POWERMAD – “THE MADNESS BEGINS…” IS A HUGE HEAVY METAL FIND ON VINYL!!
POWERMAD – This Speed Metal meets Thrash Metal band formed back in 1984, hailing out of the great state of Minnesota. In 1986, Powermad released their self titled and debut EP on Combat Records. In 1988, Reprise Records picked up Powermad, releasing their EP – The Madness Begins… and this is the very EP that I found hiding in an antique co-op mall just yesterday!! (See pics of it below). Whoa. Whoa again, is how I first felt upon gazing my eyes upon this Heavy Metal super find! It’s Powemad… I thought to myself, thinking, can this be really happening? I am looking at and holding the vinyl EP copy of The Madness Begins…!?!
ANTIQUE STORES F’N ROCK.
In Metal summary, as you can tell, I was extremely psyched out of my mind about this Heavy Metal find… and I still am. I paid a meager – $6 for this Powermad gem! Six dollars! The total condition of this Powermad EP is in excellent to near mint too! The top right and bottom corners of the album jacket are the only areas that show a tad of wear. Otherwise, the original gloss on both sides of the album jacket still literally shines on it!
The original circular sticker is on the front side as well. The text printed on the circumference of the circle sticker reads: “Powermad Specially – Priced Mini – LP”. Specially priced alright, only six dollars, after more than two decades after it’s initial release… and it’s super, super, rare!! The inside text on the circle sticker reads: “Warning: Due to the intense nature of this music, neck braces may be required”. That’s vintage stuff… Old School.
There are four songs on this EP, all four are Thrash Metal and Old School too. Upon my first handling of the actual vinyl record itself, I could not believe there were no visible signs of it ever being handled! (Unless someone really, really took great care of it in the past). Once I dropped the turntable needle down on this POWERMAD EP to play, the sweet sound of analog filled the air, with not a crackle or pop. Take my word for it, these songs are incredibly worthy of multi-multiple listens on a regular basis.
Terminator is the opening track, it begins with thunderous drum beats in unison with vintage, heavy riffs that tell me immediately I’m in for a Metal treat. This song sizzles and then explodes into Thrash Metal glory. Joel Dubay on lead vocals has a coherent delivery, only watch out for his screach… he can hit the high note without any trouble and it’s superb. Hunter Seeker is faster than Terminator, it kicks right in where Terminator left off. This song is a rifftastic display of Old School Thrash Metal – period. I find this song rips, tears and burns each and every second… give me more POWERMAD please.
Gimmee Gimmee Shock Treatment is the shortest song on this EP and it offers up some heavy grooves to go along with the Thrash. This is a Ramones cover song, a Thrashtastic version at that. It blisters along with all the fury one could wish for from a quality, late 1980’s Thrash Metal Band. Credible stuff. Blind Leading The Blind opens up with a spoken word, to the best of my Metal ears, it goes like this: “Your gonna do some praying for me now boy”. The voice of this spoken word sounds like an eerie backwoods hermit that you might bump into at a remote, country keg party. The backing, (gang), vocals on this song just screams Old School. Blind Leading The Blind is by far and large, the fastest song on this EP. Unreal great.
POWERMAD, as they appeared on their 1988 EP – The Madness Begins…
Joel Dubay – lead & backing vocals, rhythm & lead guitars
Todd Haug – lead & rhythm guitars, backing vocals
Jeff Litke – bass guitar, backing vocals
Adrian Liberty – drums & backing vocals
Track listing & running times for the Powermad EP – The Madness Begins…
Side One:
Terminator (4:20)
Hunter Seeker (2:52)
Side Two:
Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment (1:45)
Blind Leading The Blind (4:23)
Here is what the front cover of my POWERMAD Vinyl EP looks like:
Man, I couldn’t have asked for this POWERMAD EP to be in any better condition than this! You can see how it still bestows the original gloss on these front and back covers.
Here is what the back cover of my POWERMAD vinyl EP looks like:
POWERMAD, from left to right on this back cover:
Todd Haug, Joel Dubay, Jeff Litke, Adrian Liberty
* POWERMAD – The Madness Begins… was released in 1988 on Reprise Records.
* POWERMAD released their only full length album in 1989 – Absolute Power, on Reprise Records.
This is what the album cover looks like for Absolute Power:
I don’t own a copy of Absolute Power… yet. I will find one though, preferably on vinyl… you betcha.
* The 1986 self titled POWERMAD EP on Combat Records was released as part of the Combat Boot Camp Series, showcasing a heavy band’s demo.
Stone.
Metal Odyssey > Heavy Metal Music Blog 
March 17, 2010 at 2:43 pm
As I have stated in the past, I am a HUGE POWERMAD fan. I also own “The Madness Begins…” on Vinyl. I was working at Musicland and it came in as a promo and I was the only one there that listened to Heavy Metal (especially Thrash), so the manager said I could have it. I played that album more than a few times. At the same time that album was released, HERETIC (the band featuring future Metal Church vocalist Mike Howe) released “Breaking Point”. Those 2 releases lived on my turntable for months. For me, I can’t think of one without thinking of the other. Anyway, POWERMAD releases are true jewels when they are found. Much like Cyclone Temple’s “I hate Therefore I Am” CD, I have come to find out. Anytime I come across an “Absolute Power” CD in my travels (which has been rare as of late), if it is less than $25, I tend to pick it up. I’ve given a 2 away to friends and sold 1 on ebay for little profit. I post it for what I pay for it, I can’t help what people are willing to bid for it. If I am fortunate enough to come across one again, I will certainly let you know. Congrats on the find, it seems the METAL GODS were looking out for you my friend.
