Introductions/Welcome

Fuck! I better get something up here soon since I was linked via the great Last Days of Man of Earth blog and their posting of the wonderful Endtables 7"EP.

If you want an introduction, here it is- I am in my mid 30's and have been into punk and hardcore since 1987. The first punk record I bought was the Misfits "Earth A.D." LP from the local Peaches store in Cleveland, Ohio (remember that chain?!? Yikes!) . Hardcore was my bread and butter until the first four volumes of the Killed By Death comps were reissued on colored vinyl in late 1994, and I promptly bought Volumes 1, 2 and 3 from the great Vacuum Mailorder in S.F. ('member them, too? RIP). I had bought a copy of Killed By Death #4 when it originally came out in 1989 but I was so into hardcore that it didn't quite click for me and it didn't become a "top shelf" record of mine until '94. I promptly dug out my old issues of MRR from the late 80's and early 90's that had the great "Scumpit" record collector articles and combed through them for tips and recommendations of obscurities to check out. I commenced tape trading as in cassette tapes, Chachi (also known in Latin and archaeologists as cassettus tapus)-- this was when them new-fangled CD burners were still $1,000 and nobody used em yet. I began accumulating mass amounts of old KBD stuff on tape, thanks especially to Jim, Jason and Bruce. By this point I had lived in Chicago, and local store Reckless Records was very ripe with KBD stuff so I grabbed whatever I could afford (or not afford since they accepted credit cards).

I've been into "Killed By Death"-type stuff from the late 70's and early 80's since then and am always looking to hear great obscurities from that era. Since the great Messthetics comps came out earlier this decade/century/millennium I've more "formally" gotten into DIY-type stuff. I have also picked up a liking for some 60's punk a la Back From The Grave and, to a lesser degree, some obscure (there's that word again- see a pattern?) deep funk from the 70's. And of course "new" KBD-type bands from the boom of the 90's onward have a special place on the top shelf... which I guess sounds dramatic like I have a swank wet bar in my house with certain records hoisted on high and analyzed like a bottle of good wine and played on a special $10,000 gold plated audiophile turntable. Er, in reality the top shelf is just my white, scratched up 20 gig iPod that has most of my music on it. But my main love over all these other genres is still the raw, sometimes poorly-produced, obscure, limited pressing, passionate, heartfelt KBD punk of yore.