There was some interesting stuff there, but it WAS pretty — Raw? Unproduced? I’m not sure what the appropriate description might be. I could certainly see some DC executive hearing that (as is) and not having the vision to imagine what it might sound like after it had been massaged by a music producer.

It’s a prettyy awesome story though!

Sorry, this file has expired and cannot be downloaded.

Man, that was a short-lived link.

Sadness. ;_; I wanted the song, so.

Jason, I think the word you’re looking for is “punk.” I could be wrong, but I don’t think this song was intended to be massaged by a music producer; it’s supposed to sound raw and unproduced.

It took me a little bit to get into the lead singer’s voice, particularly on the chorus, but once I did I gotta say I actually dug this song quite a bit. Pretty cool.

It’s the 25th already? Then my time machine project has worked!

Now, are there any indie music buffs savvy enough to figure out who the actual band was?

Can someone put it back up somewhere more robust?

Try Megaupload. The link lasts longer.

Can’t download it…

So the link lasted less than 3 hours?

I see lots of other people already mentioned this, but the link already expired! I’d love the song, please let us know if/when it becomes available again.

I’ll be happy to host it on a non-expiring link…provided someone gets me a copy

Didn’t think this one through hosting-wise I see.

Lets try again! Enough people want this I foresee an itunes release.

Boy, that burned through pretty quickly.

I re-uploaded it, so try again while it is still available.

Thanks, Brendan, I used MegaUpload for the newest one. I’ve used YouSendIt okay in the past, but wow, I guess a ton of folks wanted this puppy.

@ Jason

Oh, I assure you, nobody at DC actually ever heard this, their disinterest was THAT maximal.

@ Scott Harris

I always imagined ST should actually sound much, MUCH worse than this, I decided too much authenticity would be counterproductive.

@ Chris Buckley

Good luck with that. While they released at least one CD, from what little I know they didn’t outlive ST by much. We’re talking about where “obscure” starts shading into outright “occult”…

Just cuz I’m like that, I did a full tagging of the MP3 with the cover posted and all
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10445735/Scare%20Tactics%20-%20Inhumanifesto%20Bootleg%20-%2001%20-%20Inhumanifesto.mp3

Thanks Scavenger.

and Double Thanks Len.

Thanks, y’all! I’m getting this for my 15-year-old who, when I explained the concept of Scare Tactics to him, said “That sounds like the best comic book ever.” Too bad he never got to see it.

Thanks for the reupload…pretty cool song.

CBR is now hosting it on their site, so you can listen to it and you won’t ever have to worry about the hosting site expiring!

Oh I don’t know about punk rock not being “produced” – wasn’t Billy Idol supposed to be punk rock? His stuff was as slick as anyone else on the radio at the time…. Maybe he wasn’t as punk rock as I think. Maybe he was “punk-lite”.

The instrumentals were pretty good, but the lyrics were… less then stellar.

TheLastDJ — why not get the back issues for him? Any book you haven’t read is a new book, after all! (Don’t forget those team-up one-shots, too!)

…Is that the monster from “It Conquered The World” on the cover?

@ Frank Rook

Yep. I intended for IT to be to SCARE TACTICS as THE CRIMSON GHOST is to the MISFITS…

That was great to hear, thanks Len & Brian.

It actually sounded to me like it was performed by the Famous Monsters….

That was great. I was expecting it to be a let down, but i have to say I really liked it.

Jason. Jason, Jason. Billy Idol is to punk what poison is to heavy metal. what vanilla ice is to rap. what linkin park is to nu-metal. facepalm.jpg

Just came across this (my computer here at home has been reliably working for only the last few days, & things have been so busy at work in the wake of staffing reductions & such that I’ve barely glanced at CSBG in at least a month .;.. please don’t hate me (at least any more than you already do!) … Love it.

I’ll match my punk bona-fides up against anyone’s at CSBG & CBR as a whole (devotee since 3/78, kicked in the head by a stage-diving Jello Biafra at the Dead Kennedys’ first Phoenix show in 8/82, plagued with a case of tinnitus after the Buzzcocks’ 12/93 show in Deep Ellum, etc. etc. etc.), & this by god is pretty damned good.

