Kevin Warwick, Reader staff writer
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Born Against, Nine Patriotic Hymns for Children I’ve recently been rummaging for 80s and early-90s hardcore-punk records and happened across a dumped collection of some 1,200 LPs and seven-inches at Ear Wax Record Shop in Madison. Though I spotted Conflict’s The Final Conflict first, I reluctantly passed it on to a friend so I could snag Born Against’s Nine Patriotic Hymns for Children. Before Men’s Recovery Project and Wrangler Brutes, Sam McPheeters fronted this leftist posse. The recording is garbage, but like Battle Hymns of the Race War it still spits fucking nails.
John Ciba, Logan Hardware store manager, East of Edens Soul Express DJ
The album artwork of Wilfred Limonious Falling somewhere between illustrator, cartoonist, and outsider artist, Wilfred Limonious was the seminal album-cover designer for early-80s Jamaican LPs. His bright colors, lettered text, and cartoons of sound system dances (complete with patois dialogue bubbles) helped define the original rub-a-dub, deejay, and dancehall aesthetic. Even if you’re not a reggae collector, these are worth picking up just to put on the wall. I mean, where else are you gonna find dancehall deejays straight staking vampires?
