Merge to reissue Redd Kross’ self-titled debut EP on June 26, band reschedules big European tour

The 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. Red Cross is out June 26; pre-order on 12-inch EP and CD in the Merge store, or wherever records are sold, including the independent record shop near you.

In a single 12-month period, Jeff and Steven McDonald, two adolescent brothers from Hawthorne, CA, went from posing with cheap guitars and singing into hairbrushes in front of their bedroom mirror to recording in world-class studios and performing live at punk shows/riots that are still being pondered and written about for their pioneering cultural relevance within the Southern California punk landscape.

Redd Kross incubated alongside such SoCal luminaries as Black Flag, Descendents, and the Minutemen, and this new 11-song collection—which includes a live track recorded in 1979 at “The Church,” the infamous Black Flag birthplace in Hermosa Beach, CA—puts in proper perspective the McDonald brothers’ contribution, at the ridiculously precocious ages of 12 and 16, to that area’s punk scene.

 

Redd Kross will return to their natural habitat this fall, bringing The Party to stages all across Europe for the first time since the release of last year’s Beyond the Door and their first extensive tour of the continent in over two decades. They will also celebrate their 40th anniversary with a hometown show at the Regent Theater on July 26. Get your tickets and reserve your copy of Red Cross today!