Tuesday 18 January 2011

Wide awake-Hold true Demo 7"


This record is still pretty much a mystery to me. Which label released it, how many were pressed and is it a bootleg or an official release? I remember seeing this in the shops back in the day so I'm guessing it's semi-legit. The funny thing listening to this record is that if a band came along today and put something out of the same standard they would get laughed at yet these guys have that classic status because they were from that right age and scene. Still as ropey as this sounds it does have that charm that make rubbish records seem... well not rubbish. Let's be honest here I still love all that old school youth crew stuff as it was a part of my upbringing in the 80's but their 7" on schism wasn't all that great. Still while many folk regard them as legendary but even back in the day I thought they were vastly inferior to YOT,Bold, Judge et all. For that reason I never bothered with this record but as someone was selling it cheap and I somehow felt it needed slotting in my old school sXe collection I decided to finally grab it. Doesn't mean it doesn't still sound a bit crappy but I'd be lying if I'm not sat listening to it with a smile on my face. Fuck, I'm old.

1 comment:

-cja said...

i'm pretty sure it's a boot, not 100% sure, but pretty damn sure. i remember buying this in mid/late 90s and they were in every distro table and sold at every local record store. i still see them at stores today.

i never saw these guys when they were first around but saw them when they did a round of re-union shows with Craig Mack (from Fear Tomorrow) on vox sometime in the late 90s. it was an abomination to say the least. i'm under the assumption that their 'cult status', if you will, stems from either them being on Schism (with their 7" easily being the worst release on the label) -or- they totally killed it live. imo, Wide Awake and Up Front are two grossly overrated bands. i much prefer Cornerstone and (early) Fastbreak instead. different time periods, sure, but same message and motivation, just played much better with better song writing than either WA or UF.