Circle One: Let's (Illogically) Blame Rollins

The entire record output of SoCal’s Circle One can easily play from beginning to end without a listener realizing what’s just transpired. The band, at this late date, is really recalled as a part of a much larger group, with the individual attributes being ignored, to a certain extent, to revel in historic glory.

But the early hardcore scene in SoCal, much like in NYC, was riddled with violence and shows were frequently places for music as much for settling scores. In reading various punk histories, including Steven Blush’s American Hardcore, a gang aesthetic gets related. And while that might be a bit much, there’s something to it in light of the Youth Brigade film Let Them Know.

And while that last band seems more important for what it did behind the scenes than for the music it actually recorded, first hand accounts are pretty unrelenting in depicting a few groups – Circle One for sure – as a bunch of tough guys who insinuated themselves into the scene. All of this could be layed at Rollins’ feet. After all, who was a tough guy in the manner he was before a member of Black Flag? I dunno, no one?

Whatever the case, Circle One recorded music when they weren’t fighting or getting shot in the face by police officers – and no, that’s not a good reason to hate all cops, you tiny minded, muscle bound creep. But by the time the group issued their Patterns Of Force album in 1983, hardcore was undergoing some significant changes. Somehow, metal infiltrating every other band skipped over these guys. But even in taking a listen to the few contributions Circle One made to the Public Service compilation, which is deserving of its own post, the band and “Destroy Exxon” specifically started to sound like early period Black Flag.

To call that regression isn’t proper – early Black Flag was still leagues ahead of Circle One at any point. But the songs didn’t come off with the same sort of vitriol “Highway Patrolman” did, which if anything sounded closer to SSD and the Boston strain of this movement.

Regardless of the direction Circle One moved and what it’s proper recorded legacy is, a live date, replete with demos, was issued through one of the band member’s personal imprints a ways back. On Live '81 there’s no sort of persistent approach to song craft in duration, speed or lyrical content – apart from hate. Folks might take that as an affront to the movement, but at the same time it also seems like Circle One was playing with a medium that they weren’t completely sure worked. It was a way to release some of that tension, though.

The Prefects - "Things in General" (Video)

This is simply a jangly punk track. But for whatever reason - and it's not the track's obscurity - it ranks up there with any number of other top tier UK acts. Does anyone else here the same sorta guitar style at work here as in Major Accident? Yep.

The Prefects: It's All Over Too Quicly

Pretty much everything from the Acute Records’ catalog has arrived sounding better than one would imagine ignored works from a few decades back should come off. But the imprint’s persistence of vision, whether it’s no wave of Brit post-punk stuff, really winds up being apparent to those that are paying attention.

Granted, there’s a substantial difference between Glenn Branca’s caterwauling guitars and the quirky pop cum skronk songwriting splayed open on the Prefects’ lone properly issued digital work. Amateur Wankers, the title of the band’s only volume of work, is clearly dismissive in its title. But that seems to be how first wave punkers wanted it. If you go back and listen to that first Sex Pistols’ album or the second long player from the Clash, those were talented players who specifically choose to express themselves in this aural manner. The Prefects might not have ranked as much talent in its line up, but whatever perceived shortcomings there were, the band made up for in inventiveness. And that’s inarguable.

Of course, coming out of the early punk scene – not beating anyone to the punch, but being around early enough that the Prefects were able to gig a bit with aforementioned groups – there’s still that thread of simplicity running through the group’s first few works. “Things in General” apes an almost jangly guitar sound, but still deals in such a quick tempo as to not separate the track from anything the Buzzcocks might have come up with. Much the same can be said for “Escort Girl.”

What’s most entertaining about the Prefects, as if those two tracks weren’t enough to stake a career on, are the few compositions the group worked up which pushed against any sense of tradition within the genre. The most obvious moment of that all occurring is during the ten minutes of “Bristol Road Leads to Dachau.” Apart from that obtuse title, the opening tones of the song wind up sounding like Gang of Four. And if one weren’t concerned with drawing comparisons to obscure German bands or unknown no wave groups, this here track could plausibly be included into some outtake collection detailing the better known group’s career. It’s that strong an offering.

With that said, it’s probably easier to come up with a handful of tremendous songs than to make a run at longevity. So while there’s not a joker in the pack, it seems as if it’s all over much too quickly.

Gaunt: Plucked Outta Columbus

It wouldn’t be difficult to make a case for Columbus, Ohio’s Gaunt to be figured as just another nineties band whose career was eventually wrecked in part due to major labels descending upon almost any city in search of the next Nirvana.

