better youth organization records Archives - Vinyl From The Vault https://vinylfromthevault.com/tag/better-youth-organization-records/ Tue, 19 Apr 2022 18:12:40 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0 198238920 The Brigade “The Dividing Line” https://vinylfromthevault.com/the-brigade-the-dividing-line-1986-better-youth/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-brigade-the-dividing-line-1986-better-youth Wed, 06 Oct 2021 17:54:48 +0000 http://box2101.temp.domains/~vinylfro/the-brigade-the-dividing-line-1986-better-youth/ The Brigade “The Dividing Line” 1986. Better Youth Organization/BYO Records. Just a bit over a week ago I finally got to see Youth Brigade perform at the Punk Rock Bowling music fest in Las Vegas; The Brigade was the sort-of side project of brothers Shawn (vocals, guitars) and Mark Stern (drums) while their other, younger brother [...]

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]]> The Brigade “The Dividing Line” 1986. Better Youth Organization/BYO Records. Just a bit over a week ago I finally got to see Youth Brigade perform at the Punk Rock Bowling music fest in Las Vegas; The Brigade was the sort-of side project of brothers Shawn (vocals, guitars) and Mark Stern (drums) while their other, younger brother Adam Stern went to art school. At the Vegas show Shawn and Adam were on stage but Mark was not: Shawn explained that he was having a baby (I assume that his partner was having the baby but whatever). No matter – I had waited over 35 years to see one of my favorite punk bands from the 80′s: their album Sound and Fury was always on heavy rotation back in the day. My friends gave me this copy of The Dividing Line for my birthday in the summer of ‘86. At the time I was underwhelmed as it lacked the hard punch of Sound and Fury; it has a massive mid-80′s new wave BIG production sound – “I Scream,” “The Dividing Line” and the anthemic “The Last Frontier” could have been on INXS’ Listen Like Thieves or U2′s The Unforgettable Fire). The track “It’s a Wonderful Life” includes violin and acoustic guitar and “The Dividing Line” has some world-music flavor and horns (clearly the Stern brothers had a strong interest in exploring these generally non-punk sounds further as Mark, Adam and yet another Stern brother, Jamie, helped form the swing band Royal Crown Revue).  But I’ve softened over the years and actually like most of the record (I’m not sure the band does, however – Shawn briefly mentioned The Brigade iteration of the band at the show in not a particularly favorable light). However, I still don’t care for some of the silliness that first appeared on Sound and Fury’s song “Jump Back” and continued on The Dividing Line’s “The Story (Part 1)” (though I think that “The Story (Part 1)” was probably written pre-The Brigade as all four Stern brothers have writing credit for the track…it certainly sounds like they wrote it when they were very very young). And “The Hardest Part” is super-dated and cringe-worthy (I don’t recommend clicking the link to listen).

Here’s a photo from their September 25, 2021 concert in Las Vegas

 

 

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]]> 9018 7 Seconds “The Crew” https://vinylfromthevault.com/7-seconds-the-crew-19842021-byo-recordstrust/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=7-seconds-the-crew-19842021-byo-recordstrust Wed, 11 Aug 2021 23:04:16 +0000 http://box2101.temp.domains/~vinylfro/7-seconds-the-crew-19842021-byo-recordstrust/ 7 Seconds “The Crew” 1984/2021. BYO Records/Trust Records. Reissue, remastered from the original analog tapes. Gatefold with 20 page booklet that includes photos from the 80′s era, an oral history with the band and others in the scene (like Ian MacKaye, Keith Morris, Jello Biafra, even artist Shephard Fairey). We have an original of The Crew but [...]

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]]> 7 Seconds “The Crew” 1984/2021. BYO Records/Trust Records. Reissue, remastered from the original analog tapes. Gatefold with 20 page booklet that includes photos from the 80′s era, an oral history with the band and others in the scene (like Ian MacKaye, Keith Morris, Jello Biafra, even artist Shephard Fairey).

We have an original of The Crew but after hearing Scott Crawford’s “Spoke” podcast interview with Kevin Seconds a couple months back, I decided I needed this reissue in the collection (Trust Records had the band’s blessing).

7 Seconds was one of my favorite punk bands in the 80′s; I feel like I saw them every few months in the Fox Valley area: at the Ridgeway in Neenah (I got to sit on the side of the stage during that show) and ABC Boxing and Kutska’s Hall in Green Bay (we partied with the band at my friend’s house after one of the Kutska’s show). I still have some of the flyers for those shows in my collection that look pretty similar to the ones in the booklet.

The Crew was 7 Seconds’ first full-length release, put out after a slew of singles and a ton of touring. It’s an absolute hardcore punk classic, fast, hard but still melodic with whoa-whoa-whoa anthems like “Not Just Boys Fun” (always a favorite of us girls at the shows – 7 Seconds was a very female-friendly band for punk girls at concerts), “This is the Angry Pt. 2,” the title track “The Crew,” “Colorblind” and “Young Til I Die.” They had originally intended to put out their first record on Alternative Tentacles (Jello was a big fan of the band) to be titled United We Stand. Alternative Tentacles was going through some financial shit (read the booklet for the details) and Shawn Stern of BYO was pursuing 7 Seconds for a release so they ended up going that route, putting some of the tracks that they recorded for United We Stand onto The Crew.

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