31 May 2019

MEET CAFE TAPE COMPILATION


Further evidence that the more you learn, the more there is to learn. Meet Cafe zine released this tape in late 1983, a collection of mostly Vancouver/Victoria bands with HATES (Houston) and FATAL EXISTENCE (Pennsylvania) representing the USA. Most (all?) of the Canadians were new to me, and digitally connecting the dots led me to not just RED TIDE, DEAD END, MERE MORTALS, BILL OF RIGHTS and IMMORAL MAJORITY, but a whole cadre of associated bands that registered barely a blip on the radar at the time, but quietly left some crucial early '80s punk in their wake. Other represented acts are POLKAHOLICS ("Zap The Universe" is a perfect dose of synth/freak punk), SILENT MINORITY and TOMATARAMA, and there is genuinely not a bad song to be found in the mix so I'm not gonna start picking favorites. You just have to keep digging, because I don't ever think you'll get to the bottom. Ten bands, 24 tracks, 45 minutes. 


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