In brief (for now...)
Jack Grisham Started his musical career with the band Vicious Circle. We don't have records by this band, but many writers remember their music and shows as the most violent of the first California punk scene.
Later, coming back from Canada where he moved after he found his car burned and received threats to his life because of the band, he was involved in the famous, long lasting band, True Sounds of Liberty.
Their first EP fitted exactly in the stricts standards of California Hardcore, but was original in the melodies and played with precision. Already in their debut album, they slowed their pace and added crampy, horror lyrics and dark feelings. They created a new style, death-punk. But later he quitted the band and they took more and more the distances from hardcore, becoming a boring rock band...
Jack came back in the band few years ago and tried to bring back the sound of their early releases, as you probably now...
Recollections by Jack Grisham (singer of T.S.O.L.)
We never wanted to be labeled anything. I hate labels. The minute people started dividing punk rock into different groups it was ruined [...] For us it was always attitude and not the sound... Was someone inventive, cool, nice, thought provoking. Thats what we looked for, not what record label they were on or how they wore there fucking hair [...] You had to be original back then... You could borrow parts of sounds but not what they do now: there are a million bands that sound like bad religion. That wasn't cool then.
At our shows we played all the songs. The reason the first ep is like that was they were our earlier songs and we knew we were gonna get ripped off so we gave them those.
The kids on the beach were more willing to stand up for themselves then some of the early LA bands... We took control and stopped taking shit from the people that would attack punks.
Vicious Circle was more of a fight then a band. There is a book called Hardcore California and in it they say a typical V.C show was 24 stretchers and 12 ambulances. Although the music was really cool we self destructed before we could record.