Advertisement for San Francisco’s PAST IT records, 1998. They were the home of the Icky Boyfriends, Demolition Doll Rods, Leather Uppers and other demented garage acts of the day. I happen to know that the owner/manager of the label was in a big NBA basketball phase at the time.
This new 45 from the UK’s THE FIREWORKS is fast, loud, fuzzed and right in the wheelhouse for fans of a certain kind of fast, loud, fuzzed British pop. Distortion and melody that sits together in an exceptionally pleasant manner.
I wrote this review for Superdope #1 fanzine in 1990, right after the coldest night I think we’ve ever had in the San Francisco Bay Area – 17 degrees. Steve Watson slipped on some ice and fell hard to the ground on this night. That never happens here.
Clear that I was already tiring of The Dwarves here; unfortunately they didn’t quite feel the joke had grown cold just yet.
Amazing crude 1977 bootleg material from THE CRAMPS, from the very first bootleg 45 I ever purchased back in high school. The A-side is the band’s ridiculous take on the Red Crayola’s “Hurricane Fighter Plane”, and the b-side is this outstanding near-instrumental that later showed up on their first album.
Note the very polite, likely bewildered clapping after the song ends. Back of the single says “critics threw up”.
Dave Lang checks in with a great tale of the touring travesty calling themselves Black Flag.
https://popplers5.bandcamp.com/download/track?enc=mp3-128&fsig=2686c239dd73f0932edaa230a5d6b5ca&id=2322458970&nl=1&stream=1&ts=1487759858.0?plead=please-dont-download-this-or-our-lawyers-wont-let-us-host-audio
http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/size=medium/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/notracklist=true/transparent=true/track=2322458970/
You never know what you’re going to find on the interweb. Here’s a year-old track from San Francisco’s SYNTHETIC ID – wonderfully spastic and short jerk-yr-head punk. If my sources are correct, they’re an active band. What do you know about them, if anything…?
Siltbreeze doing us all a solid by bringing to life a lost live show by New Zealand’s SHOES THIS HIGH along with their amazing Ubu-meets-Fall 7"EP. Coming in January.
Played this one on my most recent podcast – it’s the UK’s BEACHBUGGY, whom I’d almost totally forgotten about until last week, doing an awesome disjointed FALL-like garage two-step in this short track called “General Electric Pilot”.
I’ve never heard any of their stuff outside of the 1998 CD “Unsafe….At Any Speed!” on Sympathy, which is sort of hit and miss, but when it’s hitting it’s fantastic. Is any of the rest of their catalog worth hearing?
One of the many fantastic new bands that’s caught our ear of late are Memphis’ NOTS, who just put out their debut 45 on Goner Records. They’re captured cranking out some fast-n-bulbous off-kilter pop music live in concert here.
