False Prophets (band)

Last updated
False Prophets
Origin New York City, New York, U.S.
Genres Punk rock, hardcore punk
Years active1980–1990
LabelsWorn Out Brothers, Alternative Tentacles, Konkurrel
Past membersStephan Ielpi
Steve Wishnia
Peter Campbell
Matt Superty
Anthony Sepulveda

False Prophets were an American, New York City-based, punk rock/hardcore punk band which formed in 1980. The original members were Stephan Ielpi (vocals), Steve Wishnia (bass), Peter Campbell (guitar) and Matt Superty (drums). [1]

Contents

History

The False Prophets were founded in New York in June 1980. The trigger was an advertisement placed by Steven Wishnia in the weekly Village Voice, to which Stephan Ielpi and Peter Campbell replied. Ielpi's cousin Matt Superty became the first drummer. [2] In the founding phase, the band name changed several times, so the members called themselves Glass Asylum, Severed Vains, Charred Remains and Dyslexic Prophets, before the name False Prophets established itself. The band made a name for themselves in the developing hardcore scene with regular appearances in the A7 in the East Village. In their early years, the band was also noticed by the striking appearance of their singer Ielpi, who among other things wore a kind of mustache that consisted exclusively of two braids under the nostrils, which, according to Spin magazine, looked like "two encrusted stalactites".

In 1981 and 1982 the band released two singles on the label Worn Out Records, which they founded for this purpose. Like many New York Hardcore bands, they didn't have the money to record a full album. Also in 1982 the band was represented with two titles on the sampler New York Thrash. In the same year the first drummer Superty left the band and was replaced by Patrick Blank (ex-The Undead).

Jello Biafra, an avowed fan, arranged a record deal with the Alternative Tentacles label, and their first LP False Prophets was released in 1986. [3] Recorded in 1984, the album came out at an inopportune time - Biafra and the Dead Kennedys had been busted for "distributing harmful material to minors" since April 1986, and the investigation and subsequent trial dragged on to December, thus Biafra and Alternative Tentacles paid little attention to promotion.

In 1986 Campbell left the band. A replacement was found in the form of George Tabb and Debra Adele DeSalvo, so that the band from then on worked with two guitarists.

The second Prophets album Implosion was produced in 1987 by Giorgio Gomelsky. In the same year Wishnia and the current drummer Ned Brewster left the band after differences with Ielpi during a west coast tour.

Ielpi and DeSalvo continued the band with new members until 1993 and released an EP before the False Prophets finally separated. [4] In 2002 the band reformed for a concert at New York's CBGB's to mark the 20th anniversary of the release of New York Thrash. [5]

Members

Guitarist DeSalvo is a full-time music journalist, has published a standard work on blues music and writes for Rolling Stone and Huffington Post. [6] Steven Wishnia was a part-time writer for High Times [3] and has published two novels and a non-fiction book on cannabis. In the 1990s, George Tabb released two albums and an EP on Lookout Records with the punk band Furious George, which he founded. He wrote for the fanzine Maximumrocknroll and has published three novels. Wishnia and Tabb founded the band Iron Prostrate after leaving the Prophets. [7] Singer Ielpi now lives in San Francisco. Patrick Blanck died in a car accident in the Dominican Republic in 2001.

Style and reception

The False Prophets saw themselves as a political band and were perceived as such by the media; in particular, they were said to be close to libertarianism. [8] One of the symbols of their live performances were lengthy political speeches that were sometimes not very popular with the audience. [3] Visually, the band set themselves apart from the NYHC cliché of shaved machos wearing jeans and t-shirts and showed themselves to be more punk. This polarized the Prophets - while on the one hand their creativity and impropriety were respected, and comparisons were made to the British crustcore band Crass, [9] they were sometimes openly rejected by hardcore concert goers. Paul "H.R." Hudson from the Bad Brains, for example, once pelted Stephan Ielpi with a garbage can during a False Prophets live set. [9] On the Agnostic Front camp they were stylized as "useless left hippies". [10] Rob Kabula (Cause for Alarm) called the band "the Dead Kennedys of NYHC".

