Indecision
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Indecision was a hardcore band which was started in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn in 1993 and disbanded in the summer of 2000.
| Indecision | |
|---|---|
| Origin |  Bay Ridge, Brooklyn/New York City, USA |
| Genre(s) | Hardcore |
| Years active | 1993–2000 |
| Label(s) | R.P.P. (1993, 1998)
Back Ta Basics (1995) Positive Face (1996) Under Estimated (1997) Exit (1997–1999) City Lights (1997) Crisis (1998) Revelation (1998) Household Name (1998) Denied a Custom (1998) MIA (1999) Jawk (2000) |
| Associated acts | Most Precious Blood
The Wage of Sin The Judas Factor Milhouse |
| Website | Indecision |
| Members | |
| Justin Brannan: Guitar
Pat Flynn: Drums Steven Bago: Bass Artie Phillie: Vocals (1997–2000) Rachel Susannah Rosen: Guitar (1998–2000) |
|
| Former members | |
| Tom Sheehan: Vocals (1993–1998) | |
Contents |
[edit] History
From the band:[1]
Formed in 1993 in Brooklyn, NY, disbanded summer 2000 in El Paso, TX. Notorious for their tireless work ethic, Indecision toured the world until exhaustion, literally. They released three full length albums, as well as countless 7"s and EPs. Took pages from Sick Of It All, Agnostic Front and the Cro-Mags as well as the West coast sounds of Unbroken, Undertow and Outspoken and created a sound of their own. Indecision is revered for their uncompromising integrity. Inspired some, hated by many but ultimately respected by all.
The band members -- guitarist Justin Brannan drummer Pat Flynn, bassist Steve Sand-"Bago" and vocalist Tom Sheehan (who was replaced by Artie Phillie in 1998) -- met while attending the Catholic Xaverian High School in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn. The band added second guitarist Rachel Rosen after having met her while performing live on her infamous WNYU radio show, Crucial Chaos, in 1996.
Initially Indecision played mostly in local clubs. Over time, a lot of the venues in their neighborhood closed down, which prompted them to take a larger step and lead to the bands integration into the New York City hardcore scene. In the early days, the band would often show up to gigs all in one car, with their equipment tied to the roof with Bungee cords.
Justin Brannan recounts these early days in the liner notes to A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall:[2]
Fort Hamilton High School Auditorium in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York. The infamous "Battle of the Bands". Our first show as Indecision. Also playing was Out of Line, Confusion and Purge. Indecision had a different drummer, two guitarists and two bass players at the time. What the fuck were we thinking? We used to tie Bago's bass cabinet to the roof of his car with fishing rope and drive to the shows like a caravan. 5 U.S. tours, 2 European tours, almost 300 shows and 5 years later - here we are. Indecision in late 1998. [...]
The band was first noticed for its insane live shows at The Wetlands Preserve. Indecision, being a relatively new band at the time, would often open up the Sunday matinees. After they had finished their set, the club would quickly empty out on a regular basiis. This only added to their mystique and quickly built a cult following.
Relentless recording and touring kept the band relevant long after many of their contemporaries faded away. Inspired by bands like Black Flag, Indecision embarked on voracious trailblazing tours, and it became their trademark usually spending a solid 9 to 10 months a year on the road. They were dubbed "The Working Man's Band" for their affinity to tour cities and countries that other bands wouldn't dare.
Indecision also showed its appreciation for its home Brooklyn as well as New York City -- which they regularly labeled "Gotham City" on merchandise --.
The former Indecision-members Justin and Rachel are now in the hardcore band Most Precious Blood on Trustkill Records.
[edit] Records and Labels
The band released their first recording in 1993 on a 7-inch released by R.P.P., a then small Belgian hardcore label. Over the next 7 years, Indecision would tally over a dozen 7-inch singles on a number of different labels, including many limited color vinyl and special edition covers. The band got known on a very grassroots word-of-mouth level from New York City to Thailand, where Indecision remains one of the most popular underground American bands to this day.
In 1996 they signed with WreckAge/Exit Records family and would release 3 albums with the label over the next 3 years: "Unorthodox", "Most Precious Blood" and "To Live and Die in New York City", all of which showed off their slightly metal-tinged brand of thought-provoking hardcore (which managed to express anger and injustice without being hateful).
