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Hello and thanks for reading. I missed last week cos I was out sick. My good friend Ante sent me this picture a little while back. (Hi Ante!) He’s in the middle and they were on the way to see MDC sometime in the late 80s. The guy on the left is Frank who was the drummer of RÖVSVETT and 16 BLÅSARE UTAN HJÄRNA. On the left is Fredde, who played guitar in REA RESPIRATOR, 16 BUH, and PALIMPSEST. I am not that familiar with REA RESPIRATOR, but they’ve got a tape from 1986 alongside a handful of comp appearances that I recognized them from. 16 BUH is fairly obscure compared to other Swedish bands. I think I first heard them on Delirium Tremens Nr:6, of course their long, hard to pronounce name makes them unforgettable haha. If you don’t know them, check em out. Don’t be fooled by the more poppy tracks that begin each demo, this shit rips.
Anyways, whenever there is an 80s reissue, especially from a Swedish band, I am going to check it out. Sometime recently we got these PALIMPSEST reissues from Aftermath Tapes. The original was released in 1987 and I knew nothing about the band until this reissue. I didn’t even know Ante was their drummer until he showed me the tape, so sick! PALIMPSEST has a heavy influence from DRI, with their ultra-fast tempos and especially with the nod to them on the intro. I’d say it’s safe to assume RÖVSVETT was also a big influence. They have similar styles with the riffs and speed, and they were actually from the same place as PALIMPSEST. Some of those guys went on to form 16 BUH after. Besides the ultra-fast, they have a good amount of mid-tempo parts. They actually get a little post-punky with it at times. The guitar tone changes significantly on leads, and it reminds me a lot of Norway’s BETONG HYSTERIA. They might also be another good comparison in how they were a hardcore band, but not so straight-forward by incorporating bits other hardcore bands would not typically do. If you haven’t checked this one out yet, I suggest you do! I should have prepared more and maybe asked Ante a few questions, but unfortunately I did not. He’s always got such cool and interesting trivia when it comes to Swedish hardcore, like knowing who coined the term “kängpunk" hehe.
So last week I traveled north with Daniel to Richmond to catch the ANTI-CIMEX documentary Jawbreaker, followed by the PUBLIC ACID / INVERTEBRATES homecoming gig with K.O.S. Not that anyone is asking, but I have a few things to say about the documentary. I imagine some readers have seen it while the majority have not? It was a great watch overall, but naturally there will be criticisms with anything one anticipates this much. I was impressed by them having the members of all eras of ANTI-CIMEX in there. You could easily see the documentary took place over a long period of time, with people having significantly different haircuts at different points in the film. I’m pretty sure this thing almost fell apart multiple times over the years, cos of posts Charlie would make online. They included some segments from Andra Takter and it was nice to have English subtitles over that. I wish I could see that entire thing in English. I’m gunna try and figure that out by next week, so stay tuned haha. It’s been a super long time since I watched that documentary, and I didn’t have time to watch it again before writing this. In Jawbreaker, you hear Charlie talking about the recording session for Anarkist Attack. They are comparing demo recordings of those songs to the actual 7” and pointing out how much more aggressive and fast the demos were. There was no story behind it like I had hoped for. It was actually kinda funny cos they had a handful of what appeared to be hyper rare cassettes on the table, but instead of jamming those they seem to be listening to the music digitally on a laptop, haha. I can’t find this or remember where I saw it originally; I thought it was a comment on the Andra Takter documentary, but I don’t see it there. I don’t think they even talk about that 7” in the documentary… I could be completely confusing bands or something, but I swear I remember reading a Swede translate something like ten years ago saying that the studio engineers during Anarkist Attack demanded the band “calm down” or they would not record them. To me, that accounted for the slower tempos and unenthusiastic vocals. I need to look more into that though.
Speaking of vocals, it was super cool to have Nillen in the documentary and hear his account of the band dynamic during his time. It was also really cool to have Jean-Louis in there and get some more backstory on why they began to incorporate a percussionist in the band. Cliff was hilarious…haha. I didn’t really know what to expect, but fuckin hell despite all the negative things I have read, he was so funny. Naturally, having a legend like Tomas Jonsson in there was a big deal. Last time I read anything with his words was quite a while back and I was surprised when it was released. I also had no idea he has a band again, and we see some of that in the documentary. Jawbreakeralso included parts from this 90s WOLFPACK video. If you haven’t seen this, I’d watch it. I’m not even a WOLFPACK fan, but the bits between the songs make it all worth it, haha. I wish I could have gone to the New York screening of the documentary, where they had Charlie doing a Q&A. I had A LOT of questions, haha, especially what did he mean when they were counting to threes cos of DISCHARGE? Like playing riffs three times surely, and not the way he’d count within the measure, right? Haha, anyways that’s it for today. Cheers and thanks for your support.