Antischism - End of Time Plus One - Selfless Records 1992

 

 

 

 

 

   There's no friendships quite like the ones with those you grew up listening to punk and hardcore records with. Immortal alliances made with fellow dorks navigating our way through our formative years. Making pacts to an identity that seemed like the most important thing in the world in those few short years. Reflecting on those years, they were pivotal but not without its embarrassing moments. This overtly political and subversive music gave us a crash course on critical thinking. 

 

    Those friendships were made in Auburn, Maine. By the time 8th grade came around, my obsession with Metallica's Master of Puppets was put on hiatus. Me and the other nerds I hung out with were falling into all the obvious temptations of punk. Starting with the more accessible, entry level bands like The Dead Kennedys, Sex Pistols, Misfits etc. After school, I would often go hang out with Andy, one of my best friend's. We would walk to his nearby house and listen to his older brother Paul's records. Paul had a way more extensive knowledge of the second wave of punk and hardcore that was barreling its way through the 90's. Those records made Dead Kennedys sound like Neil Diamond. This is about the time when dubbed tapes of those records would start cycling through our middle school hands. They would come from either Andy or Paul if you were lucky but often times I would get a copy of a copy. Third generation recordings of a vinyl record on a cassette were garbage but the music was so new and exciting, it didn't matter at all. It was a necessity.

 

    One of many records that we were exposed to from that period was End of Time Plus One by Antischism. This record was originally released as a single 7" called End of Time but they re-pressed it as a double 7" called, End of Time Plus One. The plus one being an extra 7". I only want to talk about  End of Time. In my opinion, Those four songs are the most adventurous and eccentric music Antischism ever made.  

 

Original cover of End of Time 7"

  

 

    Despite my favoritism, I choose End of Time Plus One for this blog because it has a more interesting cover. It's a photo taken by Edward Sheriff Curtis from 1908 titled "Apache Guan." He was an American photographer and ethnologist whose work focused on the American West and on Native American people. Curtis made over 10,000 wax cylinder recordings of Native American language and music. He took over 40,000 photographic images of members of over 80 tribes. He recorded tribal lore and history, and he described traditional foods, housing, garments, recreation, ceremonies, and funeral customs. He wrote biographical sketches of tribal leaders. His material, in most cases, is the only written recorded history.

 

 

 

    The depiction in the "Apache Guan" photo is that of a sacred Apache Puberty Ceremony. "It is a four-day “Rite of Passage,” a ceremony that marks the transition of an individual from one stage of life to another, from girlhood to womanhood. A young girl celebrates her rite of passage with family-prepared feasts, dancing, blessings and rituals established hundreds of years ago. It emphasizes her upbringing which includes learning her tribal language and instilling, from infancy, a sense of discipline and good manners." - https://mescaleroapachetribe.com/our-culture/

  

    I found it fascinating to learn that two hundred seventy-six of the wax cylinders made by Edward Sheriff Curtis between 1907 and 1913 are held by the Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University. These include recordings of music of the following Native American groups: Clayoquot, Cowichan, Haida, Hesquiat, and Kwakiutl, in British Columbia; and Arapaho, Cheyenne, Cochiti, Crow, Klikitat, Kutenai, Nez Percé, Salish, Shoshoni, Snohomish, Wishram, Yakima, Acoma, Arikara, Hidatsa, Makah, Mandan, Paloos, Piegan, Tewa (San Ildefonso, San Juan, Tesuque, Nambé), and possibly Dakota, Clallam, Twana, Colville and Nespelim in the western United States. 

    What Is a wax cylinder? "Long before vinyl records, cassette tapes and compact discs, there were wax cylinders. In the late 1870s Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, a machine that could record and reproduce sound. The sounds were recorded on hollow cylinders made from wax and measuring about five cm in diameter and 11 cm in length. Each cylinder could record sound for up to two minutes. The Edison phonograph, along with prerecorded wax cylinders, became commercially available in 1889, changing the world of recorded sound forever." - www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/curated/wax-cylinder-recordings

 

 

Edison wax cylinder phonograph player with cylinders

 

 

    When it comes to the music of Antischism, they fundamentally used a lot of "D-Beat" elements in most all of their discography. If you're unaware of this term, "D-Beat" means Discharge Beat. Discharge is a legendary English punk band and early innovator of the universally accepted "D-Beat" time signature. Listen below to the song that that says it all.

    Using those very elements of punk and crossing it over with their distinctive style of metal, Antischism has carved out a unique spot for themselves in the history of American hardcore. 

 

    In their era of the 90's, phaser and flange guitar pedals were heard being used all over alternative rock records. On End of Time, Antischism fully embraced them too. This was pretty much unheard of in hardcore. That sound was perceived as "hippie shit" in most hardcore circles. I think Antischism deserve credit for executing flanger so well, that the punk rock purists forgot to get upset about it. They were wildly inventive in how they used all of those crazy pedals on guitar and bass. End of Time sounds like it was written for and recorded in a laser dome! If you need a reminder of what flange sounds like, here's a video of some popular moments from the 70's. Greatest is debatable. 

