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Monday, March 16, 2009

Let's Talk About... Listen. To. This. NOW!

Posted by Andrew R Tonry on Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 4:25 PM

c132/1237246782-1death.jpg

Good Lord, this is pretty amazing: demo tapes of the long-lost original black Detroit punk band, Death, are found in an attic. From the NY Times story:

Death's newly unearthed recordings reveal a remarkable missing link between the high-energy hard rock of Detroit bands like the Stooges and MC5 from the late 1960s and early '70s and the high-velocity assault of punk from its breakthrough years of 1976 and '77. Death’s songs “Politicians in My Eyes," "Keep On Knocking" and "Freakin Out" are scorching blasts of feral ur-punk, making the brothers unwitting artistic kin to their punk-pioneer contemporaries the Ramones, in New York; Rocket From the Tombs, in Cleveland; and the Saints, in Brisbane, Australia. They also preceded Bad Brains, the most celebrated African-American punk band, by almost five years.

LISTEN: Death's "Politicians In My Eyes"

Get another Death MP3 over at Chunklet or the whole album, which has been re-released by Drag City.