DEATHWISH- Tailgate 7″EP (Armory Arms / Chris Lombardi Productions, USA, 1989)

Boston’s DEATHWISH recorded a demo tape in December of 1983 that stayed widely obscured even in the tape trader circuit until three of the songs saw the light of day in 1989 on this piece of vinyl – at the climax of the first post-Hardcore wave that swept all the gym clowns into the old structures.

This is state of the art in-your-face Hardcore. Recorded at Radiobeat Studios, the three songs rip and roar, much in the vein of “My America” era F.U.’s or a little tamed “Is this my World?” JERYY’S KIDS. One of the two guitarists was Jordan Wood, who in 1985 formed SLAPSHOT together with Choke (NEGATIVE FX, LAST RIGHTS) and who commited suicide a few years ago.

Of course, with a press run of a meager 300 copies, this became an instant collectors item (I think I got this from Seth Putnam who is a very generous bloke and occasionally sent me packages with newly released records he thought I might like). No wonder, Lost & Found Records pressed its own bootleg version of “Tailgate” in the mid 90s