all things old school: CAPITOL PUNISHMENT - The First Line-Up

Friday, April 12, 2019

CAPITOL PUNISHMENT - The First Line-Up

Location: California, US
Release: We Bite Records, 1996

The reason that I didn't upload more "OG" hardcore old school bands before is that it was widely available in a couple dozen wicked blogs out there (Church Of Zen, It Follows, Pay No More Than... etc) regrettably most of their old links died and as streaming becomes the new ruling standard, mp3's and blogs has its days numbered, I guess.

Today we have here the top records from Fresno's CAPITOL PUNISHMENT, during its 14 years of activity they had quite a few line-up changes and more than 10 records out!

Their 1985 album When Putsch Comes To Shove LP is the most celebrated one by fans, right next to their 1983 Self-Titled EP. Those records plus the '86 Slum With A View LP were compiled in 1996 by german label We Bite into one single CD, entitled The First Line-Up. Which is actually the second line-up (CP2), the real first one (CP1) with Tsuda on vocals got its recordings retrieved and released more recently by Stage Dive Records.


Their second singer Ralph Lotspeich (active from '82 to '87) might be one of the first ever to introduce the cookie-monster vocal technique that can be heard more frequently later on, including in modern day hardcore acts such as 86 Mentality, Hounds Of Hate and so on.

Then in 1988 Joe Leggett (CP3) came along to record the Super Glutton 12", both the band and the singering toned down a bit from that Poison Idea/M.D.C. styled hardcore and the whole thing became a mix of Cali-melodic-hardcore and DC post-punk, still tons of fun and attitude! To get a hold of the whole Capitol's history pay a visit to this page.

This post coincides with the upcoming release of Capitol Punishment's 5 boxset CD discography compiled by their guitar player Dale Stewart, but they still have some of the old stuff for sale. Today's bonus for download we have the 7" compilation The World In Shred's Volume 3: Fresno, a showcase of local bands from 1989!


PURCHASE CD/7"/MERCH

DOWNLOAD includes:
Capitol Punishment - The First Line-Up CD (We Bite, 1996)
Capitol Punishment - '82 Demo EP (Selfless, 1992)
Capitol Punishment - Super Glutton 12" (We Bite, 1989)
VA - The World In Shred's Vol. 3 (Shredder, 1989)

3 comments:

  1. please don't quit this blog!!!!
    thanks for all the stuff!
    cheers!

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  2. Fresno born n raised. C.P. was a staple band , I've seen more times than I can remember , I even got to tag along when they did some recording up in northern Cali many years ago. I've been saying for years that , When Putsch comes to shove , can go to to toe with anything hardcore punk related , it's brutal, melodic hardcore and honest lyrics are timeless and just downright badass! Sadly these days there's so many bands from all over that it's hard to get newer punks to sit down and appreciate releases like that lp. My 3 cents. Peace n all that shit. Punk rock will never die .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Couldn't have said better, too much stuff going around! Awesome you could watch them live back in the days, they were
      (and still are) amongst the most legit punks from the first wave of hardcore

      Delete