Supertouch - Unreleased EP

Label: Bootleg

Year: 1988?

This one deviates from our standard fare a bit, and is more a shout out of sorts to my hardcore (excuse me, hawdcore) brethren, then a typical post. But as I have made clear before, hardcore was my first real musical love (as musical as it can be I suppose), so I still have the urge to share the gospel on occasion, and today just so happens to be one of those days.

In the hardcore cosmos circa 1988, ground zero was no doubt New York City, home to the Youth Crew scene, but also home to the group of bands that would eventually change the way hardcore music sounded, the way the subculture looked, and how it would evolve into the future. The bands that kept the intensity of hardcore and injected newer sounds, slower sounds, more technical sounds, heavier sounds, all that. Absolution, Lifes Blood, Born Against, Crawlpappy, and Supertouch were in the first wave of this evolution, pushing a more fully realized (dare I say "mature"?) style onto the skinheads at the CBGBs Sunday matinees. No longer content to play a facsimile of Minor Threat riffs, these bands started lurching, pausing, feedbacking, and generally fucking over the hardcore blueprint in their own unique ways.

So Supertouch came to most people's attention outside of the Tri-State area through the song "Searching For The Light" on the old Revelation NYHC compilation as it stood out from the old school styles elsewhere on that record. They would then release a 7" on Combined Effort before returning to Revelation Records for their full length. Somewhere between that compilation and the 7" it seems they recorded this demo or unreleased ep, however you want to put it. It's the same songs as the 7" plus a couple more, but they're played faster, and the vocals aren't as "hefty" as they were on later (official) releases. It's an interesting little nugget of hardcore history, and if you were ever a fan of that era, check it out, but if you have never heard of Supertouch before, try and find their 7" or LP first. If you like, I could post them here I guess.

Also, the one hardcore shirt I never had, but always wanted, was the Supertouch "Get Down" shirt. If anyone has one that they want to get rid of (or trade for all of this free music I'm giving you) please let me know. 

DL