BORN AGAINST

[BAIN]

any chance we could talk about one of the greatest "nyhc" bands out there

10"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-N5k9X0Czo

s/t 7"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84-Uf2MGggY

nine patriotic hymns 12"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XJis8NmqU0

man is the bastard split 8"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc0SiDyUiMM

UOA split
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfCDICJpHHY

eulogy 7"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB5TNHUjozo

weasel split
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DcLhQFcfgs

[xxxMidgexxx]

I saw them twice. Both times at ABC no Rio. They were very good. First time was in the Basement of the building in lots of rocks and gravel and dust. And it was a mess.

I felt very uncomfortable, but I guess that was the intention anyhow.

2nd time was upstairs and opening for Neurosis on 'Word as Law' tour. Both bands great.

[jaybird]

I think this band is a good example of a mid 90s-update on SamDBL's thesis about how 80s hardcore "became synonymous with horrible music made by people barely trying as an excuse to propel related externalities such as organizing shows, moshing around with your friends in abandoned warehouses, and designing fliers." I mean. I liked reading Sam McPheeters' slash-and-burn columns in MRR back in the day as much as anyone else but as a band, I could never get past how barely competent they were at their instruments.... for a genre that is often tagged as being a refuge for talentless hacks who can't play, these guys dropped the bar to an absurd new low... Just indecipherable screaming and out-of-sync/out-of-tune chaotic thrashing away on their instruments. Just always seemed like a near-parody of moronic, ultra-lefty, squat-house crust-punk hardcore to me... Maybe that was the point?

P.S.: I own the Rebel Sound of Shit and Failure 12" and the Screeching Weasel split 7".

[SamDBL]

I don't really remember what this band sounds like. I think I had a split 7" with them and some other highly-praised piece of shit band that was supposed to be the second coming of a new era of hardcore. I only remember that it represented about the time I stopped listening to current (at the time) hardcore releases. And generally began feeling 'meh' about the whole genre.

[jaybird]

I don't really remember what this band sounds like. I think I had a split 7" with them and some other highly-praised piece of shit band that was supposed to be the second coming of a new era of hardcore. I only remember that it represented about the time I stopped listening to current (at the time) hardcore releases. And generally began feeling 'meh' about the whole genre.

Basically my experience as well... after so many phenomenal bands in the late 80s who took hardcore into new territory - Dag/G.I./Descendents, etc - the mid-90s bands like this just seemed like a massive step backward to me... Like, all the 90s kids who missed the Misfits or Negative Approach or Black Flag in 1981 just wanted to re-live all that shit over again, but with worse bands.

[lewdd]

I had some Spin magazine issue that had the top 25 punk albums of all time or something like that years ago. I had Born Against, Nation of Ulysses, Quicksand, and some other stuff from that same time period on the list. I had never heard of any of them. As a completist, I went out and bought the CDs of those that I didn't have. I wasted money on all three listed and several others that did not appeal to my ears. At some point those CDs will be sold on Discogs or taken to a local CD store to sell to them.

[scannest]

I just listened to NINE PATRIOTIC HYMNS FOR CHILDREN. It's not my cup of tea (especially the vocals), but I don't think it's fair to say they can't play. Like NoU or Drive Like Jehu, there is some method to the madness if yer inclined to put in the effort. But you don't gotta, as they say.

[xxxMidgexxx]

Born Against were definitely more about the lyrics/topics than they were about the music. They had some really good lurching bottom heavy songs in the beginning and they went on to make sure they didn't repeat themselves.

Sam was/is a FANTASTIC writer IMO. A style all of his own. Sometimes all over the map, but almost always funny as hell. Loved his columns and his lyrics. And his flyer art was hilarious.

[drew]

BA were a little too much for me. I was more into Rorschach.

[JGJR]

I love them, especially the stuff before the Lp. The Lp is really good, but definitely a step down. After that, they have moments, but it seemed like they were deliberately putting out far shittier records to piss off their fans tbh. Their best stuff is all on 7"s, comps, their demo, etc. And it's silly to me to think anyone thinks they can't play given Adam's guitar playing. scannest is right. Don't confuse not your cup of tea with incompetence. I never got to see them, though. I remember wanting to go really badly when they played Cook College in 1991 (I eventually attended Cook starting in 1993 and booked a few shows there), but I didn't have my license yet and couldn't find a ride since I'd just moved to NJ from Louisiana before my junior year of high school.

