Death Wish

Death Wish

Genres: boston, hardcore, kbd, 80s hardcore

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About Death Wish

There's at least three bands called Death Wish, a Brazillian Goth band, an American Hardcore one and an indie band from Denver: 1. Death Wish, younger brothers of Boston’s early eighties hardcore punk scene, formed in December 1982 after seeing the Misfits play in a church in Harvard Square. The band’s original lineup featured Robert Frankenheim (bass), Richard DelVecchio (drums), and Chris Hamilton (singing / ranting). Influences were standard for the time: Black Flag, Minor Threat, Discharge, Meatmen, anything on Dischord, Touch and Go, or X-claim! Records. Thirteen year old guitar player Jono Kornfeld quit Sharon Tate’s Phoetus (S.T.P.) and joined in late summer ‘83. That December, the band recorded 7 songs at Radiobeat, an 8 track studio in Kenmore Square where This Is Boston, Not LA and most of the X-claim! records were recorded. The songs “Tailgate”, “Break the Chains” and “Condemned for Life” got a lot of airplay on Dave Smalley and Curtis Cassella’s WZBC radio show The Straight Ahead Show in early ’84 but singer Chris Hamilton left the band soon after the Radiobeat sessions and Death Wish was unable to play shows or record more material for an album. The three mixed Radiobeat tracks reappeared in 1987 on a bootleg 7” 45 on Pat Amory’s Amory Arms label -- a forerunner of Matador Records -- and in 1992 the German record label Lost and Found put out an unauthorized version of their own. Before the Radiobeat sessions, the band had begun rehearsing with Jono’s former bandmate, S.T.P. bassist Jordan Wood on second guitar. Jordan found the band its next singer, Demetrios Demos, who refused to sing any of the band’s songs! From ’84 –’85 Death Wish tried to incorporate the influence of bands like Motorhead, AC/DC and Cream in straightedge gothic songs like “Shot to Hell” and “Straight to the Grave”. But things didn’t gel until 1986 when the band got its second wind, inspired by Minor Threat’s “Salad Days” ep and the new pop direction suggested by Minor Threat off-shoots like Egg Hunt, Embrace, and DagNasty. Unfortunately, Demetri wasn’t interested in this direction and quit, and the band had to struggle with replacement singers through packed shows with 7 Seconds and the Cro Mags, and a recording session in late ‘86 showcased only the band’s new instrumental abilities. Demetri and Death Wish reconnected in 1987 when the band, inspired by the Stooges and the New York Dolls, recorded “Seven Deadly Dins”, a cassette-only album which they released, as a joke, under the mock bubblegum pop pseudonym, “The Loved Ones”. 2. A 90s Deathrock band from São Paulo, Brazil. 3. death wish is an indie band from Denver, CO

Taken from Last.fm

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