Usually I introduce these posts by saying something about how it sucks that this band is awesome and they don’t get nearly enough love, but I’m happy to see that Kids These Days actually seem to be into DESPISE YOU. That’s probably because they’re more active now than they were in the 90s, but I figured like it would be worth a trip down memory lane and talk about why I consider them one of the absolute best hardcore bands of the past 20 years.
DY’s first appearance was on the legendary 1994 comp “Cry Now, Cry Later,” (see also this Metal Sucks post I did about it) which had well-known bands like Spazz, Meat Shits, Capitalist Casualties, and Eyehategod as well as the debut of the mysterious DESPISE YOU with their song ‘Aqui Solitio, Como Siempre.’ I say “mysterious” because nobody they just sort of appeared out of nowhere and nobody knew who they were, which was unusual given how tiny the ‘power violence’ scene was at the time. There were no pictures, just an Inglewood address and some Mexican names.
Note the 90s cholo graffiti-style logo; very advanced. Hardcore bands these days are still appropriating 80s cholo imagery, so it will probably be another 10 years before anybody catches up to what DxY did in 93.
Most of you posers only know the CD re-release of “Cry Now, Cry Later” 1 & 2, but the original double 7″ had some of my favorite packaging of all time which isn’t included in the CD. I still giggle at ‘FAT A-HOLE’ and ‘FAT BITCH.’
20 years later and I also vividly remember every detail of this insert from “CN, CL.” Are you more like Winner, or Loser?? Be honest!
I didn’t know it at the time, but all the Mexican names were made up, and DY was comprised of some guys from 16/CROM, Rob from what was IMO the single best LA thrash band EVILDEAD and death metal band RISE on drums, and the one and only Chris Elder on vocals (aka Alamoe Joe who also ran their label, PESSIMISER). I think “Leticia” was Phil from 16′s sister, and I believe the other guitarist was Jerry from EXCRUCIATING TERROR (might be wrong on that). I’m really not sure what the fake names were for, but I’m trying to get Chris on the podcast and maybe he will explain– my guess is some combination of them being paranoid, weird, and trolling. The fact that they never played a show and rarely did interviews compounded it. I wouldn’t say they were ‘trying to be mysterious’ or anything, they just kind of let their records speak for themselves, which I thought was a lot cooler than the then-popular phenomenon of bands who literally talked more than they played music.
Their 1994 7″ opens with one of the best, most pissed-off BLEH!s of all time, and is one of the few records I never stopped listening to since the day it came out.
I remember getting this flyer in high school: that awkward moment when you get super stoked on amazing lineup, then realize it’s a backyard show for ‘Yolanda’s birthday’ in a fairly terrifying part of South Central LA and get sketched out. Also, ‘no hippies.’
Some IMN’s super-embarrassing review of the DY/AnB split (or as he says it, ‘DISP EYE ZHOO’): “Their sound is SO WEST COAST! Like, hard core punk.”
As a hardcorefag, I feel like the difference between really good and truly great bands is the lyrics, and DxY’s lyrics are some of the best. I think their overall perspective could be summed as something like ‘being disgusted with people who dug themselves into a hole, and are too weak and dumb to get themselves out of it,’ which is actually a pretty positive message… in a negative, hateful sort of way. It was definitely a nice change of pace from most bands in the genre, who were more into the usual punk rock bullshit (being mad at authority figures, delivering the breaking news that racism is bad, etc).
Split with STAPLED SHUT- the transition at 4:18 from the sludgey part to the blasty part is one of DxY’s finest moments.
DxY’s side of their split with SUPPRESSION. The first song is a beautiful example one of my favorite things about DxY: gratuitous use of the china-cymbal-blast!
While time reveals that most bands I loved in the 90s were in fact not very good, DESPISE YOU’s material more than stands the test of time. I consider them not just one of the very best 90s hardcore bands (in the same company as bands like SPAZZ, EARTH CRISIS, and NO COMMENT), but among my favorite hardcore bands of all time (up there with TERROR and HATEBREED). I’m glad to see that the current generation of hardcore kids recognizes their awesomeness, that the band is still active, and will be stoked if the next big trend is DESPISE YOU clones! (srs)
Despise You are pretty much the only powerviolence band I regularly listen to, and to me, perfectly sum up the the “terrifying drug addict” pv sound (whether or not they were/are terrifying drug addicts, I don’t know, but I do know that they looked like the type of band I would not want to fuck with when I saw them about a year back). Generally, I don’t really like listening to music with really bleak subject matter (via having heard my fill and trying to stay positive), but for some reason, I find the brutal simplicity of titles like “No More Feelings” and “I End Me” really compelling (besides the fact that they are killer songs). Great band, deservedly jocked by The Youth Of Today.
