No Warning - Resurrection Of The Wolf

Year: 2014
Label: Bad Actors Inc.

Tracks:

1. Resurrection Of The Wolf

2. Bloodsucker

"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in."
 - Michael Corleone

In an effort to raise some dough for a former bandmate in need, No Warning got in the studio again for one last time to record this ripper of a single. Limited to 500 copies with no variants, and sold out the day it was released, first online and then at a pop up shop in Toronto. If you think these guys lost any of their power over the years, you thought wrong.

http://resurrectionofthewolf.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldabNfylo0M

No Warning - S/T

Year: 2001
Label: Martyr Records

Tracks:

1. A Day In The Life
2. Too Much To Blame
3. My World

4. Take It Or Leave It
5. Almost There
6. Wrong Again

The style of hardcore that people have come to associate with New York in the 90s has become decidedly ubiquitous in recent years. Even in a city like Toronto, which has been known for its unabashed worship of no bullshit 80s USHC since the early 2000s, hundreds of 905'ers with long sleeve tees, X's on hands, and serious mosh moves flock to bigger shows to get their hardcore for hardcore on.

Enter 1998 when this style of hardcore was practically unheard of, and a bunch of punk ass brats from the (b)east end of Toronto called No Warning began fucking shit up on a grandiose scale, starting fights, flirting with racist jokes, and turning the word "BUST" into a mosher's call to arms. Released in 2001, No Warning's first 7" (their only one until this year, actually) still holds up more than ever and is a powerful display of how this band ultimately created a paradigm shift in hardcore. 350 copies of this were pressed on black vinyl with blue labels, and 100 (or maybe 106?) were pressed on purple vinyl with blue labels. There's also 150 copies of the black vinyl with blue labels with a "Underdog" weekend tour sleeve that is hand-numbered on the inside of the sleeve. 400 copies are also on black vinyl with blue labels and have an alternate cover for another tour. Finally, a second pressing on black vinyl with red labels exists, and there's 200 copies on white vinyl with red labels. Life's a bitch, suck it up, buy this 7", don't fuck it up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J1Fip76xLM

Kremlin - Will You Feed Me?

Year: 2012, 2013
Label: Hardware Records

Tracks:

1. Rot
2. Anti Septic
3. Destruction Mindless

4. Will You Feed Me?
5. Forced March

Kremlin has become kind of a legend in Toronto in the North American hardcore scene more broadly both because of their incredible musicianship, and because like any band of a similarly legendary tier, they finished before they even started. The band, composed of members of Molested Youth and School Jerks, started in 2011, and put out two demos that year of devastating, skeletal hardcore that sounded like a perfect cross between USHC and Swedish d-beat. In 2012, this gem of a 7" came on on Germany's excellent Hardware Records, with 410 copies pressed on black vinyl, and another 110 pressed on white vinyl, each numbered with a stamp on the inside of the sleeve. Will You Feed Me? is an interesting release, as it signifies a departure from the sound on Kremlin's demos which was decidedly restrained and minimal toward a noisy and characteristically uncontrollable raw punk sound. Following this release, Kremlin released an LP, and certainly their most bizarre release, the Last Last EP cassette, which featured two heartstoppingly brilliant instrumental jams that sounded more akin to Hüsker Dü than the Shitlickers, and broke up at the same show the EP was sold at. Will You Feed Me? was reissued in 2013 and 200 more copies were pressed on white vinyl. Do yourself a favour and buy this record.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YtAxA3WGdY

Hacksaw - S/T

Year: 1998

Label: The Great American Steak Religion

Tracks:

1. Kick It
2. I Lied To Myself

3. Without Living
4. A Million Times









This is the first Hacksaw record, and is substantially better than the rest of their stuff. This sounds a little less like boring stoner rock, and a little more like Fugazi. Over all, not a bad record, and worth picking up if you see it in a dollar bin and want to know what Jon Sharron (of Brutal Knights, Hassler, Chokehold, etc.) was doing circa 1998. My copy of this notes that it is #169/400 for a 1998 tour, but I don't know if this is a special tour edition of if all of them have hand-numbered dust sleeves, as 400 is a big old number of records to hand-number, especially for a band that was never too huge. It also has some picture pasted on the B-side label. I've tried to find info on this but have not been successful.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfRIKXWfmTA

