Category: Jay Hinman

There was this compilation of mostly current Australian punk & art/noise I bought in the mid-80s called “WHY MARCH WHEN YOU CAN RIOT?â€Â, and it was a mind-expander for several reasons. First, it featured three tracks from the Australian band X that are among the greatest punk rock songs ever recorded – “Hate Cityâ€Â, “Home Is Where The Floor Isâ€Â and “TV Cabaret Rollâ€Â. If you think “X-ASPIRATIONSâ€Â is a masterpiece, and I do – these tracks are even better. I’m going to post all three in an upcoming entry.

Alongside debut recordings from the HARD-ONS (whoopee) and lesser lights, there were also two tracks from Sydney’s fEEDTIME that blew me and many others clean away. fEEDTIME (the small f is deliberate) were a trio who played a propulsive, mechanical, wicked-fast, sometimes bluesy punk rock, sounding like a band of the 21st Century who just happened to be stuck in the 20th. I’d never heard anything like them before, and still haven’t since. A lot of us in the United States took notice pretty quickly, and they got a US distribution deal for their LPs, which were all over the place for a while there in the late 80s. Forced Exposure magazine were a particularly enthusiastic proponent. Me, I thought the LPs were good, but spotty and uneven. In 1987 a 45 came out with new versions of the two songs that were on “Why March When You Can Riotâ€Â – “Don’t Tell Me / Small Talkâ€Â. They were good, just not as powerful and angry & weird as the ones from the 1985 comp that I’m posting for you today. Listening to them now makes me want to dig out the fEEDTIME records for a reappraisal. Anyone have an opinion on how they’ve held up? In the meantime, here’s what I still think were the band’s finest moments.

Play or Download fEEDTIME – “Don’t Tell Meâ€Â
Play or Download fEEDTIME – “Small Talkâ€Â

(both from 1985 “WHY MARCH WHEN YOU CAN RIOT?â€Â compilation LP)

A couple years ago the HYPED 2 DEATH label unearthed a boatload of 1980-83 archival recordings, many of them cassette-only, from a little-known UK band called THE MIDNIGHT CIRCUS. I was fortunate enough to get one, and they had me at hello. The CD, with the compact title of “RICHARD, RODNEY, RASTUS, RAOUL, RODERICK, RANDY, RUPERT”, has a smattering of home & studio & live recordings from this sometimes-tuneful workingman’s artpunk band, who practiced their rough trade at the intersection of early MEKONS and Detailed Twang namesakes THE DOOR AND THE WINDOW. I was a bit surprised, given my immediate enthusiasm for these resurrected simpleton masterpieces, how little attention they garnered, and how to this day I haven’t read a single word of praise about the band that wasn’t part of a sales page or on my own blog. Here’s what Hyped 2 Death themselves had to say by way of introduction:

Midnight Circus are known to a handful of fanatics from the rare Angst in my Pants compilation EP, but they put most of their energy into the cassette-only wing of the DIY movement. Nevertheless, they churned out vinyl-worthy DIY-punk tunes by the score, and unlike most bands that did make it to vinyl -who typically spent most of their money on pressing and printing– the ‘Circus were free to blow it all on recording.

C’mon folks, have a listen – here’s two killers from the CD, which you can purchase by clicking here.

Play or Download THE MIDNIGHT CIRCUS – “Leather & Laceâ€Â
Play or Download THE MIDNIGHT CIRCUS – “The Hedonist Jiveâ€Â

When Ryan Wells & Scott Soriano, two gentlemen of my acquaintance, decided to start an mp3 blog called STATIC PARTY featuring rare 45s of what they call “punk’s third rail, 1990-2000â€Â, I figured the thing would be pretty solid. What I didn’t count on was just how much terrific spazz/garage/noise/ punk these vaunted record hoarders were swooping up in those unheralded years, and how much stuff they had that I didn’t. STATIC PARTY, about once or twice a week, posts a 45 direct from these fellas’ hallowed stashes, and more often than not, the tracks are pretty friggin’ wild. They’re certainly unavailable elsewhere. If they weren’t doing it, not only would you (and I) not know about these gems, virtually no one else would know either – because I’ll bet dollars to donuts that virtually no one else owns such a dizzying array of garage-influenced punk rock vinyl from that age. I know you can say that about a lot of mp3 blogs (Soriano’s CRUD CRUD, for instance), but this microscene is territory that only Static Party is mining, and I’ve found a large bucketful of new favorite songs as a result of their labors.

Here are three stunners I downloaded straight from the site. All are from Seattle (a coincidence, honestly), and as of this writing, two are actually still available on Static Party itself. They won’t always be – most disappear after 3 or 4 weeks. THE STITCHES are a band I saw in 2003 up there – they put on monkey masks or something & jumped around like goofballs, and never in my wildest dreams did I think they were capable of balls-out raw power like this. (Correction, May 19th – I’m confusing “The Stitches” with “The Spits”. I know nothing about either band, but I’ve been corrected in the comments below – The Stitches were a California band, and I assume they did not employ monkey masks). MAN-TEE-MANS – well, it’s a Rob Vasquez band, post-NIGHT KINGS, and I’m dumbfounded that I sold this 45 back after I bought it in 1994, despite featuring the Great Man and my pal Caryn to boot. I think I was burnt out on Rob’s tuneless “learning to playâ€Â bands, but this sounds like pure genius now, as simple and unadorned as the first URINALS single, and even more dumb. I saw STEEL WOOL a few times back in the 90s, but never did they sound as roaring and loose as they do on “Devil’s Nightâ€Â, which out-Mudhoneys MUDHONEY. Check them all out below and at STATIC PARTY.