[the mean]

Saw them a bunch of times, they toured a lot. They were great. Love the early stuff, the LP is pretty great, and "Poland" from the final 10" is one of their better songs. "Mary and Child" could have been written today with all the abortion restrictions being put in place right now.

[jaybird]

I love them, especially the stuff before the Lp. The Lp is really good, but definitely a step down. After that, they have moments, but it seemed like they were deliberately putting out far shittier records to piss off their fans tbh. Their best stuff is all on 7"s, comps, their demo, etc. And it's silly to me to think anyone thinks they can't play given Adam's guitar playing. scannest is right. Don't confuse not your cup of tea with incompetence. I never got to see them, though. I remember wanting to go really badly when they played Cook College in 1991 (I eventually attended Cook starting in 1993 and booked a few shows there), but I didn't have my license yet and couldn't find a ride since I'd just moved to NJ from Louisiana before my junior year of high school.

I like lots of raw, thrashy hardcore bands... Negative Approach, Neon Christ, Life Sentence, etc. ... Born Against is just incredibly sloppy and all over the place compared to those bands IMO... while none of the other bands I mentioned could be cited as virtuoso musicians, you can tell that they were well-rehearsed units when they went into the studio to record... or at least took enough time in the studio to get a good, solid take... Born Against's stuff always sounded to me like they just learned the songs maybe 15 minutes before rolling tape, and just went with the first take. Maybe there's something to that approach that has its own subjective merit, but I don't think you can honestly say they spent any more than the absolute bare minimum amount of time necessary to record their stuff. I think that's objectively shitty musicianship, even by the admittedly low standards of hardcore as a genre, and demonstrative of their focus being on other "externalities" to music like the things SamDBL talked about...just my 2¢, ymmv, etc.

[SamDBL]

Yeah, it sounds like shit and they can’t play. But this is what I’m talking about… when a dude like the guitar player for born against can’t be immediately written off as a god awful excuse for a musician because [i]when compared to his peers,[/] he doesn’t rank at the very bottom… then I think the genre is pretty fucked, by then. I’m tired of giving these lazy motherfuckers passes. Practice more, or gtfo.

[JGJR]

Saw them a bunch of times, they toured a lot. They were great. Love the early stuff, the LP is pretty great, and "Poland" from the final 10" is one of their better songs. "Mary and Child" could have been written today with all the abortion restrictions being put in place right now.

"Mary and Child" is the 1st song I thought of when I heard the news about the TX and MS abortion laws or really when I hear any anti-choice argument.

What record was "Albany Academy" on? I always thought that was one of their best songs. I just can't remember if it was on the split 8" with MITB or the 10" (I think the former).

I never got to see them. I was still in high school then, so the vast majority of the stuff I went to was in NJ and they almost never played there. Plus, I didn't move there until '91 and their best period was behind them by then anyway IMO. I would've loved to see them at ABC circa 1990, but just missed that by a hair. I did get to see Rorschach once in '93 when they played Middlesex, though. They were great and even better on the 2009 reunion.

[JGJR]

I love them, especially the stuff before the Lp. The Lp is really good, but definitely a step down. After that, they have moments, but it seemed like they were deliberately putting out far shittier records to piss off their fans tbh. Their best stuff is all on 7"s, comps, their demo, etc. And it's silly to me to think anyone thinks they can't play given Adam's guitar playing. scannest is right. Don't confuse not your cup of tea with incompetence. I never got to see them, though. I remember wanting to go really badly when they played Cook College in 1991 (I eventually attended Cook starting in 1993 and booked a few shows there), but I didn't have my license yet and couldn't find a ride since I'd just moved to NJ from Louisiana before my junior year of high school.

I like lots of raw, thrashy hardcore bands... Negative Approach, Neon Christ, Life Sentence, etc. ... Born Against is just incredibly sloppy and all over the place compared to those bands IMO... while none of the other bands I mentioned could be cited as virtuoso musicians, you can tell that they were well-rehearsed units when they went into the studio to record... or at least took enough time in the studio to get a good, solid take... Born Against's stuff always sounded to me like they just learned the songs maybe 15 minutes before rolling tape, and just went with the first take. Maybe there's something to that approach that has its own subjective merit, but I don't think you can honestly say they spent any more than the absolute bare minimum amount of time necessary to record their stuff. I think that's objectively shitty musicianship, even by the admittedly low standards of hardcore as a genre, and demonstrative of their focus being on other "externalities" to music like the things SamDBL talked about...just my 2¢, ymmv, etc.