In 1998, "To Live and Die in New York City" was their first album to feature the polarizing Artie Phillie on vocals (whom the band befriended and poached from noise-crust-punk labelmates, Milhouse), but the album retained the straight-ahead style that their other releases possessed.
In 1999 they tried their luck at another label, putting out Release the Cure on M.I.A. Records. This, there most highly acclaimed album, sadly, would be their last.
[edit] The Stories
[edit] Albums
Indecision was notoriously outspoken - most notably when it came to theories on religion, namely Catholicism, and its non-place in the hard-core scene. Most of their album covers, artwork and merchandise was somehow controversial and in some way painfully irreverent to the devout and deistic. The band always claimed it wasn't done maliciously or hatefully, but to "stir-up a dialogue and inspire free-thought and discussion about religion and its archaic rules."
[edit] Release the Cure
The lyrical content was notably more socio-political with songs questioning the government and health care and conspiracy theories in regard to AIDS and cancer research. The reactions prompted the band to release flyers and the following information on their website:[3]
Since we released "Release The Cure" we have received hundreds of requests for the information we discuss in the CD. We finally took the time to type out what we were sending via regular mail because we receiving a lot of requests via email and postage was getting very expensive; we also wanted it to be available to everyone and anyone for free. What you will read below is pages 164-178 of a book called "Behold A Pale Horse" by Milton William Cooper. This is not our manifesto but we do feel he does a decent job explaining many issues that tie into our "Release The Cure" theory. I urge you to take this, like everything else in life, with a grain of salt. We are not saying his word is law. I think you should approach the conspiracy theories themselves with the same doubt as you do the author as you do the government and the medical industry. Mr. Cooper does discuss the theory that AIDS was created as a tool for population control. He does not discuss the second part of our theory that the government uses diseases and epidemics as a way to profit. There are two other books we have found to be very insightful that I hope you will look into; "The River" by Edward Hooper and "The Unseen Hand" by A. Ralph Epperson. Whether you agree with him or not I'm sure you will find Mr. Cooper's theories startling and intriguing. [...]
[edit] To Live and Die in New York City
The album, released in the winter of 1998, featured eerily prophetic. A manipulated photo of the Manhattan skyline, including the World Trade Center, completely engulfed in flames. Post-September 11th the album cover was banned in many places.
[edit] Touring Disasters: The "Indecision Curse"
The bands tour stories have become legendary. During their first European tout in 1997, after having played a show in Wels in front of a handful of people at an indoor skate park with Flatline and Racial Abuse the band was stopped at the Austrian border on their way to Zagreb. The members were strip searched and held for hours, while the van was disassembled by the customs officials. Another incident happened on the last day of a tour in Quebec in 1999, when they had all their money and merchandise seized.
On Indecisions website, Justin also gave some additional insight about what was labeled "A blow-by-blow account of European Hell 2000":[4]
FUCKING HELL TALLY & JOURNAL:
- Amiens, France - The clutch on the van breaks about 20 miles from the show. The curse begins. We have to rent a van for 5 days to get to the next shows while the other van is fixed. Our driver, Job, drives 7 hours from Valence to Amiens to pick up the van but of course when he arrives, the van is not ready. We are forced to cancel the show in Barcelona, Spain. We are stuck in a fucking Formule 1 Hotel for 3 days. We kept busy walking around Valence and doing radio interviews. The next show is in Madrid and it turns out to be one of the best shows of the tour.
- Toulouse, France - The van was broken into right outside of the Bikini Club. We were sitting about 100 feet away from the van but it was out of sight. Someone used a screwdriver to get in. They grabbed Artie's and Job's backpacks and drove off. Artie lost his passport, money and other important shit and Job lost all of M.A.D.'s money, his passport and the original van papers. The windshield was also cracked somewhere between the van getting robbed and Job flipping out about the fact that his bag was stolen. The stolen van paperwork would haunt us for the rest of the tour.
- Genova, Italy - We found out that the Italian promoter who had booked our show in Italy had taken a deposit for half the money we were supposed to get and the money was nowhere to be found. Classic.
