Don’t Forget Your Roots,
that’s the name of the covers album that NY’s finest H2O released in 2011 upon the hardcore world.
The band formed out of an ex SOIA roadie( Toby Morse), his brother and some friends decided it was their quest to teach modern day hardcore kids what it’s all about by playing all those songs that influenced them and formed the base for their output of music. 15 tracks of classic covers of some of the greatest hardcore punk bands ever, including DESCENDENTS, RANCID, MADBALL, SOIA,….

The great Amercian Hardcore Punk cities

All this madness was released at the end of last year by BRIDGE NINE RECORDS on five different versions,
A solid 12″ record that was available in four different colours, being black, red, purple and white, and all came with the same artwork featuring the band playing a show depicted in some comic book style.
But a few weeks prior to that release a series of EP’s saw the light, three different versions containing tracks of the upcoming full album. Each version containing three tracks of bands hailing from their respective titles. NYC, DC and California.

Three scenes, three colours

13/09/2011 the first EP was released to the eager masses of collectors and musiclovers. Featuring the sunny tunes of Californian bands such as CIRCLE JERKS, RANCID and SOCIAL DISTORTION. Brought in a a radiant yellow with according artwork depicting some of Cali’s finest bands.

California

References to RANCID, FLIPPER, DESCENDENTS, CIRCLE JERKS and many more can be discovered on the artwork while listening to these sweet punky tunes by the westcoast godfathers. All three tracks are getting served with a special NYHC layer added by the performers.

Flyers featuring the coverd bands

My personal favorite here is the Rancid cover of Journey To The East Bay. It ain’t Tim Armstrong’s cheesegrater vocals, but that would be hard to beat, still Toby and crew take control of this song and make it their own.

Pressed on Cali sunshine vinyl

On 18/10/2011 the next leg of the trilogy expanded as a tribute to NYHC, the name of this release is NEW YORK CITY and demonstratin’ their style are CRO-MAGS, SICK OF IT ALL and MADBALL.

NYHC’s finest representing the five boroughs

On the albumcover it’s another nod to the great of the NY scene, Joey Ramone overlooking the whole CBGB building as the moon goes MADBALL, other NYHC legends can be spotted in here. I’ve got the green version of this vinyl, but more on that later during the pressing info.

DMS

Hard Times by the CRO-MAGS is the first east coast classic to get the H2O treatment on NYC. Next up is
a track by Toby’s former bosses SOIA named Friends Like You. H2O covering NY styled bands comes pretty easy to these guys so no big news on these covers so far. Pride by MADBALL fills the B side of this EP.

The title speaks for itself

To finish this warmup round of releases prior to the full album BRIDGE NINE RECORDS released the last chapter on 28/102011. This time it was Washington DC and the corresponding scene that got paid respect.
I’m talking DAG NASTY, EMBRACE and GOVERMENT ISSUE getting political in the US political capitol.

Lightning hits Capitol Hill once again

Capitol Hill is the setting for the DC albumcover, lightning strikes in resemblance to the mighty BAD BRAINS imagery, the MINOR THREAT black sheep is present and accompanied by other DC based bands such as SCREAM and SWIZ.

District of Columbia represents

A very well done cover of the  DAG NASTY classic Safe can be heard here, along with other great versions of Said Gun by EMBRACE and Understand by GOVERMENT ISSUE.

Georgetown punks and friends

So now let’s get into the numbers. As said earlier all these songs appeared on a full album named Don’t Forget Your Roots. This one comes in four variants and i haven’t found pressing info on this one.
What i can share are the numbers to the EP releases. The California release has been released on 1000 clear opaque yellow ( as mine), 600 on opaque pink, 300 on opaque baby blue and an exclusive tour release of 100 on clear.
New York City holds the same numbers and variants but the colours here are a 1000 on solid orange, 600 on solid green ( as mine), 300 on solid gray and another 100 tour releases only on clear.
The DC version is once again 1000 on clear red ( as mine), 600 on white, 300 clear blue and a touredition on 100 on clear.

From coast to coast

These three EP’s hold 9 of the 15 songs that appear on the full album Don’t Forget Your Roots. 
The idea of splitting them up into the hometowns of the residence of the different bands covered proved a great idea. It gives the listener a preview to the great bands representing those legendary scenes.
All classic songs that are being brought to attention by contempary hardcore legends showing their respect to the generations before them. Displaying a map of american hardcore punk throughout his history, only this time beefed up with a H20 NYHC touch. You can’t hide that New Yawk accent, Yankee.

Ezekiel02:24:81