Clocking in at under 15 minutes, Are You Ready: The First Studio Recording (Inner Ear – March 1979) is the raw, blistering calling card that announced the band's arrival on the scene — prior to the release of the landmark "Pay to Cum" 7", a full three years before the release of the legendary Bad Brains LP in 1982, and nearly 20 years before some of the recordings from later in 1979 would surface on the band's seminal compilation, Black Dots (1996). This is the first-ever release of the incendiary March 1979 Bad Brains session from Inner Ear Studios, Arlington, VA, and it features the the first studio recording of "Pay to Cum." The album was mixed for release by Ian MacKaye at Inner Ear (2026), mastered by Pete Lyman at Infrasonic, and produced in cooperation with Bad Brains.