- Austria - We are pulled over twice in one day because the van looks like a piece of shit as it is and now has a broken windshield. The first time was just supposed to be a routine check but it was then that we realized that we were faxed the wrong papers for the van. We couldn't prove that we owned the van. We had to wait around for everything to be sorted out but luckily the police let us go. Later that night in Vienna after the show, we are pulled over again by police for another "routine" check. They didn't like the way we looked.
- Budapest, Hungary - We get to the show and notice the floor is a brown swamp. The toilets had overflowed and the people at the club wanted to cancel the show. We couldn't believe that the club would consider canceling the show after we had come all this way. Luckily Belacz from Dawncore managed to convince the club to do the show. We told them to stop crying, mop up the fucking piss and shit and open the doors so we could load in. The show was great.
- Slovakian / Hungarian border - The border police held us for 12 hours along with Dawncore. In this time, the gas pedal in the van broke and had to be fixed at the border while it was searched for drugs. A groggy klutz Job tripped over his own two feet, fell down and smashed his head through an enormous 9 foot tall window. There was almost no way that we would make it in time to the first show in Poland and by the time they let us go we were all really afraid of what might be in store for us at the other side of the border so we didn't make it to the second show in Poland either. It really sucked. Later we find out there was 300 kids at the show waiting for us. No one had relayed the message of what had happened to us in Slovakia. FUCK SLOVAKIA!
- Berlin, Germany - We got into an accident about 15 minutes from the show in Berlin. We rear ended a car that stopped short at a light in front of us. Bago came flying out of the loft onto Pat and Ryan sitting behind the drivers seat. Luckily Bago only hurt his ear, he could've broken his neck. The front of the van was smashed up and the hood was smashed shut. After the show some drunk guy is smoking up a storm backstage. Artie asks him to distinguish his cigarette because it is bothering his throat. He gives Artie some attitude and says "How about I light another?" At that moment Justin throws the guy over a table, shit flies everywhere. That night Bago tells us he's quitting the band.
- Germany - We tried to get into the Czech Republic at 2 different borders, we were denied at both. The first border told us to get the dents in the van fixed then we could come in and the second one wouldn't let us in because we did not have the original paperwork for the van. On the way to try a third border we were ambushed on the side of the road by a police van and were taken to a police station and held for 3 hours while they checked out the van and our passports. Then a half hour after we were let go we are pulled over again by German police for another "routine check." They only held us for about 10 minutes that time after we told them we had just been detained for 3 hours. The following morning we were sitting in the van parked at a rest stop and a police car pulls up and demands to see our passports because the van looks shady. We are FUCKING cursed.
- Edinburgh, Scotland - The clutch broke again about 15 minutes away from the show. We found out that it won't be fixed until Tuesday (the day we are supposed to fly home from Brussels). One of the opening bands picked us and our equipment up so we could play the show. We left the equipment at the club that night. The next morning we call every van rental place in Edinburgh but there's nothing available for rent because there was a soccer game that weekend. Finally Andy managed to track down a pub that rents a van and found two friends (Barry and Steve) to pick the van up in Glasgow and drive us to Darlington, England to meet up with a guy named Dale who would hopefully drive us to Brussels. We left Job, the van and the backline all in Edinburgh. That night in Darlington Justin sells a kid some stool softners for 5 pounds passing them off as ecstacy tablets.
- Brussels, Belgium - After waiting to check in at the airport for 5 hours we get to the counter and they tell us our tickets had all been canceled. We sorted it out and got on a flight but not before we had to pay $300 for excess baggage. It was so fucking good to get home.
In fact, a follow-up to "Release The Cure" was in the works and tentatively entitled "The Curse" but the band broke up before anything was recorded.
[edit] Columbine Rumors
It was rumored and reported by The Village Voice and National Public Radio that on Tuesday, April 20, 1999, Dylan Klebold wore an INDECISION t-shirt during the shooting rampage at Columbine High School. The band had previously played near Littleton in Denver a few weeks prior to the massacre. This spurred the band to issue press releases vehemently denouncing the horrible crime.
