Man's Hate - President Botha Kills Children (1986) C30

 

I'm going to assume you're already familiar with Man's Hate, having downloaded this one, stuck it on a tape, then flogged it on eBay for a monkey after describing it as a rarity from my collection, you tosspot. I'm sort of cheating here because this was never an actual tape so much as five tracks on a cassette which Andi sent to me for my third Do Easy label compilation, the one which never happened because I'd run out of steam by that point - which was a shame because these Man's Hate tracks were, as you will hear, fucking gorgeous. Much as I often felt a great deal of sympathy with the anarchopunk cause, listening to those records often felt like being back at fucking school, so thankfully some people made the effort and gave you a reason to listen to their stuff, sweetening the message and thus - in my opinion - communicating it with more force than the increasingly traditional monochrome rants about Thatcher; and Andi Xport sweetened the message with killer tunes and a soulful voice. So enjoy.

More punky scrapings from somewhere beneath the barrel next week, readers! 

Download the righteous fury by clicking on this link.

Tracks:

1 - Men and Women on Horses with Dogs
2 - President Botha Kills Children I
2 - Dewhurst the Master Bastard
2 - A Dog's Tale
2 - President Botha Kills Children II

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Man's Hate - Suffer in Silence (1984) C60

Man's Hate was a one-man band comprising Andi Xport, also of the APF Brigade whom you may recall as appearing on this compilation, and also this one; and he was also behind the International Sound Communication compilations, of which you'll find one here.

This was the first of two tapes he recorded as Man's Hate, according to Discogs. There's a blog entry about it here, or there was, but I'm reposting the material just in case it disappears, as I suspect the download may have done due to Mr. Xport no longer being with us. Anyway, here's what he said:

Suffer in Silence was my first solo cassette album. I used the sound on sound method using the new-fangled tape decks that had just come out with two tapes being able to be placed in one machine at the same time, recording onto one tape deck then playing that back through speakers and recording onto the next tape deck whilst playing live over the top. The only problem with this method was that if you made a mistake then the whole song had to be redone and the tape quality soon deteriorated.

This was a review of Suffer in Silence from Cause and Effect, a US zine done by Hal McGee and Debbie Jaffe.

Man's Hate is Andi, an Englishman with strong convictions who plays guitar and sings songs with a directness and energy that incites the listener to get up off her/his ass and act. Andi was a member of the seminal early eighties punk-folk protest group APF Brigade. The ten tracks here are highly charged dramatic rock anthems decrying man's cruelty and stupidity towards other beings, human and animal alike. The lyrics are of a political nature (personal politics with a conscientious bent)... The main thing here is the sound. You will hear a voice, a voice of conviction and desperation. This is the music of a man who will not shut up and passively accept what he hates.

Okay - last time I nosed around on the internet, I'd swear I read that Andi Xport is no longer with us, but now, although he seems to have remained conspicuously silent for a while, I can no longer find any reference to his supposed passing, so if you're reading this, Andi - or anyone who knows him - and I've got it wrong, please excuse my succumbing to fake news.

Anyway, as you'll hear, Suffer in Silence is somewhat didactic, but helpfully tuneful, and enough so as to negate any whining about Mr. Xport's failure to have recorded it at Abbey Road. Actually, I sort of miss things being this didactic, as opposed to just - well... you know... The thing which has surprised me most about this after all this time is that this guy was a genuinely inventive songwriter, slipping all sorts of weird jazzy chords and changes in there. Would have loved to have heard this stuff played by a full, well-rehearsed band, but never mind.

...and that nice Mr. Zchivago seems to have the second tape, if anyone's interested.

Download the ten tracks and cover by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - Overdose
2 - Burn the Flag
3 - No Money, No Rights
4 - Work Experience
5 - A Gun! For a Toy?
6 - Animal Farming
7 - Meat Means Money
8 - Workers Playtime
9 - Not a Minority Anymore
10 - Suffer in Silence

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v/a - The Best of Italian Opera (1982) C60

Runaway Rhinoceros was a generally wonderful fanzine done by a bloke in Kenilworth, Warwickshire - and was thus representative of the local scene for me seeing as that's where my grandparents lived and I spent a lot of time there as a kid - although actually now I think on I've a feeling it may have been some bloke and his brother who did it. Anyway, the amusingly and misleadingly named Best of Italian Opera was their compilation tape. The cover is a bit underwhelming so I've used a picture of the mag instead - one of many which I flogged whilst raising funds for my relocation to America. I wish I still had a copy but never mind, I suppose at least it went to a good cause.

