SMILING SACRIFICE.

Seein' as how I just came back from a visit to my teenage stomping grounds of the mid-Michigan (Bay City, to be exact) area, I figured I'd do a post on one of my "first" favorite local hardcore bands.
With the help of my annual visit to the greatest record store on earth, this next post is all about the under-appreciated Flint, MI hardcore band, Smiling Sacrifice.

As a young sk8 punk - we're talkin' the mid-to-late 80's here - I would drive the 50 miles or so south to Flint, MI a few times a week for late night sk8 sessions, and it was there that I learned first-hand (and for the first time) about hardcore, and how it meshed with skateboarding so well.
To this day I still would rather go skate and listen to hardcore - most kids these days who skate go hip-hop which is fine, but an old fuck like me needs some fast-paced aggression!

In Flint, I would go to "The Spiral" (one of many abandoned parking garages in the downtown area) and meet up with a ragtag crew of like-minded skaters. We would race down this three-story spiral downramp, then climb the center column back up to the top, over and over again, and do it all night.
There was usually alot of weed and beer being consumed at the same time, and sometimes a small BBQ would get fired up as well. Sometimes we'd climb a rain gutter or jump rooftop gaps to throw shit down at the cars cruising up and down Saginaw St.

It was during one of these bomber sessions that I met Brian the singer of Smiling Sacrifice.

If you know anything about the history of the Flint HC / Metal scene, you'd know that Repulsion was the big name.
Fuck, Napalm Death wouldn't even exist had they not traded tapes with Scott Carlson of said band - respect! The other big player on the scene (but more on the hardcore end of the spectrum) was a band called Dissonance.
I'll most likely do a post on them soon.
Anyways, Smiling Sacrifice was always kind of the "little brother" to both of these bands, and so I guess it's safe to say that these guys are a little bit metal and a lotta bit hardcore.
The beauty of the Flint scene was that the metal and the hardcore mixed so effortlessly.
This was before the term "metalcore" existed - by many few years - and I guess their sound lies somewhere between "crossover" and "thrash"?
Who cares, this shit is good.

Come get yourself a big heapin' of under-appreciated mid 80's / Mid-MI punk history...



Smiling Sacrifice - Smiling Sacrifice, Pt. I



Smiling Sacrifice - Smiling Sacrifice, Pt. II



Smiling Sacrifice on DoucheSpace.

Want your own copy (complete w/ DVD)?
Get it here.

Was that my longest post ever? Geez...