Angry Samoans Probably Eat Boogers Too...

Without debate, there are always at least two ways to look at a single situation. There’s the good, the bad and whatever can fit in-between. And while most would agree that being in a band and having a radio station deejay schilling for your scene is a good deal, that’s not the case if you feel that you’ve been shut out.

Back in 1970’s Los Angeles, Rodney Bingenheimer a deejay for KROQ, had settled upon his favorite punk acts from the scene. And, no there’s no reason that he was playing those group’s on the radio apart from the fact that he liked the music, he didn’t really fall in love with the Angry Samoans, though.

Regardless of whether or not the deejay cared about the band or not, the Samoans would set down “Get off the Air” for an album that it recorded between 1978 and 1979. The song would name Rodney specifically, call him a queer, a groupie, a square and any number of other names that served to alienate the band from KROQ’s playlist. It remains to be seen if the band would have broken into the Los Angeles punk scene via the airwaves, but being frozen out probably didn’t help.

The lyrical content that pervaded that first extended single entitled Inside My Brain would be continued over the duration of the band’s first proper full length, Back from Samoa, issued in 1982. Songs like “They Saved Hitler’s Cock” would pretty much immediately make the band a cult success. Anything commenting on the Fuehrer’s genitals is sure to find an audience. But before the Samoans began recording in the formation that cranked out those two releases, member’s were involved in a group called VOM, which included rock writer Richard Meltzer. VOM wasn’t necessarily a force on the LA scene, but did release a single that is today a pretty sought after collector’s relic.

Regardless of all that, the Angry Samoans forged an odd affinity for psych tropes in its punker come early hardcore musicality. Always a fan of garage stuffs, the ensemble was even able to land its first gig opening for Roky Erickson, former singer of the 13th Floor Elevators.

It was an auspicious date, seeing as the band was exposed to a decent audience that wouldn’t have necessarily come to hear the Samoans otherwise. Oddly, though, Erickson wasn’t actually present and his backing band rendered his performance in a series of shared vocals. Whether or not the show went off all that well, Erickson’s band developed an affinity for the Samoans the resulted in future recordings sharing members and the like for solo albums.

The first two releases that the Samoans brought out are generally the work referred to when discussing the So Cal band. Understanding that, the ensemble, made up of a revolving line up with singer Mike Saunders and drummer Bill Vockeroth remaining for the entirety of the Samonans’ life, has continued to release work up to the present.

The cohort still tours and plays semi-regularly in its home state. And while the Samoans won’t ever again be as appreciated as it once was, the band remains an important, if not just humorous, part of punk’s back story out there in Cali.

Digital Leather: Keys and Gadgets

It’s become a genre somehow. Or maybe it always was and bands like the Screamers and Suicide knew it before everyone else. Regardless, synth-punk, which is as ridiculous as it sounds, has recently been garnering more and more attention thanks to that ‘80s retro schtick that dullards have begun clamoring about. It’s no ones fault that the bottom feeders of culture have latched on to a decade that gave the States some of its most desolate music. That being said, though, there’s a pop strain that runs throughout the work of Digital Leather that few can deny.

Beginning as a bedroom recording project as a result of eating fistfuls of acid and its brethren, Shawn Foree set out to merge some awful and futuristic dystopian monster movie with pop tropes. And while he set out along this path alone since the first half of the aughties he’s been joined by a cast of underground stalwarts.

For Sorcerer, Foree enlisted former Reatard and Tokyo Electron member Ryan Wong to get behind the drum set – but that’s only the second half of the album. Engineering both the ‘studio’ side’ and the live portion of the disc is recently departed Jay Reatard, who himself worked in similar tones in his group Lost Sounds. There might have been less of a pop vibe surrounding that unit the same confluence of ideas was present.

Regardless of who did what on the album, it’s worth mentioning that based partially on this release from 2008, Foree and Digital Leather have been picked up by Fat Possum, an imprint that seems to be concerted with foraging into more modern rock sounds as of late.