[edit] The breakup
Indecision disbanded after a show in El Paso, Texas while on tour with Kill Your Idols on June 7th of 2000. The band said goodbye to their fans with this message on their website the following day:[5]
Wow. What do I say ? After 7 years Indecision is no more. I'm sure everyone has heard the rumors by now. We were actually trying to keep things together and work things out but in the end, communication problems got the best of us. What a fucking shame. I was hoping to do a few last shows and at least end on a good note but it doesn't look like that is going to happen. Our last show was in El Paso, Texas. I really never thought I'd see this day. I guess in my mind somehow I thought the band was immortal. And in a way IT is but WE'RE not. So thank you to everyone who has selflessly supported us over the past 7 years. There are so many people who were and still are important to us and who helped us just out of friendship. Thats what I always found so amazing about hardcore: the amount of people who are there for you for no reason at all except because you're friends and you both understood some secret language. I know every band seems to wind up saying this but truly without ALL of you we wouldn't have been able to do any of it. There are just so many people we met all over the world on tours, through letters, etc. This is really sad and hard for me to do right now. Maybe I'll give it another shot later on. But for now, thanks to everyone who made this possible. As for us, Rachel and I are starting a new band, I'm not sure what Artie is up to musically and I think Pat is pursuing other options in other bands. Best of luck to everyone and to all our ex-members. So to everyone who made me realize that "for those I love I will sacrifice" truly meant something, thank you, we love you and we'll miss you but we'll see you soon under a different name. Thanks for all the support during 7 years of raw emotion, hard work, happiness, sadness, insanity and fun. Its been a wild ride. Rest in pieces... INDECISION October 29, 1993 - June 7, 2000. For those I love I will sacrifice, - Justin Brannan Fuck !!!
[edit] "For Those I Love I Will Sacrifice"
Probably the most famous lyric from this band, taken from the song "Hallowed Be Thy Name" which appeared on their first record, "Unorthodox".
Over the years, many people in the Hardcore and Punk-scenes across the globe decided to get these 7 words as a tattoo. As the popularity of the internet grew, this quote started to pop up in more and more profiles and signatures at various bulletin boards and scene sites.
[edit] Discography
[edit] Full Lengths
- Unorthodox
- Most Precious Blood
- A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall
- To Live and Die in New York City
- Release the Cure
[edit] EPs
- Indecision
- Believe
- Samaritan
- Campaign for Complete Musikal Destruction
- To Starve and Steal in New York City (UK)
- To Starve and Steal in New York City (Japan)
[edit] Split Records
- Youth Crew 1995 (7" "Split with Shutdown)
- 7" Split with Sons of Abraham
- 7" Split with Sons of Abraham
- 7" Split with Indifference
- Smash Tradition (7" Split with Knuckledust)
- Fall of Every Man (10" Split with Shai Hulud)
[edit] Contributions to Compilations
- Harder they come, Harder they fall
- East Coast Assault
- From the Ground up
- All about friends
- Definitely not the Majors
- New Yorks Hardest
- Incompatible CD-ROM Zine
- Losing Face
- N.Y. Catheter Crew
- Punk Rock Jukebox
[edit] Trivia
- Indecision was the first American band to play in Zagreb, Croatia after the Croatian War of Independence ended in 1995.
- On "Unorthodox", the band used numerous quotes from the movie The Outsiders.
- The song "Purgatory" features an audio sample about the Union Carbide tragedy in Bhopal, India. In December of 1984, a gas leak at a Union Carbide India Limited plant in Bhopal, India, results in tragic loss of life in what is known as the Bhopal disaster, when up to 20,000 people lost their lives.[6]
- The bands long time friend/engineer/producer/co-conspirator, Ron Thal a.k.a. Bumblefoot now plays lead guitar for Guns N' Roses. The band has called Bumblefoot "their own personal George Martin."
- Indecision now plays reunion shows from time to time for benefits and charities.
[edit] Links
[edit] References
- ^ MySpace.com - INDECISION - BROOKLYN, New York - Hardcore / Punk / Drum & Bass - www.myspace.com/indecisionnyc
- ^ Justin Brannan, Linear Notes of the CD "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall", 1998
- ^ http://mostpreciousblood.com/release_the_cure_information.htm (2000-12-04)
- ^ http://mostpreciousblood.com/tour_catastrophes.htm (2000-06-21)
- ^ http://mostpreciousblood.com/News.htm (2000-06-21)
- ^ www.bhopal.org
