
WHRB 24 Hour Hardcore Orgy Radio Show Tape From 1983
Playlist:
The Germs: Media Blitz
SS Decontrol: No Reply (Buzzcocks cover)
Bad Brains: Pay to Cum
Discharge: (don't know the title of this song)
The Subhumans (Canada): Dead At Birth
Bad Religion: Politics
The Insane: Politics
The Misfits: Horror Business
Government Issue: Teenager in a Box
Suicidal Tendencies: Institutionalized
SOA: Public Defender
The Ramones: Teenage Lobotomy
Vox Pop: Cab Driver
The Manic Depressives: Going Out with the In-Crowd
Discharge: State Violence State Control
The Germs: Forming (Live at the Whiskey with intro from Belinda Carlisle of the Go-Gos)
X: Los Angeles
Husker Du: In A Free Land
The Meatmen: Tooling for Anus
The Offbeats: Maybe
The Middle Class: Out of Vogue
Black Flag: Nervous Breakdown
DOA: The Prisoner (1978)
DOA: The Prisoner( 1980)
The Stimulators: Loud Fast Rules
The Blood Clots: Louie Louie
The Avengers: American in Me
Kraut: Unemployed
The Prevaricators: Ode to Mr. Ed
The Dickies: Give It Back
The Necros: IQ32
The Nasal Boys: Hot Love
Toxic Reasons: Ghost Town
Circle Jerks: World Up My Ass
Angry Somoans: Gimme Sopor
100 Flowers: Salmonella
Minor Threat: Stand Up
Dead Kennedys: Insight
The Minutemen: Joe McCarthy's Ghost
Well, I unearthed this gem from the oblivion of my tape collection which is now stored in very large Tupperware tubs in a basement closet. I thought I lost it years ago. I mean like 30 years ago!
I first listened to it in 1983. And what a revelation it was. My good friend Dave Nolan moved up to Boston our senior year in high school. Prior to that, he went to Gonzaga with me in DC. He was my first musical mentor. He had all the sounds at his house. I had none. His cluttered bedroom was our record store.
Dave would continue to send tapes to me and my best friend Ben. This sonic missive was one of them. It is a recording of 90 minutes of the annual 24 hour Hardcore Orgy radio show on WHRB, the Harvard radio station. Both Ben and I received a copy of it. It was so significant to us at the time that we talked often about the dream of one day owning all of the records on this tape. That seemed impossible.
Why was it so important to us? I can't speak for Ben, but it connected a lot of dots for me. It gave this growing interest of mine some much needed context. Black Flag's Nervous Breakdown (the first hardcore song I heard) makes a little more sense when it is in the proximity of the Circle Jerks, the Angry Somoans, X, the Germs, the Minutemen and the Dickies. It also introduced me to the Misfits. The song Horror Business is such an amazing encapsulation of the things I would learn to love about them: the brutish, lo-fi noise, the barely intelligible words, the trashy guitars and the Jim Morrison-by-way-of-Elvis voice of Glenn Danzig.
And I learned a few facts in this punk rock correspondence class taught by WHRB. Belinda Carlisle was once in the Germs. No Reply was originally a Buzzcocks song. There were two Subhumans: one Canadian and one British. DOA recorded the song The Prisoner twice in 3 years. The Circle Jerks World Up My Ass and the Angry Samoans Gimme Sopor are basically the same song. The guitarist left the Angry Somoans and took the song with him to the Circle Jerks. Henry Rollins was in SOA before leaving to join Black Flag. Bad Brains are hands down the greatest hardcore band ever. Is that a fact? Haha.
Finally, I am reminded again that I was once 17 years old. I didn't know much. I had a narrow perspective on music. This piece of plastic, gears and tape opened me up just a little. And I still really like the songs on this tape. Except for that stupid Meatmen song which is downright offensive and moronic. But that has always been an element of punk rock, hasn't it?
This tape is the grail. I am so happy I found it again.
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