Fucked Up - No Epiphany

Year: 2009

Label: Matador Records

Tracks:

1. No Epiphany (Album Version)

2. No Epiphany (No Age Remix)

No Epiphany wasn't really one of my favourite tracks off The Chemistry of Common Life but here it is on two sides of a single, one of which was mixed by the dudes in No Age. 3000 copies of this were pressed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYKpi-8QxwE

Hassler - S/T EP

Year: 2012

Label: Schizophrenic Records

Tracks:

1. Asphyxiate
2. Nothing For Nothing
3. Beatdown

4. Pig Pen
5. Enlightened
6. Innocent

Don't hassle the Hassler, sucka. Hassler's a new enough TOHC supergroup featuring dudes from Reprobates, School Jerks, Brutal Knights, Bad Skin, etc. Their first EP is probably my favourite release of theirs. It sounds like fast, pissed off, no bullshit hardcore because it is fast, pissed off, no bullshit hardcore. Schizophrenic pressed 100 of these on white vinyl with an extra sleeve with different art. The rest are on black with only one sleeve.

http://hasslertoronto.bandcamp.com/album/s-t-ep

Hassler - Amorality EP

Year: 2013

Label: Beach Impediment Records

Tracks:

1. Amoral
2. Trainwreck
3. Retaliation

4. Escape
5. Apathy

Hassler is a newish Toronto supergroup comprised of former members of School Jerks, Reprobates, Brutal Knights, Bad Skin, and other Toronto bands that ruled. Following the formula of the 1st 7", this is no bullshit, unrelenting hardcore. 100 copies of the first press were done on clear green vinyl, and all of them have black and white centre labels while the second press has red and white centre labels.

http://hasslertoronto.bandcamp.com/album/amorality-ep

Hacksaw - Wasted Summer Blues

Year: 2002

Label: Broken Glass Records

Tracks:

1. Wasted Summer

2. Lonely Lines

Sorta a cruddy rock n roll record featuring Jon Sharron before he started kicking our asses with the Brutal Knights. This single sounds like Burning Love if your dad played in it.

Hacksaw/Mercury The Winged Messenger - She's Got My Back/Minions Of Goat Christ

Year: 2001

Label: Global Symphonic

Tracks:

Hacksaw side:
1. She's Got My Back

Mercury The Winged Messenger side:
2. Minions Of Goat Christ

Here's some split Hacksaw did with a band that I know nothing about. Hacksaw was a band in the late-90s and early 2000s that played some kind of rock n roll somewhere between stoner rock, dad rock, and the Goo Goo Dolls. Jon Sharron from Brutal Knights/Hassler/Chokehold/everything also used to play in this. Not very highly recommended.

Fucked Up - Two Snakes

Year: 2006 (Unlabelled Euro tour version), 2009 (German, Japanese, and Greek editions)

Label: Self-released (2006 English pressing & 2009 German pressing), HG Fact (2009 Japanese pressing), Fucked Up Records (Greek pressing), Εξωτικός Παροξυσμός (Greek pressing)









Tracks:

1. Two Snakes (Part 1)

2. Two Snakes (Part 2)

A Brilliant single off of Fucked Up's magnum opus, Hidden Worlds done on two sides of a 7" à la Baiting The Public. Fucked Up pressed 300 of these in 2006 for a 2007 Euro tour with Two Snakes in English on the cover but a German lyric sheet. This one had a large hole while I think all of the later pressings had the small hole. Confusingly enough, three years later, they self-released 250 copies of this with the purplish art on the Japanese pressing and included the German translation of Two Snakes on the cover (Zwei Schlangen). 200 of these had a screenprint cover and 50 had  a paper cover. The same year, HG Fact also pressed a Japanese pressing limited to 350 copies, and Fucked Up teamed up with Εξωτικός Παροξυσμός in Greece (which was not yet a label) to self-release the Greek Two Snakes (Δύο Φίδια) on Fucked Up Records. I've had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking vinyl.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfnqX2yL-aY

Fucked Up - ??????????? Fake 7" ????????????

