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(24) cuts of harD.C.ore ... collects: Double-O "Putting DC On The Map" Demo 1982 and Red C - "Pressure's On" Demo 1981. Limited to 200 copies.
Our take: Unofficial release collecting these two DC bands’ demo tape releases. While Double O and Red C share vaguely similar names and both very much fly under the typical harDCore radar, they’re very different bands. Red C are kind of a quintessential teenage punk band… they can barely play and their songs are very simple and straightforward, but they’re nevertheless really fun. Concurrently with spinning this 12” a few times over the past week or so I’ve also been reading the anthology of XXX zine and it’s amazing to me how young some of the people who participated in the initial explosion of hardcore were. I mean, I’m still playing and listening to this music and I’m 38 years old, but a lot of these kids were 16-18 years old (sometimes even younger!) and while that can show in the lack of sharpness in their playing (as it does on the Red C demo), it also means that they’re able to get across a sense of naive enthusiasm that older, more polished bands simply can’t capture. However, while Red C’s demo is a really interesting document of that whole teenage hardcore band phenomenon, I’d argue that Double O are a legitimately powerful and crucially underrated band, and that’s definitely apparent on their tracks here. While this recording is looser and rawer than their EP (which I really can’t recommend highly enough), what you hear here is already confident and powerful, easily able to stand toe to toe with any of the best early Dischord bands (excepting, possibly, Minor Threat). While the packaging here certainly leaves something to be desired, the sound quality is on point and given the fact that this LP is the only currently-in-print Double O material I’d argue that it’s worthy of your attention.