During its existence, the band went through many line-up changes, which made it difficult to develop a clear style. Spin magazine placed them at the intersection of hardcore, metal and pop and assessed the band as "too offensive to be politically correct and too politically correct to be trend junkies". [8] Spin author Charles M. Young described the band's music as an "independent, punk-influenced synthesis of wildness, moodiness, showmanship and versatile arrangements", and the 1987 album Implosion as having a “pleasant, all-encompassing 1968 feeling ". The blog Vinyl Journey stated singer Ielpi's live performance "gave you a picture of what a Communist Party gathering in a Cambodian madhouse would look like". [4] The blog described the band as part of the hardcore scene, but highlighted the occasional use of piano and synthesizer in the music of the Prophets and attested to their closeness to classic British punk, but also to Alice Cooper and the Kinks.

According to ex-bassist Wishnia, the band itself found its inspiration both in the music of hardcore bands of the first generation such as Heart Attack, Undead or Reagan Youth as well as in the music of British post-punk bands such as Joy Division, Public Image Limited or Gang of Four.

Discography

Studio albums

Singles and EPs

Compilation albums

Compilation appearances

Related Research Articles

Dead Kennedys American punk band

Dead Kennedys are an American punk rock band that formed in San Francisco, California, in 1978. The band was one of the defining punk bands during its initial eight-year run.

Jello Biafra American singer and activist (born 1958)

Eric Reed Boucher, better known by his professional name Jello Biafra, is an American singer and spoken word artist. He is the former lead singer and songwriter for the San Francisco punk rock band Dead Kennedys.

Anarcho-punk is punk rock that promotes anarchism. Some use the term broadly to refer to any punk music with anarchist lyrical content, which may figure in crust punk, hardcore punk, folk punk, and other styles.

<i>Frankenchrist</i> 1985 studio album by Dead Kennedys

Frankenchrist is the third album by the American hardcore punk band Dead Kennedys, released in 1985 on Alternative Tentacles.

Agnostic Front American hardcore punk band

Agnostic Front is an American hardcore punk band from New York City. Founded in 1980, the band is considered an important influence on the New York hardcore scene, as well as a pioneer of the crossover thrash genre.

Nomeansno Canadian alternative rock band

Nomeansno was a Canadian punk rock band formed in Victoria, British Columbia and later relocated to Vancouver. They issued 11 albums, including a collaborative album with Jello Biafra, as well as numerous EPs and singles. Critic Martin Popoff described their music as "the mightiest merger between the hateful aggression of punk and the discipline of heavy metal." Nomeansno's distinct hardcore punk sound, complex instrumentation, and dark, "savagely intelligent" lyrics inspired subsequent musicians. They are often considered foundational in the punk jazz and post-hardcore movements, and have been cited as a formative influence on the math rock and emo genres.

New York hardcore

New York hardcore is both the hardcore punk music created in New York City and the subculture and lifestyle associated with that music. New York hardcore grew out of the hardcore scene established in Washington, D.C., by bands such as Bad Brains and Minor Threat. Initially a local phenomenon of the 1980s and 1990s, New York hardcore eventually grew to establish an international reputation with little to moderate mainstream popularity but with a dedicated and enthusiastic underground following, primarily in Europe and the United States. With a history spanning over more than four decades many of the early New York hardcore bands are still in activity to this day. Some of them have been continuously or almost continuously active since their formation as well as having reunion shows.

The Fartz were a Hardcore Punk band that was founded in 1981 and were one of the first well-known hardcore bands from Seattle, Washington. They were signed to Jello Biafra's Alternative Tentacles Record label. They were notable not only for playing incredibly fast and heavy music, but also for their politically and socially conscious song lyrics that criticized government policies, religious hypocrisy, racism, sexism, and poverty. Throughout their musical career they championed a blue collar, working class perspective on life.

Nausea (band) American hardcore punk band

Nausea was an American hardcore punk band from New York City, active from 1985 to 1992. They are cited as a notable band in the first wave of crust punk.

<i>Let Them Eat Jellybeans!</i> 1981 compilation album by Various Artists

Let Them Eat Jellybeans!, subtitled "17 Extracts From America's Darker Side", is a compilation album released by Jello Biafra's Alternative Tentacles in 1981. It was one of the earliest compilations of underground music in the United States and its original release included an insert of all of the punk bands known to be playing in the U.S. and Canada at that time. The first side of the LP features songs by a number of bands that formed the canon of American hardcore punk in the 1980s, while the second side features more of an art rock sound.

