Anti-Cimex Live Recordings 84-86
Here is a link to one of the best Anti-Cimex live recordings in circulation, posted a couple months back on a Swedish blog. My guess is that the live recording occurred soon after the recording/release of "Victims of a Bombraid." It includes songs from that EP as well as from their previous EP. And it also includes "Depressed Brain" and "Silence Is the Only Thing Left," which would appear with different titles and lyrics on the "s/t" 12" on Distraught Rec. in 1986. It also includes a short track called "In the Shadow of a War." At one point, I had compiled all the known recordings of Anti-Cimex and tried to figure out what songs transformed, had their lyrics shifted from Swedish to English, appeared on cassette first and later on vinyl, etc. For example, "Dead Struggle In A Burning Hell" from the CD version of the BCT cassette "I Thrash Therefore I Am," which is an early version of "Game of the Arseholes. Well, the rest of that info is in the dark recesses of my mind now, and I can't find where I wrote it all down. So maybe some commenters can help me remember whether this song appears elsewhere (modified or otherwise). Anyway, you'll notice the bogus sleeve included in the posting of this recording. I say "bogus" because the artwork on it dates to a later period and shows that the cassette was circulated several years after it was recorded. It appears the tape was distributed by Mats B. under the Hard Core Horror imprint, which means it is semi-legit (see my numerous previous posts on the topic; for example, here).
Here is the tracklisting:
Depressed Brain / Game of the Arseholes / Desperate Hours / When the Innocent Die / In the Shadow of a War / Silence Is the Only Thing Left / Cries of Pain / Victims of a Bombraid
Perhaps even more exciting is this discovery posted on YouTube. It's a 4-song live recording I dimly knew existed. I had it buried on a tape I had forgotten I owned. Ironically, the "artwork" for the video is taken from a post in this Anti-Cimex Archive. This recording is brutal—a real treat. This is possibly as good as the band got as they moved in the more metallic direction before actually achieving that sound (as on the 12"). The tracklisting is:
Depressed Brain / Game of the Arseholes / Desperate Hours / Silence Is the Only Thing Left
The uploader of the recording writes (unedited):
"I put on this show @ Birkgarden, Mob 47, Disarm & Agony played as well & Anti-Cimex never sounded better! I recorded this on my Sony boom box & the audio is excellent. Ake, Nappe & I were fuckin’ amazed how great they were! I had seen them before but never this good, they blew the roof of the fuckin’ building!
To this day I’m still pissed of that management pulled the plug on them because they played past the curfew. Few Hard Core bands can match this level of intensity, epic shit for sure!"
Pretty cool stuff if you ask me.
Aficionados will recall that there is a single song by Anti-Cimex on the "Birkagården Gärdet" LP, which is called "Alarm." I wrote a little about this obscurity here. (It's definitely one of the rarest Swedish punk/hc LPs out there: only 235 copies.) That particular track, I think, came after the recording in the YouTube video. It's odd but cool: a medley of typical, raging post-VOAB/pre-12" Cimex and Black Sabbath riffs, with Jonsson playing percussion over the top rather than singing, as he was wont to do in that era (as photos document). Anyone have an mp3? I have been meaning to make one, but not today.
"Birkagården Gärdet" LP
Here is a blog posting, with mp3s, of "Birkagården Gärdet" LP.
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