The Formative Years – Killed By Death
Named after a song by Motörhead, the immense eye opening influence the Killed By Death bootleg series of compilations had on me as a juvenile delinquent cannot be overstated.
Specifically the first four volumes of the series were filled with obscure punk treasures from 1977-’82, with the common denominator being the arcane nature of the recordings and the impossibility to track down original copies of the releases.
Curated by the imaginary label "Redrum Records", the original four volumes fanned the flames of an emerging die-hard collector scene, resulting in a frenzy with not only in the acronym “KBD” eventually becoming omnipresent on Ebay as a search term, but also in a myriad of subsequent volumes by other bootleggers either continuing the concept by adding their own idiosyncratic twist or alternatively using the hype and a readymade market with no rhyme or reason as to curation and a dysfunctional, inconsistent numbering system, let alone other compilation series of similar ilk that have been inspired by it.
Needless to say, due to the limited nature of the KBD compilations, the first iterations became collector pieces themselves in the early 1990s.
Long before the advent of the internet, volumes of Killed By Death documented early punk rock and offered the opportunity to listen to music that would have otherwise never crossed one’s radar or that so far had only been fabled about by old scenesters.
