Will anyone except Nate appreciate this one?
About this time of year back in 1993 I went to a small show in Southend on Sea. It was two local bands - Understand and Standoff. I'd seen Understand before, but not Standoff. Understand had a 7" out at this point on Armed With Anger Records, and had toured with Quicksand. Standoff had a song on a UK hardcore 7" compilation, but I hadn't seen them play out. Standoff featured a couple of the guys from Understand, as well as a couple of other ruffians, and played youth crew inspired straight edge hardcore. All I remember of the show was that their singer wore a red jacket throughout the set and seemed twice as big as anyone else in the room, and I was concerned that he might take out his apparent rage on random members of the audience. Oh yeah, I also recall some little kid with a shaved head moshed like a maniac and then did some breakdancing. Overall I was blown away by how hard and fast the band sounded, and like any good hardcore kid, I bought their 7". For those of you who haven't seen it before, this is what it looks like:
I've had this record on grünes vinyl (as the German label, Crucial Response Records calls it) for many years now. But as from today I can go one better, since I now own a test press of it too:
I wonder if any members of the band even own one?
Finally, seeing as most of you won't have heard this record, I thought I would upload it for your listening pleasure. I figure nobody will mind. Here you go:
Enjoy!
6 comments:
Very cool record. I love the little "straight edge clip" on the record...too funny. Another one of those Euro bands that I bought a record in the early 90's but never heard anything about.
good band...also been years since I heard them so thanks for the sound clip.
Ha, ha. Peter Hoeren (the guy behind Crucial Response Records) was this nerdy, somewhat awkward kid (well we were all kids) who would be at every HC show. At that time (the late 80s, early 90s) there wasn't much of a HC and even less so a straight edge scene in Germany. So when he started putting out records of totally unknown bands (case in point, I have never heard of this record here) I thought this would never work out (this is total hearsay, but I think he came from an affluent background and had some money to burn...). But now almost 20 years later Crucial Response Records are apparently still around and going strong. Good for him. As I said, he was a bit awkward, but certainly a good guy. And also clearly someone with a lot of love/enthusiasm for SxE in the hardcore diaspora.
I love almost everything Crucial Response put out, mostly because my taste in hardcore matches what Crucial Response puts out perfectly. I am also a proud owner of a Stand Off test press. Check some pictures of my full collection here: http://www.thecollectionspace.com/collections/search/tag/crucial%20response
I played bass in this band, it holds good memories for me - glad that there are still people out there that appreciate what we got up to in Stand Off!
Hey Hallam, nice to hear from you. Did you see the Above All test press too? Please get in touch, we have questions for you: info (at) endlessquestrecords.com
Cheers!
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