Year: 2006
Label: Fucked Up Records

Tracks:

1. Baiting

2. The Public

Here's a weird one. Being the mysterious guys we all know and love, Fucked Up pressed 250 copies of the Baiting the Public single with a labels that read "Epics in Minutes" and "Search for the Words" on the A-side and B-side, respectively. They then took a hundred of so of these suckas and pasted labels from the Litany 7" on them, and put them in photocopied sleeves for the Dangerous Fumes 7" prior to that 7" even coming out.

Fucked Up/Hard Skin - Toronto FC/1-2-3/New Age

Year: 2007

Label: No Future Records

Fucked Up side:

1. Toronto FC

Hard Skin side:

2. 1-2-3

3. New Age

Another killer Fucked Up track, this time on a split with fake UK Oi! Legends and professional wankers Hard Skin, who perform some killer covers of The Professionals’ 1-2-3, and Blitz’ New Age. 350 of these suckers were pressed, with 50 of them in a glossy hard cover, and 300 of them in a matte fold over cover (pictured), and given out at a show in London in 2007 making this one of the harder to find FU records.

Fucked Up - Crooked Head

Year: 2008

Label: Matador Records

Tracks:

1. Crooked Head (Single Edit)

2. I Hate Summer

I originally thought that Fucked Up releasing a bunch of the songs from The Chemistry of Common Life was a total cash grab. In retrospect, I’m really happy they did this. The double LP version of the record sounds like garbage. Due to the length of the songs, the double LP comes off sounding super compressed, too quiet, and pretty lousy. Listening to a few select singles off this record at 45 RPM is definitely a treat. Crooked Head isn’t really one of my favourite tracks off the record, but whatever. I don’t know how many of these were pressed but it must have been like a million, because Matador put this out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPWFnti4pas

The Endless Blockade - PHTEB

Year: 2011

Label: SuperFi Records

Tracks:

Pig Heart Transplant side:

1. Intro

2. Finished

3. Done

The Endless Blockade side:

1. Qabalistic Zero

2. Your Curse

Split between a Pig Heart Transplant, a Bay Area noise group and the greatest powerviolence band ever from Toronto. I think the Endless Blockade’s side is way cooler just by virtue of their incorporation of harsh noise into their super riffy jams. 500 of these were pressed, I think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0BcpexUj1Q

The Endless Blockade - Come Friendly Bombs

Year: 2006 (Dada Drumming & I Deal pressing), 2008 (Fatalist pressing)

Label: Dada Drumming, I Deal Records, Fatalist

Tracks:

1. Pimp Killer
2. Face The Yawnbringer
3. Therapy Through Violence
4. Prohibitions Failure
5. 2 A.M. Grab Bag

6. Cyber Stabbed In The Virtual Back
7. Colombian Education
8. I Don't Give A Fuck About You
9. Bourgeois Homeless Bullshit
10. The Endless Blockade
11. Dead End

The first time I saw The Endless Blockade, I was in high school, didn’t know what powerviolence is, and almost shit my pants. In addition to being one of the most authentic new powerviolence bands, The Endless Blockade added extra terror from their bizarre occultish lyricism and imagery. This early 7” by the band is less indicative of what was to come aesthetically and lyrically in the band’s career and more closely resembles the band’s first record, Turn Illness Into a Weapon. Regardless, this 7” is one of the best example’s of the band’s relentless and horrifying brutality despite its over the top length for a 7”. The first press of this consisted of 1000 copies, 300 of which were pressed on clear vinyl with red splatter, and 700 of which were on black vinyl. The second press was out of 400 or 500 copies with different art. I’ve heard different accounts of how these were done. I was under the impression that 100 of these had the coloured art that is pictured and that the rest had black and white art, however, there may also be an additional hand-numbered tour edition out of 100. I’m not sure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8ulwEviDi4

Dirty Bird - S/T

Year: 1994

Label: Tamper Records

Tracks:

1. Ideology & Power
2. Barbie Doll
3. Alien

4. Big Idea
5. Word

In some bizarre turn of events, arguably the best 7” that came out of Toronto in the early 1990s was from one of the worst bands. I remember hearing Dirty Bird back when I was a young teen going to street punk shows at the Kathedral and not being able to listen to it because it was too pukey. This was at a time when I spent most of my time listening to Choking Victim. Needless to say, I didn’t expect much when I first picked up the Dirty Bird 7” and was astonished by what I was listening to. In their early incarnation, Dirty Bird didn’t sound like a drunk puke punk band a la washed out BFG at all, this 7” is great! The 7” has wild sound, like a more progressive sounding Minor Threat, but not in a stupid way. The lyrics are pretty politically charged like most early 90s hardcore bands, but done in a way that isn’t preachy or slogany but articulate and seemingly educated. I don’t know what happened to this band after this gem but their website proclaims they as “Canada’s Drunkest Hardcore Band” and is even more embarrassing than DRI’s Facebook page. This singer of this band, Uncle Anus, just passed away a while ago. R.I.P.

Dirty Black Summer - Line of Fire

Year: 2008

Label: Slasher Records

Tracks: 

1. Line Of Fire
2. Last Impression

I’m pretty sure this record was released by Slasher in a half-assed effort to have some kind of release for their 7” club, which they were falling behind on. Two rerecorded Dirty BS songs from their demo on the A-side of a single-sided 7”, and some really shitty art haven’t exactly made this record a collector’s item. 300 copies of the record exist. The “promo” version of this with a red sleeve, and blank labels painted red with a marker is really goofy looking but I don’t know how many were made. I’ve also got a test press of this but don’t know how many of those guys exist. 

Deaf Mutations - Crash The Clubs

Year: 2011

Label: Static Shock Records

Here’s another of those short-lived-project-one-time-demo-on-a-7” kinda deals a la Criminally Insane and a bunch of other stuff. Decent snotty punk featuring half the members of Career Suicide (including Toronto’s mesh master Jonah Falco), originally released by Sewercide on a tape of 130 copies in 2008 and rereleased three years later by a different label on 500 7”s.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdlvDGiWZ64

Crisis of Faith - Split w/ Chokehold

Year: 1992

Label: Grinding Edge

Tracks:

Crisis of Faith side:

1. Hardline

2. Ecological? Business (Lake)

Chokehold side:

3. One Scream

4. Second Hand Murder

5. Ignorance And Oppression

Probably the only reason Crisis of Faith is still known is because they did a split with arguably the best Canadian hardcore band of the 1990s. I’m not the biggest fan of Crisis of Faith, but Chokehold’s side of this split makes it legendary, and worth a pretty penny. Unfortunately, this time Hamilton wins. The art on this record is also pretty cool, as is these dudes’ utter hatred of hardline kids. Chokehold also has an Urban Blight-esque song about the dangers of second hand smoke, some 13 years before Slow Death. It’s also great how inventive Crisis of Faith is with their record speeds. The American Dream spun at 33 revolutions per minute while this split spins at 45 miles per hour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMVM2dk_ndU

Column of Heaven/Radioactive Vomit - Streams of Disease/Aubade

Year: 2013

Label: Analog Worship, Feast Of Tentacles

Tracks:

Radioactive Vomit side:
1. The Streams of Disease
2. Shit Dredge
3. Entrenched

Column of Heaven side:
4. Aubade I: Sun Defeated
5. Aubade II: The Trident Of Light And Decade

Column of Heaven is a slightly more recent Toronto band combining the features and members of Slaughter Strike, which was my favourite Toronto death metal band and The Endless Blockade, which is my favourite powerviolence band of all time. To be honest, I wasn’t a big fan of Radioactive Vomit’s side of the split, which consists of some uncharacteristically heavy black metal from Vancouver that I found to be lacking in production in an undesirable sense. Column of Heaven’s side however consists of my favourite songs by them yet. I dare anybody to watch Column of Heaven live and not headbang while they play the main riff from Aubade II. Toronto wins again. 500 copies of this were pressed on Oakland California’s Analog Worship label for North America, with 400 on black and 100 on clear vinyl. Another 500 copies were pressed for Europe on a British label called Feast of Tentacles. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-mGsWoWzVg

