Stains: SST Stuperstars

Stains: SST Stuperstars

After the initial wave of punk washed over major cities in the states, supplemental and more cloistered scenes began cropping up. Occasionally it was all divided up by place and what part of town you lived in. But sometimes scenes cropped up around cultural groups. And in Los Angeles, despite there being a scene in the city and then in the out laying suburbs, East LA developed its own groups.

Along with bands like the Plugz, there was a clutch of other groups there would only be able to record a few times. Most notably out of that cohort, after the better known Plugz, of course, were a few teenagers led by vocalist Rudy Navarro and guitarist Robert Becerra. The band, Stains, wasn’t detached from the more serious art punk stuff that was happening as early as ’77, but being from a different place and hold up in East LA served the group well. Instead of developing along the same lines as the bigger names in LA, the group wound up working with an elixir of early hardcore and nascent metal tropes. There isn’t too much in common with Metallica or other trash bands, but what the Stains were set do was clearly not just punk.

Perhaps because of the quicker tempos and the subject matter discussed over the course of the band’s one LP, Stains come off as nihilistic as Darby Crash from the Germs. No one killed themselves here (that I’m aware of), but hearing the deconstruction of every rock solo that came before it on “Violent Children” pointed towards Stains being something unique.

Because of this, Greg Ginn, SST label honcho and Black Flag guitarist, thought Stains fit to record a long player. The self titled effort was recorded in 1981, with de-facto SST producer Spot behind the boards, but for some reason, the disc wasn’t issued until 1983 when Stains were no longer a factor in the scene. Odd business practices, though, are what did SST in eventually anyway. Of course, Black Flag taking up so much of Ginn’s time might be blamed, but the guitarist clearly heard something he found value in. It’s just a damnable shame that the disc wasn’t widely available upon its initial release and certainly not now.

The Stains’ one full length moves around a bit in the hardcore genre and even as those guitar solos crop up a bit too frequently for anyone’s good, the pace here is unrelenting. No one will ever mistake Stains for a polished pop outfit. And as a part of that some of the songs run together, but “Young Nazis” really does sound like a lost Black Flag track from the Chavo era. Even Ginn’s guitar tones are reflected here – we’ll just ignore the blatant over use of the whammy bar.

Unless you happen to be the most voracious collector of SST release, Stains might not be essential. That being said, though, the band was able to craft some decent hardcore that sits somewhere between the subgenre’s first and second waves. Boss indeed.