Split into two disparate halves, the first side of this offering sports Foree going it alone with only a single vocal contribution by Devon Disaster. And while her appearance on the mic during “You Will Fall” doesn’t amount to all that much it points to Foree’s attempt to sugar up some of the more difficult and fuzzy portions of his work. Of course, that’s relative seeing as there’s pretty much nothing else other than distortion and winding synthesizers for the duration of the side, but it’s an interesting approach to the genre. “Modulated (Simulated)” even arrives related to some Jay Reatard work during the last year or so of his life.

The second half of the album comprises a set from Goner Fest #2 recorded at the Buccaneer Lounge in Memphis. The audio quality is miraculously the same as on the first half of the disc, but in Foree’s vocals listeners should hear an urgency not related in the proper studio from earlier tracks. We can all just chalk that up to booze, drugs and live performance. But moreover, the fact that Foree comes off as if he’s being pushed forward by the ensemble that he put together on – notably on the choruses of “Dance till Dead” and “Pleasurebot” – might point to the future of his recordings.

Maybe not. But either way, Sorcerer remains a pretty ballsy release even as it’s dominated by keys and gadgets.

The Guns: A Clevo Hardcore

It’s funny that bands, decades dormant, or folks associated with them go ahead and attempt to chronicle the past. This problematic situation leads to some fuzzy recollections and probably even some accidental farces.

That being said, when folks wind up working on projects such as these, it becomes the gospel for people searching through recorded music’s past. And with Cleveland sporting such a rich and long running history, taking a look at a few recollected memories – as well as some compiled demos – can’t hurt too much, now can it?

After the first wave of bands during the mid ‘70s and subsequently the Pagans and the entire Cleveland Confidential crew, punk began taking its tempo ever more seriously. Ratcheting things up to levels where it must have been difficult to keep up bands in Cleveland – all of Ohio and the rest of the nation – started laying the foundation for what would eventually become hardcore.

Folks cite the Zero Boys as being an early piece of all of this, but the pacings that those Indiana folks were trucking wasn’t really anything akin to what would transpire during the nascent period of Cleveland’s the Guns. And while the ensemble remains a rather obscure footnote in the legacy of punk, the Guns were able to reel off some demo material that surpasses a good deal of what was going on at some of the bigger independent labels at the time.

During the early ‘80s Tom Eakin and Robert Griffin, Scott Eakin and David Araca (the latter two were barely out of elementary school) performed as the Dark. With the pacing of its songs growing ever faster, Scott Eakin and Araca decided to work under a different name as a result of the sonic shifting that was going on - thus, the Guns.

Working things out as a duo for a while, the Guns eventually picked up Sean Saley (Starvation Army) to play bass. After the line-up was solidified, the trio headed to a studio located in the eastern suburbs – which is kind of bizarre considering what those neighborhoods look like nowadays. The demo cuts that were set down in 1984 never saw proper release, but have apparently gained enough of a cult around it to begin circulating the interwebs.

Considering the band’s age at the time of the recording session, it’s not too surprising to find that the lyrical content involving some reference to dressing how one pleases, school, drugs and the other standard punk tropes for teens. That being said, the Guns churn it out in distinguished style.

Everything here is still rendered in nasty terms with a metal inflection cropping up every once in a while – and specifically “Caste of Talent” with that introductory scream. Taking issue with that one point, though, might be the only criticism to levy on these thirteen songs.

The band’s avowed classic “I’m Not Right” is present and apes a decent Black Flag thing. Of course, separating the Guns from the relatively erudite – in the hardcore world at least – Cali band isn’t difficult. But if this Cleveland ensemble hadn’t been torn asunder there could have been a possibility at stardom of the underground variety.

The Bay's Garage: A Primer (The Newer Folks...)

Garage rock has again reared its ugly, bug-eyed head. In the wider culture, the genre subsided briefly, but the Bay Area’s affection for garage has enabled it to persist from its inception during ‘60s through the present day.

Heir apparent to the capes and catastrophe that the Count Five have come to represent were San Mateo’s the Mummies. In the quartet’s ramshackle assemblage of a few chords was all of the Bay Area’s low rent rock history. The group’s Egyptian inspired get-ups harkened back to the acid eating Count Five: a sense of showmen-ship was as important to the group as its music, which was a mélange of garage tropes and revved up surf-rock vibrato.

