Choking Victim, Leftövercrack, and Crackrocksteady in general
 

What do you guys think of Choking Victim, Leftöver crack or any of the other ''Crack rocksteady'' bands? I personally love Choking Victim!. Leftöver Crack was good too, but not as good as choking victim imo. Especially the second album ''**** World Trade'' Was disappointing to me. I love the aggresive sounding vocals on happy, simple punk music.

For those who don't know, Choking Victim is a third wave ska punk band formed by STZA Crack(Scott Sturgeon) and Ezra kire.
They only have one studio album, called ''No Gods, No Managers'', released in 1999.
After the first day of recording the album, they already broke up. But they had enough material recorded already for an album.

The album has a happy ska punk and pop punk sound mixed with some hardcore punk, and sometimes crust punk elements. I guess you could also call them an anarcho punk band. The music is pretty simple. As you might expect, they use lots and lots of powerchords.
STZA Calls the style ''Crack Rocksteady''. Although Rocksteady as a genre probably doesn't have much to do with this band at all.

The lyrics are often about STZA's hate for cops and the USA, and about his use of Drugs. Sometimes about other things like their squatting life, or even..shoplifting? other than that they're ususally pretty depressing. Luckily they're also anti racist and anti discriminative. There are some songs with more interesting topics though, but as you can probably tell their lyrics are never what drove me to them. I heard that at live shows STZA tends to get pretty preachy about his beliefs about politics. From what I know, STZA's a pretty strange guy. I've heard one time he was arrested for....throwing donuts at cops. Sure STZA, throwing donuts at cops will change something...

After the break up STZA and Ezra formed the band Leftöver Crack.
It's pretty much the same band. They released two albums, ''Mediocre Generica'' and ''**** World Trade''. Although **** World Trade is the more popular of the two, I really prefer Mediocre Generica.
The sound remains pretty much the same, although the crust punk influences are a lot more noticable throughout the album this time, since the other didn't have much of that. There's also a lot more samples and interlude music at the end and beginning of songs. Sometimes they also use different instruments like pianos now.

Now STZA's made another band called Star F*cking Hipsters. To be honest, I don't like them much at all, aside from a few songs. I guess it's ..too pop punk?

There's other bands that either have band members from these bands or just a similar style. I guess you could call this the ''Crack rocksteady'' family.
Ezra did two bands called INDK and Morning Glory, If I'm correct. Than there's this thrashcore/hardcore punk band called F-Minus. I think before choking victim was choking victim it was ''The Crack Rocksteady 7'', but it only has songs from a split. Than there's this band not related to these bands , but that does the choking victim/leftöver crack style quite well, called No Cash. That's as far as I know.

Random songs(I'll try to embed them later, gotta go now):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIOsw2wK4os

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tersmvh6fFI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyO7ZMl3iLA

What do you think of Choking Victim and Leftöver crack?

Leftover Crack
 

Hey man, I know your post is old but I have just found this forum and saw this post about Leftovercrack / Chocking Victim and couldn't not respond.

I saw leftover crack (for the second time) in London last month. (11Aug Underworld Camden). Before the gig I had mainly listed to **** world trade which I thought was good but is absolutely nothing on Choking Victim. I originally owed a choking victim EP but after they played a few of there songs at the gig I bought their album No Gods, No Managers straight away.

I love his voice and just like you mentioned the way he mixes his unique punk sound with upbeat ska of which I haven't found anyone similar.

You got any recommendations of other bands you like that I can listen too? I'm all about punk, fast, upbeat music and if there is ska involved even better! Not a massive fan of how new punk seems to have an undertone of heavy metal in it, which in my opinion ruins it as it doesn't seem as raw (don't know if that makes any sense or not haha).

Don't know if you'll ever see this but if not someone might read this post like I have and respond in 2 years time!

Peace,
Joe

PS just found a new band recently called 'meat wave' and they have a great song called 'brother' check it out if you want

Crack Rock Steady 7 is actually the name Leftover Crack uses when they play in venues they were banned in.

Only ska I give a **** about. Operation Ivy is pretty cool too.

Don't comment on my old threads, I disagree with my openings post, LOC is awesome and **** World Trade is great.

Here's some CRS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MbA-pY-txg

Wow that link to Thee Infidels, never heard of them before and that song is incredible! cheers!

Ah, glad you like it!
Here's my favourite song they did (I didn't post it cause I wanted to post a ska song):


Thee Infidels - 11 - Misery Loves Company | Thee Infidels

I have a friend who hated punk of any kind for years. Then all of a sudden he asks me to hook him up with some old punk, hardcore, new wave, post-punk, post-hardcore, so I burned a bunch of CDs for him (cause I ****ing love burning CDs for people) and on the hardcore CD I had this:



And he dug it, even though he didn't like any other ska.

Absolute tune Baylor's. Don't suppose you have the song list of the CD you burnt him. Semi new to the punk seen so would be great to check out some other bands.