I'm not a musician, so I won't argue anything technical here, but I'm just wondering how awful they can be if folks are still listening to them today and if (at least IMO) their songs still hold up and I still have them stuck in my head 3 decades or more after they were released. No one here is suggesting that they're Steely Dan (who I love, btw) in terms of recording and musicianship, but rather I do truly believe the sloppiness (at least on the surface), recording style, et al. was a conscious stylistic choice, at least up to a point given their limitations.

I mean I think that noisy edge they had spanwed all of the Gravity stuff (see also the 2nd Heroin 7", but also stuff like Antioch Arrow, et al.), as did NOU/DLJ (who scannest also mentioned), then called emo believe it or not, as well as stuff like Assfactor 4, Mohinder, Angel Hair, et al.

[SamDBL]

I love them, especially the stuff before the Lp. The Lp is really good, but definitely a step down. After that, they have moments, but it seemed like they were deliberately putting out far shittier records to piss off their fans tbh. Their best stuff is all on 7"s, comps, their demo, etc. And it's silly to me to think anyone thinks they can't play given Adam's guitar playing. scannest is right. Don't confuse not your cup of tea with incompetence. I never got to see them, though. I remember wanting to go really badly when they played Cook College in 1991 (I eventually attended Cook starting in 1993 and booked a few shows there), but I didn't have my license yet and couldn't find a ride since I'd just moved to NJ from Louisiana before my junior year of high school.

I like lots of raw, thrashy hardcore bands... Negative Approach, Neon Christ, Life Sentence, etc. ... Born Against is just incredibly sloppy and all over the place compared to those bands IMO... while none of the other bands I mentioned could be cited as virtuoso musicians, you can tell that they were well-rehearsed units when they went into the studio to record... or at least took enough time in the studio to get a good, solid take... Born Against's stuff always sounded to me like they just learned the songs maybe 15 minutes before rolling tape, and just went with the first take. Maybe there's something to that approach that has its own subjective merit, but I don't think you can honestly say they spent any more than the absolute bare minimum amount of time necessary to record their stuff. I think that's objectively shitty musicianship, even by the admittedly low standards of hardcore as a genre, and demonstrative of their focus being on other "externalities" to music like the things SamDBL talked about...just my 2¢, ymmv, etc.

I'm not a musician, so I won't argue anything technical here, but I'm just wondering how awful they can be if folks are still listening to them today and if (at least IMO) their songs still hold up and I still have them stuck in my head 3 decades or more after they were released. No one here is suggesting that they're Steely Dan (who I love, btw) in terms of recording and musicianship, but rather I do truly believe the sloppiness (at least on the surface), recording style, et al. was a conscious stylistic choice, at least up to a point given their limitations.

I mean I think that noisy edge they had spanwed all of the Gravity stuff (see also the 2nd Heroin 7", but also stuff like Antioch Arrow, et al.), as did NOU/DLJ (who scannest also mentioned), then called emo believe it or not, as well as stuff like Assfactor 4, Mohinder, Angel Hair, et al.

That gets to the more complicated question of what makes a musician good or bad. If I record a fart and then make a beat out of it and it becomes a massive chart buster, does that make me a great musician? Anyway, all I’m saying is the tone of the guitar is terrible, the timing is off, the vocabulary is really limited. And overall, I feel like if these guys could actually play in time or in tune or knew how to eq a damn amp then they would better be able to pull off what it sounds like to me that they are tying to pull off (super heavy, intense music). That is the mark of someone that puts more effort into jumping around with a mean face than learning how to make their music better. FAIL.

[jaybird]

What Sam said... I really do try not to fault bands for their their technical limitations as players... the Misfits could also barely play, but they made the most of their limitations, and as crappy as they were live, Glenn was by most accounts fairly hard-nosed about their studio recordings, getting them as close to his vision as possible.... And it showed... even though those recordings are still very raw and their rudimentary playing is immediately apparent, you definitely can tell they were actually trying to the best of their ability... maybe I should revise my original statement to the effect that even if the individual guys in Born Against were passably competent at their individual instruments - debateable, but i'll assume so for argument's sake - their apparent "we completely do not give a fuck" approach to playing and recording their material as a band was to their detriment.

