1001 Other Albums on Nostr: Death – …For The Whole World To See (1975/2009, US) As randomly chosen by ...
Death – …For The Whole World To See (1975/2009, US)
As randomly chosen by survey[1] on Mastodon, our next spotlight[2] is on number 604 on The List, submitted by @markwyner.
Holy moly, this one’s a banger! When I realized that this wasn’t the death metal Death, I assumed I didn’t know this Death. But it immediately jived with me and put my ears in their happy place…and then I realized I know a few songs, namely “You’re a Prisoner”, “Freakin Out”, and “Where Do We Go from Here???”. As soon as that clicked, I realized I very much know this Death, thanks to good ol’ Henry Rollins! It’s funny how I credit a lot of my music discoveries to Uncle Hank (whose radio shows I’ve been listening to for nearly 2 decades), and yet quite a few names still fall through the cracks. Rollins included the final track, “Politicians In My Eyes”, in his 2014 Top 10 Underground Songs list for Esquire,[3] so chances are these songs have been rattling around in my brain for a decade at least already. Cheers to Mark for clearing up some cobwebs and putting this back on my radar.
Anyway, back to the album. As you see in the post title, we have two dates for the release year. This album was recorded in 1975, but didn’t see the light of day until 2009. I thought it was important to highlight that original date for those not familiar with this band, because what we have here is some absolutely fantastic proto-punk/punk rock from Detroit! The band, a trio of brothers – David, Bobby, and Dannis Hackney – formed in 1971 originally as a funk band called Rock Fire Funk Express. The band quickly changed gears and then, in 1973, their name, making Death the first all-Black punk band, not to mention one of the first punk bands ever.
So, you might be thinking, if Death is pre-Ramones/-Sex Pistols/-Clash, and were in the mix with MC5 and The Stooges, why didn’t they make it big? Well, it seems that, among other things, the name choice – a choice made to honor their recently departed father and to make something positive of the situation – didn’t fly with studio executives. After refusing to change their name again, money for their 1975 recording session was pulled, resulting in just a 7″ (“Politicians in My Eyes”/”Keep On Knocking”) being self-released in a 500-copy run and the rest of what was recorded in that session being shelved indefinitely. Without a record deal or airplay, Death ended in 1977.
After moving to Vermont, the Hackney brothers would continue making music together for different projects and genres (with David passing in 2000), but it wasn’t until 2008 that their original group got attention outside of the record collector community. After MP3 rips of the Death 7″ started appearing on the Internet, things absolutely snowballed. Bobby’s sons heard the tracks and recognized their father’s voice, resulting in them starting a Death-cover band called Rough Francis that gained a lot of attention for the whole story. Around the same time, Drag City Records caught wind of it all, the original Death master tape was unearthed, and the entire studio session was finally released. The well-deserved attention then resulted in Death reforming (with Bobbie Duncan stepping in for David), as well as the release of a documentary covering Death’s history (A Band Called Death, 2012). The band has since released an album with Death demos dating to 1974-76 (Spiritual • Mental • Physical, 2011), an album with some later tunes recorded in the 80s and 90s (III, 2014), and then their first album of new tunes, aptly named N.E.W. (2015)!
Stories like this just warm the cockles of my heart. But, also, this music straight up slaps! I may have just listened to this album 3 times in a row, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of you feel the need to do so as well.
Happy listening!
Songlink: Death – …For The Whole World To See
Discogs: Death – …For The Whole World To See
Wikipedia: Death (proto-punk band)
Bandcamp: DeathThe survey choices that initially led to this spotlight were “Well, it’s the only thing that can pick me up”, “Better than a cup of gold”, “See only a chocolate Jesus”, and “Can satisfy my soul”, following the earlier survey that had “Well, I don’t want no Abba Zabba”, “Don’t want no Almond Joy”, “There ain’t nothing better”, and “Suitable for this boy”. The third option was the winning selection, and so the survey result was translated as picking the third album in The List that contained a word in the phrase – in this case, “see”. ↩︎For those wondering why this isn’t a SpaceAce Sunday spotlight, we only have a handful of albums that J had contributed left, so we’ll be spacing out the rest, probably one every month or two rather than every week. ↩︎https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/interviews/a32299/henry-rollins-top-10-underground-songs/ ↩︎
#1001OtherAlbums #1970s #Death #Detroit #garageRock #protoPunk #punkRock
As randomly chosen by survey[1] on Mastodon, our next spotlight[2] is on number 604 on The List, submitted by @markwyner.
