The Archive

Media

Live audio off a 1986 club tape, forty years of video, and a photo archive that keeps growing.

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Straight Off The Tape

Live, 1986

Four originals from a Rotting Corpse club set recorded in San Antonio in 1986, filed in the band’s archive as the Cameo Theatre, July 18th. It is a room recording from forty years ago and it sounds like one — which is most of the point.

Evil Slaughter

From the 1986 debut demo · read the lyrics

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War on Drugs

From the 1986 debut demo · read the lyrics

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Those Without Conscience

Played live a year before it was recorded for the 1987 demo · read the lyrics

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Neck Breaking Fury

In the set four years before it was recorded for the 1990 demo · read the lyrics

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The Rest Of That Night

The full tape runs nine songs. The other five are covers — the band played two or three most nights, and closed on them — so they’re listed here rather than posted.

  1. 1 Strike of the Beast Exodus
  2. 2 Evil Slaughter
  3. 3 Merciless Death Dark Angel
  4. 4 Those Without Conscience
  5. 5 Hell Awaits Slayer
  6. 6 War on Drugs
  7. 7 Fight Fire With Fire Metallica
  8. 8 Neck Breaking Fury
  9. 9 Death Metal Possessed

Steve Murphy, asked which show was the band’s best: “I hear about a gig at the Cameo in San Antonio in 1986 a lot that most say was the best Corpse show.”

Photos

A hundred and twenty-nine images out of the band’s own boxes — flyers, live shots, the practice space, the reunion.

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Rotting Corpse, five-piece lineup, mid-1980s
The five-piece, backstage in the mid-1980s.
Flyer for the first Rotting Corpse show at Rascals, Arlington
The flyer for the first show — Rascals, Arlington, December 6th, 1985.
Outside the Rotting Corpse practice space in Arlington, 1987
Outside the Arlington practice space, 1987.
Rotting Corpse live onstage, mid-1980s
Onstage, mid-1980s.
Flyer for Nuclear Assault, Morbid Scream and Rotting Corpse at Joe's Garage
Nuclear Assault and Morbid Scream at Joe’s Garage, Fort Worth.
Jim Mulqueen onstage at Savvy's, Arlington
Moe Mulqueen onstage at Savvy’s in Arlington.
Back cover of The Demos CD listing sixteen tracks
The back of The Demos — all four tapes on one disc.
Rotting Corpse live in May 2005
Live, May 2005 — the Memorial Day Massacre run.

That’s eight of a hundred and twenty-nine. Browse the whole archive →

The Interview Archive

In Their Own Words

A run of long interviews from the reunion years, kept in the band’s own files, is where most of the detail on this site comes from — Steve Murphy with Texas Metal Underground on the Dallas scene and the Eldritch Rite years; a lengthy round-robin done for a Chinese metal magazine, with Murphy, John Perez, Randy Cook and Dave Gryder all answering; a European interview covering the demos song by song; and a fanzine piece with Murphy and Luke Brewer.

Some of what they cover: the yellow ESP that Darrell and Vinnie Paul gave Trachsler and that broke at every single show, the boat traded for studio time, the Arlington storage unit the band practised in with the door shut, the Dark Angel dates that lost money and broke down, and the label interest in 1986 and 1987 that nobody signed.

“It was a weird cool time and I wouldn’t trade being young now or back in the 80’s for anything.” — Steve Murphy

The full story is on the history page →

Read

From The Archive Desk

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Exodus on a wide arena stage in Paris, a bassist at left, a bald singer and a guitarist at right in stage smoke, a giant painted Statue of Liberty figure on the backdrop

Albums · 10 min read

Exodus and Bonded by Blood: The Album That Built Bay Area Thrash

Recorded in about two weeks north of San Francisco in 1984, held back by a nervous label until 1985, and still the record people mean when they say Bay Area thrash.

1910 black and white photo of the Cosmopolitan Saloon in Telluride, Colorado, with a roulette table, gamblers at left, a long bar and a lawman with a star badge

Albums · 10 min read

Cowboys From Hell: How an Arlington Bar Band Made a Thrash Record and Went Double Platinum

A birthday-party gig, a hurricane, a Fort Worth club, two months at Pantego Sound and roughly 300 nights on the road: the making of Pantera’s major-label debut.

Creased photocopied flyer for an End of Summer Slam Session: the power metal attack of Devastation, hardcore from Angkor Wat and, from Dallas, Rotting Corpse at the Stardust, Friday August 29th, $5.00, all ages

Texas Thrash · 10 min read

Devastation: Corpus Christi’s Texas Thrash Veterans

A Gulf Coast band that cut its own debut, signed to Combat, made one of the heaviest records of 1991 at Morrisound, and called off its European tour before it began.

Fuel The Tour

From The Merch Table

Everything in the store →

Follow Along on Instagram

Show flyers, throwbacks, and the next date — posted straight from the band, first.

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