
thank you
sara