“Pure Hell went wild on their equipment, and they predated hardcore with their fast attack and assault method on instruments…they enjoyed who they were and what they created…” – Reaghan Buchanan, ‘The Secret History of Black Punk’
Welcome back to “Albums I Should Have Listened To Already,” where today? We’re appreciating a good band name.
Hey, are you going to the show tonight?
What show?
PURE HELL!
Yeahhhhhhhhhh man. Welcome to Hell. Hope this bootleg The Far Side image is still around when this blog runs.
HOW I CAME ACROSS THIS ALBUM
Reaghan Buchanan’s incredibly sick zine/graphic nonfiction book, The Secret History of Black Punk. You can see the page on Pure Hell above. Just in something happens to the image, this dudes are in tight clothes, have green and red and blue and blonde hair, one of them is wearing makeup, and while the pull quote from bassist Lenny Boles talks about it being dangerous to catch a bus through gang territory with high heels and a wig on? I would not want to mess with these dudes.
How did I come across this band? They are named Pure Hell. I wanted to listen to them as soon as I read that book.
TRACK BY TRACK
If there are any alternate versions of this album or other Pure Hell tracks floating out there somewhere, I don’t know about them. I am going off of what is on Apple Music. The album was recorded back in the 1970s. Pure Hell was a band fro 1974-1979. Apparently their manager, The Squires lead singer Curtis Knight, had a falling out with the band and refused to release this album. It came out in 2010.
“Noise Addiction”
First off, I love when the punk band has two guitarists doing different things in different ears. Left ear low guitar, right ear high guitar, plenty of chaos and sonic space between the two. Some album openers are just what they need to be. This super loud band, who was essentially inventing their own thing on the fly, starts their album by yelling about making noise.
“Hard Action”
At least on the Apple Music version of this album I’m listening to, there’s a weird volume drop between tracks one and two. Could be Apple Music being garbage (they’ve made Brother Sister by mewithoutYou almost unlistenable by artificially boosting the “Spider” tracks, audio fidelity is unfortunately not something the streaming era is interested in).
This song is super sick though. I like this lead singer, whose name is Stinker Gordon.
“Lame Brain”
In looking up the lead singer’s name, I see that Pure Hell only had one guitarist, Chipper Morris1. I have a thing, a very immature thing, where my brain breaks into a but how do they play it live when I hear two guitar parts from a one-guitar band. Some of the reading I’ve been doing this year, though, has made me realize how childish this is. A recorded version of a song does not have to be the definitive version of a song. By all accounts, Pure Hell put on a great live show. So who cares? This song—and all the guitar work on this album—is great.
“I Feel Bad”
“IIIIIIIIII feeeeeeeeeeel baaaaaaaad…I FEEL BAD” yeah that’s gonna be in my head for the rest of my life.
“Wild One”
Gotta break out the weird intervals and the wah pedal for a song called “Wild One.” Got it. Man, Pure Hell’s drummer kicks ass, too. Spider Sanders is his name. How is it this band formed in 1974, played the way they did, and then punk still gets to coast off being a genre for people who can’t play their instruments all these decades later?
I mean, we know what the answer is. It’s white supremacy! Black people have to be twice as good, and even then, your record still won’t come out until 2010. They broke up in 1979, for the record.
“Rot In The Doghouse”
So many powerchords that hammer onto the six! If you don’t speak musician, that’s that Chuck Berry way of playing rhythm guitar, the thing Jimmy Page does on “Rock and Roll,” the thing that makes chords sound like the blues. It sure was the 70s, huh.
WHOAH bass ripping right through the middle of the song. These guys are sick. I’m gonna put this record in regular rotation.
“No Rules”
This band should have been in way more 90s movie soundtracks, what the hell.
“Thrillers of Oz”
Yeah, man, everyone else is living in Oz! The so-called “American Dream” is lie! Some messages are timeless. Well, maybe not timeless, since the United States of America has been around for a paltry 250 years, and seems to be on its last legs.
“Spoiled Sport”
What is this guitar riff midway through, and the bass riff following it? Chaos, this band, in the best way.
“Courageous Cat”
Fuck yeah, bass intro with a ride cymbal drum beat. It’s got the word “cat” in the title and sounds like someone sneaking around, like tiptoeing. Great song.
“These Boots Are made For Walking”
Hey, I loved Op Ivy’s cover of this song, too. No disrespect to Nancy, it just sounds better coming out of someone wearing Doc Martens.
“American”
Before listening, I’m gonna guess that this song doesn’t have anything positive to say about being an American.
Well, don’t love the homophobic slur in the pledge. I can’t find anywhere if any of them identified as queer or not. They’re certainly glammed-out within an inch of their lives (complimentary), and they seem to be doing a some gender-bending stuff. Absent more research that I’ve sorta run out of time for (please lmk in the comments if you know one way or the other), I am going to give them a 1970s-sized benefit of the doubt. Don’t feel great about it, but the f-slur was unfortunately pretty common until very recently.
“The Girl With the Hungry Eyes”
Speaking of Nancy, apparently this is about Nancy Spungen. I don’t really have an opinion about that. I hate the Sex Pistols a whole lot.
“I Want Your Body”
Some Beach Boys oo-weeee-ooos at the beginning, and unsubtle and barely-sang “I want your body / I want your body / I want your body / right now” for the chorus. Grimy punks need love too.
“Future”
As previously mentioned, the future will have Black people in it. Luckily for us, what the 1970s considered the future has a Pure Hell record in it.
WHAT DO I THINK?
This band rips. I really, really enjoyed this record. It’s definitely proto-punk, but these dudes can actually play their instruments. Stinker Gordon can sing. There’s a vibe here, a mood. It can get same-y at times, the way many punk records can, but the dudes know their instruments well enough that there’s always something going on. It’s 38 minutes, a very good length for a punk record. This one’s going in the rotation. You should check it out, too.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris
- also guys named Carlos Bernier and Mick Moore, but it seems Chipper was the main one ↩︎