Iron Fist (1985) “Crucify Me“ • Amphetamine Reptile Records

Directed by Whitney Hazelmyer Original live footage shot by Harder/Fuller Films in 1985 From the recently re-issued ’Crucify Me’ demo tapes. My brother Tim was a lot of things. Teamster, street fighter, father, meth head, machinist, world class comedian when the mood struck him, often times my best friend. But before any of that he was an impossibly skinny-assed teenager that lived and breathed music, and more specifically, drumming. A couple months ago an old pal Ron Clark posted a picture of the Iron Fist “Crucify Me” cassette. This was Tim’s teenage hardcore band’s only release (1985). Ron had recently scored the cassette at a thrift store. I reached out to see if he’d sell it as I never had a copy, and not much in the way of physical mementos of Tim. He graciously gave me the cassette and somewhere during that exchange the idea hit me that this should get a proper release. I knew that part of his life meant so much to him, and he’d always been frustrated that he never got to pursue it as far as he wanted to as he became a family man at a young age with all that entailed. So it began. I reached out to the two surviving members of the band to see if they were down for this, luckily they were (thanks Paddy). Luckily I also know the greatest mastering dude in the world, Dave Gardner, who went all out in getting a great pull off the cassette and then providing the TLC the near 40 year old tunes needed to take it to LP/CD. Also recruited was Tim’s daughter Whitney to help as she’s no slouch with layout/design for the booklet and CD. I hunkered down to do the art. I wanted to capture the HC vibe of that particular era, as well as riffing off the original art. I finished that cover and wasn’t thoroughly pleased. So I took another run at it, more from my style but homely, capturing the twisted humor so prevalent amongst us HC weirdos back then. Punk/Metal JC was birthed loosely based on a Belgian 14th century rendition of our lord and savior. In the end decided to use both, with JC being used on the much smaller “artist’s edition.” It’s in part an old inside joke/sensibility me and Tim shared, so please bear with. The last picture here is Tim with one of his grandkids. There’s four now! Hopefully years from now they get handed this thing and get a glimpse of who that crazy f#ck was in some small way. (covers & photo can be seen on Facebook) This one’s for you Tim Hazelmyer 1969-2021 Tom Hazelmyer 2/2024