Pick Up Bad Brains' self-titled LP, 'Rock For Light' (original mix) and 'I And I Survive' EP on limited, exclusive splatter vinyl here.
BrooklynVegan and Revolver have teamed with Bad Brains on exclusive vinyl variants of each release in their extensive reissue campaign, and we just launched pre-orders for THREE more! That includes their groundbreaking 1982 self-titled debut album (aka "the ROIR cassette") on 140g clear with yellow, red, and green splatter vinyl (limited to 750 copies), their 1982 EP I and I Survive EP on 140g blue and white splatter vinyl (limited 350 copies), and their Ric Ocasek-produced 1983 sophomore album Rock For Light on 140g yellow with red and black splatter vinyl (limited to 500 copies). The Rock For Light reissue is the original mix and tracklist sequence, which has been out of print for decades (the remixed, re-ordered 1991 reissue has been the most readily available version).
You can pre-order them all HERE, and you may want to act fast. Our two different variants of the Pay To Cum" single went very quickly. Larger renderings of each record below.
"I feel as far as punk rock representation of Bad Brains and what we really were," bassist Darryl Jenifer told us in a new interview, "Bad Brains I think is the ROIR cassette. That's when we were popular just enough to be in New York, be in a movement, be on the scene and stumbling into making some recordings without, 'you guys play this,' you know what I mean? [Laughs] The whole punk rock for real shit!"
"We weren't Bad Brains after 1984 or something, all the records and all the stuff after that is just more like some rock star shit or something to me," he added.
Speaking about the band's idea to blend punk and reggae on the self-titled album, he said, "It's like a fearless creativity that we had. We didn't mind melding what we liked. I think fusion [inspired that]. Like a hardcore song like 'Sailin' On' that has that pretty end. We just raged for a minute or two at breakneck speed, and all of a sudden, the song is over and it's a major seven chord. That's like Stevie Wonder. We weren't afraid to do that. That's the key, that people should learn when they look back on the Bad Brains, it's the fearless creativity."
On working with Ric Ocasek, Darryl said, "When we met Ric, we didn't have any gear or nothing so he gave us an amp, a Boogie amp which is real expensive. He came down to our show. It felt like, for us, someone that was odd. Someone one that, to me personally, I wouldn't dig, because I was punk. A punk don't like new wave, see what I'm saying? But now here's this new wave guy who likes punk but he was older and real famous and giving us the amp and inviting us on his solo records. He came out to be like an uncle."
"What I learned from him production-wise was he wasn't the type of producer that's going to be telling us about our verses and our chords and all of that shit or whatever," Darryl continues, "It was just more about babysitting us, in a way, you know what I mean? Making sure we were there and don't waste time, that we're getting it done, almost like you recognize from being an older guy, like, 'Whatever it is about these guys that attracted me, that's what I want to see them lay down, not like me trying to influence,' like other producers do. Like 'that's wrong right there, you should come in with this' - there was none of that going on in Ric Ocasek overseeing production."
For much, much more, read our full interview with Darryl. We also wrote a retrospective review of the self-titled LP.
The audio for both the I And I Survive and Rock For Light reissues was mastered by Dave Gardner at Infrasonic Mastering, and the reissues were pressed at Furnace Record Pressing. All of the reissues are being released by the band's own Bad Brains Records, via Org Music.
Stay tuned for more upcoming BV/Revolver exclusive Bad Brains pressings including the self-titled LP, Quickness, The Youth Are Getting Restless (Live At The Paradiso, Amsterdam, 1987), The Omega Sessions, and Live at The Fillmore 1982.
Pick up the limited vinyl here, and browse our punk collection for more, including Misfits, Black Flag, Crumbsuckers (new exclusive reissue variant), Operation Ivy, Duff McKagan's pre-GNR punk band The Living, and more.
