RIP Eric Brockman, singer/guitarist of Life Sentence. Not the inspiration I wanted, but an excuse for an overdue post.
If you were a skater, punk or zoogie (my friend's name for metalheads) in the 80's, you at least knew OF Life Sentence. Their simple logo was ubiquitous (that's right) in magazines, especially when heavy hitters like Metallica and DRI sported their t-shirts. That's about the best music promotion you could get in the 80's.
I bought (or "acquired") both of their generic looking cassettes from the Mainstream Megastore in Milwaukee. I didn't see a huge difference between the albums at the time. They were both fast and melodic, like a tighter, less posi version of early 7 Seconds. I still don't quite understand why one is lauded as a classic and the other seems mostly forgotten. Of course there was a big lineup change between albums, but that began during the recording of the first album!
The band broke off into 2 camps, both using the name Life Sentence. Eric Brockman recruited a new rhythm section and they recorded this, their second album, No Experience Necessary. Songs like "No Experience Necessary" and "Win, Lose Or Sue" are as classic to me as "Problems" and "Punks For Profit" from the first album. I guess older people and those "in the know" didn't like the cleaner recording, or picked sides in the split. I didn't know about any of that stuff at the time.
And it's been a long time since then, so hopefully the band members have some fond memories from those days. And hopefully new and old Life Sentence fans take a listen to this great album.
Life Sentence - No Experience Necessary (R) (vbr 0)
Notes: So this is taken from the CD version of the album. All the songs were on 1 track, but I separated all of them and remastered the album a bit.
