Forgotten Gems: Hash Palace-Grit and Bear It

Resonance
1990

Last night I had dinner with my friend Suzanne. As we talked about the music of our youth

(as we are both close in age) we touched briefly on the nineties 

and I was reminded that I owed you, our faithful readers, 

a respectable write-up of Hash Palace.Despite the negativity that 

often times is associated with nineties rock (and rightly so)

there were more then a few really solid groups/ 

albums that emerged from that time period. Of course we all

know that in addition to 90's rock (which had it's own sound

just like 80's and 7o's rock did)the era was all about grunge.

While I have run into my fair share of people who hold a long-

standing grudge against the movement (all because one simple song,

"Smells Like Teen Spirit", killed off hair metal)I would gladly take

Nirvana, Soundgarden or Alice In Chains over some of what passed for

"metal" back in the day. While it might not be completely fair to

associate Hash Palace with the movement (sound-wise they not 

only owed a debt to 80's punk and hardcore, but 70's hard rock 

as well)as this album came out before the big explosion that 

"Nevermind" started they do admittedly have more in common with 

the post-Black Sabbath rock scene then any other scene of the time.  

There is not much to go by when it comes to the band (which I

found both weird and frustrating as the Internet seems to have 

information about even the most trivial/unimportant subjects)

as far as their history goes there is no doubt that Hash Palace

deserved a better fate. With a heavy sound that combines elements 

of not only grunge (more Tad-style grunge then Nirvana at that), 

but hardcore/punk (Misfits, The Butthole Surfers) and dirty 

garage rock (you can almost close your eyes and picture these guys

playing in some old bingo hall) Hash Palace seems as if they

should have easily been able to hold their own.I suspect that if 

you were to also label this psychedelic pseudo-heavy metal you 

probably wouldn't encounter much of an argument. With a vocalist 

that often-times sounds all the world like a (more) crazed version

of Glenn Danzig this is certainly an interesting album. At times

I imagine that this is what The Doors would have sounded like

if A)they had more then their fair share of acid to go around

and B)they had been served a healthy dose of Black Sabbath in

their formative years. Other times it comes off as Nirvana 

meets any number of defunct 80's punk bands. That is the 

sound of a band playing simply for themselves and not some

industry suit.It's hard for me not to appreciate to a band that 

is all the above while still have other moments where they employee 

this classic punk meets Jane's Addiction sound! Thankfully this

isn't one of those albums that you have to search high and low for.

I found this on the excellent site "I Hate The 90s" (link below)

before picking up a copy off of Amazon for under $5.00 (incl.

shipping!). I've provided a link for that as well for those of you

that prefer hard copies of albums. With bands like Hash Palace the

90s were not all bad. 

http://ihatethe90s.blogspot.com/2012/09/hash-palace-grit-and-bare-it-1990.html

http://www.amazon.com/Grit-Bare-It-Hash-Palace/dp/B0001MXR3O/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1353329526&sr=8-1-fkmr1&keywords=hash+palace-grit+and+bear+it