"Newly unearthed recordings by the band Death reveal a remarkable missing link between the hard rock of Detroit bands and the high-velocity assault of punk of 1976 and ’77."Here's the NYTimes link to the original article.
and go to Drag City to hear the classic single.
Not quite as mind blowing as the author suggests,
but pretty damn cool.
In 1977, I was a freshman at Uni, one who was part of L.A.'s voluntary program to integrate the public school. (Yeah, I took that stupid fucking school bus throughout junior high—Webster—and high school.) Death is truly mind-blowing, especially if you're black. I used to listen to KMET and KLOS at home, then to KDAY on the bus. But, as far as other black kids were concerned, black people didn't listen to anything perceived as something only white people played. Now, this was my experience in L.A. Detroit, where my dad's family is from, is almost completely black. I can only imagine how hard it was for these guys back then. They were definitely swimming up stream. And you can hear them in so many other bands who followed. I'm glad you found this. It made me smile. There were a lot of us black kids in black neighborhoods who just wanted to do our own thing and not follow the racial party line. We paid a social price for that growing up. But, frankly, I wouldn't have it any other way.
ReplyDeleteI dig that article, and those tracks (I got my hands on the EP) are raw. It's always great to hear/read about people who helped to pave the way, even if for Death, they didn't get much of a chance to have an impact back then. Guys like Death are a definite inspiration for going against the grain, especially when what they were doing was the most unpopular thing they could have done then.
ReplyDelete