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  • the album cover for Bad Brains - Are You Ready: The First Studio Recording (Inner Ear - March 1979) [Black]
  • the album cover for Bad Brains - Are You Ready: The First Studio Recording (Inner Ear - March 1979) [Black]

Bad Brains – Are You Ready: The First Studio Recording (LP Vinyl)

$ 32.95
$ 32.95
Est. 1974, Curated by Heads
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Before Bad Brains relocated to New York and rewired what hardcore could be, they were four jazz-trained teenagers from Washington, D.C., playing with a speed and precision that had no real precedent. What Don Zientara captured at Inner Ear that March was a band already fully formed, already operating at a level that would take the rest of the scene years to catch up to.

Clocking in at under 15 minutes, Are You Ready: The First Studio Recording (Inner Ear – March 1979) is the raw, blistering calling card that announced the band's arrival on the scene — prior to the release of the landmark "Pay to Cum" 7", a full three years before the release of the legendary Bad Brains LP in 1982, and nearly 20 years before some of the recordings from later in 1979 would surface on the band's seminal compilation, Black Dots (1996). This is the first-ever release of the incendiary March 1979 Bad Brains session from Inner Ear Studios, Arlington, VA, and it features the the first studio recording of "Pay to Cum." The album was mixed for release by Ian MacKaye at Inner Ear (2026), mastered by Pete Lyman at Infrasonic, and produced in cooperation with Bad Brains.

Tracklist:

  1. Jammin’ At The Atlantis
  2. Pay To Cum
  3. Don’t Bother Me
  4. Black Dots
  5. Migraine
  6. Send No Flowers

UPC: 794558801911
Label: Trust Records
Release Date: 11.6.26
Format: LP Vinyl