First releasing albums at the dawn of the ‘90s, the Mummies’ style was in stark contrast to the hair-metal that topped the charts and the Seattle thing that would briefly entrance the planet. A slew of singles and full lengths released via Estrus Records and a grip of other small run imprints made the Mummies’ discography a sought after collectors dream, but also inspired Budget Rock, a once yearly Bay Area garage festival. And while the Mummies split in ‘92, this past fall found the group reassembled for the eighth installment of that rock and roll party.

There was no lack of notable garage rock coming out of the Bay between the end of the Mummies run and the present day - Russell Quan, the group’s drummer went on to play with the Flakes and released a few records in the intervening years – but John Dwyer and his cohort have recently ratcheted up the melodic potency of the genre.

Dwyer’s been a part of countless groups over time in the Bay and on the East Coast with the most visible being the Coachwhips up until he formed the malleable ensemble dubbed Thee Oh Sees. In addition to helming his quartet, Dwyer and his SoCal partner Brian Lee Hughes run Castle Face Records.

“Having your own label is the way to go if you wanna keep an eye on things...Since we’re poor and mostly lazy, the records have to rely on their own awesomeness to get out there,” says Dwyer before mentioning a few acts on his imprint. “I love Ty Segall and the Fresh and Onlys, but there’re a lot of bands out there that we would love to do something for.”

Making his way north for school after his SoCal upbringing, Segall already had an impressive discography with a pronounced Bay Area garage influence.

“I was obsessed with the Mummies,” begins Segall. “When I was 20 Russell Quan shook my hand and told me I was a good drummer after a Traditional Fools’ show [one of the formative groups Segall performed in]. It was one of the greatest moments of my life.”

At this point, Segall is one of the youngest proponents of the expansive and all inclusive style being spread out across the nation by this grouping of new age garage foragers. Even as he’s the relative new comer, both his self-titled album and last year’s Lemons, released via Goner Records, have been met with nothing less than critical success.

Down By Law: Pop as Punk

Coming out of scene so tied to that of Minor Threat’s sound as well as the whole independent Dischord thing must have been difficult.

The second wave of DC punk affiliated groups – by this time, it was incontrovertible that there was as much pop and straight rock influence as to begin a disassociation with hardcore proper – didn’t necessarily fair too well. Off course after Ian MacKaye figured out the Fugazi formula, his band would go on to international fame, but there weren’t too many other success acts from the ear. Nation of Ulysses garnered a bit of attention and so did Dag Nasty. That latter group, though, went through a few singers and didn’t really settle on a sound over the group’s first few albums.

In part, Dag Nasty’s lot in life can be attributed to original singer, Dave Smalley, leaving after the group issued its first album in order to form Down By Law.

Though neither band can be considered a hardcore group, there remained the stench of the DC scene. And while Fugazi worked to include a vast amount of pacing and approaches to hard rock and punk resulting in critical acclaim, Down By Law wouldn’t be as lucky.

Even as the Smalley fronted ensemble landed a record deal with California’s Epitaph Records and would record three albums for the imprint between 1991 and 1994, the band couldn’t wrangle the same confluence of critical and scene success as groups from DC that preceded it – again, that’s a specific reference to Fugazi.

Perhaps looking towards MacKaye, Smalley sought to take melodicism to hitherto untold places in aggressive music. And while a good portion of the songs that he wrote over Down By Law’s first two albums – the self titled 1991 disc and 1992’s punkrockacademyfightsong – possessed a helping of pop sucrose, there’s a bit too much of a traditional rock bent, even as the group’s second disc comes off a bit better than its debut.

The self titled effort, which included the ridiculous pop-metal guitar solo of “The One” and Smalley’s schmaltzy crooning on “American Dream,” obviously did enough for Down By Law as to warrant another long player. And while punkrockacademyfightsong is undoubtedly a step forward for the ensemble, there’re still a few problematic passages.

