the Nerve Agents - Pictures: Showcase Theatre 1999

I was lucky, ridiculously lucky enough, to see the Nerve Agents on many occasions from just about the beginning of the band (I remember them being the opening band on the Rev tour stop at Showcase Corona- you know, when there was a Showcase San Diego) and on through the full arc of the band. And while I certainly some them far less during the Butterfly Collection time period, they were always an insanely fun and good band. Somewhere I have negatives for these and more pictures, but I sent a ton of them off to the band before Days of the White Owl came out. And while my pictures didnt get used, I did get a thanks in the album which is still one of the "cooler" things to happen. Great band, especially that first ep and the split with Kill Your Idols.... that David Bowie cover is outstanding....

Circle Storm - Character Assassin EP

Alright, one baby registry down today; now some time for some love for the blog.... Circle Storm were (to my knowledge) a very short lived band from Southern California, playing a very few shows before disappearing.

Circle Storm played punky/melodic influenced hardcore lead by the distinct vocals of Curt Canales (Chain of Strength) with lyrics that run a pretty traditional scope of hardcore lyrics (change, betrayal, misunderstanding, shit talking). The music has a bit of a stop and start to it, with little punches that make it stand out as something more than just an 'ex-members of' band (Chain guitarist Ryan Hoffman also plays in CS).

This EP, released on Ambassador Records/Revelation Distribution also features a previous 2-song 7inch hidden on the last track. I remember hearing a long time ago that the 7inch songs were actually Chain songs that were recorded by Chain, but didn't fit in with their sound. Given that tracks 3 & 4 on this EP were written by Chain and are different enough that you could see why Chain might have not used them, the 7inch may very well have been Chain; however, I do not own the 7inch, so it may all just be a memory (but sound quality/drum sounds/back-ups sound a lot like the chain records).

Lastly, I was fortunate enough to see them one of the few shows they played (and I believe their last show) in '97 with Strife. Their set was recorded and posted to youtube; which you can find in an earlier blog post about the show HERE .

Around the time of this show I had gone to pick up my youngest sisters from elementary school and was wearing one of those Rev Chain reprint shirts from the time "The One Thing..." lp was put out and was stopped by a woman who asked me where I had gotten the shirt. She went on to explain that she was the sister-in-law to Chain bassist, Alex. Even living in the IE, that was a pretty unexpected experience.

DOWNLOAD: Circle Storm "Character Assassin" EP

Inside Out - Live at the Anthrax June 15th, 1990

A real gem for this post, a live Inside Out set. Inside Out, for any of you who might be here and somehow not know who they were; were a hardcore band that existed all too shortly at the end of the 80's/early 90's. They pulled on the musical experience that each of them had from playing in notable 80's HC bands (Beyond, Hardstance, No For An Answer, Justice League, & Chain of Strength to name a few) and fused it into this extremely influential band.

With an all too brief studio output of the "No Spiritual Surrender" EP on Revelation Records and numerous accounts of lots of fully formed songs for their never-recorded full length lp, "Rage Against the Machine", this live set helps to show what was coming for the band before it splintered.

I don't remember where I came across this live set, whether it was another blog or by way of guitarist Vic Dicara. The assorted live songs in the secondary download here most definitely came from Vic, as he had shared them when I had been fortunate enough to go into his Static Void Studios with some friends who were recording with him. Something that always seemed to kind of sum up Inside Out's sound was something Vic once said when we had finally decided to start asking him questions in the studio; he said that essentially the Inside Out sound comes down to the rest of the band going for a Minor Threat sound while Vic was going more for a Slayer sound. Of course it was over simplification, but the general point rings true.

The Anthrax set with 5 unrecorded tracks as well as the entire EP (after uploading this, I discovered that End of Time is Undertone. I don't know who tagged this, but that's how it is. Burning Fight is also split into 2 tracks and inc. a fast 25-30 seconds that were either another song or a part of the song that never got recorded).
The assorted tracks are from various live sources completely unknown to me as Vic just gave the files to friends as is. For me, its a real treat for the early version of the Rage Against the Machine track "Darkness", as well as the song Rage Against the Machine.

Even with knowing how different Inside Out was, the live set offers some real surprises and some real wishes that they had recorded these tracks properly in a studio. Turning Face (also called Turn to Run in other versions) is probably my favorite, though there isn't a bad track.

DOWNLOAD: Inside Out - Live at the Anthrax 1990
DOWNLOAD: Inside Out - assorted Live tracks

*Both photographs pulled from the web, the first one I have no idea who it belongs to, the second one is credited to the great Ken Salerno.