Barb Higgins was an emo hardcore band from Calgary, Alberta. They shared a guitarist with The Alex P. Keatons. The only proof the band ever existed is this one incredible live video on the 90s All Ages Calgary Punk and Hardcore youtube channel. Apparently they never got around to recording anything, so I took the liberty to rip the audio and clean it up a little. The audio is... passable; you can kind of hear what is going on and they sounded really good. There was a lack of women in the scene at the time; which is spoken on in the video, it's refreshing to see a band with a femme singer kicking around back then. Barb Higgins has a intriguing, dark and languished sound that you could compare to contemporaries like Joule and Jon American Car. I'd recommend giving this live set a quick peek if you are a fan of those bands.
Daredevil was a post-rock/math-rock band from California.
Daredevil is a band shrouded in mystery, the band was composed of members from Indian Summer and Ordination Of Aaron; supposedly a major label wanted to sign Indian Summer and the resulting argument over it is what finally broke up the band. That major label deal was then passed over to the band that emerged from the ashes of Indian Summer, Daredevil. Shortly after this; a live, bootlegged "demo" tape/CD began circulating in hardcore distros and at shows, i'm not entirely sure if this was the Senseless Beauty set or something else entirely.
Daredevil was set to record and release a full length LP with Interscope/Geffen, but the band broke up before anything could officially be released. Contrary to popular belief the band never entered a recording studio during their short active time, there was a rumour floating around that Steve Albini (or Bob Weston?) recorded a 12" with them; but Adam from Indian Summer has since deconfirmed this.
An excerpt from Adam Nanaa about the band (Thanks Lennon):
"Daredevil was the band right after Indian. That band was crazy. I have one cassette of that. Insane math rock. I was mental then. Then I reformed it when I got home. Then it got GOOD. We were gonna record for interscope and no shit Geffen was talking to me. Or a mngr who was planning on pitching it to them. We moved across country together. Practiced five days a week in a basement in Louisville for about 2 months then broke up. Would have been the most insane best thing I ever recorded if we did. Albini was gonna do it too. Would have been rad"
An insert from the Vanilla/ El Vidal Sonido split 7" advertising a future Daredevil Live LP
Daredevil picked up where The Sky By Sorella and Indian Summer left off; the live set is instrumental and extremely close to The Sky By Sorella in style, with sprawling and dark tracks that sound inspired by the D.I.Y hardcore scene and also bands like Codeine and Slint. The band also still had that intense, talented and emotional sound that Indian Summer had. I would highly recommend checking this live set out if you are a fan of any of the bands I just mentioned.
(another Daredevil live set that surfaced)
Thisisaproxychannel / Emoencyclopedia went through the trouble of remastering and making custom artwork for the Live At Senseless Beauty set, so all credit goes to him for that. He is unfortunately retired from archiving now but I would highly recommend checking out his channel as he obviously put an incredible amount of effort into digging up unique releases when he was still active.