[Gary]

Incredible band that still holds up.

[xxxMidgexxx]

"Poland" from the final 10" is one of their better songs.

I'm thinking that I know the situation and the promoter in Poland that they are referencing. His name was Stan.
Saw first hand their lyrical subject matter. Kinda depressing.

I was 'one of the bastards' that slept on his floor. And so was Sam McPheeters.

[captain2man]

Incredible band that still holds up.

Agreed. Some of these responses are incredibly confusing to me.

And Rorschach was absolutely incredible - which needed to be said in light of the fact that there may have been a veiled reference by someone (didn't keep track of who) that they were anything less than ferocious.

[paul]

In my opinion, one of the greatest bands ever

[prankrec]

I think the crucial thing forgotten in evaluation of 90's music versus music of the 1980's is the bottom dropped out completely of Hardcore or whatever except for really commercial ends of it ( pop punk, mosh metal) , so a lot of the places to perform, record and just get stuff done were far more DIY than the rock club or auditoriums that would host 80's punk bands. The elevation of professionalism is different if you're playing basements and living rooms, but it doesn't totally go away, it's just harder when things are smaller and there's less Monety too. To Me, bands like Born Against and Man Is the Bastard....you kinda had to be there, because their presence and how confrontational or odd their lives shows could get was a huge part of understanding the band.

The 90's punk scene is a confusing decade if you look at it like the 80's: there's no one central thread or overarching central theme beyond the bands that exploded to majors, it presaged how society in general got "whatever you like" there's hundreds of micro scenes of small bands doing different sounds for everyone's tastes. It also of course made for a lot of garbage to wade through, but I honestly believe it's victory wasn't as much artistic as forwarding that DIY spirit of it's explosion of zines, records, websites, etc, which was then applied to a lot of things across society - from clothing ( Etsy,etc) to craft beer.

Anyway, I'm obvious biased about Born Against. "Nine Patriotic Hymns" to me is the last great 1980's hardcore record. The lyrics are still awesome, the music still powerful. It's discordant, but also has that same NY low end rumbling that Nausea "Extinction" has. If you listen to the two back to back, they sound really similar. But it's also at a point when everything got more discordant and deconstructed.

[patient_ot]

I think the crucial thing forgotten in evaluation of 90's music versus music of the 1980's is the bottom dropped out completely of Hardcore or whatever except for really commercial ends of it ( pop punk, mosh metal) , so a lot of the places to perform, record and just get stuff done were far more DIY than the rock club or auditoriums that would host 80's punk bands. The elevation of professionalism is different if you're playing basements and living rooms, but it doesn't totally go away, it's just harder when things are smaller and there's less Monety too. To Me, bands like Born Against and Man Is the Bastard....you kinda had to be there, because their presence and how confrontational or odd their lives shows could get was a huge part of understanding the band.

The 90's punk scene is a confusing decade if you look at it like the 80's: there's no one central thread or overarching central theme beyond the bands that exploded to majors, it presaged how society in general got "whatever you like" there's hundreds of micro scenes of small bands doing different sounds for everyone's tastes. It also of course made for a lot of garbage to wade through, but I honestly believe it's victory wasn't as much artistic as forwarding that DIY spirit of it's explosion of zines, records, websites, etc, which was then applied to a lot of things across society - from clothing ( Etsy,etc) to craft beer.

Anyway, I'm obvious biased about Born Against. "Nine Patriotic Hymns" to me is the last great 1980's hardcore record. The lyrics are still awesome, the music still powerful. It's discordant, but also has that same NY low end rumbling that Nausea "Extinction" has. If you listen to the two back to back, they sound really similar. But it's also at a point when everything got more discordant and deconstructed.

"You had to be there"...the same could be said for any number of bands. My hometown (or even the region) had a number of local bands that recorded on a shoestring budget. Many were great live, but just couldn't get it together for a great recording. So playing those 7''s, LPs, CDs, tapes, etc. for people now or even listening to them myself isn't the same.

Not that I was there for Born Against - I wasn't. They were done by the time I heard them in '96 or '97. I could still appreciate what I thought they were doing though. Not for everyone of course - same with any other band.

