CHALLENGER CREW
1.tod
2.same old story
3.envy
4.weibt du es
5.jerk
6.words
7.excuse me
8.violence
9.lullaby
EFA
10.life the end
12.try to understand
13.a part of us
14.frontiers
15.mr. big dick
16.kill boredom
17.think and care
18.my dream
If you read my blog at all you know that as a youngin' I was pretty obsessed with German hardcore. Both these punk bands were from West Germany during the time when the wall was still up, and people were pissed off. I was turned onto Challenger Crew because I saw the name and fell in love with it. I later found their 7" ep after seeing it advertised in Maximum RNR. After getting that I found this obscure gem of an LP, that know one I've ever known has given two shits about.
Another record that makes me think of my move home/ cross country trip back to Albany NY, from Livermore California in 1989. I left some good friends back there(Kenny, Kurt, Zoran), and listening to this record makes me recall my thinking about if I was making the right decisions at the time. I was unsure of what I was doing moving back, but somehow felt it necessary for family stuff. That's all I was thinking about on the drive through the mid west, and I listened to a lot of this album on my crummy tape player.
EFA played a style of hardcore that made me think of the second Christ On Parade record. Especially the vocals. Don't be put off by the mellowness of the first songs intro, this record gets moving, and is raw as shit hardcore. Challenger Crew played a more crossover style of thrashing hardcore that has influences of Attitude Adjustment mixed with the likes of some German punk(Tu Du Hospital, Sons Of Sadism). Great stuff from both these guys, and I've stolen many a riff from both bands. don't let the fact that they were German deter you from downloading some great 80's punk/hardcore.
http://www.mediafire.com/?jteqmk3tnxn
Posts
Thanks for uploading. I've only listened to "Start In Der Tod" so I'm really looking forward to checking this one out. Keep it coming with the great bands, metal and punk. I was born in '87 so I missed a lot of good bands that were around before I was even born. And since you are from NY do you know of any good record stores? I know a few in the city and even less here on Long Island, but they have never really satisfied me in finding older material that is worth buying besides Classical music and Jazz.
ReplyDeleteIan
hey there man, thanks for this. I Never heard either of these bands. I like em both and can totally see where you hear the COP in EFA. thank you sir.
ReplyDeleteIan. The only good stores I know of in the city are two Academy records locations..
ReplyDeletebrooklyn, and the manhattan 12th street location. seriously depressing how few good record stores there are in a city this size.
Any in long island you can recommend?
Nate
Oh, and I have a double of this LP on ebay right now...doubt anyone will kill for it..
ReplyDeletehttp://shop.ebay.com/merchant/cryptocomx_W0QQ_nkwZQQ_armrsZ1QQ_fromZQQ_mdoZ
excellent post. They really blew my ass away
ReplyDeleteNice post- I had/have this lp too- both are good bands. Cheers
ReplyDeleteGreg
cool. I'll upload some other German shit soon enough.
ReplyDeleteThis was one of my favorite split LPs ever... I think I bought it from Blacklist Mailorder along with one of the eX albums and kukl's The Eye. I have to dust off my record player, brew up some coffee, send the kids to a playdate and spend some quality time digging through my old crates.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post!
ReplyDeleteI also really loved the album. When it came out the European Hardcore-Punk scene was still in full swing. If you`d like to read a bit about Challenger crew and German Hardcore in the 80`s, I just posted their first 45 on my blog BERLIN BEATET BESTES.
In 1987 I did the cover drawing for the 45 and also a insert and a label illustration for the Challenger Crew/Everything Falls Apart Split.
http://mischalke04.wordpress.com/2009/03/05/challenger-crew-start-in-den-tod-1987/
Cheers
Andreas
by the way: If you`re interested in what`s currently going on in the Berlin DIY Hardcore-Punk scene check my other blog:
http://berlindiyhcpunk.wordpress.com/
Nate,
ReplyDeleteThe EFA side is so damn good. I still have a tape I made from my vinyl.
Hi, I know I'm a little late in the game here, but accidentally just stumbled upon this site and thought I'd post my five cents, having been the singer for Everything Falls Apart. Great to see we haven't been forgotten completely. I can say that we were certainly aware of Christ on Parade as a band. But they must definitely were not an influence on our sound. Most songs were written by our guitar player (who was also the drummer for Munich's ZSD at that time - their "Krieg dem Krieg" LP is on the same label as the Mottek LP - our bass player was the singer/guitarrist for ZSD). He was an old metalhead, which accounts for some of the riffs being stolen wholesale from Stormtroopers of Death, and he totally loved Toxic Reasons ("Killed By Remote Control" era), which comes through on a couple of songs ("Frontiers", I'd say). Our drummer Julian and I tried to counterbalance that with our love for old US-HC (when we first started out we covered stuff from Minor Threat, G.I. and Reagan Youth) and new Italian Hardcore that was just exploding in our scene when we were around. So much for influences. Thx for the rip - it was fun listening to what we did almost 25 years ago. I guess, I still like it. A lot. Thomas
ReplyDeleteThese bands are remarkable, great music, great lyrics, and you can tell this was with the wall up, all charged with energy from people that wanted to be free.
ReplyDeleteGeneric Cialis - Well, yes, the wall was up back then, but being from West Germany that was not really a problem for us. Thomas/EFA
ReplyDeleteThanks to my girlfriend I switched music genre to the hardcore.
ReplyDeleteWe are still alive
ReplyDeleteMoses (singer/Challenger Crew)