Blowhard - Harsh

Year: 1994

Label: Vital Communications

Tracks:

1. Justice For Whom?
2. Are You Listening?
3. Motives
4. Choice

5. Guilty As You
6. Conflict Of Priorities
7. Insecurity Makes You Dangerous

Blowhard was one of the better-known Toronto hardcore bands during the 1990s, and the Harsh EP is their only vinyl release aside from a single song on the Fuck The Commonwealth compilation. True enough to the namesake title of the record, Blowhard was one of the harder hitting TOHC bands of their time, playing very politically-charged, crusty hardcore that feels kind of dated twenty years later. Still a cool record though, and an interesting piece of Toronto’s punk history, especially at its going rate, which looks to be about two dollars. Oh and this record was also recorded by Toronto’s ever-prolific record wizard, Brian Taylor of Youth Youth Youth fame.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wzKI_D2bh4

Bad Skin - S/T

Year: 2013

Label: Bad Vibrations Records

Tracks:

1. We're Dogs
2. Flamejob

3. Commute
4. Scabs

When I first started going to shows in Toronto, stories of drugged out nights at the Bad Cave, the punk house run by some of the Bad Skin dudes were like local legends. Over time, the Toronto-via-Gananoque (GNHC!) acquired kind of a bad rep around town. There are a number of reasons for this, varying from sloppy drunken sets, to less than reputable behavior on the part of some of the members. Another important reason that people came to disregard Bad Skin though, is the fact that they survived on a few demos and never put out a record until the School Jerks decided that this 7” was too good to not put out and released it on their label, Bad Vibrations Records. Don’t get it twisted people. The Bad Skin 7” is in my mind one of the best Toronto hardcore records of the era. This is perfectly executed gritty and stupid hardcore and the last song on the record is the best example of this.

https://soundcloud.com/bad-vibrations-records/bad-skin-were-dogs

Armed and Hammered - Split w/ Suckerpunch

Year: 1993

Label: Self-Released

Tracks:

Armed and Hammered side:
1. Tragic Story
2. Crad Kilodney Was Innocent
3. Beans On Toast

Suckerpunch side:
4. Witch Doctor
5. Smack

This might be Armed and Hammered’s best release. Three tracks of unrelenting, fast hardcore. Armed and Hammered gets extra points for the ultimate puke punk art of all time, the second song, which sounds exactly like The Adolescents’ “I Hate Children”, and the hilarious ska part of the third song. Suckerpunch was a psychobilly band who I think might have been local. They also did a split with Born Against which makes no sense to me. Cool tunes if you’re one of those dweebs who are into roller derbies and 50’s B movies, I guess.

http://armedandhammered.bandcamp.com/track/tragic-story

Armed and Hammered - Split w/ Oppressed Logic

Year: 1995

Label: Ransom Note

Tracks:

Oppressed Logic side:
1. Reality at 10:00
2. Tension
3. Found In A Ditch

Armed and Hammered side:
4. Rat Poison
5. Movement In The Treeline

More fast, drunken hardcore from Toronto’s best mid-90’s drunk punx. This time on a split 7” with Oakland, California’s Oppressed Logic. Oppressed Logic’s side of this sounds like bad teenage puke punk. Armed and Hammered wins. Hooray for Toronto. Every copy of this record I’ve encountered has been pressed on clear vinyl but apparently there are some on black?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmoDxwKndnA

Armed and Hammered - More Punk Rock Than You

Year: 1996

Label: Subvert & Deny

Tracks:

1. Hate
2. Pills


3. Victims
4. Punk Rock

Armed and Hammered was a band started in 1989 by a bunch of Kensington Market punks who hung out with the BFG posse. Unlike BFG, Armed and Hammered were actually pretty good. The songs are standard fast drunk punk in the vein of a lot of other Canadian bands at the time who drank too much and wrote punk songs. Armed and Hammered is certainly in the upper tier of 90’s Toronto bands though, and was probably the most prolific band of their time, releasing a CD, a 7” EP, and two 7” splits.

http://armedandhammered.bandcamp.com/track/pills