And Dylstew, another great song, may have to buy there album!

Baylor's?? Thats was meant to say batlord

I do not, but this is a good thread to use.

http://www.musicbanter.com/punk/4910...thread-49.html

Batlord, if CV n Operation Ivy are the only ska you like, doesn't that just mean you're into more punky ska? Or is it that you like hornles ska punk? Or do you just like their regular punk songs?(lots of ska punk band habe regular punk songs).

Also Joey I'd gladly get you into more punk music. I got a bunch of download links to albums I could give ya too (You can always buy the ones you like the most). If you got Skype you can add Dylstew on there if ya want to to make it easier.

Also I should call Batlord Baylorswift.

I just don't much care for ska in general. Even the 70s **** mostly bores me.

I love Ska beats, and horns are pretty cool. Especially love it with aggressive punk vocals. Like the first song on here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VfS4bPvPEg

Or this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZHyf-w2W90

Ska Punk is one of my favourite genres, especially of the crack rock steady inspired vereity. Such as this (well, unlike almost all CRS it has horns, but still) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuC02ErqeP4.

I also love the more traditional Westbound Train but that's an entirely different kind of thing.

It is a rather repetetive genre though, even by punk standards. I eventually started to listen more to the non ska songs by ska punk bands just because of that.

I don't think you can sit there and tell me blackened skagrind isn't badass though

I had heard of Choking Victim but had no idea what they sounded like until now. I just listened to a bunch of their tracks and really, really liked them.

Blackened crusty ska grind. Props to posting Leper.

Anywho here's another good crs ska song:
http://positivejunk.bandcamp.com/track/voices

Dylstew, yes that would be great! I've got a 1/2 hour drive to work monday-friday so thats an hour a day minimum to listen to new music.

I think I have a skype account, I haven't used it in a while so will probably need to reset my password but will do that soon and add you.

Just checked out those youtube links you posted, all cracking bands. I think my main problem with the ska punk scene, which you mentioned previously, is it is a very repetitive genre. I'm not sure whether its because they are youtube links / copies or that ska punk isn't that popular in general (therefore might not be funded as much as other genres) but I find the recordings are bad quality. With a lot going on in a song (especially when you start adding in horns) you need good quality to make it stand out from other bands in this genre.

That being said... Evil Empire... Just wow, will be buying that album asap!

Peace,
Joe

That's the best thing about traveling times, time you can devote entirely to music. It'll be cool to add ya on Skype it's fun to introduce people to Punk, most aren't interested.

Punk is repetetive due to being based on simplicity. Ska Punk has it worse if it doesn't have horns, because usually you just mostly get ska beats on guitar throughout the song, for which there aren't many possibilities as it has to be on the off beat.

The more "hardcore" kinda ska punk is rather niche save for a few , while most more popular ska punk would be more accurately labeled "ska pop punk". Reel Big Fish for example is huge.

The recording and production quality thing isn't exclusive to ska punk, it's common in the entirity of Punk as it's an amateuristic do it yourself genre. It's supposed to sound raw and unproffesional. The lo fi recordings became part of the charm for many. Ofcourse some punk bands do have higher quality recordings, mostly modern ones. It actually kinda annoys me Fat Wreck Cords records tend to sound overproduced thrse days. I do partially think stuff being hard to hear also has to do with the loudness war, modern punk music like most modern music just sounds a lot louder, resulting in a loss of dynamic range.


Evil Empire is awesome, one of my favouritr songs, the one I sent, glad ya like it.

A lot of people are turned off by these kinds of vocals, and punk vocals in general.

I got No Gods, No Managers and Mediocre Generica because of this thread and am really enjoying both. So thanks!

Yes, another one for the army.

Now go join C-Squat.

**** yeah. I gotta listen to more of that myself.

The rent at c squat is too high

Didn't they buy the place for a dollar?

ftfy

And to think it's like 600 to rent

Well you know what they say, everyone's a poser but me

That's ridiculous. Please say it ain't so, why's it cost rent to squat in an anarchist owned squat-house?

Something like that

Please give insight. Dying to find out this situation.

Is this what I'm talking about Museum of Lower East Side Squatting to Open on Avenue C - Curbed NY cuz I dunno, just repeating things I've seen other people say

Oh well, like that's fine. She's renting out part of it for a museum I don't see the problem.

I just like to make fun of Stza's bitch ass

I don't have really have an opinion one way or the other, guess I don't know that much about him outside of the fun-loving, beer-chugging anarchist frontman vibe he puts off.

He's probably one of the biggest dicks I listen to

He's been known to shoot people up with heroin against their will

Honestly though he's just a giant bitch, that seems to happen the more punk rock you try to be

Awesome, always cool to see I got someone enjoying one of my favourite albums.
Don't forget **** World Trade!

Also, yes STZA doesn't have the best reputation. Especially not among Erik Miles :P. His vocals still kick ass though.

Well Erik Miles is the homie

Erik Mile is the only one who's not a poser.