MySpace Layouts
MySpace Graphics
MySpace GeneratorsTech Tip: right click to open links (highlighted in blue) in new window to stay on this page and/or use the standalone player to listen to songs without interuption.
NJHC
.. Circa 1983-84 Hardcore Punk from four 16 year old kids in Long Branch, New Jersey. The same scene and timeframe of great Mutha Records bands like Chronic Sick , Fatal Rage , Public Disturbance , The Beast & Secret Syde .
Like most of these bands they disolved by around the end of 1984. Unlike the above mentioned bands MCU never quite got their shit together and/or cut a record, but if they did... it woulda been a Mutha.
Hence the picture below is but a modern recreation of an old idea for an album cover from a long lost black & white sketch from 1983. The above live recordings are the only known to exist from this band. They were from a RARE/lo-fi/DIY/3rd or 4th generation cassette originally recorded on a boom box by an audience member at The Brighton Bar , Long Branch, NJ in the summer of 1984. Accessible for the first time in over 20 years, digitally remangled & free to download.
At the beginning of the first song Intro/Problems... You can hear the first seven notes of the tape it was recorded over... Name that tune! (hint: it’s the first cut off a 1980 soundtrack featuring members from one of the loudest & most destructive bands of the 60’s-70’s)
Stupid is a 21 second song followed by 21 seconds of crowd banter that is kind of amusing since the recorder was in the middle of the crowd who seemed to get a kick out of the song.
Dioxin Poisioning is about "the most toxic chemical synthesized by man," (which is in you, on you and all around you right now and every day from the day you are born, it’s also the main ingredient that makes Agent Orange deadly ) The song was inspired in part by The Times Beach, Missouri evacuation of 1982-83. the largest civilian exposure to dioxin in the United States. I’m sure many of you have seen the gruesome effects of Dioxin Poisioning on the Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko in 2004. No wonder so many people went vegan!
We saved the best (live) song for last and what 80’s HC band would be complete without a song about Reagan? so don’t leave with out checking out RONNIE ROT! (a true story) penned by MCU bassist Nick Spazz & ending with a maniacal Greg Ginn stye guitar solo by Rob Vomit.
After the demise of MCU Rob(Guitar) & Andy(Drums) continued to jam together and went through a few different bass players, (see song 5 "Heavy Plastic") Including Mike Depo 2nd Bassist for "The Beast" (currently in Trench ) & Jordy Ash original bassist for the "Shock Mommies" a band who’s members would eventually, oddly enough split off/polarize into Stoner Metal Icons Monster Magnet (again) & Ultra sXe extremist/lampooners Crucial Youth.
MCU’s singer Chris later went on to form the band Freak Theatre with ex- Social Decay guitarist Tommy Southard (who went on to create Godspeed/ Solace ), as well as Reg Santana/Hogan who went onto play drums for Daisycutter (a band that included Monster Magnet’s Tim Cronin & Ed Mundell )... Also worth mentioning Dave Bizzigotti played in Middle Class Uprising for a short time, temporarly filling in on Guitar he played his first gig w/MCU opening for the infamous NYHC/MTV band KRAUT ... Dave later went on to play bass for Ripping Corpse who included former singer from The Beast: Scott Ruth (currently of Dim Mak ) & future Morbid Angel / Hate Eternal guitarist Eric Rutan.
More recently...
Chris (former MCU singer) appeared on the 2001 Meteor City Records Scene Killer Comp (NJ’s answer to the Dessert Sessions) with his band Burnout King.
Rob (former Guitarist of MCU) has been involed with various projects including Virtuous Pagans and Unbaptized Children and Rotting Moldy Flesh