Play or Download THE STITCHES – “Cars of Todayâ€Â
Play or Download THE MAN-TEE-MANS – “Man Tee Mans (theme)â€Â
Play or Download STEEL WOOL – “Devil’s Nightâ€Â

Remember the early 90s surf revival boom? Sure ya do. There was this fella Mike Lucas here in the SF Bay Area doing his darndest to help it along, vis-à-vis a great instrumental surf combo called the PHANTOM SURFERS, some quasi-legit LP releases of old & rare 60s surf monsters, and various one-off projects like this one, THE LONE SURFER AND HIS SUPER PALS. Far as I know it, the band wasn’t really a “bandâ€Â in the conventional sense of the word, more a conglomeration of pals from then-current acts like THE MUMMIES and THE TRASHWOMEN, among others, with Lucas at the helm.

There was one small-batch 45 of revved-up, reverb-dosed surf crunch from them, pressed up in 1993. It was called “Church Key/Horror Beachâ€Â, and it was recorded live at San Francisco’s Chameleon Club. I happened to be in attendance that night, but if memory serves me correctly, I left the premises before they got on as headliners (or perhaps as the mop-up act), as I missed the best part of the night. That was when the band started taunting a pal of mine, one Michael Ashby, who happened to have hair down past his shoulders and was thusly regaled as a “hippieâ€Â. As the tale was told to me, Ashby bravely and verbally fought back for a while as things became more heated, before finally being coaxed to the stage and actually PAID TO LEAVE THE CLUB by the band, for the crime of being a benevolent hippie in San Francisco. Different times, hunh? He actually left the club a few dollars richer, whereupon he came to the place we were drinking that night and told us the story (and hopefully bought us a beer with his new earnings). Much of their repartee is captured on this 45, posted here for your listening pleasure (there’s also a photo of Ashby being paid off on the cover of the single!).

Play or Download THE LONE SURFER AND HIS SUPER PALS – “Church Keyâ€Â

After going full bore (interpret as you see fit) for the past several months, I’m going to take a snooze from the site for a couple weeks. Please come back near the end of May and see what we’ve got for ya.

That’d be “primitive sh** rockâ€Â, as discussed in this forum here and documented in amazing, glorious detail here. Well, my favorite PSR song of all time needs a fair hearing, too. This nasty, downer of a 60s garage track from THE MODDS came out on “American National Recordsâ€Â, but I’m a little unclear as to what date it came out – I’m guessing ’66. All you can hear is the scarily fuzzed-out guitar; slurred, I’ve-just-been-dosed vocals, and what appear to be maracas shakin’ in the background, but legend has it there’s actually an entire band lost in the murk there somewhere. What a friggin’ masterpiece. Deservedly resurrected by the CHEATER SLICKS on their “Whiskeyâ€Â LP in 1991.

Play or Download THE MODDS – “Leave My Houseâ€Â

A few years ago I picked up a book about a late 1980s San Francisco club called THE CHATTERBOX that I used to go to when I was underage. I wrote a piece about it for my old blog Agony Shorthand – check it out by clicking here. The funny thing about it was just how long-past that era seems now. “Long-haired punkâ€Â, or glammy, grungy metal/punk, or even speed metal are all totally antiquated forms of rock and roll, but in the Chatterbox era, man that was IT. Those were the bands the Chatterbox made their stock in trade – bands that wore scarves, bands that didn’t bathe, bands that drank way too much, bands with tire tracks on their arms, bands that held up JOHNNY THUNDERS as a patron saint, and even East Coast bands like SLOTH.

I saw SLOTH at the Chatterbox, actually. I had purchased their 45 “Fetch The Wedge/Miss Sleazy Underbellyâ€Â on a recommendation alone (this was before Soulseek and mp3 blogs, kids!) and dug it a lot, and they stumbled into town not long after that. I don’t think they wore any scarves – they were more like a bunch of dirty pizza delivery guys with long hair and t-shirts kicking out the motor city jams. Tons of attitude and west coast dissin’, but all in good fun. At least two guitarists – maybe three? Listen to this 45 and you’ll hear THE HEARTBREAKERS, STOOGES, STONES and all the hesher heroes of long-haired punks everywhere. Great record, way OOP as they say.

Play or Download SLOTH – “Fetch The Wedgeâ€Â (A-side)
Play or Download SLOTH – “Miss Sleazy Underbellyâ€Â (B-side)

THE GORIES claimed this particular song as a big influence, and it’s not hard to understand why. Total stripped-down primitivism, but with a simple, well-played melody in the background that adds some romping bounce where The Gories subtracted chords, structure and skill. These Australians continued for many years beyond this 1986 classic, but to the best of my knowledge this was the single example where they really and truly nailed it.

