EP 255: 1st Wave Japanese Hardcore / Hardest '90s Demo
Killer episode this week on the pod. Check it out here, here, or here and check the playlist here or here. Almost all of the Japanese stuff wasn’t on Spotify, so you can check out all the Japanese demos on Youtube HERE and the hardest ‘90s demos HERE.
If you just want a taste:
Japanese hardcore playlist 1981-1985
This week we kicked off two hyper-specific tournaments:
We’ve talk a lot on this pod about how we love the big tent of punk and hardcore and I think this project represents that well - a yin and yang of the core so to speak. I wanted to dive into the first wave of Japanese hardcore records partially as a lesson for me. I hadn’t heard half of this stuff and I ended up really liking almost all of it. These days when people talk about Japanese hardcore, generally they’re going straight to the classic Burning Spirits stuff from the late ‘80s/early ‘90s, specifically Death Side and Bastard. It make sense since those are two of the best hardcore bands ever, they put out classic LPs, and they’re accessible on the streaming platforms. We can argue about the exact time when Burning Spirits started because it seems like no one has a definitive concrete answer. Was it the birth of Death Side? Maybe it was in 1987 when they released their first material, the final track on the Smashing Odds Ness!! comp? Or the following year in ‘88 when Death Side, Nightmare, and Tetsu Arrey all appeared together on the Eye Of The Thrash Guerrilla comp? I’d go back further than all of those and argue it started with Death Side guitarist Chelsea’s previous band, Poison, on their 2d 7” Mystery Temptation in 1986.
Assuming you’re in half-agreement with me, let’s call an end to the first wave of Japanese hardcore in ‘85, a year later than it ended in the US. That leads us to this project: choosing the best Japanese hardcore EP in the 1981-1985 era.
A couple quick notes…
The flexi is so important to this region and era. I’m assuming it was a cost thing, lowering the barrier to entry for a bunch of kids who didn’t have a lot of money to put out records. If someone knows the full story, get at me. The other is that there are a couple classic bands omitted from the tournament because they didn’t do EPs. The Comes & G.I.S.M. come to mind. If they did EPs would they have gone all the way or lost to Disarray and Geizz in the first round? Was Tower 7 a controlled demolition? We’ll never know.
Let’s get on with the first half of the opening round….
あぶらだこ aka Aburadako S/T Flexi (1983) vs. Gastunk S/T 7” (1985)
Tokyo’s Aburadako is a wild band that exemplifies the YOLO attitude of Japanese hardcore. Truly unique singing and you can hear the percolation of a triumphant sound in some of the tunes that would be a key element for many Japanese hardcore bands in the years to come. There’s a five-minute dragger and a 50 second blazer. The only thing constant here is that you don’t really know what to expect. This band’s sound changed throughout the years and they stuck around into the 2000s, releasing their last studio LP in 2008.
Also from Tokyo, Gastunk needs no introduction. Formed by ex-members of The Execute and The Comes, they were an all-star band out the gate and must have had big expectations. They first appeared alongside Ghoul, The Clay, and Systematic Death on the roughly recorded Hold Up Omnibus live comp in ‘84, but the self titled 1985 7” was their true coming out party. Three classic songs, all killer no filler, and a great recording to boot. When the verse on “Devil” kicks, it feels like entrance music that a wrestler would walk out to at Starcade ‘86 or some shit. Years later, legendary death match wrestler Jun Kasai would use a variation of this track as his entrance music. The highlight of this record is the b-side with its single song, “Shout.” The whole track is based around a little melodic guitar lick that they use as a hook and keep circling back to. My favorite part is when they build off the end of it into a full solo, then when they come out of the solo they do a brief cymbal choke transition section and then back into the hook. It’s one of my favorite hardcore punk songs and it’s a shining example of how awesome Gastunk were.
Gai Extermination 7” (1984) vs. Typhus S/T flexi (1981)
Gai started in 1981 as The Swankys but changed their name to Gai in 1983. They’re a noisy band with fuzzy, blown out guitars and manic vocals. The tracks are mostly fast, but the last is a mid-tempo banger and probably the best song on the EP. That track would get re-recorded and released on an LP in 1985 when they changed their name back to The Swankys.
Typhus is truly an original. They started in 1980 and put out a live demo the same year. In ‘81 they put out this flexi which is noticeably more hardcore. Depending on where you think The Stalin land, Typhus or The Stalin would probably be considered the first hardcore band from Japan. My personal take is that the Typhus demo and the first two flexis by The Stalin probably lean more straight punk, but the Typhus flexi and The Stalin’s first LP in 1981 are both hardcore punk. I don’t know which came first. This flexi reminds me a lot of the Dwarves LP Blood, Guts, and Pussy that would come out nine years later. Peep “Back Seat of My Car” and tell me I’m wrong. Shin from Typhus would go on to play in Gauze and Akio would go on to play in Aburadako.
Gudon S/T flexi (1985) vs. The Stalin Nothing 7” (1983)
Gudon play a super noisy, lo-fi brand of hardcore punk. This recording sounds like it could’ve been a practice room recording. The first song is called “Cock” so this may be the horniest band in the tournament so far. This was probably my least favorite 7” from this side of the bracket. The band is mostly notable for capturing legendary guitarist Zigyaku for the first time on wax before he would go on to do Bastard and Judgement.
I talked The Stalin a bit already so scroll up dude. This is The Stalin’s 5th or 6th EP. The a-side “Nothing” is undoubtably hardcore and that riff gets stuck in my head big time. It’s not d-beat at all but the way they keep clobbering you with the same riff over and over is kind of hypnotic like the best stuff of that genre. The 2nd song is more of a sleazy rocker. The Stalin remind me of Kraut in a way because they’re both kind of the ultimate bridge bands between punk and hardcore. They can sound almost like they’re different bands on the same record, and of course both are classics.
Confuse Nuclear Addicts 7” (1983) vs. Geizz We Wait For Song of Geizz (1985)
Nuclear Addicts is a blown out seven song 7” for fans of the rougher side of early ‘80s UKHC - Discharge, Disorder, Chaos UK, etc. The cover is a black and white photo of the band with charged hair and studded leather jackets and the record sounds just how the cover looks. The snare cuts through the noise enough to keep this record driving forward. The drummer does two different fast beats - a straight double-time beat and on some songs that are a tick faster, he goes to the scissor beat. “No Victor” is an example of a scissor beat song with some sick fills on the verse to boot. I think their sound works best with straight double-time though. “Hate (Is It War?)” might be the best song on the 7” cuz you can feel the bass punching through and sitting right under the guitar fuzz driving the track.
I had never heard of Geizz before, but this is a sick 7” with a killer cover as well. What does it even mean, maaan? A lot of the bands in this tournament do really epic intros which is a cool element of this era and locale. Geizz hold off until side-b to do theirs, the epic “Wild Boy’s” which straight up sounds like some Iron Maiden shit before kicking into a mid-tempo banger. The recording on this 7” is fabulous and the band has the chops to justify it - excellent drumming, soloing, and the singer has an awesome voice. Really, this is probably one of my favorite 7”s of the whole tournament. Toshi from The Execute played on this and the singer, Chatara, would go on to sing for The Execute…so I guess Geizz is a landing pad from and a launchpad to that band.
