Stains (Los Angeles band)

The Stains is an American hardcore punk band from the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States. One of the first East Los Angeles punk groups,[1] the band started playing punk in 1976.[2] Their debut album, produced by SST Records house producer Spot, was recorded in 1981, and released by SST in 1983. The debut album is often considered influential in bridging hardcore punk and heavy metal before the creation of thrash metal. The band has been on tours with Black Flag, Hüsker Dü and countless others. They were one of the bands that played at a 2001 "anniversary show" memorializing the landmark East Los Angeles punk venue, Vex Populi. The music writer Josh Kun wrote in Los Angeles magazine that their set was "punk rock enough for the Stains to leave a pool of blood on the stage's wood beams".[3]

This article is about a punk band from Los Angeles. For other punk bands of the same name hailing from other parts of the U.S., see The Stains (Maine) and MDC (band).

On the album, the band's members were Jesus Amezquita, lead guitar, Robert Becerra, guitar; Ceasar Viscarra, bass; Gilbert Berumen, drums; and Rudy Navarro, vocalist. Their style is described as hardcore and speedy,[4] and as an innovator in bringing elements of metal into hardcore.[5] Guitarist Robert Becerra's performance style was a model for Greg Ginn's musical concepts for Black Flag.[6] Viscarra and another Stains drummer, Louie Dufau, later played with Dez Cadena in his post-Black Flag band DC3, and Viscarra also played with cowpunk band, Blood on the Saddle.[4] Becerra died on September 1, 2023, at the age of 64.[7]

References
  1. Javier Cabral, "The Five Most Underrated East L.A. Backyard Punk Bands Of All Time", LA Weekly, September 26, 2011.
  2. Anthony Macías, "Black and Brown Get Down: Cultural Politics, Chicano Music, and Hip-Hop in Racialized Los Angeles", in Brett Lashua, Karl Spracklen, Stephen Wagg, eds., Sounds and the City: Popular Music, Place and Globalization: Leisure Studies in a Global Era (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), ISBN 978-1137283115, p. 56. Excerpts available in Google Books.
  3. Josh Kun, "Vex Populi: at an unprepossessing eastside punk rock landmark, Utopia was in the air. Until the day it wasn't." Los Angeles, March 1, 2003  – via HighBeam Research (subscription required) .
  4. Fred Beldin , "The Stains Review", AllMusic
  5. Ira Robbins, "Stains", Trouser Press, March 9, 2015
  6. Stevie Chick, Spray Paint the Walls: The Story of Black Flag (PM Press, 2011), ISBN 978-1604865844, p. 148. Excerpts available at Google Books.
  7. Deville, Chris (4 September 2023). "The Stains' Robert Becerra Dead At 64". Stereogum. Retrieved 4 September 2023.


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