East Los Presents...

East Los Presents...
Studio album by Union 13
Released July 1, 1997
Recorded Westbeach Recorders,
Hollywood, U.S.
Genre Hardcore punk
Length 31:44
Label Epitaph Records
Producer Tim Armstrong
Lars Frederiksen
Union 13 chronology

--- East Los Presents...
(1997)		 Why Are We Destroying Ourselves?
(1998)

East Los Presents... is the first album from East Los Angeles, California hardcore punk band, Union 13.

It was released in July, 1997 on Epitaph Records. Legend has it that Brett Gurewitz heard about the band playing to large numbers of people in L.A. backyards and asked them to record a demo.

The demo was subsequently played to Rancid's Tim Armstrong and Lars Frederiksen and they insisted on producing the band's first proper recording.

A second album, Why Are We Destroying Ourselves?, was quickly released in 1998, also on Epitaph Records.

Overview

From the opening track, "Who Are You?", the band sets out its musical stall in so much as it starts with a bass line and builds to a super-fast cresecendo of full-on hardcore punk.

They were not typically Californian in their approach, which is probably what set them apart from the rest of the pack – indeed their brutality and social conscience could more likely be compared to that of the New York hardcore scene occurring on the opposite coast.

The band, being of Hispanic-American descent, are not afraid of singing in Spanish either – something they were adamant about doing on all their albums. Whilst they were not the first to do this, they did influence others to follow suit – for example, another L.A. band, Lifes Halt who had a split EP on Indecision Records in 2000, sang two of their five tracks in Spanish.

However, obviously geared to "getting the party going", the tracks are all of a similar pace – not a bad thing if you want 32 minutes of all out hardcore – but it was something they addressed on later albums with the introduction of alternating tempos and melody.

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Track listing

  1. "Who Are You?" – 1:44
  2. "Regrets" – 1:31
  3. "Fuck Society" – 1:53
  4. "Bonded As One" – 1:41
  5. "Todo Es Una Política" – 1:33
  6. "Burócrata Estafador" – 1:44
  7. "Children Stories" – 1:59
  8. "Falling Down" – 1:06
  9. "Country Full Of Lies" – 1:32
  10. "I Can't Stand It Anymore" – 2:58
  11. "Govierno Podrido" – 1:24
  12. "Realidad" – 1:47
  13. "Over The Hill" – 1:49
  14. "Government" – 0:57
  15. "State Of Conscious" – 2:41
  16. "Un Muro Por Cruzar" – 1:40
  17. "Ronald's Fuckhouse" – 1:47
  18. "Final Approach" – 1:59

Personnel

External links