Oh my god dude that fucking review.
“IMAGINE 80′s STYLE HARDCORE PUNK… BUT IN THIS CASE… THEY’RE A GRINDCORE BAND”
apt/10 description bro, it’s like I can already hear what they sound like in my head.
I genuinely think he might be mentally handicapped. I think he is the cousin of the screamo/nu metal feud Mexican.
Solid post! dxyx is also one of my favorite bands. “pcp scapegoat”and “i end me” get played on the regular. Its awesome that chris elder non-ironically wears dickies and knee highs in 2012.
I’d never heard this band before but the split with stapled shut fuckin rules. I’ve learned almost all of what I know about hardcore from here : / I love these kind of posts.
What is the difference between powerviolence and grindcore? I really like this because I love wormrot ect… but that’s grindcore, which some of this reminds me of…
Grindcore is more metal influenced, whereas powerviolence just takes the most pissed off parts of hardcore and makes a whole genre out of it.
This, pretty much. A friend of mine described pv as “Grindcore played by people who can’t play fast enough.”
In some cases, this is true as well.
pv has slow parts, for the ladies
‘power violence’ is a term made up by eric wood from MITB (as heard in the song “HSMP”). so basically, a band self-identifying as PV is kind of like a band non-ironically calling themselves entombedcore.
Who wants to start an unironic entombedcore band?
i wanna be in your banbd i will play “the drugs”
can we name our band FRED DURST??????
xFREDxDURSTx
Yes.
Wait, everyone was being ironic about the entombedcore thing? I was kinda enjoying it….
Well, I mean that I made up the genre name as a joke, so it would be pretty ridiculous to hear a band self-identify as entombedcore. ‘Power violence’ wasn’t a joke term, but it was just something eric wood yelled out before a song (in typical insane EW fashion) to reference four of his friends’ bands, so it’s kind of funny to hear people use it to describe their band in 2012…
I used to fuck around with a heavy metal pedal in some stupid band I played with years back and joke about being ‘Entombedcore’, but all the hardcore bros hated it. If only we’d stuck with it – we could be touring z-level toilet venues for £20 and some congealed pizza on the reg!
It’s effective shorthand for “produced by Kurt Ballou”
this
It’s actually a perfect descriptor of their sound…
Old grindcore is pretty indistinguishable from PV. Napalm Death and Anal Cunt are fairly PV-esque. It’s the modern grind with more downtuning and death growls which is really different.
do u think you are gonna make fun of this stuff when you’re 40?
“WHEN”
ha ha ha ha
My favorite tracks from the Cry Now & Later are still the 16, Cattlepress, EHG, Crisis (remember Skullsick Nation? What was Karyn thinking?), Fear Factory, Lack of Interest, Brujeria and probably some I forgot.
I think what I liked most about those comps is that they weren’t exclusive to a particular scene (hardcore vs metal, LA vs NY or any of the clique-y bullshit insecure people affiliate with) and at the same time it didn’t look like some phony contrived mixed bill clusterfuck. It was just bands who played different styles but what tied them all together outside of some diy ethic was a legitimately dirty, dangerous edge. Except for Fishsticks.
Was Fear Factory well known by the time the first Cry Now Cry Later came out? I’m curious about that, and why the used a fake name for it.
Yes, they were pretty big when it came out, and I assume they had to use a fake name since they were under contract with Roadrunner and weren’t allowed to release shit on other labels. (trivia: as you may know Raymond from FF was the original drummer for Phobia, so they had some ‘tr00 grind’ cred)
This is srs some of the most pissed off music I’ve ever heard. I can feel the hatred these people have for themselves and everything around them (but mostly for themselves) just oozing out of my speakers.
yes welcome to los angeles =]
i am brown and mad …
Great post Sarge. I like this band a lot!
Found out about these guys from the ANb split they did last year, and now I like DxY more than ANb (srs)
I have a gajillion OTHER ANb splits (Endless Blockade/Crom/Apt. 213 and some others I’ve forgotten) but I never got around to buying that one. Maybe I should!
Do it! ANb’s side is great, but DxY just take the cake for me.
Here’s hoping it’s still in print then.
Came out last year, so you’re in luck!
Yup! I just seemed to remember the vinyl being pretty limited. No matter doe, ordered it from my local record store two days ago, so should show up in a little while.
Its on Relapse, seems like it should be easy to get
Now that their whole catalogue is on Bandcamp there’s no excuse…
DEEZ NU KIDS 2DAY are definitely jocking DxY HARD.
Similar scene to ENTOMBEDCORE, at least in my country.
