I Can't Eat This

Archive for the ‘Hardcore’ Category

This is NOT the crappy independent band with the same name. Shame on you, you filthy &%$”%&//(!!

I remember me and some friends of mine watching a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a Flipside Video Fanzine (…a fanzine for people who don’t even know how to read…..nana..na.nanaaaa….Flipside….). There were quite a lot bands on that, CRUMBSUCKERS, BIG BOYS, SUICIDAL TENDENCIES (the whole stage full of people), AGENT ORANGE (playing guitar while riding a skateboard, no joke!), M.I.A., U.K.SUBS and THE EXPLOITED filmed and interviewed on their 1984 (?) U.S. Tour, whoaahahaha, with Charlie Harper protecting Wattie from the interviewer asking: “Wattie, why are you so bad?” That was worth a laugh! OK, so many cool and uncool bands, but one band blew all our minds!

THE ICONOCLAST

Three young kids rocking out a real blast! That was not the typical US Hardcore style. They played it more british (you know DISCHARGE, don’t you?), but far away from being a clone. We all found that this was a real great band. “Let’s get all their records!” Blablabla. Can you imagine, how horrible it was, that absolutely no-one around us, had anything of The Iconoclast, not to mention nobody even knew them? Unbelievable!

Two years later a small orderlist from an even smaller record-distributor fell into my hands. Mhm….nothing special…..boring……yawn…..THE ICONOCLAST….7″ E.P……whaaaaaaa??? Where did he get that from? Doesn’t matter, we ordered five, got three.
You could listen to one, if you would download its tracks right here:

In These Times
Prisoners of Existence
Battlefields / Things of Beauty

The records arrived some days later. We were nervous. Layed the platter on the turntable. Turning up the volume. Expecting our ears to fell off by that blasting wall of sound soon to come…..and then? Sizzling winds, acoustic guitars (not in fact acoustic, but an undistorted electric one, but what did I know back then?)…..fuck it, man! That’s not THE ICONOCLAST we knew from the video! Turn that thing around. Side 2. Midtempo something we didn’t wanna hear, track 2, ahhh, that’s it. Two songs blending into another with quite exactly the sound we wanted to hear. GREAT!

But read this carefully: The other two songs evolved to the two of the most beautiest ones I knew at that time (long, long ago). And that’s what they still are. They are full of true emotions, felt at the moment these tracks were recorded.

On top of that, The Iconoclast had a political / social aspect I never recognized in that form by any other band from the US before. And they were vegetarians, too.

They were not only in it for the music!