Dead End
Canadian hardcore outta Toronto. I downloaded this one awhile back off some guy that added this little blurb (which I thought was funny) to the whole package…
For those clueless that buy everything from good, nice, clean, corporate entities…
1: The Dead End “Youth Now” demo is sourced from a cassette tape.
2: The cassette is a quarter century old.
3: The songs were recorded on a 4 track Portastudio in someone’s shithouse back when people didn’t have indoor plumbing.
4: The amount of hiss that has developed since it was made is substantial.
5: All songs were dehissed (by my on a P2 350MHz machine), a process where music is removed leaving you with residual fuzz
6: All songs are 128Kbps MP3s - the kind most people dont download through MP3 4PpZ if they want QUALITY.
7: The MP3s sound ten times better than the cassette itself - Honest. I wouldn’t give them to you if they didn’t.
8: This was recorded in a weekend by the band, or more likely, a day. It’s raw, and flawed. You have been warned.
9: Yes, the left or right channels drop/fade out on occasions. Tape degradation and duplication anomalies are a recognized standard of excellence with cassette technology - that is why it has been superceded. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the band dubbed these tapes from a master tape using their home stereo systems - systems that, back then, were reknown for causing these left and right drops in signal strength.
10: I made these MP3s myself and likely, nobody else ever will since few copies of this demo likely exist any longer. Therefore, I ask you to take them all. If I die tomorrow, that will be the end of them, so please, DISTRIBUTE THEM, and pass along the files I give you here (The artwork/cover insert/m3u playlist/etc).
Tracks
Youth Now
Don’t Talk Politics
Rock vs Racism
No Rights
Soldier Boy
Depression
The Goverment You and Me
Death Game
The Children
We’re Not Dead
Put Up A Fight
Download
Music
July 16th, 2006 at 3:47 pm
I love that little disclaimer. This actually isn’t bad considering the age of it and all. Pretty cool punk sound. I’d probably listen to this on a regular basis.
July 16th, 2006 at 6:51 pm
RE: DEAD END what the? anyway great job, thanks.
July 16th, 2006 at 9:16 pm
good tunes, like to know more about the band. Melodic, raw, snotty and rather good musically. a lot better than my band in ‘85 - haha
July 18th, 2006 at 1:02 am
Great tape, this was released on the tape label of Brian singer for YYY,
that label NRK also released the YYY demo of course but also Chronic Submission which had 2 great demos, some comp and other bands that hardly no-one knows about. BTW, This one is NRK-4.
July 23rd, 2006 at 10:55 am
I first heard about this band about two years ago when a friend made me a copy of T.O. Hardcore 83 which has a bunch of Toronto bands on it. I really like the Dead End demo a lot, great stuff. I’ve always really enjoyed the Canadian punk for some strange reason. I’ll have to find that tape of T.O. Hardcore and upload it for everyone to enjoy. I think I have it saved on my computer some place, but I saved it as two tracks because I couldn’t get cooleditpro to break it up in individual tracks. If you want me to post it let me know and I’ll see what I can do.
As always love this site and all the work that people put into it.
October 15th, 2006 at 11:39 am
Wow, you really didn’t need that disclaimer. This sounds a lot better than a lot of other stuff on here. I really love this site, and I love this demo!
July 3rd, 2007 at 8:04 am
This is a pleasant suprise!
A guy on the PHC website (See my profile) wants a playlist for the Hardcore ‘83 demo, and I run into my rip on a web site looking for it! Nice!
I wrote that little blurb, and I am likely the guy you got the tape from if you snapped it up in a DC/slsk session a number of years ago. I ripped it a couple years prior to actually releasing it. Originally I just wanted my favourite tracks on the computer, but eventually dawned on the idea that other Toronto punks would be interested in it. As it turns out, their tape actually made it’s way around the world. Or at least, I ran into one guy from Romania who kept saying “I cant believe it!” while downloading the rip in DC. Apparently, he and his friends back in the mid-80s all had dubs of this tape and he hadn’t heard it for a very long time.
tonacan: Glad you like it. The disclaimer was solely directed at the type of download-everything newbies you sometimes run into in file-sharing circles. They also tend to be the ones that fill your chat window with complaints should your material not meet with their standards. A little “Read the docs” message in the shared directory name nips that sort of thing in the bud, saves the bandwidth, and gives those in-the-know quicker satisfaction.
August 19th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
A pleasant surprise! I actually wrote that disclaimer, reasons half and half amusement and warning. I am glad someone saw fit to post it on a site, and even happier the theme of this place. Fits snugly with all the rest of the great demos on this place. Today, I have a better computer, and equipment with which to re-rip it though I doubt there would be much improvement. Besides, I have a number of other demos I REALLY need to get done, most of which I haven’t seen circulating either.
Glad so many of you are enjoying it! That is precisely why the band made the demo, and why I encourage anyone with demos to spread them around. It is this sort of stuff that spawned what is and was back then, and it is what made scenes thrive. LPs and EPs were nice to have. But a cheap and easy demo cassette would do just fine, and be more likely to get into the ears and hands of people who might otherwise never see or hear it.
From conversations I had in DC++ and other P2P applications where I have shared it, I have discovered that this cassette was passed hand-to-hand and/or by post mail all across the planet long before the Internet became accessible to almost all of us. I doubt more than a couple hundred copies were ever made, and yet I had old Spanish and Romanian fuckers who’d shun computers in the 80s telling me in chat about when or where they heard this demo back then, and were happy to be re-acquainted with it.
October 2nd, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Hey, they also released a second tape called “Where Do We Go From Here”. The sound is a lot more cleaner and you can hear the band got tighter. Then the vocalist and guitarist also released a side project called Average Savage Project. Anyone have those in their archives?
I saw their last show in Toronto.
October 4th, 2007 at 9:12 am
WOW, this brings back great memories. I went to highschool with the vocalist, and so followed them around town. They also had a second release called, “Where do we go from here?” that was sold at Sam’s, Cheapies, Record Peddlar. The singer and guitarist also put out a side project called Average Savage Productions. If anyone has a copy, please upload! Stuff sounds great, even 20+ years later.