Black Dots is a demo album by the American rock band Bad Brains, released in 1996 by Caroline Records. It consists of one of the band's earliest recording sessions, which took place in 1979 at Inner Ear Studios with recording engineer Don Zientara. Black Dots features early versions of several songs that were later recorded for the band's first two studio albums, as well as songs that had never previously been released in any versions. The album showcases the band's hardcore punk origins, as well as their early foray into reggae with the song "The Man Won't Annoy Ya."
Background
In Prince George's County, Maryland, in early 1978, brothers Paul and Earl Hudson formed a band with their high school classmates Gary Miller, Darryl Jenifer, and Sid McCray. Paul was the rhythm guitarist, Earl the drummer, Miller the lead guitarist under the stage name "Dr. Know," Jenifer the bassist, and McCray the singer. Calling themselves Mind Power, they initially played jazz fusion in the style of Weather Report and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, and extolled the virtues of PMA (positive mental attitude). When McCray introduced the others to punk rock later that year, the band grafted their jazz musicianship onto punk's aggressive style and changed their name to Bad Brains, and Paul took the stage name H.R.
The material on Black Dots was written between late 1978 and mid-1979, when the band members were living together in a house on Bay Way in Forestville, Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C. Dr. Know had acquired the house from the manager of a Rustler Steak House where he worked. The recording session that produced Black Dots took place that June, and was the band's first full-length studio session. They played straight through their live set of the time, consisting of all the songs they had written up to that point. Anthony Countey, who later became their manager, began working with them that year; Dr. Know gave him a list of all the band's recording sessions and where the tapes could be found, but with an offer from Ric Ocasek on the table to record their second album (1983's Rock for Light, which included "How Low Can a Punk Get?" as well as new versions of "Attitude" and "Banned in D.C."), Countey decided that it was not the right time to review older tapes. Writing for AllMusic, critic Ned Raggett called it "an archival release of the best kind, something truly rare and unheard that also captured a band at its best."