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Band of the Week: Death

Resident sound-nerd Tom Killingbeck thumbs through reams of musty vinyl so you don’t have to. Here are his weekly recommendations…

Monday 10 January 2011

#10: Death

Who: Bobby Hackney, David Hackney, Dannis Hackney.

When: 1970’s.

Where: USA.

Why: Detroit, Michigan has always been a birthing-pool for far out sounds. From Motown to Madonna and P-Funk to Techno, the city was an ever-whirring factory of cutting edge music throughout the 20th Century. Of course, the sprawl was also one of the principal outlets for proto-punk, many of its bands hardening and speeding up the sounds of heavy blues and becoming pioneers to the new frontier of rock & roll. Along with bands who have become generally accepted precedents for punk rock such as the MC5 and The Stooges, there was another early 70’s band who, despite being fundamentally ignored, cooked up a gumbo of power-chords, political lyrics and tight jams which eerily foresaw the coming punk deluge.

Death (not to be confused with Chuck Schuldiner’s similarly-monikered death metal outfit) were a power- trio of funk and R&B musicians who, having witnessed the ragged glory of a set from the Motor City’s premier hard rock ghoul Alice Cooper, decided it would be cooler to play supercharged rock & roll than slick soul. The band’s originality and live potency secured them major label interest in the form of Columbia Records President Clive Davis, who funded sessions in 1975 at Detroit’s United Sound Studios. Despite the molten clout of the recordings, which matched soulful hard grooves to declamatory lyrics and http://nouse.co.uk/2011/01/10/band-of-the-week-death Archived 11 Dec 2018 01:07:49 Nouse Web Archives Band of the Week: Death Page 2 of 3 machine-gun delivery, the band fell by the wayside after refusing to change their name. ‘Death’, bleak and almost comically uncompromising, didn’t sit well with Columbia, who felt it would be resolutely uncommercial. While this may be true, it’s certainly a better name than their first: Rock Fire Funk Express.

Those recordings lay waiting in vaults for around thirty years, before being grave-dug into wide recognition recently. Music-nerds worldwide were shocked at the band’s incredibly prescient proto-punk, which seems to pre-date almost every supposedly pioneering punk rock band – just listen to ‘Freakin’ Out’ for an American early demo of The Damned’s seminal ‘New Rose’, or ‘Rock & Roll Victim’ for traces of hardcore angst. ‘Politicians In My Eyes’ is a particular revelation, its super-tight rhythmic thunder married to bursts of stream-of-consciousness rap and a soaring soul chorus. While the band’s obdurate maverick David Hackney died in 2000 without seeing his band finally take off, he had always predicted that they would eventually recognised, and this prophecy paid off when Drag City finally compiled those long- hidden recordings in 2009 as ‘…For the Whole World to See’. It’s a pity that the world didn’t see Death originally, as these three brothers could have gone on to be one of the great punk groups. They were just too punk rock for their time; frantically playing under that brilliantly defiant band name.

Influences: The Stooges, Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, MC5, The Who.

Influenced: Bad Brains, The Dead Weather, Crucifucks, The Dirtbombs.

Sample Lyric: ‘Always tryin’ to be slick when they tell us / They’re responsible for sending young men to die’.

Which Record: …For the Whole World to See (Drag City, 2009)

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2 comments

SCOTTY JONES 1 Feb ’11 at 5:49 am

these dudes are rad! ROCK ON!!

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ALX 16 Sep ’12 at 12:26 am

Freakin Out!:)

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