Death

Death

N.E.W.

Tryangle

***NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!!! Since the discovery of DEATH in 2008 and the release of the archival LP ...For The Whole World To See, the story has been often told. Three African-American brothers, DAVID, DANNIS and BOBBY HACKNEY, tapped into the surging energy of their hometown rock-and-roll scene (mid-70s Detroit) to produce a style and a set of songs that, while completely unappreciated in their day, proved later to be a powerful missing link in the evolution of punk rock. All this was predicted by their leader, older brother David, on his deathbed, ten years before their rediscovery. His stubborn insistence on keeping the name Death instead of signing a record contract under a more palatable name is, in itself, a defining act of true rebellion. The power, precision and passion of the music says everything else that need be said. It has been an EPIC time since 2008: Death began playing live again to large and grateful audiences, meanwhile issuing two additional archival records, Spiritual-Mental-Physical, and Death III. The release of the documentary A Band Called Death took the band farther into the public consciousness than it appeared even the music could, and Death followed the paths to more and more listeners, eventually bringing their explosive show all around the world. During this time, the question always asked was, Will there be a new record? Now, there literally is, and Death and Drag City are proud to bring it to you, entitled simply N.E.W. Inspired by the positivity brought to...

Death

Iii

Drag City

***Five years after the second life of DEATH was started with the release of their revelatory 1976 album, For the Whole World to See, Death III slams the door on the vault with a powerful set of songs that bring equal amounts of rock and ethereal soul-searching, in high-fidelity, rich bottomed, studio-grade sound. Alongside songs from 1975, 1976 and 1980, Death III contains two songs from 1992, as the HACKNEY brothers reconvened nearly a decade after they’d stopped playing together. Death III serves as a companion piece of sorts to the A Band Called Death documentary, tracking the band’s movement from spiritual young rockers to older and wiser, bruised-but-undefeated brothers, in pure musical terms. David Hackney’s visual representation of Death was a triangle, where “spiritual,” “mental” and “physical” formed the three angles. With this in mind, For the Whole World to See is clearly the physical corner, with its undeniable proto-punk power; Spiritual–Mental–Physical explores the mental axis, with Death working through some of their influences—including The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, The Who and even ELO—in their practice space. Death III is the spiritual end of the portrait, bookended by the dreamlike rock visions of David Hackney that created and propelled the band called Death. (STREET DATE - 4/22/2014)

Death

Spiritual Mental Physical

Drag City

***BACK IN STOCK!!! Spiritual-Mental-Physical is a collection of wild early DEATH demos, presenting the three young HACKNEY brothers consolidating their powers as they embark on a trip into pure rock and roll music. For many years following the emergence of punk rock, nothing changed. Punk bands either signed contracts and played the rock band game or they lived in a world parallel to the world of commercial rock and roll. Farther along came “the year that punk broke,” a puzzling decade and a half after the whole thing had first been absorbed into the mainstream in the last of the 1970s. And so it was. The books were written; the pronouncements made. Then came news of Death. They’d self-released a single in 1976; the tracks made it onto an unheard punk compilation a couple decades later. In 2008, an obsessive young man tracked them down and found that the surviving two brothers had master tapes from all those years ago. These made up the truly senses-shattering album…For The Whole World To See. Suddenly, the book was open again and the history of punk rock needed to be rewritten to include Death. The sounds on …For the Whole World To See are those of young men, scorching their influences in the process of becoming new. Spiritual-Mental-Physical gives us Death by transistor radio, with a tinnyyet- furious sound representing the 1970s environment of Death. Here, the musical landscape that inspired them is more clearly defined as they demo material that didn’t make...

Death

For The Whole World To See

Drag City

***BACK IN STOCK!!! “Classic proto-punk from 1970s Detroit. Raw with little polish, the record showcases the organic power relationships within the trio of brothers. The HACKNEY’s were first influenced by soul and funk music but it all changed when they saw Iggy and the Stooges. Inspired by The Who, Alice Cooper & Led Zeppelin; the brothers finally see their first full length release, remastered and ready for the world to hear.”