Tuesday, February 3, 2009

C30, C60, C90, GO! - Antischism

Welcome to another edition of C30, C60, C90, GO!, SCnP's continuing series exploring the compact cassette tape, the world's third dyingest format (right behind the VHS tape and the typewritten letter). This week I'm serving up a rare cassette edition of the All Their Money Stinks of Death EP by legendary Columbia crust punk band Antischism, released all the way back in 1989.

Antischism
All Their Money Stinks of Death

(1989)

Side A
Foreign Policy
Scream
Violent World
Salvation or Annihilation
Flesh of Another
Evil God
Media
?!? [Purple Haze]
[hidden track]

Side B
(blank)

Now, to be honest, I don't listen to crust punk often enough to write about it competently, so I'll spare you my efforts to describe the music and focus instead on the facts. The most informative source I could find related to the band is a Geocities page that hasn't been updated in seven years. That's how deep we're digging here, folks.

All Their Money Stinks of Death was officially released as a 7-inch on Manifest Soundworks, Manifest Records' now-defunct label, but this appears to be an earlier cassette version. It contains two songs not found on the 7-inch, plus a pretty sweet slab of noise hidden after their cover of "Purple Haze". One of the extra songs, "Evil God", is on the Antischism complete discography CD on Prank Records, but I'm pretty sure the other two songs are exclusive to this post. You heard it here first, folks!

The packaging here is classic DIY: xeroxed j-card folded from a single sheet with a separate little lyric sheet tucked inside next to the tape itself, which is a store-bought solid black TDK 60-minute cassette with the entire EP, just a shade over 20 minutes of music, dubbed onto one side. Side B is blank. (Hey, it is a demo!) Weird thing, though: the tape is labeled on the blank side, but not on the side that actually contains the music! (To be fair, the sticker does have a big capital "B" on it, which could be intentional.)

If you're interested in hearing this EP in its vinyl incarnation, also long out of print, I found a copy posted on this blog, along with a lot of other rare 90s punk and metal 7-inches.

That's all for this edition of C30, C60, C90, GO! Keep your eyes peeled for the next one, where you'll learn what Bert and Ernie have in common with Everything But the Girl!

7 comments:

  1. All of this information blew my mind.

    ReplyDelete
  2. History Lesson:
    Kevin Byrd and Matt Thompson of Antischism went on to play in Guyana Punch Line, another Columbia band that put out a few albums and went on a few national tours. They were also signed to Prank Records. Those two, and the GPL drummer, Troy Thames, got together with Adam, a guy from the band Pink Flamingoes, and with Hank, from our very own Felix Street, to form Thank God, who still exist and tour and put on shows on Troy's record label, Tick Tock Records, which also has put out stuff by A Decent Animal, Charlie McAlister, Deepslauter, Motormouth Mabel, Genrevolta, Steve Hit Mike.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Way to go, Ben! I wanted to get into Antischism's genealogy, but I got too caught up in researching the Manifest Soundworks label. I'm thinking I might be able to get a good post out of it. Until today I had no idea Manifest ever ran a label.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Tay,

    This is an awesome series you are doing! Great information...and on a side note...Ben, I can't believe that band Steve Hit Mike is still around...or released music for that matter, I remember when those kids were in high school and used to hang around 52.5.

    ReplyDelete
  5. was this really a thrift store find?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Yep, found in a junk shop in Camden, SC.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Wow! that is intense.

    ReplyDelete