Saturday, December 27, 2008

WHO ARE YOU AND WHY AM I HERE?


Void, easily my favorite 80s DC (well, okay, they were from Columbia, MD) hardcore band, were an absolute clusterfuck of sound. John Weiffenbach's screechy delivery flies over a total racket created by the rhythm section of Sean Finnegan and Chris Stover and especially Bubba Dupree's guitar style. Dupree took the noisy tonal standard Greg Ginn established on Damaged and added more angst, heavy metal, and outright sloppiness. Dudes sound like they never played tight even on their best day, and that's the fun of it all.



Highly recommended is their split with the Faith, recently reissued on LP by the one and only Dischord Records. Faith's side can't touch Void's, but is solid nonetheless and features Ian MacKaye's younger brother on bass. The band also had a track featured on Dischord's Flex Your Head comp and released the Condensed Flesh 7"; the latter featured Holocaust content years before Slayer did "Angel of Death."

Bubba Dupree supposedly resides in Seattle, while Sean Finnegan worked on the set of The Wire until his unfortunate death of a heart attack last year.

I've acquired two boots of Void's violent live sets. The first is a bootleg 7" rip of a set from the 9:30 Club in DC in February 1983, and the second is titled "Live?" and has no other information. Both are of solid quality and worth the time of anyone into hardcore punk and/or crossover.

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