Toxic City

The Toronto Hardcore Vinyl Archive

[toxiccityblog]

Fucked Up - Crooked Head

Year: 2008

Label: Matador Records

  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.

[toxiccityblog]

Fucked Up - Black Cross

Year: 2005

Label: Burning Sensation Records

  Here’s the second part to Burning Sensation’s Euro intro to early 2000s Fucked Up, including Police, both songs on the Dance of Death 7”, and the song Last Man Standing, which is on the Epics in Minutes CD. Same deal as Black Army, this one’s pressed out of 1000 copies with normal labels on 825 of them, and blank labels some with hand-written messages on 175 of them.

[toxiccityblog]

Fucked Up - Black Army

Year: 2005

Label: Burning Sensation Records

  Here’s a 7” done on a Dutch label to give Europeans a taste of the early Fucked Up singles on Deranged. This one’s got Baiting and The Public on the A-side, and Circling the Drain (the B-side of No Pasaran) and Municipal Prick (the B-side of Police) on the B-side. 825 copies have printed labels, and 175 have blank labels for tour, some of which have hand-written messages on them.

[toxiccityblog]

Fucked Up - Baiting The Public

Year: 2003

Label: Deranged Records

  A masterpiece of a Fucked Up classic that later made it onto the Hidden Worlds LP as a unified song, rather than one broken into two parts. Apparently the art for this 7” is supposed to be an homage to the Situationist International and Viennese Action movements. Although this might be a stretch too pretentious for a track that includes lyrics like, “I wanna fuck your wife, I wanna wreck your life”, this is a great record that I spent a big chunk of my life in high school listening to. Originally pressed out of 500 copies with the classic Fucked Up title format, a second press was also issued with a larger font. 250 of these were also pressed with labels that read, “Epics in Minutes”.

[toxiccityblog]

The Endless Blockade - Split w/ Wadge

Year: 2010

Label: Regurgitated Semen Records

  After hearing about Boyd Rice’s tiki obsession, I didn’t know how much further the tiki aesthetic could go in the punk circuit. Enter Wadge, Canada’s main purveyors of tiki-grind. This is an excellent split. Wadge’s side is interesting and weird as hell without being stupid, and The Endless Blockade rips it apart in a way that only a band of that caliber could. The only thing terrible about this split is the name of the label that put it out. Only in Germany, I guess. This record was originally pressed on black vinyl and repressed on orange translucent vinyl. 50 copies with an alternate cover exist.

[toxiccityblog]

The Endless Blockade - Fed Up/Number

Year: 2008

Label: Schizophrenic Records

  Here’s an interesting release. The Endless Blockade does a Judge cover on one side while Shank does a Citizen’s Arrest cover on the other. This is the shortest duration of music The Endless Blockade has ever put on vinyl. 300 copies exist, 200 of which are on black vinyl, with an extra 100 mail order copies on white vinyl with spray painted additional art, and an extra 7” spray painted with art on both sides. Nobody does overboard on their releases like Schizophrenic and it couldn’t make me happier.

[toxiccityblog]

The Endless Blockade - PHTEB

Year: 2011

Label: SuperFi Records

  Split between a Pig Heart Transplant, aBay 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.

[toxiccityblog]

The Endless Blockade - Demo

Year: 2008

Label: Fuck Yoga Records

  The Endless Blockade’s demo pressed on a 7” with an obi strip numbered out of 430. I believe 80 alternate versions of this 7” also exist but I don’t know what it consists of.

[toxiccityblog]

The Endless Blockade - Come Friendly Bombs

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

Label: Dada Drumming, I Deal Records, Fatalist

  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 it’s 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.

[toxiccityblog]

Eating Glass - Feed Them to the Vultures

Year: 2009

Label: High Anxiety Records, No Idea Records

  You know that kind of hardcore that isn’t brocore but sounds kind of like brocore because it is so pissed off? That’s basically Eating Glass. Super pissed off, heavy-sounding hardcore to which people could either throw down or slam skank depending on their level of machismo. Don’t get me wrong though, this is a good 7”, although at 9 songs, it is a little too long for my taste. Jose, the singer from this band now plays in S.H.I.T. and

 Gaucho. I don’t know exactly how many of these were pressed but I think the yellow vinyl version of it is the standard pressing, 100 were pressed on jade green vinyl, and 30 copies have alternate art for the band’s record release and were on grey vinyl. I think there’s also like 3 copies on brown vinyl or something weird.

[toxiccityblog]

Dirty Bird - S/T

Year: 1994

Label: Tamper Records

  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 week ago. R.I.P.

[toxiccityblog]

Dirty B.S. - Line of Fire

Year: 2008

Label: Slasher Records

  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. 

[toxiccityblog]

Dirty B.S. - S/T

Year: 2006

Label: Slasher Records

  Not Dirty Bullshit, but Dirty Black Summer as in the Danzig song, Dirty B.S. was some kind of a Bastard rip-off band featuring Ivan from Terminal State/School Jerks/Kremlin/FLQs on drums. This 7” has some pretty decent riffs, but nothing that would blow the top of your head off. 300 copies of these suckas were pressed on red vinyl, a seemingly innumerable number of colour variants exist for the regular sleeves (I’ve got white, light yellow, and dark yellow pictured). Two limited silk screened sleeves exist for the record featuring some really sweet art, each limited to 20 copies, of which I’ve got one pictured. Also, a red “promo” sleeve also exists and is limited to 15 copies.

[toxiccityblog]

Death of Gods - A World Of One...Divided By All

Year: 1987/1988

Label: Hatebreeders Records

  Not to be confused with G.O.D., the goregrind band from Peterborough, or the other short-lived TOHC G.O.D. (aka Granby on Demo), D.O.G. or Death of Gods was a Mississauga-based thrashy hardcore band in the late 80s. Pretty sure this record is decently rare and sells for a pretty penny. The lyrics to this 7” are hilarious and the record includes a song called “Lake Ontario Smells Like Shit”, and another song telling straight edge cats to chill and let the beer drinkers drink their beer undisturbed. Cool stuff.

[toxiccityblog]

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.

[toxiccityblog]

Dangerloves - Young Pretender

Year: 2008

Label: Static Shock Records

  You’d better believe the hearts on this record. Two of the Dangerloves are now married. Cool single, cool band, cool power pop. 525 copies of the record exist and 10 test presses. I don’t have any of the test presses but I sorta wish I did.

[toxiccityblog]

Dangerloves - Lipsmart b/w So This Is Love

Year: 2007

Label: Fashionable Idiots

  Probably my favourite Dangerloves single, I can’t listen to this record without thinking of The B Girls’ Fun At The Beach single, probably because both bands are super fun female fronted power pop bands from Toronto with a beautifully innocent feeling to them. Then again, parts of Lipsmart could easily be from a Buzzcocks song too. This record rules. 1000 copies of this were pressed, so you should find a copy for cheap and listen to it all day.