Holy moly, this one’s a banger! When I realized that this wasn’t the death metal Death, I assumed I didn’t know this Death. But it immediately jived with me and put my ears in their happy place…and then I realized I know a few songs, namely “You’re a Prisoner”, “Freakin Out”, and “Where Do We Go from Here???”. As soon as that clicked, I realized I very much know this Death, thanks to good ol’ Henry Rollins! It’s funny how I credit a lot of my music discoveries to Uncle Hank (whose radio shows I’ve been listening to for nearly 2 decades), and yet quite a few names still fall through the cracks. Rollins included the final track, “Politicians In My Eyes”, in his 2014 Top 10 Underground Songs list for Esquire,[3] so chances are these songs have been rattling around in my brain for a decade at least already. Cheers to Mark for clearing up some cobwebs and putting this back on my radar.
Anyway, back to the album. As you see in the post title, we have two dates for the release year. This album was recorded in 1975, but didn’t see the light of day until 2009. I thought it was important to highlight that original date for those not familiar with this band, because what we have here is some absolutely fantastic proto-punk/punk rock from Detroit! The band, a trio of brothers – David, Bobby, and Dannis Hackney – formed in 1971 originally as a funk band called Rock Fire Funk Express. The band quickly changed gears and then, in 1973, their name, making Death the first all-Black punk band, not to mention one of the first punk bands ever.
So, you might be thinking, if Death is pre-Ramones/-Sex Pistols/-Clash, and were in the mix with MC5 and The Stooges, why didn’t they make it big? Well, it seems that, among other things, the name choice – a choice made to honor their recently departed father and to make something positive of the situation – didn’t fly with studio executives. After refusing to change their name again, money for their 1975 recording session was pulled, resulting in just a 7″ (“Politicians in My Eyes”/”Keep On Knocking”) being self-released in a 500-copy run and the rest of what was recorded in that session being shelved indefinitely. Without a record deal or airplay, Death ended in 1977.
After moving to Vermont, the Hackney brothers would continue making music together for different projects and genres (with David passing in 2000), but it wasn’t until 2008 that their original group got attention outside of the record collector community. After MP3 rips of the Death 7″ started appearing on the Internet, things absolutely snowballed. Bobby’s sons heard the tracks and recognized their father’s voice, resulting in them starting a Death-cover band called Rough Francis that gained a lot of attention for the whole story. Around the same time, Drag City Records caught wind of it all, the original Death master tape was unearthed, and the entire studio session was finally released. The well-deserved attention then resulted in Death reforming (with Bobbie Duncan stepping in for David), as well as the release of a documentary covering Death’s history (A Band Called Death, 2012). The band has since released an album with Death demos dating to 1974-76 (Spiritual • Mental • Physical, 2011), an album with some later tunes recorded in the 80s and 90s (III, 2014), and then their first album of new tunes, aptly named N.E.W. (2015)!
Stories like this just warm the cockles of my heart. But, also, this music straight up slaps! I may have just listened to this album 3 times in a row, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of you feel the need to do so as well.
Happy listening!
Songlink: Death – …For The Whole World To See
Discogs: Death – …For The Whole World To See
Wikipedia: Death (proto-punk band)
Bandcamp: DeathThe survey choices that initially led to this spotlight were “Well, it’s the only thing that can pick me up”, “Better than a cup of gold”, “See only a chocolate Jesus”, and “Can satisfy my soul”, following the earlier survey that had “Well, I don’t want no Abba Zabba”, “Don’t want no Almond Joy”, “There ain’t nothing better”, and “Suitable for this boy”. The third option was the winning selection, and so the survey result was translated as picking the third album in The List that contained a word in the phrase – in this case, “see”. ↩︎For those wondering why this isn’t a SpaceAce Sunday spotlight, we only have a handful of albums that J had contributed left, so we’ll be spacing out the rest, probably one every month or two rather than every week. ↩︎https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/interviews/a32299/henry-rollins-top-10-underground-songs/ ↩︎
#1001OtherAlbums #1970s #Death #Detroit #garageRock #protoPunk #punkRock