While it maintains an aggressive bent and a decent breakdown, “1994” finds the band moving into radio-ready, popular styles. Listeners might be hesitant to levy the term alternative on the track, but it’s not a far cry from what he media was up in arms about at the time. By contrast, “Sam I” and “Sam II” were so detached from polished pop stuff that the group should be applauded for including the fast paced flubs on its disc as a joke. “Haircut” is a more successful effort in the same vein with Smalley (oddly) directly criticizing the Seattle thing as he quotes Minor Threat by saying “I don’t wanna hear it.”

The disc winds up being a reflection and a rejection of then popular musics both on the radio and in subterranean circles. Down By Law would soldier on into the next millennium even as the glut of indie bands from the era would basically disallow it a chance at stardom.

The Truth About Punk: CBGB and the New York Scene

A big part of the late 70's punk mythos is the music venue CBGB, itself an ironic twist considering what the name means. It was founded by club owner Hilly Kristal in 1973 as a performance space and record shop for Country, Bluegrass and Blues, later adding the cryptic OMFUG (Other Music For Uplifting Gormandizers) when a bunch of decidedly different styles of music started drawing larger crowds. The idea that CBGB was the quintessential punk club is a classic example of retroactive continuity. CBGB only became a punk club in the 80's after it acquired that reputation in the pop culture consciousness of people who had never actually been there.

The bands that really made CBGB a major center for music were largely not punk. Aside from The Ramones, Misfits, The Dead Boys and The Cramps, the lineup at the venue featured a wide variety of pioneering non-punk acts. Even those bands with a little punk in them, like The Voidoids, dabbled in a lot of different styles. Listening to Blank Generation, it's obvious that Richard Hell and company get bored with punk. Half the album is straight-up blues rock, the other half is rockabilly if it's anything.

Really, what made those early years of CBGB so interesting was its extensive collection of very talented reformers. Talking Heads, for instance, made white funk that didn't sound as clean and well-researched as David Bowie's and they mixed it with all the theatricality one would expect from a bunch of art students. In doing so they developed a lion's share of the sound that would become New Wave.

The band Television used punk as a sort of spice to make Progressive Rock decidedly less pretentious. Marquee Moon is far too competent and melodic to really stand next to the screaming, thrashing Sex Pistols or the actively offensive Dead Boys. At the same time, it makes Pink Floyd sound like Dad's idea of rock, abandoning any dedication to conventional singing or machine-assisted production.

And while we're on the topic of non-conventional vocals, let's talk about Patti Smith. She ended up being the last person to ever perform at CBGB, a nod to her role as one of the last greats from the 70's bills. She was no more a punk than any of the performers she would clearly influence, i.e. Ani DiFranco, Fiona Apple, and others. Patti Smith gets lumped in with the punks because she played in close proximity to them and because she would occasionally try to prove that she could rock hard in addition to her spoken word poetry. Still, arguably her most punk song was a cover of "My Generation" by The Who.

For all its punk glory, the real contribution of CBGB to the music world was its willingness to harbor an impressive collection of artists who would influence bands who had, at best, only a passing interest in punk. By the time the 1980's rolled around, punk rock transformed from a pioneering art into a niche market. In other words, some bands grew up and some didn't.

The Truth About Punk: De-Mythologizing The Sex Pistols

With each passing year it becomes increasingly apparent that the idea of the punk rock musical revolution of the 1970's isn't so historically or even spiritually accurate. Really, it's more of an invention of the hopelessly nostalgic millennium's end Best Of lists that popped up a decade ago. Some combination of overgrown kids, irresponsible music journalists and various amateur revisionists created and then perpetuated the reductive understanding of new music in the mid-to-late 1970's, much to the delight of programming producers at VH1. Listening to the truly big, truly influential stuff that happened in major scenes around the world during that period, it's clear that supposed revolution of punk rock wasn't the first shot fired, but the popular revolt that followed.

If the mythologists are to be believed, on a single, glorious day The Ramones were birthed from the smokey clubs of New York City while The Sex Pistols emerged from a cockney-swept chimney in London. The real story is a lot less epic and, more to the point, significantly less punk than that. The Sex Pistols were the result of a mix-and-match game orchestrated by, of all things, a couple of clothing shop owners. Malcolm McLaren ended up managing everything from the band's image to its jumbled lineup, all while juggling a career of selling faux-edgy fashions to young Londoners.