Victims Family American hardcore punk band

Victims Family is a hardcore punk band formed in 1984 in Santa Rosa, California, by bass guitarist Larry Boothroyd and guitarist and vocalist Ralph Spight. Devon VrMeer completed the trio as drummer. Their sound blended punk, heavy metal and jazz, making them difficult to categorize into a single genre. Allmusic says, "Since its inception, the trio has refused to be pigeonholed to any single musical style — incorporating elements of hardcore punk, jazz, funk, hard rock, and noise into its challenging sound". They were known as one of the most musically diverse bands in the San Francisco underground music scene. Over the years, Victims Family went through four drummers and two break-ups. Their name was taken from a piece by the cartoonist B. Kliban.

Leeway is an American crossover thrash band formed in Astoria, New York in 1984 by guitarist A.J. Novello and vocalist Eddie Sutton under the name The Unruled. To date, the band has released four studio albums — Born to Expire (1989), Desperate Measures (1991), Adult Crash (1994) and Open Mouth Kiss (1995) — and broken up and reformed several times over the years. Despite never achieving notable commercial success, Leeway is considered to be an integral part of the 1980s NYHC and crossover thrash scenes.

Implosion can refer to:

Life After Life was an American self-described gypsy punk band, active from 1993–1998 and based in San Francisco, California, United States. The group featured Jim Čert, an accordion-playing folk singer originally from the Czech Republic, Jaroslav Erno Šedivý, a Czech drummer noted for his collaborative work with Plastic People of the Universe, and four American musicians involved in the Bay Area rock scene.

Really Red was one of Houston, Texas' first punk bands and existed from the late 1970s through 1985.

A7 was a club in New York City that between 1981 and 1984, was one of the main locations of the New York hardcore scene. The tiny space was located on the southeast corner of East 7th Street and Avenue A in Manhattan's East Village. The venue hosted fast punk bands such as The Stimulators or The Violators, and slowly a hardcore scene of initially about 100 persons formed around the club which spawned bands like The Abused, Agnostic Front, Antidote, Cause for Alarm, Cro-Mags, Heart Attack, Kraut, The Mob or Urban Waste who played the A7 regularly, some of them weekly. Although the venue were putting on performances from lesser known New York punk rock and hardcore bands like False Prophets, it became the scene's unofficial headquarters of the scene after Bobby Steele began performing at the venue due to him being banned from CBGB and Max's Kansas City. It also played host to a fertile jazz and reggae scene during the 1980s.

M.I.A. is an American 1980s punk rock band from Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. The band's sound is generally hardcore and thrasher, though they produced more melodic and progressive sounds in their later albums. AllMusic called the band "one of the 50 best So-Cal punk bands of the great early-'80s second wave explosion."

The Stimulators were an American punk rock band from New York City. Although they have a limited discography, they are notable for being consistently cited as an important transitional band between the late-1970s New York City punk rock scene and New York hardcore, and for being the musical entry point for future Cro-Mags founder Harley Flanagan.

Straight Ahead (band) American hardcore punk band

Straight Ahead was an American straight edge hardcore punk band formed in Queens, New York City, in 1984, by drummer and vocalist Tommy Carroll, guitarist Gordon Ancis and bassist Tony Marc Shimkin.

<i>Soul Structure</i> 2017 studio album by Higher Power

Soul Structure is the debut studio album by British hardcore punk band Higher Power. The album was released on 17 May 2017 through Flatspot Records.

References

  1. ↑ "Alternative Tentacles - Bands". Archived from the original on 2017-04-16. Retrieved 2017-06-22.
  2. ↑ "Biography". 2020-01-26.
  3. 1 2 3 Blush, Steven (2010). American Hardcore. A Tribal History (2 ed.). Port Townsend: Feral House. p. 204. ISBN   978-0-922915-71-2.
  4. 1 2 "False Prophets: self-titled LB" . Retrieved 2017-05-24.
  5. ↑ "False Prophets at the NY Thrash 20th Anniversary at CBGBs June 2002" . Retrieved 2017-05-24.
  6. ↑ "Debra Devi". HuffPost . Retrieved 2017-05-24.
  7. ↑ Mader, Matthias. New York Hardcore Volume 2. The Sound of the Big Apple. Berlin: I.P. Verlag Jeske/Mader GbR. p. 204. ISBN   978-3-931624-60-6.
  8. 1 2 Spin November 1988, S. 69
  9. 1 2 Rettman, Tony (2015). New York Hardcore 1980–1990 (2 ed.). New York: Bazillion Points. p. 61. ISBN   978-1-935950-12-7.
  10. ↑ Hurchalla, George. Going Underground: American Punk 1979–1989 (2 ed.). Oakland: PM Press. p. 173. ISBN   978-1-62963-242-1.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.