Sounds *really* famliar; I’m thinking the NYC band Fur, whose s/t debut album from ’95 or so is an unappreciated gem & one of my favorites from that decade.. A second LP was recorded but apparently never released, agonizingly enough, but I digress. (Dunno if anyone speculated about the band’s ID in the aforementioned Legends link because I’m using a new-to-me toolbar & can’t seem to work out how to access the “Find” function.)

As it happens, I discovered SCARE TACTICS only around 3 months ago. It was a fun little series. RIP, Scream Queen, et al.

Oh, yeah. Billy Idol. Even during punk’s early days — & he was there from damned near the beginning under his birth name, William Broad, as a member of the so-called Bromley Contingent, a bunch of suburban kids (also including, most famously, Siouxsie Sioux of the future Banshees) following the Sex Pistols from gig to gig — his band, Generation X, were a bit less abrasive than the movement’s standard-bearers. Great rocking pop as often as not, though — check out “Your Generation” & “Ready Steady Go” in particular.

Ah, well. Back to my own personal Buzzcocks-indluced “Harmony in My Head” …

@ Dan Bailey:

DAMN, BOY! YOU WIN!

Didn’t think ANYBODY would be able to nail that one.

MR. BAILEY, SIR, I BOW TO YOUR SUPERIOR PUNK-FU, SIR!

Your choice between an autographed copy of a randomly-selected issue of SCARE TACTICS (depends what I have left at this point) or an autographed SCARE TACTICS PROMO POSTER (assuming I can find them) is yours!

Len

Oh, another trivia fact I meant to post back when this was all new: since I didn’t have the bucks to produce a “B” side (the single was mass-produced on cassette, which at that time was how actual bands were circulating stuff of this sort), I put the title “The Answer To All My Prayers” on the B side, which was, of course, blank…

Wow, it’s so weird hearing this again after so many years. I don’t think I’ve heard it since this session which probably was only a couple hours to record and mix. Yeah, it’s pretty lo-fi but I actually had a falling out with the studio owner shortly after this session and never really got to work on it much beyond that one session. I’m glad that Len had a copy somewhere and there was interest in it… I was really a lot more into the comic scene back then (and music)… been mainly focusing on movie stuff for the last eight years and forgot how much fun it was doing an impromptu recording session like this. Thanks for sharing this, Len and CBR!

Not to brag (he said, bragging), but on the extreme off chance that Craig Shutt suffers some sort of brain injury & decides out of the blue to hold a punk-focused version of his celebrated annual pro-fan trivia contest at whatever con that happens at (I don’t go to cons … lack of money, opportunity & for that matter inclination), I hereby nominate myself for participation.

(If *Mark Waid* can recite the Atlas-monster-era-centric lyrics of The Table’s Do the Standing Still or identify the song wherein The Fall mention Dr. Doom, I’ll be surprised.)

The motion is seconded.

LET THE CHALLENGE BE PROCLAIMED THROUGHOUT THE SEVENTY-LEVEN REALJMS!!

“Mark Waid, please see the sharp-dressed man at the Courtesy Desk… paging Mark Waid…”

I just recently discovered this thread after a nostalgic Wikipedia session and plugging in “Scare Tactics.”

Now, I was only 12 when this came out, but I remember picking up the first issue and being SO excited about this comic. Being a huge horror fan that I was, there were very few real monster books (I was always envious of watching teen-centered horror flicks from the 80′s and watching them with this mass collection of EC horror reprints they nabbed from the gas station) easily gained at my comic book shop in Small Town, South Carolina, so when DC put Scare Tactics out, I gobbled it up and probably re-read each issue multiple times in-between releases.

No one else I knew picked it up, but I’ve known the shop owner my whole life, so he kept ordering copes for me. Was definitely heartbroken when the book was canceled, and because of the flow of information back then, it took me FOREVER to figure out what was going on.

Since I doubt there’s any possibility for a trade, I’m going to have to re-hunt down the series so I can enjoy it again. But I definitely must thank everyone involved in the thread, CBR, and most of all, Len Kaminski, for this. I had NO idea a “bootleg” SC song was created. This absolutely made my day.

Scare Tactics was definitely a lost favorite title of mine, and I’m really glad to see other people appreciated it too, and that Kaminski created this cool thing for the fans after all these years. Am completely stoked about this thread. Thanks everyone.