Play or Download THE BO-WEEVILS – “That Girlâ€Â (A-side of 45)

When I was a teen I had a habit of falling asleep at night with the clock radio on, only to wake up around 3 or 4am to turn it off. Most of the time I’d doze to KFJC, my local college radio station, and I was such an adept snoozer that even hardcore punk, screaming early industrial noise and The Birthday Party, three of KFJC’s specialties circa 1981-84, couldn’t stir me. I did get into trouble twice. Once some late-night program was playing a song called “The Boilerâ€Â by a spinoff band made up of members of THE SPECIALS. The song, as I remember, was fairly musically pedestrian but spooky ska number with a spoken-word tale of a woman dodging an attempted rape. At one point in the song she starts screaming, and that coincided with some hideous dream I was having, culminating in me awaking in total, abject terror. Good times!

The only other time I remember that happening was getting startled awake by a song I’m posting for you today, 1979’s “Caucasian Guiltâ€Â by a short-lived San Francisco duo called NOH MERCY. Ah, I recall it like it was yesterday, the mellifluous notes that floated into my slumber as vocalist Esmerelda Kent shrieked, “I didn’t put no JAP in a CAMP!!â€Â. I didn’t hear the song again outside of 1-2 more times that year until an LP compilation came out in 2000 of rare, weird, ultra-DIY, 70s-80s artpunk noise called “I HATE THE POP GROUPâ€Â that had this track on it. It originally was part of another comp, a 7â€ÂEP from 1979 called “EARCOM 3â€Â that I used to see around in the bins, and which had a handful of other noisy acts + two tracks from THE MIDDLE CLASS 45 (!). The other one from them on this EP – the only other song in NOH MERCY’s brief discography – is called “Revolutionary Spyâ€Â, and it’s nowhere near the caliber of “Caucasian Guiltâ€Â. I’m posting it for you completists.

This covers all the bases – drums, vocals, muffled sound, anger, screaming, alternately great yet often painfully lame lyrics, admirable socio-political statements, nasty words, and wonderfully bizarre echo-chamber recording techniques. I love it. I’m including a picture of the band playing live in ’79 at San Francisco’s MAB, courtesy of Steve Harlow, whose punk photo site you should check out. Bombs away!

Play or Download NOH MERCY – “Caucasian Guiltâ€Â
Play or Download NOH MERCY – “Revolutionary Spy”

SCOTT “DELUXEâ€Â DRAKE is an individual whom I’ve proudly been acquainted with for well over sixteen years now; back in my young twenties, his nascent band THE HUMPERS would crash on my floor and back up my toilet every time they came through San Francisco. Given their (undeserved) lack of profile at the time (1991 and 1992), a layperson like me was even given the opportunity to help book them shows at out-of-the-way dives across town, which they of course blew the doors off of. Of course, a limited subset of residents of Southern California had already been thrilling to the rock hijinks and shenanigans of Scott Drake and his older brother Jeff for almost a decade, with Scott in the glamtastic, HEARTBREAKERS-esque punk group the SUICIDE KINGS and of course vis-à-vis Jeff’s fantastic glory stompers THE JONESES. When The Humpers roared in with leather jackets blazing in the hot SoCal sun at the dawn of the 90s, the rest of the planet began to take some notice as well, and The Humpers cranked out several great loud-ass, Cleveland-punk-revering albums and 45s through the rest of the decade. Three of them came out on Epitaph Records not long after that particular label had generated a boatload of cash from several crossover punk rock hits, which enabled the smaller, more true-to-form bands on the label (like The Humpers) to tour to infinity & the great beyond, and to also generate a rabid, if small, following outside of the LA basin.

Eight years later, and after a brief one-album pit stop in a rawkin combo called THE VICE PRINCIPALS, the now-Portland, Oregon-resident Drake is still putting out hotshit new records under his own moniker, with longtime collaborator JEFF FIELDHOUSE (ex-Suicide Kings and Humpers, currently of 8-FOOT TENDER, who put out a 2003 CD with Drake as well). The brand new one is called “GRAND MALâ€Â, and I was so impressed by the keep-the-faith roar of the thing, I reckoned it was time for a Deluxe Drake mp3 retrospective. Here are five love bombs from the man’s storied career – and do keep your eye peeled for the “Grand Malâ€Â CD; it comes out officially on June 12th. (two tracks from it are below).

Play or Download THE SUICIDE KINGS – “Take Yer Medicineâ€Â (from 1985 7â€ÂEP on Adult Negro records)
Play or Download THE HUMPERS – “Up Yer Heartâ€Â (from 1992 CD “Positively Sick on 4th Streetâ€Â)
Play or Download THE VICE PRINCIPALS – “Snitch” (from 2000 LP “After School With The Vice Principals”)
Play or Download SCOTT “DELUXEâ€Â DRAKE – “Grand Malâ€Â (from 2007 CD “Grand Malâ€Â)
Play or Download SCOTT “DELUXEâ€Â DRAKE – “Shanghai Cabaretâ€Â (from 2007 CD “Grand Malâ€Â)