aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser
‘GIGS FROM YESTERYEAR, WHEN I WAS YOUNG + PRETTY AS A PICTURE’
# 09 Napalm Death, Rockfabrik Übach-Palenberg (December 1989)
Napalm Death’s Shane (left) and Barney (right)
Morbid Angel
Dear friends,
well, I know there won’t be all too many of you who don’t skip this essay within a split second – so I probably should not put too much effort in it. But always remember: this is a lottery, so a) blame it all on Little Loser and b) I assume all of us have seen some rather strange bands in their younger days!
This sounds as if I were excusing for having attended this gig, which, to be sure, I am not! Back then Nottingham’s Earache Records was the label of choice – that’s if you had an appetite for the bizarre, of course, which I certainly had. And still have.
I never cared for metal in any form whatsoever, it was all boring nonsense to me. But when Earache released the ‘Grindcrusher’ sampler in 1989, things changed: this wasn’t the pompous stuff I knew from my teenage days, no, this was completely new and different. All in all there were no fillers on this sampler, every band was great. But still I think it’s fair to say that Napalm Death stood out a bit – this may have something to do with the fact that they weren’t a new band at all: they already formed in 1981! None of the original members were still onboard eight years later, but the current line-up surely gained experience within all of their personnel changes. Initial copies of ‘Grindcrusher’ had a 7” added, which was mentioned in the Guinness Book as the world’s shortest single:
If only I still had my copy with this 7”, would be worth a pretty penny these days, I assume …
But let’s start with the debut album, ‘Scum’, from 1987. It was groundbreaking for the grindcore genre, there is no other way of putting this. Yes, it’s not exactly something to test an audiophile set of headphones with, but that has clearly not been Napalm Death’s intention:
Napalm Death – ‘Human Garbage’
After that, one year later, ‘From Enslavement To Obliteration’ came out. Highly praised everywhere – and rightly so – because it was the first album to mix deep guttural growl vocals and high screeches with blast beats. A new definition of speed perhaps? Well, certainly for drumming:
Napalm Death – ‘Uncertainty Blurs The Vision’
Another year, another line up: we are in late 1989 now, Napalm Death return from Japan and start the Earache tour along with labelmates Carcass and Morbid Angel from Florida. The band now consists of Mick Harris (drums), Embury Shane (bass), Jesse Pintado (guitar), Mitch Harris (guitar) and Barney Greenway (vocals).
Now, I had seen pictures of the band before, of course, and naturally I had always thought the singer must be the huge, dangerous chap – one of the kind who you’d rather not bump into by mistake in some dark lonesome alley. So imagine my surprise when Napalm Death entered the stage and not Embury Shane started singing, but Barney Greenway … Barney being rather a tiny bloke, certainly you wouldn’t have expected him to come up with such a voice … but there you are!
Shortly before the tour Napalm Death recorded the ‘Mentally Murdered’ – EP, which is good throughout, so let’s have something from it as well, shall we?
You can tell the old Napalam Death would have finished their third or fourth number by the time this was over, and the songs got even longer with every album – and there were numerous of those altogether. Plus, as far as I know, they’re still doing gigs!
And speaking of missing links, here’s the support band, Morbid Angel from Florida – awesome as well, to be sure! This is from their debut album from 1989:
Morbid Angel – ‘Immortal Rites’
Right, that’s it – your excursion into grindcore, I bet you have waited very long for this chance to take! Here’s a bonus tune, one you’ll already know for a change:
Napalm Death – ‘Nazi Punks Fuck Off’
Enjoy,
Dirk
JC ADDS……….
You Suffer is all of two seconds in length. I was once at a gig/Xmas festive event when Aidan Moffat was in charge of a game of musical chairs….things were going quite smoothly until he aired You Suffer at which point it became total pandemonium……..
Happy days!
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 