all things old school: AMBASSADOR RECORDS

Saturday, June 7, 2014

AMBASSADOR RECORDS - Discography

Ambicious post here, spent weeks trying to accomplish it. Im talking about complete (or almost) label discography. IMPORTANT: The idea is not to cause prejudice of any kind to the ones involved - labels and bands, these records are long out of print and the goal here is to promote the music and the message in its content.

AMBASSADOR was a californian label run by Chain Of Strength/Justice League guitarist Ryan Hoffman that was active between '95 and '99 whose titles were distributed by Revelation Records. At first, it was about putting out Ryan's side projects: Statue and Circle Storm. Here's some enlightenment on how it started:

STATUE made its way to Revelation (REV029) but before that they did a demo Something To Say.., recorded in 1990 and it still shows a few traces of Alex signature vocals he used to do in Chain but with an early post-hardcore twist. The 7" has 3 songs and the CD has 2 extras and 3 live ones, 8 in total.

Then CIRCLE STORM's recordings emerged. Simply put? It feels as Chain has put 2 more records out with Curt on vocals. The songs in Spirit EP are total rippers and were meant to be Chain songs (as well as other 2 songs in Character Assassin album)! They only played live twice and in the last one, guess with what song they finished off? (...has the edge gone dull?) Video uploaded by guitar player - Steve Hertz, who also played bass in COLLISION.

HALFMAST from Buffalo recorded 3 albums, the last one Deny Their Vision from 1996 is featured here and it was on constant rotation amongst my friends back in the days. They played energetic sxe hardcore and disbanded right before the late 90's revival and for that reason many kid failed to catch them (even though Halfmast were featured with 2 exclusive songs in the international hardcore comp For The Sake Of Dedication, Crucial Response 1997).
Also, Nick Baran (vocals) runs Thind x Party Records and now sings in POISON PLANET.

I*WHISH*I is here to complete the label's discography, its not that bad its just not my cup of tea, early indie emo. Last month they did a reunion show w/ KILL HOLIDAY.

ONE SIDED WAR first and only album was quite a pain to find, super rare! All the info that I found was from a flyer, they come from New York and has Matt Warnke (BOLD) and Citizen Arrest dudes in it. 6 hardcore tunes with melodic hints and gang vocals.

COLLISION was another short lived youth crew group yet they got some recognition at the time, both their releases are featured here. Later they went to play on other SoCal acts such as Built To Last, Stand & Fight and xONE CHOICEx!

I also found a demo done 2 years after the 1999's Without Self Doubt EP, but Im unsure if its the same band because they sound way to different, check it here.

And last but not least COUNT ME OUT's first record Few And Far Between, Richmond sxe that needs no introduction. The copy I own is a CD and has 6 tracks on it, for some reason Malfunction Records (co)released it on 7" with 4 tracks and Crap Chords another 7" with similar tracklist.

AMB001: STATUE - Something To Say...