Cracked Cop Skulls and Cult UK Hardcore
Cracked Cop Skulls from England featured members of Ripcord, Napalm Death, Sore Throat, The Apostles, and more. With a name taken from Sweden's Skitslickers, they released two records of raw Discharge influenced hardcore in the 1990s. SOA Records from Italy released their "Why Pussyfoot When You Can Kill?" 7" in 1998. Here Paolo of SOA details the story of the release.
Jim Whiteley playing in Napalm Death during the "Scum" era (photo by Nicholas Royles)
Nicholas Royles in his bedroom (photo supplied by Nicholas Royles)
When the first EP of CCS was out, I thought it was very good. Cannot remember how happened I got in touch with band members for the second EP, but I was in touch previous with Nick Royles (drummer of CCS, formerly of Sore Throat) of mighty Ironside. And probably saw him around, guess at some hardcore festival in Belgium. I was very happy to have a release with ex-this and that band that was significant in my hardcore/punk path. When I started listening this stuff, '88-'89, Italian hardcore was in a very bad state, and it wasn't so easy to access to previous ltalo-hardcore band releases. As a matter of fact, Sore Throat, Heresy, Filthkick, and Ripcord were more accessible. Those bands were in some way crucial for my musical direction.
So, as far as I remember we agreed on having a new EP of CCS on SOA. I sent them some bucks for recording. After a while I got some recordings that should be used for some compilation that never happened. No new recording. This pissed me a bit and I sent them less bonus records than the copies we agreed on. Yes, they were never before released tracks indeed, and it also states the same on their Discogs page for the EP. But it pissed me off that I paid for new songs to be recorded and the band didn't go to studio for it. In hindsight I was quite naive to get angry for this. After all, on the EP there were all unreleased tracks.
The EP was very good indeed. Not so sure how many was pressed. At that time I had a pressing plant 5 km far from home, so it was always a friendship deal. "Please press 200 more" was common back in the days, as it was common that I was there assembling sheet covers with glue or CDs. But I'm pretty sure CCS had no repress and was 5-600 copies. At that time EPs were no longer pressed in at least 1000 as 3-4 years before.
Always followed bands related to the guys as Dumbstruck or Unborn and even had an in interview with Jim about his britcore years heydays on one of my zines. Last time I heard from Nick, he was asking me about Sore Throat bootlegs, but I wasn't guilty of those...
CCS records "No Fucking Tears For The Pieces Of Shit" (Days of Fury, 1995) and "Why Pussyfoot When You Can Kill?" (SOA Records, 1998) 7"s
Paolo from SOA Records is on Instagram @soa.records. Paolo is a man of great taste, and SOA Records released many interesting releases from Italian greats such as Declino, Raw Power, Crash Box, Kina, Tampax, Peggio Punx, EU's Arse, Upset Noise, and Cani, as well as many international acts including Disrupt, Assück, Agathocles, The Gerogerigegege, Rupture, and Saw Throat.
Jim Whiteley photo taken when he was playing in Napalm Death by Nicholas Royles. Nicolas Royles photo from the same era. Both of these appeared in the collage insert to Napalm Death's "Scum" album. There were no CCS era photos available for this piece. Check out more of Nick's photos.
CCS records "No Fucking Tears For The Pieces Of Shit" (Days of Fury, 1995) and "Why Pussyfoot When You Can Kill?" (SOA Records, 1998) 7"s from the collection of Negative Insight staff.
Layout on the "Why Pussyfoot When You Can Kill?" 7" by lifer Welly of Four Letter Word and Artcore zine.
A third 7", entitled "Every Stone I Throw," was co-released by Bloodless Records and Attitude Records in 2015. The record can be heard in its entirety on the Bloodless Records band camp site.