If memory serves correctly, some of the earliest bands that I enjoyed that cited Ink & Dagger as an influence include: The Used, Norma Jean, Thursday and Leathermouth. Ink & Dagger's name kept popping up in various interviews, but little information was given about them. So I dived into the interwebz to see what I could find.
Unfortunately, there wasn't much genuine music out there from the band that I could find. Maybe a poorly recorded live video or something.Their early releases are long since out of print; the label went under and so physical copies were all out of print and digital music distributors couldn't secure the rights to much of their short collection. Only their final self-titled album, released through a different label, can be purchased or streamed with ease. But what what I understood this album was a far-cry from their earlier hardcore leanings.
For years I felt defeated that I couldn't find any music from this band. Sure, I could simply torrent their early stuff, but for those of us still invested in physical mediums, there's sort of an unexplainable thrill of the hunt. But one day while flipping through some dinged up CDs in some old punk store in Seattle, I chanced across their album The Fine Art of Original Sin. From what I'd know about the band at this point, this album wasn't the gold mine I'd been searching for. But it was still an out-of-print physical copy of something I wanted to hear for a while now, and in fairly good condition.
Cover art for The Fine Art of Original Sin.
This album was only okay. It saw a hardcore punk/noise rock band stray from their hardcore roots and focus more on the noise rock side. The overall album as a whole seemed a little odd to me. The Fine Art of Original Sin is eight tracks long, however the final track is a remix of the first track, the seventh track "VampireFastCode Version 1.5" seems like it could be a slightly more electronic-based remix of another song, but there doesn't seem to be a Version 1. The album also loses all steam on track three "We Live Despite Our Schemes" when a woman takes over the vocals on this slower moodier track. It wasn't a bad song, it just would have made more sense later on in the album. So I almost recognize this as more of a five-song EP with some okay noisy songs on it that an actual album. It wasn't what I had been anticipating but I didn't hate it.
Ink & Dagger had been broken up since 1999 with a minimal chance of a reunion after the death of their lead vocalist, and primary inspiration for all things horrific, Sean McCabe. However, in 2010 the remaining members recruited Geoff Rickly of Thursday to play a handful of shows. And as it turned out there was still quite a little following with a band that hadn't done anything for a decade and never saw any success in the four years they existed. So they played some additional shows both in the US and UK. The buzz inspired Six Feet Under Records to acquire the rights to Ink & Daggers debut EP Love Is Dead from 1996. Just before the close of 2010, the EP was reissued in extremely limited quantities. I happened to snag one of the sexy clear 7" vinyls limited to 666 copies -- a very spooky quantity indeed. And once my apartment found it in their mail room four weeks after it had arrived, I finally got to hear exactly what I had been seeking for maybe four or so years.
A clip from one of Ink & Dagger's reunion
shows with Geoff Rickly of Thursday.
I was far more impressed by the sound on this EP than on their The Fine Art of Original Sin. It was the exact blend of punk rock, hardcore, noise rock and horror punk that I was imagining based on what all the other artists had been saying about them. It's got the speed of punk rock, the bite of hardcore, the density of noise, and the fun grim lyrics akin to Misfits. "Frigid Shortcomings" is a fast-paced punker, and the opener for "Newspaper Tragedy" reminds of something noisecore pioneers would do. The 10-minute EP comes to a close with the atmospheric and melodic "My Ladylove," and it definitely left me wanting more!
I am probably mistaken with whom this was, but I believe it was someone from U2 that was quoted saying that The Velvet Underground's debut only sold 1,000 albums in 1967, but each one was purchased by 1,000 music-lovers that eventually became very talented artists. His point being it wasn't very successful in it's time, but it became highly influential for the next generation of musicians. And I'd like to think the same could be said for Ink & Dagger's early material within the 2000's hardcore scene. They didn't really make it big by any stretch of the imagination, but their name has certainly stood the test of time. The video above shows a bunch of kids my age singing songs that haven't been sung in well over a decade. And they know all the words! To me that's an incredible feat, especially in today's A.D.D. saturated music world. It seems like even if a band can get a song on the radio these days, people will only care for a short time and then demand the next best thing. Just ask Rickly who has seen the steadfast declining interest in his band Thursday despite the band still making great albums. When I saw them in 2006 they had a medium to large size venue singing along to all the words. When I saw them in 2009 they were playing a small venue, and most people were only there for the openers and left for Thursday's set. Those that stayed only wanted to hear songs from Full Collapse.
Six Feet Under Records has since released this EP digitally, and I highly recommend it. You can entertain yourself with 30 second clips or purchase the entire record for $5 at Amazon MP3.
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