Punk & Hardcore
Trust Records · 6 November 2026
In March 1979, Bad Brains went into Inner Ear Studios in Arlington, Virginia, and recorded a session that, according to the band’s website, had never been released. Forty-seven years later, Trust Records has put it out as “Are You Ready: The First Studio Recording (Inner Ear – March 1979)”. There are six tracks, “Jammin’ At The Atlantis”, “Pay To Cum”, “Don’t Bother Me”, “Black Dots”, “Migraine” and “Send No Flowers”, running to around eleven and a half minutes.
Ian MacKaye mixed it for this release in 2026, at Inner Ear itself, and Pete Lyman mastered it at Infrasonic. It’s out digitally, on cassette and as a one-sided 45 RPM 12-inch: the other side carries an etching featuring artwork by Darryl Jenifer, who also drew the duct-tape logo on the cover. It comes with an insert of rarely seen images from the band’s archive and liner notes by Alec MacKaye, with design by Kill Your Idols Studio. The second vinyl pressing, on presale at the band’s website, begins shipping on 18 December.
Bad Brains formed in Washington, D.C. in 1978, with H.R. on vocals, Dr. Know on guitar, Darryl Jenifer on bass and Earl Hudson on drums. Other 1979 demos had already come out as “Black Dots”, which Caroline released in 1996. The Inner Ear session includes the first studio recording of “Pay To Cum”, the song on the band’s first official single, from 1980. “The title actually meant nothing to us; it was just a fun-loving play on words,” Jenifer recalls on the band’s website.
Text by Marçal Bonastre