That’s reductive, to be sure. Gaunt doesn’t bear much more than a passing similarity to that Seattle troupe. Of course, there’s a tossed off charm being expounded by the shambolic and skuzzy songs, each over run with feedback and simple chords charging to some unknown endgame. It sounds as if even Gaunt doesn’t know what’s set to follow, but manages to hold on just tight enough to keep it all from flying apart.

Forming in 1991, Gaunt’s musical lineage probably stretches back to forgotten bands from Columbus seeing as the group’s first order of business was working up compositions for a split with the New Bomb Turks. There was something there.

Profiting from the relatively well established scene ‘round town, which somehow didn’t seem to be directly tied to the mass of college students stationed there, Gaunt found itself the object of desire by any number of well established, underground rock imprints. Issuing work through Thrill Jockey as well as the venerable (and now deceased) Amphetamines Reptile inspired Warner Brothers to swoop in and offer the group a deal. And really, who’s saying no to that. We’d all like to believe that we possess the ability to pass on opportunity like that in the name of cred, but get real. So, like just about every other good band from you town, Gaunt got swallowed up by the machine.

Along the way, though, the ensemble was able to work up more than just a few passable and memorable rave ups. The instrumental “Whitey” gathers together all of punk, some Minnesota styled oddities and spits it back in Ohio fashion.

Even with efforts like that, Gaunt’s been dismissed as an extension of pop punk. And while that should ever be grounds for dismissal – say what you will about Green Day, but those first few albums were masterfully put together – the band ostensibly calling it a day after working with Warners might point to attempts to corral Gaunt’s sound into something bland and palatable to the general public. Who knows, though, what might have followed could have taken the band on some awful journey through blandness. It’s almost better not to know.

Johnny Dole and the Scabs: Apparently, Punks want to get Drunk

If one were to blindly listen in on a Johnny Dole and the Scabs recording, it would probably get lumped into the vast catalog of relatively obscure British punk bands out there. The thing is, Johnny Dole and his cohort hailed from Australia – Sydney specifically. Of course, there’s no way to pick that up immediately from a quick listen. But if we’re paying attention here – and happen to be well versed in the Saints’ catalog – there’s a rhythmic delivery present in the singing here referencing that better known band.

It’s not at all necessarily completely detached from the Brit punk thing. At the same time, though, there’s a reason all that funky post-punk stuff cropped up in the UK and not down under. Partly, that’d be due to different immigrant populations surrounding each disparate scene, but music is a visceral thing as much as a cultural thing. And for whatever reason (we could easily pin it on the criminal element), Aussie bands subjected audiences to a more straightforward, and in some cases more aggressive, take on the genre than elsewhere – Sick Things for instance.

Either way, Johnny Dole and the Scabs showed up in time for the feeding frenzy that prompted major imprints to sign up their very own punk band and crank out poorly produced albums just to cash in. Because of that it seems as if the ensemble were caught up in a professional jive that they weren’t really prepared to engage with.

It basically seems like the same story as every other – the band gets jacked around by label types, deals fall through all while the music suffers. And sadly, at this late date, what recorded evidence remains of the Scabs isn’t too expansive. Granted, the band wasn’t around for that long. But what they were able to get to tape was pretty decent and easily ranks up there with some of the top (second) tier UK acts of the period.

Cobbled together on Scab Animal the band’s entire history whizzes by in just about thirty minutes. There’s a Who cover tossed in for good measure, but it’s not the live stuff that’s of interest – although there’s not really a bummer in the pack. “Lucky Country” works through the no future thing pretty well while a few tracks on scene an incisive scene critic in the form of “Little Lord Punk” shows up. It’s all relatively traditional fair, but rendered in proper, awful punk terms.

The Ralphs: (Weirdo) Punks from Down Dallas Way

It’s always a bit confusing when there’s virtually no information detailing a band’s rise and subsequent fall in the virtual stacks of the internet. Surely, some of the best music ever crafted on this planet has gone unnoticed – and probably even unrecorded. Those are just the odds on something like this. It’s almost as weird to think that there are more dead folks buried in the ground than there are walking on it.

Either way, the Ralphs are dead all but for a low run single issued in 1980 and a compilation attempting to sweep up the leftovers. Of course, this all amounts to a pretty enticing corpse that, in some ways, works to incorporate some Devo styled synth oddities with a twitch of gothy darkness via Ralph Williams’ vocals. It’s not an overt Bauhaus thing, but just breathy for the sake of sounding disgusted and detached from the stasis of straight life.

Pinning the Ralphs as just another one of the endless list of lost Texas bands doesn’t work. Granted, the group issued work through VVV, most often figured simply as the home to Bobby Soxx, but there’s not persistence of vision when entertaining a history of that imprint. So while that better known band might be thought to truck in gut bucket punk, there’s only the most tenuous tie to the Ralphs.