The tape is mostly punky new wave with some representative anarchopunk and a couple of tracks from local avant garde heroes Attrition - just a mile down the road in Coventry. APF Brigade, as I've only just realised, featured the late Andi Xport of Man's Hate. You may recall Andy T from a million anarchopunk gigs and should probably note that he's still in existence today, and I Still Hate Thatcher is a fucking great title. Attrition you most likely already know about. Shrinkwrap was on Onslaught, their Third Mind tape, and if it's a remix, I can't tell the difference. I've a sneaky feeling that The Shadow Dance is actually Vigil from the same tape, but I can't be arsed to check. I don't know anything about Steve Ainsworth except that Warrior is fucking amazing, and I love it so much that I covered it on one of Stan Batcow's Godspunk compilations (volume two if you can be bothered). The remainder of what little I know about these artists can be gleaned by reading the information sheet which came with the tape, and which I've scanned for this download.

1982 is just a guess by the way. My gut tells me this came out in 1981, but the presence of these Attrition tracks suggests it may have been a little later.

Finally, by way of advanced warning, my copy of this came on a slightly shitty tape, so although most of it digitised okay, there's some serious wow and flutter on the last two Kevin Akitt tracks, plus some kind of weird intermittent distortion on Death of a Nation and at the start of Warrior - which I'm pretty sure is the tape rather than my digitisation, from what I can tell. Sorry. I did my best.

Download the twenty-one tracks, cover and info sheet by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - APF Brigade - Syndrome 
2 - APF Brigade - El Dorado
3 - APF Brigade - The Crow Lives Nowhere
4 - Andy T - Frozen North
5 - Andy T - Man's Life
6 - Andy T - Vivisection
7 - Andy T - Exploitation
8 - Andy T - Big Boys
9 - Andy T - Progressive Destruction
10 - Kevin Akitt - No Music
11 - Kevin Akitt - Transmission
12 - Kevin Akitt - American Dreams
13 - Kevin Akitt - Soldier Soldier
14 - No Label - The Truth Is
15 - No Label - Oh Well - It's Over
16 - No Label - Something's Gotta Be Done
17 - Attrition - Shrinkwrap
18 - Attrition - The Shadow Dance
19 - Tears of Destruction - Death of a Nation
20 - Steve Ainsworth - Warrior
21 - Steve Ainsworth - Twilight Zone

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v/a - International Sound Communication 10 (1986) C90

I don't have a vast wealth of knowledge regarding this one, one of a regular series done by Andi Xport who also recorded his own stuff under the name Man's Hate and which was pretty good as it happens. I had more volumes of this at some point, and certainly the first one, but it's no longer anywhere to be found, so I probably gave it to Jim MacDougall back in the nineties when I was having a clear out. I guess I kept this one because I'm on it.

A Split Second and Stress were both quite big, relatively speaking, so you should know of them; I believe Crawling With Tarts had some sort of following too, although I think this is the only thing I ever heard; Ajnynytyv once sent me a tape with a red cover but it was pretty noisy and I don't remember liking it much, so I think that went to Jim McDougall too, probably ending its existence flung off the top of an east London tower block for air rifle target practice or something; Len Liggins also contributed a (slightly better) track to an Unlikely Records compilation which I'll get around to digitising at some point; and I vaguely recall Modern Art, WeR7 and Mystery Plane from fanzines and Color Disc flyers of the time. I never bothered sending for any of their stuff, but I sort of wish I had now. Anything else you want to know, you might be able to find out from the Discogs page, although it's patchy where some of the more obscure artists are concerned.

Weirdly, I've a feeling this may only be the second or third time I've bothered listening to this one, which is a pity as I realise it's pretty decent, with a good variety and some interesting stuff on there. I really wish I still had the other volumes, but never mind.

Download the twenty-eight tracks and cover by clicking on this link.

Tracks:
1 - A Split Second - Resignation
2 - Twilight Ritual - A Perfect Memory in Here
3 - Syndrome - Night Talk
4 - Linear Movement - Wired to the Machines
5 - Photodrama - Dan Dare, Where Are You?
6 - Ideas Beyond Filth - Rollercoaster
7 - Agencement - Kazbuz
8 - Crawling With Tarts - Smak
9 - Ajynytyv - Integration (live excerpt)
10 - Die Schlaffen Affen - Back to Rock 'n' Roll
11 - Do Easy - Knife in My Side
12 - Rudolf's Rache - Sommersprossensesicht
13 - LD50 - Your Country Needs You
14 - Los Paranos - Life On the Floor
15 - Katharsis - Content Discontent
16 - Mystery Plane - Find Somebody
17 - WeR7 - I Was Not a Jew
18 - Modern Art - Monochrome Dance
19 - La Créme de la Crime - Lipstick
20 - 10T - Pandra Music
21 - Det Wiehl - Himalaya
22 - The Marvelous Roofs - Them Scarecrows
23 - Len Liggins - Leningrad
24 - Len Liggins - All the Dead Men
25 - Solomonoff, von Hoffmanstahl & Hoffman - Serenade in the Night
26 - Terry Gray - Faith
27 - Stress - Fist Comes Down
28 - F/i - Echo River (excerpt)

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pssst... more here.