NYHC legend, Harley Flanagan of the Cro-Mags, has returned with a new solo album, which is titled Cro-Mags. The album contains 12 angry tracks that in some way document Flanagan’s arrest in 2012.
Flanagan comments:
I first started writing the album in 2012. My intention was to write a bunch of short fast songs — old school style — the way I did it in the early days. I started tracking all the songs myself. Originally, I tracked them all on acoustic guitar, then I put drums on some of them. Early in the project several things in my life exploded, one being the Webster Hall incident. As most people now know, I was jumped at a show that my old band was playing. I put several people in the hospital and I was stabbed in the leg and needed 40 stitches. I was arrested, my name was dragged through the mud, I went to Riker’s, and went to court several times where the charges were eventually dropped for lack of evidence. After that, I went back into the studio to finish the album. I have always been the kind of writer who writes from my life experiences. My music and my book are extensions of me, not fantasy or fiction or BS. I don’t write fantasy type lyrics, I never have, and unfortunately this is what was going on in my life at the time and this was really heavy on my mind, so that is what came out. It made for a very aggressive album. I haven’t had that type of fire in me in a long time.
To listen to select Cro-Mags tracks, visit Flanagan’s Stereokiller profile here.
Produced by Flanagan and Pete Thompson at HoboRico Studios in Hoboken, NJ, the album features a collection of contributing musicians. Flanagan heads up all instruments excluding drums, performed by Pablo Silva. Additional guitars were performed by Pete Thompson and other friends and musical companions of Flanagan’s.
2016 continues to be a busy year for Flanagan, as he will also release a no-holds-barred memoir about his life, entitled Hard-Core, Life of My Own, this fall via Feral House Publishing. Flanagan began his career as a child prodigy drumming at Max’s Kansas City for the Stimulators, then bounced through the lower east side music scene on a hellish trajectory of sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. He formed his band, the Cro-Mags, distilling his hard-won street and musical knowledge into an undeniable, hardcore force of nature. Needless to say, he has a trove of stories to tell.
In Hard-Core, Life of My Own, Harley Flanagan details his beginnings in the drug and crime ridden New York City of the 1970s to the early days of punk rock, hardcore, and beyond. His story is rife with a cast of notables woven in and out at the most seminal moments in New York punk history and beyond.
More details on the release of Hard-Core, Life of My Own are coming soon. Pre-order the book via Amazon.
Rock Hard \m/