Folks generally lump bands with keyboards from this epoch of American punk stuff into a single category, but even that doesn’t work. The Ralphs aren’t Dow Jones and the Industrials or Pere Ubu. It’s some weird, dusty amalgam of every aggressive, underground music imaginable.

Granted, “Vegetable Romp” might as well have been plucked from Devo’s catalog – all the way down to Williams’ singing in the trembley, agitated voice. Good track regardless of it’s influence being all but too apparent.

“Inhumane,” in contrast, ranks as a ’77 styled rocker – all bar chords and speed. The vocals are even unique when contrasted to other efforts here. Just boss stuff.

What’s odd, though, is that the Ralphs do easily out rank a good number of bands that are harbingers of new wave. A bunch of San Fran bands come to mind. And while this isn’t meant to denigrate anyone, there’s no reason other than regionalism to explain the Ralphs’ relative obscurity at this late date. It’s safe to assume that even down there in Dallas, the ensemble isn’t afforded it’s proper place in history. That needs to change, though.

Richard Hell: Disappointing Second Takes

First off, when Richard Hell sports some shaggy, long locks he looks like Gene Simmons. That’s not good, bad or indifferent. It just is. And will remain amusing to me until the end of time.

Either way, after helping solidify the direction of Television alongside Tom Verlaine and subsequently an early line up of the Heartbreakers, Hell went off on his own to write one of the definitive songs of the initial wave of punk stuff. “Black Generation,” although endlessly interpreted in different ways, remains a readily identifiable landmark in the genre’s develop, both musically and lyrically. Basically, it’s just good stuff.

Of course, Blank Generation, the album and the song, will probably continue to be discussed when future generations attempt to figure out why punk happened where and when it did. But then, probably, everyone’s gonna wind up wondering why Hell’s follow up was such a dramatic departure in quality, tone and vision.

Again, considering is contributions to Television, the Heartbreakers as well as ostensibly working up Blank Generation in a vacuum, void of other like minded acts – not to mention his “Please Kill Me” shirt - is more than enough to ensure his legacy. But that was all done by 1977. And five years later, in 1982, Destiny Street was released.

Part of what made Hell’s first album so incredible was Robert Quine’s guitar playing. Since the ’77 album being issued, the guitarist had gone on to work with Lester Bangs as well as Lou Reed on his Blue Mask album. Oddly, though, what made that Reed album one of the better lackluster releases since his Velvet Underground days, was Quine ripping a few nasty, almost atonal solos.

Hell, obviously, is a completely different type of singer, performer and writer than Reed. But by the time ’82 rolled around, Reed was something like two and half decades into his career. Hell had clocked a decade or so. And that’s really why Destiny Street’s lack of stand out compositions is so surprising.

Hell wrote poetry before, during and after his music career began. So, there not being anything approaching a memorable hook is just confusing. Between that and the apparent reigning in of Quine’s talents leaves the album a pretty bland historical document. The lone bright spot, oddly enough, is a late appearing cover of “I Can Only Give You Everything,” taking the Van Morrison composition and New Yorking it up a bit. A good addition to be sure, but not enough to save the disc from being pretty useless.

Parasites Of The Western World: A Lesser No Wave

The vast field of auld time recordings being dug up yields good, bad and indifferent. It’s pretty rare, though, when a disc arrives that’s equal parts of those things. Granted, some no wave clunkers do exist. But finding a disc sporting mountainous highs and depressed canyon lows is truly bizarre.

I suppose, the Parasites of the Western World aren’t in the same realm of music as DNA or whoever you’d care to pluck from that New York scene. And considering that this duo - Terry Censky and Patrick Burke – sussed out this conglomeration of noises up in the Northwest, Portland to be exact, it’d be fair to cut ‘em a bit of slack.

The group’s first release spurt out around 1978. And while that’s not early for New York, Los Angeles or other major, metro hubs, it’d be difficult to name another group or two from Portland with an eye towards these sorts of aural abstractions. Maybe that’s simply my own ignorance speaking, but there you have it.

Beginning with “Mo,” listeners might figure the stuff to follow remains in line with the aural proclivities on display here. The punky tempo, grinding and phased guitar – not to mention that barely tenable guitar solo – hint at what the confluence of aggressive rock stuffs and utter noise should be. Unfortunately, there aren’t too many other moments resembling this one. And in fact, the following song winds up being a two minute rumination on a single bouncing snatch of reverb. While that’s all well and good in theory, it doesn’t do too much in the realm of entertainment. Arguments can be made for this being art. But I don’t listen to art, I listen to music.

Either way, a pair of extended songs – “Funeral for a Mouse” and “Accessories” – simply draw out some of the ambient experiments the Parasites work up in shorter form a bit earlier. That first track, doesn’t amount to too much more than a throw away Kraftwerk cop. And while there’re bits and pieces of good songs amidst the eight minute latter song, it’s not held together well enough for repeat listens.  