It’s pretty much the same scene, from what I’ve seen. The same kids are into both, and I can see why, they’re really similar (except for the lack of HM-2s).
Good job you can’t pirate painfully unobscure pedals from the internets.
Yet.
also
see
>Crossed Out
+3
Since i’m a total fag that was 2 in 1993 I only discovered DY on This Comp Kills Fascists (vol.2 iirc?). Dem + appartment 213 + lack of interest got me on a serious PV spree since then.
Those comps are so fucking badass BTW.
Shame to see a lack of self confidence in one so young.
Dude, download the Apt 213 “Vacancy” 7″, its by far the best stuff they ever did IMO:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUI7S3tXZ_g
This EP is pretty much the only “PV” album I listen to regularly. Its both crushingly heavy and ridiculously hilarious. Every time “Dont Tell the Children” comes on, I get this huge shit-eating grin. WHAT CANT I TELL THEM?!
thx for the tip!
also: everything in the vid screams SWYH. sarge you good at brand recognition
That’s right. Young people are GAY
31 Days of Rain is probably my fav DxY track. I don’t know what he screams at the beginning of the track, but it sounds like AYE FUCKIN MENNNNN! which i always thought was super heavy.
Great band. Sarge you are right, I only have the Cry Now Cry Later cd, those inserts look hilarious.
Despise You played NY last year, I didn’t know until the day of the show so I missed them unfortunately.
Watch out for the Despise You Loonies
I remember buying both Cry Now Later 2×7″ comps from Moby Disc and not knowing what the eff was going on but I couldn’t get enough. These consecutive songs: Excruciating Terror – Life Ends, Iabhorher – Hoofed Locusts, and Cattlepress – Celebration of Wounds remain the most brutal/crushing/depressing songs I have ever heard.
I really, really want to be super into this band but the chick vocals irritate me to the point of buttrage.
It sounds like someone’s little sister nagging her hardass older brother to make her some lemonade when he’s too busy disrespecting his surroundings.
yeah i kinda agree
Saw them on their East Coast tour with Magrudergrind last fall, it was so cool. Powerviolence isn’t really my thing, but Despise You rules
Drove 2 and a half hours to go to the Boston date of that tour, shit fucking ruled.
God that video review was painful to listen to..
“GRAAAAA-IIIIIND KAAAAWR”
“delivering the breaking news that racism is bad”
lol’d
This stuff is pretty awesome, goes without saying because I really dug the Cry Now Cry Later comp and listened to it straight for a few weeks. Although I gotta ask, what’s with the parts in DY songs that sound like a little girl shouting over the guitars? Growling and screaming make sense but the high pitched yammering comes off as a bit weird.
Those parts are a girl screaming over the guitars.
I haven’t really given them much of a listen, but I probably should. I really like Hatred Surge. Aren’t they a DY clone?
I could probably get over the bleak “I HATE THE EVERYTHINNNNG” lyrics if the music is tight (meaning sloppy and super fast).
The split with Stapled Shut goes hard.
yup good shit… saw em a couple years back at some random gig/show a homie invited me at sum venue or bar or some shit… but i was drunk as fuck and all i remember was some guy screaming all pissed off with blaring guitars…. it was beautiful… they do have the ability… =]
i should make my debut post pretty soon… don’t know if it should be on ethnic bish comparisons or another music review/bands you may have missed on ala sgt. D jocking n shit….
but yea DxY and Lack of Interest fuckin’ rulez….
What about Chris Elder’s “Ten Zine Don’ts” list? I only ever saw it reprinted in Monkeybite, but that shit is great.
If ‘Selling your folks’ valuable possessions & property to buy shitty dope and hating yourself for it later’ was a movie,these guys should write the ost.
Like most people, I don’t actually laugh when I type “lol” but this time is an exception. Srsly cackled out loud at the “only minutes from beautiful hawthorne” tag. Hawthorne is to Inglewood what Beverly Hills is to West Hollywood: right next door, and really only slightly less scary.
Hawthorne, California: home of leading independent music retailer CENTURY MEDIA!
Brb buying a warehouse in El Segundo (the shitty industrial part between old town and the tech highrises) to import shitty CDs from Yurp to resell to retarded IMNs at ridiculous prices.
I love that fucking black and white cut and paste style vinyl sleave. I love when these bands do/say random socially retarded shit. I fucking LOVE this genre.
great! now scene fraggles are gonna get into despise you
> implying they aren’t already
> implying ‘power violence’ dorks are any less derpy
I still have this comp somewhere, as well as a collection of DU tunes up to around 2005. I forget the name of the song, but my favorite of their is the one where the singer yells “I FUCKIN’ QUIT” at the end. Great shit. Great band.