This isn't it to say that The Sex Pistols didn't make interesting or influential music, only that it wasn't as revolutionary as purported. Equally hard, equally political material had been sprouting on the other side of the Atlantic for at least three years by the time Never Mind the Bollocks hit the shelves. Richard Hell and the Voidoids were screaming raw at CBGB's before The Sex Pistols even had a frontman. In fact, Malcolm McLaren tried to recruit Richard Hell for that very job before he found John Lydon back in Chelsea.

Listening to the music of The Pistols and The Ramones, who really are reflections of one another circa 1977, it's important to remember that it didn't exist in a cultural vacuum. The riffs they employed are slightly more distorted versions of southern rock, blues rock and surf rock that had been on the airwaves for close to twenty years by the time punk was even a concept. Hell, listen to the opening moments of "Liar" and just try not to hear the funky, Shaft-like high-hat.

I suppose the reason we want to think of The Sex Pistols, and by extension punk itself, as being so violently opposed to pop music is because we equate coolness in rock with novelty. Punk's not punk in the hearts of fans if it's a natural, even predictable, evolution of existing styles. I'd like to take a different tack, though. I think it's pretty awesome that a few snotty kids from England could take a handful of chords that had been a part of pop music for decades and make them sound new. I don't care if The Sex Pistols were manufactured and marketed by a would-be fashion guru, they still sound interesting thirty years after the fake revolution.

Classic Compilations: It Came From The Pit

The funny thing about punk from earlier eras – or even this one, as evidenced by Green Day – is the fact that the political villains that are roiled in a buncha lyrics have largely disappeared by now. Specifically, the late ‘70s and ‘80s stuff is rife with blatant and somewhat unsophisticated screeds against whatever politician was at the time causing some punkers problems - whether real or imaginary.

What Americans forget sometimes is that while everyone was railing against Reagan during the ‘80s, there were Canadians who not only dealt disparagingly with its own politicos, but the society that lived just south of the boarder. It’s an odd cultural other, since in the States, south of the boarder denotes Mexican folks – but there are a number of instances on It Came From the Pit, a 1986 punk and hardcore compilation issued on Psyche Industry Records, where Americans are to be considered a troublesome clutch of weirdoes.

My Dog Popper is probably the most thoughtful group outta this crop of bands. That’s not to say that other ensemble’s are all dullards, but these guys are able to couple a wry wit with some relatively thoughtful standpoint to arrive at some just above average punk from the middle of the decade.

The first of two offerings from My Dog Popper, “Rock Stars are Assholes,” begins with an open slight to Jello Biafra. Apparently, the Dead Kennedys’ had at some point come through and noted that ticket prices were lower in Canada than in the States. My Dog Popper’s singer simply mentions that Jello and Company could charge less money for shows before moving into a song that focuses on the barter system that’s grown up around shows – getting on guests lists, bringing bands drugs and the minutiae of scene politics.

Following with “Equal Time,” My Dog Popper reams American culture making mention of everything from Geraldine Ferraro to the KKK having its rights being protected. Despite the fact that the band rips up K-Mart in ensuing lines, the fact that the ensemble saw fit to criticize the freedom of speech is laughable. Granted, in Canada, it’s not legal to purport that the Holocaust didn’t occur. And while the heart of it’s all in the right place, speech isn’t something that should be limited. So while My Dog Popper attempts to come off as some left wing saviors of the western world, the ensemble forgets about folks that don’t share the same values as band members. Oh well…

Unfortunately, while that group remains engaging based up its political agenda, musically it’s not too satisfying – nor is the rest of It Came from the Pit. SNFU turns in a Warren Zevon cover which sounds better in theory than in practice, while Nomeansno works in some odd funk stuffs on “No Sex.”

There really aren’t highlights here, just a steady level of adequacy with Sudden Impact contributing some metally hardcore and Count Down to Zero ratcheting up the thrash to hitherto unheard of territory. It’s all just worth a pass…keep on moving.

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