Sieg Heil - First Demo Tracks (1984)

Sieg Heil - First Demo Tracks (1984)

By the band name you can probably tell that this isn't going to be the most intelligent recording ever. Like many other Japanese punk bands. Sieg Heil were more anarchic than political. Favoring chaos over rules...not only in their world view, but musically as well. This is some prime anti-music.

Jiiku Hairu, known to us uncultured pigs as Sieg Heil, were a Jap punk band who were at the forefront of noisy raw-punk hardcore. If you go HERE you'll find two stories by two different Jap punk veterans-Sieg Heil bassist T.V, and Loods from GAI/The Swankys.

T.V. notes that, at the time, G.A.I and Sieg Heil were not as crazy sounding during their earlier incarnations. UK hardcore, as well as the blossoming Jap punk scene, fueled the band. However,
TV's revelation came when the guitarist from Confuse suggested he use an equalizer box:
"Hey why don't you guys use the equalizer box, ah, easy makin' the guitar sings wheeze-wheeze!"

Now, an equalizer is used to give definition to an instrument. Overall, giving your tone an added depth and sophistication. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Confuse weren't looking for depth in their guitar tone. They just wanted to make noise! So how would an equalizer, used to y'know, equalize a tone, help Confuse on their mission? Well, an equalizer usually has multiple faders, ranging from bass (low) to treble (high) frequencies. So when the bass frequencies are cut, and the treble frequencies are turned up....you get ungodly white noise! 'wheeze-wheeze' indeed. Not only doe's this induce feedback, it also achieves the very tinny 'chicken scratch' guitar tone.

A graphic equalizer makes guitar go wheeze-wheeze!

Anyway. Before acquiring this important information GAI and Sieg Heil's guitar sound was achieved by "distortion and overdrive at the same time and sometimes footing the delay box. (laughter) Oh, it was so silly as I recall." Distortion with overdrive is fairly typical for rock solos. It's never really used for rock rhythm guitar because the added overdrive can easily cause feedback. Thus making it impractical for clean chord changes. The addition of delay is also pretty common for solos. As the name delay suggests, when you play a note, that note repeats to whatever setting you have dialed in. Real cheap delays have pre-sets that can't be changed to specific BPM (Beats per minute) which is a pain in the butt. Unless your doing some math-rock thang, 80s heavy metal....or some boring psychedelic bollocks, delay wont sound too good on rhythm guitar. I mean really, using it for rippin' fast hardcore rhythms? No wonder it sounded silly!

Apparently the drummer went on to play in Gedon and Lydia Cats, the guitarist played in Spunky Boys and TV played bass in GAI for a little while.

As for this recording, Sieg Heil have a good balance between their instrument levels and rough production. Thus, making it one of the better sounding early raw-punk records. Savage vocals, noisy guitar, racing bass playing, and d-beating drums! Rad.

Linky, Link:
https://mega.co.nz/#!kRAiiLya!aogtGNgB7OCCETQHiI0d6hxVlohSDaCmpOj5gswKZs8