Photo credit: Benjamin Wick
You can’t talk about the history of punk rock in Milwaukee without mentioning hardcore legends Die Kreuzen. The band blitzed through the Midwest in punk’s first heyday on the strength of releases like their Cows And Beer EP and their 1984 self-titled debut full-length, but their earliest recordings are now widely available for the first time, for a good cause.
The band’s first demos, from 1981 and 1982 respectively, were the type of word-of-mouth tapes that made punk feel truly DIY at the time. Both predate Cows And Beer, and both capture the rapid-fire energy of the band at their peak. Their 1981 release was given to venues for the purpose of booking early tours, reproduced only from cassette dubbing multiple times over. The second tape was the earliest recordings available for sale from the band, and both demo tapes were considered hidden gems for Midwest hardcore collectors.
While both cassettes had made sporadic appearances in bootleg trading circles, the quality of the recordings understandably diminished with each cassette dub and reproduction. Thankfully, the new streaming versions of the demos were digitized and remastered from the best available versions of the tapes by Justin Perkins at Wauwatosa studio Mystery Room Mastering. The 1981 demos come straight from the master copy of the tape almost 40 years after its inception, and the second demos are from a high-quality early reproduction. In the case of either tape, the band has never sounded crisper.
The release of Die Kreuzen’s demos on streaming also comes with a good cause attached, as proceeds from the streams are handled through SongPreserve, a website that works exclusively with out-of-print and hard to find projects, many in the realm of punk and hardcore. Each release benefits a charity of the band’s choosing, with Die Kreuzen’s demo royalties going to the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music.
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From just about every perspective, the reissue of these demos are a best-case scenario for a band that often has not received their just due when discussing influential hardcore bands. With a great-sounding streaming release, new generations of music fans can get arguably the best listening experience from a legendary act, and the proceeds continue to help the next generation of musicians hone their craft.
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