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Southern California,late 1980's was the time,and Crust was on the rise. Bands like
Apocalypse,Glycine Max,Confrontation,and
A//Solution were all going strong and producing some of the best stuff around.Though they weren't quite as heralded as their U.K. counterparts like
Hell Bastard,Deviated Instinct,and
Bolt Thrower or even New York's
Nausea,in my opinion, these bands carry the same air of desolation and impending doom while capturing what I imagine it felt like to live in Orange county in the late eighties. Hard to say though,as I regretfully missed out on one of my favorite era's of punk/hardcore. I was lucky enough to meet a few of the guys that were in these bands when I live in Long Beach years ago. I stayed at a house on Elm St. in Long Beach for 4 or 5 months and had the chance to pick the brains of
Raygunn(Glycine Max,Scarred for Life,Dogma Mundista) and
Todd(Confrontation,Dystopia,Mange) and both of them were very generous with their music collections. I spent hours and hours poring over their records, making tape after tape and discovering tons of stuff I still love today.
Raygunn used to share tales with me of backyard shows where he used to play with
A//Solution. I had an old
Apocalypse demo that had some songs on the end that were faster and heavier than the rest and always just assumed they were the last things they had recorded before they split up. I never put 2 and 2 together but they were actually the
Butterfly ep,one of the best records there is. They also recorded an album dubbed
"Things to Come" that is a departure from the speed and fury of their ep. I actually like to think of it as the SoCal answer to
Zygote's
Wind of Knives Lp. So, from me to you,some of the best songs to come out of Orange County, I give you
A//Solution................
Butterfly EpThings to ComeI just got back from seeing the
Hostiles in West Rutland and they were as fun as ever. They were forced to play on the stage and whoever did the sound couldn't manage to get it right despite thousands of dollars worth of equipment. Kind of a young crowd,and you never want to sit through a Christian band but they seemed to have fun and
Steve knows how to get them all going with his cool white boy rapping. What a vulgar little whelp he's become..............Troy