[prankrec]

No - I understand that but maybe should've explained it better as it's more than sound or live performance, but I've never seen a band do these kinds of things born against would do to basically mess with the audience, clap back at them and stuff. It was a pretty peculiar band in terms of what they were trying to do not just musically, but as an political entity inside and outside of punk. Strange, confrontational band with bigger ambition than just releasing records and touring. I bring up MITB, as meeting them was similar but of different scale- entering in their very peculiar strange world, bubble of just totally different worldview, even within punk and hardcore. Not sure if any of that matters to people listening to them now, mattered a lot at the time.

[JGJR]

I think the crucial thing forgotten in evaluation of 90's music versus music of the 1980's is the bottom dropped out completely of Hardcore or whatever except for really commercial ends of it ( pop punk, mosh metal) , so a lot of the places to perform, record and just get stuff done were far more DIY than the rock club or auditoriums that would host 80's punk bands. The elevation of professionalism is different if you're playing basements and living rooms, but it doesn't totally go away, it's just harder when things are smaller and there's less Monety too. To Me, bands like Born Against and Man Is the Bastard....you kinda had to be there, because their presence and how confrontational or odd their lives shows could get was a huge part of understanding the band.

The 90's punk scene is a confusing decade if you look at it like the 80's: there's no one central thread or overarching central theme beyond the bands that exploded to majors, it presaged how society in general got "whatever you like" there's hundreds of micro scenes of small bands doing different sounds for everyone's tastes. It also of course made for a lot of garbage to wade through, but I honestly believe it's victory wasn't as much artistic as forwarding that DIY spirit of it's explosion of zines, records, websites, etc, which was then applied to a lot of things across society - from clothing ( Etsy,etc) to craft beer.

Anyway, I'm obvious biased about Born Against. "Nine Patriotic Hymns" to me is the last great 1980's hardcore record. The lyrics are still awesome, the music still powerful. It's discordant, but also has that same NY low end rumbling that Nausea "Extinction" has. If you listen to the two back to back, they sound really similar. But it's also at a point when everything got more discordant and deconstructed.

Thanks for chiming in here. I really appreciate your perspective and of course you're biased since you put out the friggin' Life's Blood discography Lp (which I still need to grab; have all the old vinyl but would be nice to have it in one place with the extras, et al. and on a 12").

Anyway, I was already active in punk/HC when Born Against was in their prime, but I never got to see them (I did see Rorschach and lots of other bands from that time period, though). My introduction was on a mixtape a friend gave me that had "Alive with Pleasure" on it, so I mail-ordered No Answers #8 with the flexi and it had a massive interview with Sam in it and yeah, that was all part of it. You did kinda have to be there a bit, I think, to really get it.

I like 9 Patriotic Hymns a lot, but I think of it more as a precursor to what bands like At the Drive-In would do a few years later or contemporary to what say, Nation of Ulysses or even Touch and Go bands like The Jesus Lizard (especially "Well Fed Fuck") were doing around the same time period. In other words, it was a step away from the more "traditional" HC sound of the earlier period (the "My Country Tis o Thee" demo up to I dunno the "Eulogy" 7", my favorite period/material of theirs by far), but even that I'd argue had tinges of noise/wildness, etc. They were a huge influence on all the Gravity/Repercussion/31G type stuff, too, I'd argue.

I also never got to see MITB back in the day (or Infest or Crossed Out, though I finally saw Infest in 2016!) since thosse bands never came east, but the MITB/Crossed Out split is one of the greatest records of the '90s IMO. Just amazing.

[prankrec]

I really recommend listening to "Nine Patriotic" and Nausea's "Extinction" back to back, because it shows these bands weren't;t in a vacuum and were all influencing each other.

[xxxMidgexxx]

Nausea's "Extinction"

Perfect album. Crusty as all fuck. This is the NY that I loved seeing the most.

[JGJR]

I really recommend listening to "Nine Patriotic" and Nausea's "Extinction" back to back, because it shows these bands weren't;t in a vacuum and were all influencing each other.

yes indeed; love all that stuff and didn't mean to imply otherwise; that's what the early ABC scene seemed to be all about (only caught the tail end of it in real time). I love lesser-known today but still incredible stuff from that time period like Apostates, Urgent Fury, A.P.P.L.E. all of whom I think played shows with both bands (definitely Nausea).