March 17, 2010 at 8:45 pm
I’ve seen one cassette of “The Madness Begins” on ebay for around 8 bucks, another for around 30 bucks, both are buy it now. I also saw the CD for “The Madness Begins” on ebay for, get this… $99.99 and it is a buy it now!!
All of these were on ebay last night too. There was no vinyl for this EP on ebay though… it will be interesting to see if one turns up there. I usually don’t mess with ebay anymore, (I did for years), now I will “browse” due to curiosity.
It’s cool you got your hands on a “free copy” of this EP back then… you cannot beat “free”.
Heretic… Metal Church… it doesn’t get any better than the Old School Bands!
March 17, 2010 at 3:09 pm
I hate to keep being a wet blanket here, but I used to have Absolute Power on cassette. I bought it due to all the hype that was surrounding this band back then (relatively speaking in thrash circles). However I remember it being just kind of average and I liked a lot of thrash bands back then. They seemed very restrained and not terribly creative. Now that being said it has been a long time since I heard them so who knows. I do like the band name and the logo.
March 17, 2010 at 8:54 pm
It’s the unpolished ambiance that becomes a driving force for me, with any “Extreme” Metal band… crossing all the genres. With Powermad, it’s like… “Raw Is The Law” once again. I think, (think), that the timing of Powermad onto the scene probably wasn’t in their favor. With that dreaded ’90’s decade looming only a couple of years away, Powermad had quite possibly a steep mountain to climb with PR. (Again, this is only my Metal hypothesis).
It’s like we all sometimes “throw around” with so many album titles… would this EP have been a monster success and could have Powermad “broke the Metal bank” if they released albums in 1983 or 1984 on a major independent or major label? I don’t really know…
It’s energy and speed is infectious on this EP… I can’t speak for you, yet, I would bet a thousand ABBA Albums that you would probably like this Powermad EP now. Or maybe not… either way, that is an awful lot of ABBA albums I don’t own and would not want to own either.
March 18, 2010 at 8:18 am
Taking a closer look at your pics of the vinyl, it seems your album is also a “Promotional Copy”. Including yours & mine, I have seen 4 copies of this release on vinyl, and they have all been “Promotional Copies”. I wonder if anyone ever bought it new on vinyl. A buddy of mine communicates with Joel through email, they are both Guitar tech guys, and he claims Joel is trying to get it where he’ll be able to release both albums (plus some unreleased tracks) on a single release. I do know that at Joel’s POWERMAD website, you can download the EP (if not “Absolute Power”) for free. He says it’s not right fans having to pay such outrageous prices to listen to POWERMAD. I believe it’s a myspace site.
March 18, 2010 at 1:43 pm
That’s cool info to pass along… the free EP is downright class on the part of Joel. My copy is a promotional copy… I forgot to mention it, then once it was posted, I knew it would be pointed out! All I can “make out” from the gold foil text is – “promotional use” and even those words are difficult to decipher, the foil text seemed to really fall apart on the front cover.
This is just my Metal opinion… if Joel was to reissue the POWERMAD EP and Absolute Power, together, that would make tremendous sense right now, due to the “Thrash Metal Revival” that is happening. Just look at Anvil, sure they never really went away for a long period of time, still, there is obviously a hunger out there for the “Old School” Metal.
March 18, 2010 at 1:49 pm
I used Anvil as an example due to their “never say die” ethic, even when they were not as big as an Overkill, Megadeth, Slayer, etc. with “across the board” popularity.
March 18, 2010 at 9:25 am
I seem to remember there being a big promotion in the metal mags where you could get a free Powermad promo of some sort just for sending in the form. I can’t remember what it was exactly and I probably don’t have the magazine any more, but maybe this accounts for the amount of promo copies showing up. I think I wanted to send the form, but didn’t because it was on the other side of some kind of pin-up I felt that I had to have up on my wall.
March 18, 2010 at 1:53 pm
I’ve done that… passed up on cool offers in mags just because of a “cooler” poster or page to hang. If I find another vinyl POWERMAD EP out there, I will call it yours man… it’s Metal history to own!
March 18, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Stone, If you guys are interested in downloading the POWERMAD releases, as I stated before, Joel Dubay (the man behind POWERMAD) made them available at this address.
http://www.powermadness.com/absolutemadness.zip
The tracks are in MP3 format @ 320 kbps.
March 20, 2010 at 11:01 am
Thanks for the link! It’s time to “Spread The Madness”!!
March 18, 2010 at 3:14 pm
i owned absolute power twice…sold it both times.
March 18, 2010 at 8:54 pm
Do you like or dislike Absolute Power? In the middle? Pray Metal tell…
March 22, 2010 at 1:22 pm
it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t very memorable for me. it’s only profitable nowadays. haha
February 24, 2017 at 4:41 am
First off, I really like your blog! You put a lot of time, work, and effort into and it shows.
As for the antique store thing, I too have found some great music at some of them. In my experience, it seems that about half of them I have been to did have cds,tapes, and records. Out of those stores about half had a rare gem or two. So about a quarter of them, which makes all antique stores worth a quick walkthrough.
Please check out my blog, for rare and out of print music of all genres, including metal. Come discover stuff you have never heard, and buy if you would like.
insanelyraremusic.blogspot.com
March 1, 2017 at 11:38 am
Thank you for the kind words! Yes, I shall check out your blog! You ROCK \m/\m/