 

    The opening song "End of Time" comes out of the gates with a punishing "D-beat" bass line followed by a searing guitar pick slide (I'm a sucker for pick slides!) giving the drums the green light to FUCKING GO!!! The second part of the song is where the magic happens. The drums play one measure of one of the coolest sounding punk beats I've ever heard to this day. (Plus I love how the snare drum sounds on this record!) This gives the guitar and bass a second to turn on their bonkers ass flange pedals. That's when the laser dome show begins! Guitar and bass continue in a harmonious flange vortex while the haunting vocals of Lyz Mueller are spoken in an ominous key to further along the sonic onslaught. The bass being the most lethal of all the weapons. It sounds like if Bootsy Collins went full on, Full Metal Jacket! The song then goes into a tension building chord progression that makes you feel like you're climbing a ladder only to be thrown off the top and being dropped right back to the beginning of the song.

    This short 4 song 7" keeps the laser dome show going. with a few particular moments that differentiate them from their contemporaries.  The awesome Sabbath part at the beginning of "Big Brother!" The unexpected super heavy funk beat at the beginning of "Elements!" That funky ass bass line in the middle of  "Factories" is killer! It'll have you playing air bass and mouthing out the part like you're Peter Frampton or something. 

 

    As a drummer, I can't help but notice a couple of things I find unique about drummer, Scott Cooper. One, he sings while playing and his high pitched vocals are depraved as fuck!  Two, he has a discernible way of playing a "D-beat" on most all of their records.  He plays three sixteenth notes on the ride cymbal bell, at the end of each beat. I love it! Listen for that "Ting Ting Ting!" It's genius and truly original.

 

    There are many bands from this era I fell in love with as a teenager. I definitely plan on covering a bunch. Antischism played some weird shit within a punk scene that claimed to be about individuality. I soon realized, it had a lot of rules and ideas of what that meant. being experimental was not one of them. I know I'm not really paying much attention these days to what may be current in this genre but it seems to be quite dead? At least in America? Perhaps those attitudes were the last nail in the coffin for punk? Or maybe it had its time and place? Things change. Please prove me wrong. I want to be. I love those random moments when I see or play shows with a hardcore band that rips my face off. I wish it was a little more often. In the meantime please go check out End of Time. Here's the whole 7" below. Or go find a copy online. It goes for about $20.

   

 

 

    When it comes to record collecting, It took me a little while to get started at that time. I finally got my first few records at around the age of 15. Those first records have a sentimental value like none other in my collection. Or anything I own really.  It meant the world to have a copy of those records then.  I mail ordered a lot of records back then. I ordered records from record distributors (or distros)  that I learned about from the ads in the Punk zine, Maximum Rock & Roll. The distro I ordered from the most was Vacuum Records. Anyone my age from the hardcore world should remember them well. They offered an ungodly amount of underground hardcore records cheap as fuck! How could there possibly be so many releases to choose from? Well cause in the 90's, almost every underground band could scrounge up enough money to release a 7". For better or worse, it was also the era of the split release. In the 90's/early 2000's, if your band didn't put out a split 7" with another hungry band, you weren't there man! In fact when I look in the 7" section of any record store currently, it's full of garbage 90's split release punk records that I remember previously owning. Those were the records I took a gamble on then. Finding a quality record was a challenge in that time. Without the luxury of streaming music to see if it's any good, I had to take a lot of risks with the little money I had. Zines, thank lists in the records you did own and word of mouth had a huge impact on guiding my choices. It was the days of serious trial and error. Stay tuned for future blog posts of gems i did get lucky on in my teenage years.

 

    Owning the records I did love wasn't just about keeping them safe at home. I recorded them on cassettes and made mix tapes. I took them with me everywhere! Remember taking twenty or so cassettes with you on a plane?! Remember having to rewind them at home ahead of time so you wouldn't kill your batteries? Remember being a slave to AA batteries so you could power this beast?!! The yellow Sony Walkman!!!!! Comment if you had one!

   Going back and examining this time has been quite the trip. I had a lot of fun discovering music like Antischism with my friends as a kid. We've all heard of the scientific studies that generally determine "the first great musical age is adolescence." I'm grateful to have shared that experience with my peer group of aspiring weirdos. Even if some of them turned out to be douche bags. I kid (sort of). Living in such a small town in Maine, we were beyond lucky to have been exposed to those incredibly obscure and rare records from the underground. That education helped me get my foot in the door of collecting even more records. It set me on my way to start discovering new music I could call my own. I've been going strong for over 25 years now. Thanks Paul for getting me into this mess and thanks for putting out my next record! SPACEBAG - Party Prog Nights. Available on vinyl soon through Unknown Controller Records.

 

https://unknowncontrollerrecords.bandcamp.com/artists 

What's your story with Antischim - End of Time Plus One? Please leave a comment!

-Luke Laplante

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