Saw these dudes on this tour at club pizazz in philly. There was like 5 people there. Bought a shirt from tommy for 5 bucks. Still one of my favorite shows.
Found this record, original print, on record store Day. Growing up through the 90's, I didn't know this album. But got it because I've always went for earlier is better. Favorite album I own.
The version of "In My Veins" here is from the Peel Session. It's odd that they changed it from the original version, which had an almost guttural vocal delivery.
I've been a prong fan since like 3rd or 4th grade when my brother bought Force Fed, then like a year later I bought Beg to Differ, we were hooked! It's awesome to hear their earliest stuff finally. Tommy's classic pinch harmonics style is twisted as fuck in this. Definitely a blueprint album for them that laid the foundation. Epic!
"Dreams like that" is my favourite on that very very dashing Prong beginning. All the tools which made Prong unique were already there : It was a band with no musical boundaries or restrictions. Mixing industrial, gothic, thrash-metal & hardcore punk with talent is what made them timeless... For me, there is no other Prong than Prong itself!
One of the best musical experiences of my life was walking into CBGB's for the record release for this album. I think Ritual Tension and Raging Slab also played. I had never heard of any of the bands. But my girlfriend and I had taken a trip to NYC, before I moved there a few years later. We were next door at the CB's weird record store they ran for a while. We went there between sets, so we came back and Prong had already started. They initally sounded like Scratch Acid to me when I walked in, then they sped up so FAST it sounded like Destruction and I couldn't believe it! In those days Tommy, the singer/guitarist, also did sound for CB's so the sound was IMPOSSIBLY good. I couldn't believe the strangeness of music itself and the quality of sound system in this "rail-road" style club. About...a year later I met the drummer in some random way and found out he was ALSO the drummer for SWANS. My mind was blown! There really wasn't a "category" for Swans, but we used to call it "industrial," and it certainly wasn't like Prong. If you could see the environment and the time, you would be shocked. CB's in those days, the PURE hardcore Sundays, was like something you can't imagine. Leeway, Cro-mags, Crumbsuckers, Sheer Terror, on and on. The club did tons of other music on other days, but for Prong to come out of that time and place was mind blowing. A year or 2 later, I took a trip to Berkeley Ca, went to a "club" called Gilman Street, saw a band unknown to the world, but HUGE in the Bay area called Primus, and had ANOTHER magic music experience. I wrote all this because it was on my birthday--just like today!
Great to see (and hear) this amazing early album is still alive and not only in my computer. Can't find it on Apple Music, RU-vid Music, and I don't know about Spotify and the rest, but it seems it's kind of forgotten and unknown, which is sad I think.
Noice, this EP’s awesome. I can see why Misfits founder/song-writer/frontman, Glenn Danzig got Prong frontman, Tommy Victor, to be the guitarist of Danzig. Id be cool to see Tommy Victor part of a Samhain reunion show but ohh well. He’s good as the lead guitarist for Danzig. Other than that, Prong rules:).
