Bl'ast!

BL'AST! formed in 1982 as a hardcore/punk/rock band from Santa Cruz, California known as M.A.D., which stood for Mutually Assured Destruction. The original line up consisted of Clifford Dinsmore on vocals, Steve Stevenson on gu

BL'AST! formed in 1982 as a hardcore/punk/rock band from Santa Cruz, California known as M.A.D., which stood for Mutually Assured Destruction. The original line up consisted of Clifford Dinsmore on vocals, Steve Stevenson on guitar, Dave Cooper on bass, and Bill Torgerson on drums. Circa 1984, Mike Neider joined the group on second guitar and they changed their name to Blast. To make their logo visually "more dynamic," they added an apostrophe to fill in the gap between the letters L and A and tacked an exclamation point on to the end. This doesn't affect the actual pronunciation of the word. Their sound, a unique mix of bands like Black Flag, SSD and Black Sabbath, is quite hard to categorize, lying somewhere in the void between hardcore and hard rock.

Although they largely considered themselves a live band, and never felt their sound was adequately captured on record, they released 3 LP's, 'The Power Of Expression' (WishingWell, 1986), 'It's In My Blood' (SST, 1987) and 'Take The Manic Ride' (SST, 1989). They also released a 7" EP entitled 'School's Out', the title-track being a cover of the Alice Cooper classic, backed with 'Your Eyes' and a cover of 'The Slave' by The Germs.