The Soiling of Old Glory.

During a desegregation protest in Boston on April 5, 1976, Ted Landsmark was hit in the face with an American flag by 17 year old Joseph Rakes. Pulitzer prize winning photo by Stanley J. Forman.


Forman on the left about to take the iconic photo.

Where's the unity?

Here's the unity...

Now let's break it down...

In the beginning there was nothing...Then God said let there be brutality.

Shall we start at the beginning? Before Infest, some members were kicking around in the bands Open Your Mind, F.Y.I., and Death Dose. OYM recorded 2 demos but the sound is a far cry from the razor sharp hardcore that was coming down the pipe. F.Y.I. was mentioned in an old interview as sounding like SOA. Death Dose supposedly has some rehearsal tapes and sound like a more metallic Infest. Of course i wouldn't hold my breath waiting to hear these. If only Infestguy would return from the murky depths of the internet and toss us mortals some scraps to feed our ears, and video clips for us to feast our eyes. Infestguy we miss you...

The original demo was your usual diy affair. Colored paper covers and hand written tape labels on the finest cassettes lurking in the audiophile section at the local VONS, with some even sporting a yellow and black printed logo sticker, slick and professional. Some copies have a 2 sided lyric insert. A bunch are missing this insert so its possible they didn't all have them or they were just lost over the years. According to second hand information from a rock solid source (ebay description) Dave Ring told the seller there were 100 copies of the original tape. Seems like the light brown/ tan paper is the most common. Below are some various photos and scans of original demos. There are definitely variations out there; just check out the 2 different lyric sheets posted here. Got a variation? Send in a pic or add to the comments section. If anyone out there decides they no longer need their copy i'm you're man. One of the few things i do not have and "NEED".


There are bootlegs out there. They were mostly kicking around in the 90's and look very similar to originals. B&W photocopy sleeve and the tapes are obviously 90's designs. I got mine from Poison Planet Tapes and its on some terrible brightly colored Memorex DBS tape.

The copy below is interesting. It has an added panel on the right (skull with BSU tape distro logo) and appears to be numbered below the song titles. Someone says they purchased a copy from this distro in 1989. Not sure if it was Ok'd by the band to print up some copies or already being booted. Either way if you see one like this its not the original band released edition.

Full Discography

Below is a list of everything i can think of that's out there, somewhere. Of course there may be some other bootlegs kicking around europe but none that i remember seeing listed anywhere. The bootlegs range from pretty cool at the time they came out (how they poison their young) to completely worthless pieces of shit (2010 boot of slave). It is really unfortunate that every one of their official releases is currently out of print. Makes it easy for the bootleggers to run wild. I plan to cover most if not all of the records below in this blog at some point. Stay tuned...


Official Releases

1987 Demo Tape (20 songs)

1988 S/T (aka Machismo / Where’s The Unity) 7” (10 songs)

1988 Slave MLP (18 songs)

1989/90 Infest / PHC split 8” Flexi (5 songs)

1991 Mankind 7” (10 songs)

2000 Infest / PHC split 7” reissue (8 songs)

2001 Live KXLU LP (18 songs)

2002 No Mans Slave (19 songs)

2006 Mankind 10” (14 songs)

2013 Days Turn Black (4 songs)

Compilations

1989? Whats The Point? Tape Comp (3 songs from demo)

1989/90? Open Your Eyes Vol 2 Tape Comp (3 songs from demo)

1990 BLLEEAAUURRGGHH The Record 7” (1 song –why don’t you…renamed big mouth on mankind 10")

1992 Apocalyptic Convulsions 10” (2 songs –the world is dead, nothing left inside)

1993 Fear Of Smell LP (1 song –nothing’s changed)

1996 Reality #2 LP (1 song –cold inside alt version)

1999 Reality #3 LP (1 song –dead at birth)

Suburban Voice Dangerously Unstable Comp CD (1 song -peace test alt version named behind this tongue on nms)

Bootlegs

Still Fighting Discography CD

3 Sided 2x7”

1987 Demo 7” (w/ live photo)

How They Poison Their Young 10”

Machismo 7”

Mankind 7”

PHC split 7” w/ cartoon cover

Not Over Yet 7”

1987 Demo LP

Slave, Mankind + Rehearsal Tracks LP

Not Over Yet 7” (live photo cover)

2010 Slave LP (w/ original cover art & poster)

Break The Chain Discography Cass from italy

1987 Demo Cass

Pretty much every t shirt you have ever seen

Infest Poster/ Stickers/ T Shirt included in OTD Box Set

Time for HARDCORE!!

Now that's a fucking show!! Below is a link to a photobucket folder i put together with all the scans of various flyers i've found over the years. Some of them are nice high quality scans (thanks timmy, jack, and clint). Others look like dog shit. I don't collect physical copies of original flyers because as cool as some of them are i can enjoy a digital scan as much as i could enjoy a ratty stained piece of paper thats 25 years old. Please send in nice high res scans of any flyers i don't have or any i have in abysmal -42 dpi quality. Anything sent in will be added to the archive.

Updated 3/6/2012 (3 new flyers added)

INFEST FLYER ARCHIVE

INFESTINFESTINFESTINFESTINFESTINFEST

For hours, days, years i've talked to fellow Infest fan boys, band members, and friends ad nauseam about pressing info, color vinyl, and rare versions of their records. Despite this band being one of the all time greats in the realm of brutality, there is scant information on the web about them. There are more bootlegs with their name on em than there are official releases. Hopefully this blog will take some of the mystery out of what is what, what came when, and how many were made. Any and all submissions can be sent to my email: random colors, limited sleeves, flyer scans, etc etc would be greatly appreciated. Lets close this first post out with an amazing description from an old ebay auction. A review doesn't get any better than this...

"US HC killer. Only released in Switzerland. All in all, only 1,000 copies of this original first pressing in several different vinyl colors were made. This one was born in black vinyl. 18 tracks, 18 killers. This cracker is for true believers and not for children. You are bidding on the ultra-fast and brilliant FULL-OF-HATE shocker Slave by legendary US Hardcore/Crustcore/Brutalcore band INFEST. This old-school classic will knock your head off. Mixing the insane power of maniacs, INFEST left most others looking like they were playing in slow motion. Here’s the complete track listing of this outstanding and masterful HATEBREED KILLER.."