Redd Kross - Red Cross EP (12", EP, RE, S/Edition)

Label: Merge

This special 40th anniversary edition of the Red Cross EP, which includes the band’s six-song eponymous debut and adds five contemporaneous extra tracks, is the most comprehensive document to date of the extraordinary birth of Redd Kross. Redd Kross incubated alongside such SoCal luminaries as Black Flag, Descendents, and the Minutemen, and this new 11-song collection—which includes rare and unreleased demos plus a live track recorded in 1979 at “The Church,” the infamous Black Flag birthplace in Hermosa Beach, CA—puts the McDonald brothers’ contribution to that area’s punk scene, at the ridiculously precocious ages of 12 and 16, in proper perspective.