The Pack - Com'on b/w Nobody Can Tell Us (Vinyl, 1978)

Top-tier schiesserpunk platter from a guttersnipe trio of reformed pimps and progrockers who enjoyed a modicum of posthumous popularity in recent years. Their self-titled longplayer, subsequently reissued by Incognito, elicited a polarized reaction among the great unwashed; however, there’s no denying the majesty of this, their earlier 45. The band even ended up lip-syncing both songs in a contemporaneous deutschefilm that remains criminally unrepresented on youtube.

Anyone interested in learning more about the Pack should seek out the lengthy feature included in a past issue of Ugly Things.

AA

Songs:

Com'on / Nobody Can Tell Us

Particles - Advanced Colouring EP (EMI Custom, 1980)

Sorry, no time for blathering this week, but you can check out the write-up I did on this band's earlier disc a few months back. This, the band's sophomore effort, isn't nearly as good as the first; though, it's a lot harder to turn up and it's (again) one of those annoying EMI Custom press jobs that band members and people in the know place in an edition ranging from 100 to 1,000 copies.

I've gone ahead and uploaded the tracks from the band's Colour In EP, just in case you missed it the first time. That's all for now...

Songs:

Truth About You
Remington Rand / Bits of Wood
Driving Me
Apricots Dream / Zig Zag

Fall-Outs - Here I Come EP (Regal Select, 1989)

Alright, I have no intention of spoiling you this week or bumping up my minimal level of productivity, so I’ll make this update brief:

Hyperkinetic four-track slab of slash’n’twang garage speed that ranks as some of the best music to travel across Puget Sound since the Sonics last trod its shores. There’s a punk-like propulsion, ample nods to mod/rhythmandbeat ala THEM or the Easybeats and even some clunky lyrics (Brothers) that straddle the incongruous line between PC sloganeering and an Aryan call to arms.

500 of these were pressed in 1989 and fifty of ‘em came in a handmade alternate sleeve. An extra-special round of applauds to TH from Fallout for hipping me this fact and to DOE and JL who hooked me up with one a few weeks later.

AA

Songs:

Here I Come / Brothers
Like Me / Selling Answers

NEWS FLASH!

Here's a quick update to let y'all know about this recent email that effectively set my cockles aglow:

So after diving back into the Gregg Turner tome, I was inspired to not only dig out one of my favorite bits of ephemera but scan 'em for you. This shit makes me laugh every time I see it.

It turns out that this blog's über-fan was so moved by my recent GT Q&A that he felt compelled to rummage through the vastness of his archive and provide the following:

the seamlessness of the Kaczynski-ian packaging, the pithily articulated rebuke and, oh, yeah, they even included their demo! It's easy to see that the Angry Samoans are really deserving of their reputation as the definitive purveyors of music for jerks.

Special thanks to RR for his typical charity work. You can look forward to his 10 Question Q&A in the upcoming months.

AA

Supercharger - Sooprize Package for Mr. Mineo b/w South City Psyco (Super*Teem, 1996)
Supercharger - Icepick b/w Want It Bad (Pre-BS, 1992)

Gather ‘round kids as I park it on the porch and wax nostalgic like a doddering ol’ feeb about those honest and true days of pre-pointundclick musical dissemination. Listen to me reminisce fondly about a time when my acquaintanceship with an ace cut like Sooprize Package for Mr. Mineo was only as an obscure cover on the Mummies’ FUCK CDs LP. Sure, I’d heard Supercharger’s second full-length, Goes Way Out, and was appropriately floored—who wouldn’t be? It was a towering achievement of distilled 50s ramalama, a Samoans-like appreciation of the absurd and a not-so-subtle finger-flip to any decent notion of proper fidelity. However, circa 1993, their first lp remained an almost unknown quantity outside of the bay area and Sooprize Package was a consequent loss.

A few years later, sensing the nation’s dire need to rock anew, Donny Denim responded like a reborn Springsteen and issued Sooprize Package as a 45 with the previously unreleased (and still unavailable elsewhere) South City Psyco (sic). It sold out almost immediately and I’d pretty much given up hope until I found a used copy at Rasputin’s during a record-buying expedition to SF in ’96. Adding further insult to injury, DD had also whipped up a handful of color copies (at work and on the company’s dime) that were handed out to a few friends when the single was initially made available. My pal, MP (forever immortalized as Johnny Pogo on the cover of the Brentwoods’ Fun in South City LP), was lucky enough to score a Christmas variant and forked it over years later with minimal cajoling. Another run with an alternate sleeve was issued about six months after the first.

As a token of my appreciation, gentle readers, I’ve also included the two tracks from their first 45 on Pre-BS. It’s easily one of the best records released during the 90s and I’m sure it’ll eventually enjoy the accolades afforded to similar discs.

AA

Songs:

Sooprize Package for Mr. Mineo / South City Psyco
Icepick / Want It Bad

Well, that concludes the unholy trinity of interviews which sprang up as a dawdling impulse and quickly metamorphosed into the most fun this blog has offered me thus far. I’d like to extend my sincerest gratitude and appreciation to Ronn, Gregg and Mort for taking the time out and putting up with some sickeningly fanboy-ish adulation. The accomplishments and continued efforts of these three gentlemen are part of what makes living on this crumbling rock a justifiable endeavor. As a man far more eloquent than myself recently opined: The world needs more record-collecting milquetoasts and less yuppies, poseurs, thugs, militarists, politicians, massage therapists, and Trekkies. Amen!

I've got no real plans to feature more of these Q&A's anytime soon, but anyone with a superfluously geminated cognomen and an impeccable pedigree is invited to contact me for future consideration.

AA