BAD BRAINS To Release 'Are You Ready: The First Studio Recording (Inner Ear - March 1979)' In November
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Washington, D.C.'s BAD BRAINS — one of the most important and influential bands to emerge from the American underground music scene — today announce the November 6 release of "Are You Ready: The First Studio Recording (Inner Ear - March 1979)" via Trust Records.
For decades, the recordings circulated unofficially among tape-trading punks — an ask-a-punk rarity known only to a relative few. Now, nearly five decades later, the session has been newly mixed by Ian MacKaye and, in cooperation with BAD BRAINS, will receive its first official release, available on vinyl, cassette, and digital.
Captured in a single frantic hour at Inner Ear Studios in March 1979, the six-song session represents the earliest known studio recordings of BAD BRAINS and an extraordinary document of the band at the very beginning of its history.
Alongside the announcement, BAD BRAINS share the project's first single, the previously unreleased original studio recording of "Pay To Cum". Recorded more than a year before the song was officially released as the band's debut seven-inch single, this raw early version captures the speed, precision, and intensity that would soon help define hardcore punk. Of the six songs recorded that day, none would prove more consequential: "Pay To Cum" would became a blueprint for the BAD BRAINS sound and a bona fide hardcore classic. Rolling Stone would later describe the band's early work as "unrestrained fury," driven by "quick, sinister guitar lines" and "unhinged drumming."
"The riff for 'Pay To Cum' started as a stream of punk rock vibes fueled by the RAMONES, THE DAMNED and RETURN TO FOREVER," says BAD BRAINS bassist Darryl Jenifer. "It was a gift that served as a springboard into our sound — sheer, straight-ahead three-chord mayhem with a few breaks and a stop. The title actually meant nothing to us; it was just a fun-loving play on words."
"Are You Ready: The First Studio Recording (Inner Ear - March 1979)" track listing:
01. Pay To Cum
02. Don't Bother Me
03. Black Dots
04. Migraine
05. Send No Flowers
06. Jamming At The Atlantis
"Are You Ready: The First Studio Recording (Inner Ear - March 1979)"'s release will be celebrated in BAD BRAINS' hometown of Washington, D.C., with a pair of special events. On November 5, BAD BRAINS bassist Darryl Jenifer and Ian MacKaye will appear in conversation at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, discussing the historic session and the band's formative years. On November 6, the album's official release date, an exhibition of archival BAD BRAINS material will open, featuring contributions from the personal archives of Darryl Jenifer, Alison Braun, BJ Papas, Lucien Perkins, Alec MacKaye, Roger Gastman and more. The display will remain on view through November 22.
Formed in 1978, BAD BRAINS brought astonishing speed, musicianship, and intensity to punk rock, helping create a wholly new musical approach that would come to be known as hardcore. But the band was never easily defined by a single genre, drawing inspiration from the funk and soul that surrounded them as well as MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA, LED ZEPPELIN, SUN RA ARKESTRA, BLACK SABBATH and the RAMONES.
"We wanted to make sure a lot of our energy was put into executing our riffs and ideas," recalls Jenifer. "There was no overall vision of what we meant as a band or what it would come to mean to the culture. All we knew was we loved a wild version of rock and roll that they called punk."
(Source: www.blabbermouth.net)
