At long last I have located a copy of the elusive Rising Sun demo. It’s a copy of a copy, and the sound wobbles in a few spots, but on this one beggars can’t be choosers. The Rising Sun was around from about 1988 to 1990, and is generally regarded as being the first hardcore punk band to come out of Springfield, Mo (and probably the Ozarks in general). I hadn’t listened to this tape in years, and I must say it holds up pretty well. It has a real 80’s punk sound, and a few of the songs (particularly “America” and “Afraid”) hold up as great thrash-punk. The Rising Sun was also notable as one of the first anti-racist skinhead bands in the U.S., and the song “We Don’t Care” is a forceful “fuck off” to the local Nazi crew (this is a problem that still plagues Springfield, unfortunately). This demo was recorded in 1989, and was the only thing released by the band. The band’s singer Joe later sang for another Springfield skinhead act, Violent Karma, which ironically had a sizeable Nazi following. I never had the privilege of seeing the Rising Sun play live; if anyone has any stories to tell, please share them in the comments.1. America
2. Think for Yourself
3. Afraid
4. We Don't Care
5. Fight
6. Co-Existence
7. Fight Back
8. You Just Want
9. Confusion
10. Help Me
Enjoy
P.S. The above photo of the tape cover was jacked from a blog posting by Laurie, a scene regular from the old days. She posted a bunch of other pictures of memorabilia from the old Springfield underground music scene; you can see the rest of the photos here.
6 comments:
This is really good stuff.
I honestly had no idea that punk... in any form existed in this area before the early 1990's.
Thanks for sharing
Not that any of these guys will want to admit it(come on guys) but I was the first drummer for Rising Sun. (I practiced in the basement with em anyway, because I was the only one at the time who understood the concept of fast/hard. . .and I could play it too.) Then they got another drummer who listened and learned how to do it. He was good. Then, I located this litte cheap studio, booked 'us', and did the sound for this demo . . . tweakin the knobs, tweakin the knobs. There was no one else to do it cuz the guys were all playing and the studio guy didn't know what the hell was going on. The night of the demo release there was a helluva party,the demo was played non-stop,there were some things that went on I'll never forget, then I had a falling out with the band. They never called it punk or hardcore or anything else. It was just what the Rising Sun played. They were a brilliant bunch who taught themselves everything they knew, but Joe pretty much had it all in his head then made it happen. His vision you know. "We will have a band, and its name will be The Rising Sun". Anti-racist or not, they were skinheads in ideology. . . the real thing. Yours truly, Annette W.
Thanks Gabe. Been wanting this for a long time.
Annette's referring to a different recording session, from 87...that Ralph Plank recorded...which was "The Rising Sun Demo"....the one you have posted a picture of the cover...was a release recorded at columns IV by Lou Whitney in 88, in 2 hours all live to 2 track....and there's another unreleased 16 track studio session from 91, and there's also a Rising Sun Live recording from the Geoff Ledeher's old house that Dave recording in 89...plus a bunch of other recording over that time period....I still have most of the masters, if your every interested....hit me up at joe@finelinetattoos.com ..oh and the band actually started in 86 and played there first show at lindburghs..and there was the most awesome punk band called Anorexic Sacrifice that preceded us, with Steve Fredricks singing in 85, I still have their excellent first demo somewhere, truly amazing...Also I remember going to punk shows in 1980 at a club called PUNKERS on the corner of Kearney and Glenstone...haha....I'm getting old
oh yeah...you can hear some of it at http://www.myspace.com/therisingsun86
...enjoy
I'm 11 years late on this conversation. Thanks for the download. I was going through some old cassettes and ram across a different demo I dubbed of those guys when they lived here in Long Beach, California for a brief time around 1988. Hence a Google search brought me here. Cool guys who all shared a cheap apartment off Cedar and 5th I think it was. I remember some of them sleeping on the roof when it was too hot in that cramped apartment haha. Hope they are all well.
Regards,
Mike
Post a Comment