Some bizarre and unflattering combination of folk and electronic stuffs crops up for a moment – but just a moment, thankful. And then onto a piano ballad, a poor electro-rock track and utter noise. Some of the Parasites’ work might be of interest in pretty small snippets. But by and large, this is just a record of what the West Coast could do to all that New York noise nonsense.

The Dicks and Austin's Hardcore Scene on the Run

Apart from MDC it seems as if the Dicks are the better known than most any other punk group coming out of the late seventies and early eighties Austin punk scene. Fronted by Gary Floyd, these guys should be credited for espousing a sound that refused to allow punk to be frozen in time and codified – for a little bit, at least.

The Big Boys were around at least a year earlier and mined a surprisingly similar sound as the Dicks. But we can all just chalk that up to each group springing from the same scene. Both ensembles felt it necessary to include more than a passing wink and nod to other musical genres – funk being an obvious influence. The Minutemen, a San Pedro based SST group, weren’t too far away from settling on roughly the same conflagration of noise, politics and rhythm – that group, though, also benefited from living in a town not too far away from Los Angeles’ huge scene.

When considering the Dicks and the Big Boys, the latter of sports a more sprawling discography despite not being picked up by a major-indie label or high tailing it outta town, it becomes difficult to understand each group’s current position in punk culture. Given the fact that the Big Boys, as fronted by Randy "Biscuit" Turner, were serious purveyors of queer culture and guitarist Tim Kerr has gone on to a successful career as producer, artist and all around good dude, there should be that yawning gap in popularity. Who doesn’t like fat guys in drag? No one.

Anyway, as the Dicks issued a classic single prior to releasing the iconic Kill From the Heart (even if that song of the same name doesn’t rank as the band’s crowning achievement), the persistence of vision between these folks and Turner’s ensemble is staggering. Even the two singer’s vocals sound the same – and each owe a debt to Jello Biafra.

Attempting to figure which band sported a more sophisticated musicality is moot – that’s not what this stuff was about. But the Dicks including a cover of the Hendrix tune “Purple Haze” should be ample proof that this all wasn’t a tossed off joke.

The answer why the Dicks have wound up occupying a higher echelon of visibility when contrasted with Kerr and company might have to do with some of the plain and overt politicism expressed over the course of Kill From the Heart – “Pigs Run Wild” reads like a call to arms. Again, there’s no real answer, even the move to San Fran should have ensured acclaim. But the Dicks catalog when tossed in with that of the Big Boys represents the tremendous potential punk and hardcore once had. It almost seems as if it’s gone, though. Bunk.

Exerting Femme Punk: Kleenex x Lilliput

It’s sometimes difficult to crap all over someone’s party, but at the same time a necessity and kind of entertaining. So, here it is...

Kleenex and LiLiPUT are not the greatest, early punk related group comprised by women. Greil Marcus might disagree. And I can’t claim any sort of total knowledge regarding this specific sub-strain of pop musics, but after hearing these guys girls hyped for so long and then getting an earful, it’s not too difficult to figure that someone, somewhere surpassed this troupe

It should all be attributed to the backward gaze – human beings’ tendency to champion things from the past. Another word for that is historicism. And while we could all distill this in some weird art historical context, that’s useless. And probably Kleenex/LiLiPUT wouldn’t care for that either.

What is working for this/these Zurich, Switzerland based act/acts is that funk drumming and huge open spaces that would characterize the Slits and much latter all that turn of the millennium dance-punk seems to have been first proffered here, increasing as the band switched names. Doing something –arguably – first doesn’t mean that it’s best or better than anything. And while the aforementioned Slits weren’t too much for proper musicality, the notion of fan as musician is ratcheted up here to untoward levels.

So, between the F/feminist angle as well as the ineptitude of the players, it is understandable why so many folks are adherents to these bands. But hearing “Heidi's Head” more than a few times during the course of one’s life doesn’t seem like a necessity. And while that track offers a barely tenable chorus, the following “Nice” doubles down on intent and actually delivers – relatively.

For those young ladies coming up during the early eighties – or even guys that weren’t sure they should start a band - Kleenex/LiLiPUT are indispensible, so much so that K Records is attempting to work up a vinyl anthology of the band’s work. And while it’s not up for debate as to whether or not these songs constitute some sort of historical importance, I’d much rather through on a record by X. Yeah, there’s only one girl in that group. But Exene seems like she’s in charge.

The balance then becomes adherence to a doctrine uniting women, but issuing a somewhat inferior product and working with men, but crafting music that just about anyone with a pulse can properly appreciate in any given situation.

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