Decontrol was born in 1980, started as a two-man hardcore outfit by Adam Avery. Adam played a combination guitar / bass along with a bass drum over original singer Zero’s caterwalling vocals. It was horrible, but soon became 100% better when Adam fired the other half of Decontrol and recruited the amazing skills of Ritchie Birch on guitar and Keith Lenderman on drums. Adam settled on bass and vocals. (stolen from their website)
These videos are from the CEC in West Philly I’m guessing from 84 or 85. Most of the songs from their album Songs from the Gut are here which by the way you can buy (along with lots of extra tracks) at cdbaby. Another Philly band that should be up there with all the legendary hardcore bands from the rest of the county. It’s amazing how a little thing like starting songs off with A-B-C-D instead of 1-2-3-4 can stand out so much but I’ve never heard another band do it and I will always identify it with Decontrol. The good news is if you missed them they are back together and working on a new album. I have to admit I have not seen them since the 80’s but I plan to make up for that next time they play a show in Philly. I have more Decontrol video I will try to get up at some point one is a show from AC opening for Toxic Reasons and the other is opening for Scream at the West Side Club.
If your on Facebook go to their page and “like” Below the videos are the audio tracks and a slide show of Decontrol flyers. As usual there were a couple of songs I wasn’t sure of the titles but hopefully someone will fill me in on it and I’ll update the post.
Thanks again to Pete at Sounds of Tomorrow for the beta tapes
