*new info* Thrash Metal Day! Unknown Demos By... Forte / Dark Alliance / Bastard Sons

***the recording for Forte is not correct at the moment, I am working on redoing it. More info below.***

Three unknown thrash metal demos for offer here. Before I start the post, let me riff for a moment. You know I like to keep my genres extremely varied, and sometimes I think I should do separate blogs for all the different types of posts I tend to do, or maybe a cassette demo site and then a vinyl site, but really, since the very beginning, the purpose of the site was to post music that I found digging through the worlds various junk bins that is either unknown or unavailable, and that has some merit worth posting, whether it be just excellent and unheard music, or something relevant or interesting to the digging world or digging in general, or even if its just something worth lots of dough to collectors. As I sift through more and more stuff, I've broadened my post inclusions to more formats and more genres, but I still rarely post more than 5 or 8 items a month, so I think I'll keep on going with the current format for the time being, until perhaps I just have too many one offs and weirdos to crowd out the big hitters. But, I've come to find that there's always at least a few people who end up appreciating such stepchild obscurities and oddities. So if you're a frequent visiter to my blog here, thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the content. And if theres a string of posts you just aren't that into, don't think I've completely lost it, your forte is probably coming down the pike very soon. Trust me, I know whats mega, and what the majority seeks, and indeed I have some to unleash yet, but hey, my thrash demos need love too...

Here we have three lovely thrash demos, all pretty much utterly unknown, the first by Forte from 1992 out of Dallas TX. The second by Dark Alliance from 1991 out of Duncanville TX, and the last by Bastard Sons from 2004 out of San Marcos TX, I have no images for this release at the moment. I'm no expert, but for being unknown, I think these are pretty darn good, er, i mean rad. Listen to the Dark Alliance tracks and see if you have any interest, I think the Forte album is probably the best thing here, and it's also the only full length.

Forte - S/T (1992 Demo LP cassette) -- (A and B sides in an uncut mp3) ***new info: this track is not properly recorded, my apology, it is at the wrong speed, and I need to cut it into tracks, I will do that and repost it.

Bastard Sons - S/T (2004 Demo EP cdr) -- in a .rar

Dark Alliance - S/T (1991 Demo EP cassette) -- download tracks individually...
Murder Earth:

Political Idiocy

Gerry Van King - The King's Crowd Pleasers EP (demo cassette)

Say hello to Gerry Van King. Street Funk musician extraordinaire, aka The King of Sixth Street. Gerry ruled the beer district of Austin TX with his unique lo-fi Prince-on-nitrous-style funky love musings throughout the late 80s and 90s. His tapes are surprisingly hard to find for living in Austin, I wish I could find an entire album from this era, if there is one, but this 4 track EP will have to do for now. His melodies and rhythms are kinda hypnotic in a weird way. And yes, he's kinda off-key, and kinda off rhythm, but its all GERRY VAN KING. Boo ya.

Gerry Van King - The Crowd Pleasers EP - (Private demo 1990)

Ultra Tape Find: The Whip Pets - S/T (6 track Demo)

My first true unknown minimal synth tape! This is one of Austin's few attempts at the minimal synth genre, an underground scene in Europe and the U.K. mainly, but also some in areas of California, usually more dance-oriented, and then some in Manhattan, which were usually more experimental. I must say, the french/german/italian/netherlands coldwave stuff is my favorite type because of how dark and intense it is, with especially good synth work, actually the UK is just as good really when you consider they put out gems by the likes of Solid Space and Those Attractive Magnets. Hell, Canada had it's fair share of minimal/synthpop acts too, like the unbelievably good Broken Tables 12" - Images of You. Anyway, back to Austin. I had found a couple other synthy-new wave tapes from Austin and some 7"s that have a kinda synthpunk feel, kinda like the Cardboards (if you don't have the cardboards EP, 'greatest hits vol 2' get it,) but nothing that ever approached a truly minimal synth pedigree. I'm sure there are others from Austin, and I hope I continue finding them, but this ungoogle-able gem from 1989 is one of the most exciting things I've found on tape by far. No, it doesn't reach the glorious heights of Nine Circles (again, if you dont have it, get it.) But, it's gloriously lo-fi, it's unknown, and it's from Austin, and they do have a kraftwerk inspired track called Metropolis Man... beep bloop brrp.

So here's the deal. I am still doing some behind the scenes work with this, so for a short while I can only put up some samples, but very very soon I will have the entire tape up. Besides, if you don't like it, at least this way you didn't waste time downloading the entire .rar, and if you do like it, just check back in a while and it will be here. There are 6 tracks on this release, here's 4 clips.

The Whip Pets - Metropolis Man


The Right


The Dance


Fact and Fantasy

MC Gee Wiz Gotz Da Phunk, Sounds From The Underground, and some Waldo Tapes....

My Tapes haul from San Antonio last month, yarrrr! I put a marilyn manson tape in there somewhere, see if you can find it, like wheres waldo...




