Pitfall / Six Minute War – Live [Cass] (1980, Finger In The Dike)

There’s something especially compelling about the murky edges of early punk, where documentation is scarce and releases feel more like artifacts than products. The split cassette by Pitfall and Six Minute War, released around 1980–81 on the obscure Finger In The Dike label, sits firmly in that territory. It’s the kind of tape that feels less “released” and more circulated -passed hand to hand, dubbed, traded, and half-forgotten except by those who know exactly why it matters. 

On one side, you get Pitfall, a Dutch band capturing some of their earliest recordings. The sound is raw even by the standards of the time -stripped down, urgent, and unmistakably DIY. There’s a loose connection to the wider Dutch anarcho-punk scene, with echoes of bands like The Ex or the Rondos, but Pitfall feels even more embryonic here, like you’re hearing a band still figuring itself out in real time. That immediacy is part of the charm; nothing is polished, and nothing is meant to be. 

Flip the tape and things get even rougher. Six Minute War’s contribution is a live recording from London, likely around 1980, and it sounds exactly like you’d expect: chaotic, fast, and barely contained. The songs blur together in a way that makes track divisions feel irrelevant, just short bursts of political punk delivered with minimal ceremony. It’s less about individual tracks and more about capturing a moment -a snapshot of a band operating at full urgency in a live setting. 

The label behind it, Finger In The Dike, is almost as elusive as the tape itself. This release is generally considered one of their first, if not the very first, and it reflects the spirit of early cassette culture perfectly. Before vinyl was an option for many of these bands, tapes were the medium of choice -cheap to produce, easy to duplicate, and ideal for the growing network of fanzines and tape traders that connected underground scenes across Europe. 

What makes this cassette particularly interesting is that sense of connection. A Dutch band on one side, a London band on the other -it’s a small but telling example of how punk scenes were already communicating across borders, long before the internet made that kind of exchange effortless. You can hear the shared ethos in the noise, even if the recordings themselves are worlds apart in geography. 

 

Label: Finger In The Dike – hole 001 

Format: Cassette, C60 

Country: Netherlands 

Released: 1980 

Style: Punk 

 

Tracklist: 

A1 Pitfall – Aha 

A2 Pitfall – Pitfall 

A3 Pitfall – The Raper 

A4 Pitfall – Statements 

A5 Pitfall – Is This Me Or Is This You (Sham 69) 

A6 Pitfall – The Army 

A7 Pitfall – Makeup 

A8 Pitfall – Soldiers Fighting 

A9 Pitfall – Borin' Place 

A10 Pitfall – Commercial Rules 

A11 Pitfall – Beatenup Pogo! 

A12 Pitfall – Skinrash 

A13 Pitfall – Stuff Like Hell 

A14 Pitfall – I Wanna Get 

A15 Pitfall – Hitler's Fan 

A16 Pitfall – TV 

A17 Pitfall – Put In Prison 

A18 Pitfall – Sid Sod 

B1 Six Minute War – Bigwig 

B2 Six Minute War – Progress 

B3 Six Minute War – Stike Labelled 

B4 Six Minute War – He's Dead 

B5 Six Minute War – Guitarist 

B6 Six Minute War – Sell Out 

B7 Six Minute War – Nurses 

B8 Six Minute War – Tony Pike 

B9 Six Minute War – Strontium 90 

B10 Six Minute War – Protect & Survive 

B11 Six Minute War – Youth Culture 

B12 Six Minute War – So Sad 

B13 Six Minute War – Silver Machine 

 

Notes:  

Pitfall side recorded live Op Zolder 21/9/80 

Six Minute War side recorded live in Cassandra, Londen 

 

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