Anyway, back to business. This cd was a really interesting scam in the early 90s, theres a surprising amount of info on the net about it, mostly old ass message boards, so this guy basically tracked down unsigned artists and sent them a letter saying he thought they were awesome and that he was connected in the music industry, and that for 600 bucks or so you could send in a track you made a picture and a small writeup about your band/artist and he would include it in a "sounds from the underground" compilation. He would then press 50 cds of the comp for each artist, send you 40 copies of the cd to do as you pleased, and he would take the remaining 10 and send each one to a "prominent" major label dude, and soon you'd be on your way. In theory. From what I've heard, he basically threw the rest in trash, or never even pressed the other 10, and theres like 25 artists on each cd, so your one track is buried beneath a mountain of other crappy amateur artists. Sadly, I'm sure there were a few legit guys on the comps with talent, I think he made them from 1991 to 1996, but they would inevitably be lost in the other garbage. As far as I know, theres only a couple bands, of about 400 artists that payed for the service, that really made it on some level after this. one is a power metal band called Catch-22. That's the only one I'm sure of. But this brings us to our featured track from this compilation...



MC Gee Wiz - I Gotz Da Phunk(1996) , I think if Mr. Wiz had released his own demo EP instead of being the last track on a compilation of terrible rock bands from California, he might have had a better chance at success. But for all I know he's still rocking the mic today. If you're out there MC Gee Wiz, throw me a bone and sell me your demo tapes from back then, I know you gotta have some tapes somewhere. I'll put em up. Word.


M.C. Gee Wiz - I Gotz Da Phunk (1996)

No Sisters - EP (Demo Cassette 1987) New wave / synth funk

Not sure what the groups name implies really but it is basically an unknown demo tape from a group called No Sisters, from Austin, Texas. Not sure if they have any other releases, not sure of anything about them actually. I do know they have that same kind of sound as Extreme Heat, I also think it is cool that more people are getting interested in Felt Nun, though sadly this happens a while after I sell the tape, but anyway, I will repost that tape up soon for you guys. Anyway, like I was saying, this band reminds me a lot of Extreme Heat, and they both happen to be from Austin, it seems like there was some kind of small new-wave-synth-funk scene going on in central Texas in the late 80s. Isn't bad motha goose from Austin too? And of course there are bands like the Pool, which have that kind of sound, I can't think of any others at the moment, but you get the picture. Not for the feint of heart or the overly serious listener, or those afraid of indulging in a bit of campiness now and then. Long live the glittery pirate shirt and hair-sprayed man mullet with faux British accents. I think in the UK this kind of movement was akin to the New Romantic genre and the pop funk revival, epitomized in bands like ABC. I really love ABC. But whereas over there the basis was more dance-pop oriented, the traditional rock and blues structures were still employed in the Texas scene, and for that reason ABC beats the shit out of No Sisters, but, that's not to diminish the awesomeness of this tape find and it's utter obscurity. raer!

No Sisters - 4 Track Demo EP (1987 Austin, TX)

Conrad Schnitzler - Contra-Terrene (1987) Cassette

Not much introduction needed for this awesome find. This is a late era Conrad Schnitzler (of Cluster fame) full length cassette only release. It's not the most beautiful music he made, but its very interesting experimental stuff and most certainly needs to be heard for anyone into the history of krautrock, prog rock, new york avant garde, or early electronic fans. It's quite rare but I couldn't believe this wasn't readily available on the net being Schnitzler, but here it is now. More awesome tape releases to come, look out.

Okay, I know the Conrad tape can be kinda daunting, especially since there are no tracks, just continuous sides of experimental noise blurbs, so I have pulled out selections from my 3 favorite blurbs for you to hear:

Contra-Terrene. 1987. New York Private Pressed Cassette.

Yet another Paler Shade of White find... Ultra obscure DIY Disco track by the infamous DONDINO! (Dondino - S/T Cassette 1980)

Ohhhh yeah. Dondino goes balls out in popped collar and sequined jacket style, full force pompadour action and analogue keyboards in the coke fueled late 70s Vegas-Disco casinos with this gloriously lo-fi synth-disco version of "You'll Never Find." Reminds me a lot of the other Paler Shade of White compilation tracks that I posted up a while back. Okay, maybe a little more cheese and somewhat less 'actual' dancefloor potential, but damn it, the man can bring down the house, and with a cheap casio keyboard and budget-inn backup band no less. I love this stuff. More to come later. I'm going cassette crazy. DIY forever!


You'll Never Find:

Marj Snyder - My Lifetime Now LP (Discovery Records) 1972

Quite Rare and quite excellent 1970's Christian femme-folk with mostly all the tracks written by Marj. She has a nice voice and she uses a lot of layering effects that remind me a little bit of Linda Perhacs, not near as psychedlic or experimental though. Marj doesn't seem like she would have such a cool Christian folk album based on the cover, but covers can be very misleading, as we all know. Consider the massively rare femme-folk LP by Robin, for instance. A jewel if there ever was one, delicate, ethereal vocals about the universe and lost loves mixed with off key cavernous folk strumming. But enough about Robin, this post is for Marj! The two albums are pretty similar actually, Marj is a little bit less home made and less spooky-glimmering freak folk sounding, and this has a few more obligatory traditional gospel tracks, but overall this is a very satisfying listen, and deserves high praise amongst the christian folk collectors. Go Marj.

Marj Snyder - My Lifetime Now (1972)