VAST MAJORITY "I WANNA BE A NUMBER" 7" (Wild Dog, 1980)

Vast Majority formed in 1979 after vocalist Scott Telles had been hyping his own fictional outfit called Shit Snotnose and the Scabsuckers. The band was eventually flyerbooked and decided to get together and write a few songs.

I Wanna Be A Number reflects this haste and lack of experience. To be truthful this record has some of the worst drumming and bass playing that comes to mind. And yet there is a quality to this record that keeps me coming back for more. The catchy vocal hooks perhaps? The melody that I keep humming 20 minutes after I listen to the song? Even I am unsure what brings me back each time.

After being featured in Killed By Death 8.5, this rough and tumble single now fetches for a pretty penny. Thankfully you can check it out HERE.

THE CLEAN "COMPILATION" LP (Flying Nun, 1986)

I imagine that I am not the only one that finds personal value in bands with a healthy level of humility, and The Clean certainly qualify as a band that knows a thing or two about humility. As a young and developing band in New Zealand in the early 1980's, a fan of the band offered to release their debut single, 'Tally Ho!', on his new label, Flying Nun Records. The band made several attempts to find a local engineer to record the single, but not one of the engineers found the band's material worth their time. The band resorted to recording their own songs, a method that continued for the duration of their career.

This healthy dose of humility, along with other sorted random events would help carve and develop The Clean's lo-fi pop sound. Nearly 30 years later, The Clean's influence is impossible to deny (along with the Flying Nun label, as they would go on to release material by the Verlaines, The Bats, and The Dead C), especially in the current ocean of lo-fi loyalists.

This record, a collection of their early singles, shows the band at their rawest and, in my opinion, their very best. The stripped down nature of their recordings provides a unique view of joyous naivete and solemn reflection. Tracks such as 'Beatnik', 'Whatever I Do', and the aforementioned 'Tally Ho!' are excellent examples of a young band excited to be...well...a young band: excited, almost anxious both lyrically and musically. Other tracks ('Point That Thing Somewhere Else' 'At The Bottom', and 'Fish' come to mind) paint much more haunting and melancholy scenes. Ultimately, these seemingly conflicting qualities do not make this compilation seem scattered or erratic. If not for the obvious title of this record, I believe many would think it to be a proper full-length LP.

With the band still playing and recording sporadically to this day, I suppose we are (for now, at least) spared the story of yet another band parting ways before they could reap the rewards of their painstaking efforts. And for those unfamiliar with The Clean's material in any capacity, you now have an opportunity to indulge yourself with some of the more beautifully simplistic pop songs recorded in the last 30 years by clicking HERE.

POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT "OUT OF IDEAS" cassette [Nation of Finks, 2005]

I have always tended to favor hardcore that is snotty and chaotic over that which is growling, tight or heavy - that is to say, without even a hint of metal. Even as my tastes have widen over the years, bands of the latter camp are more an exception than a rule. People of similar sentiments are in for a treat. This demo cassette captures the deceased Bostonian ensemble lovingly known to some as POSI FORCE at their rawest, turning in eight songs in six and a half minutes. It captures a band that is simultaneously amateurish yet tends to play on the listener's assumptions of hardcore (see the beginning of "They Took Yer Job", their general tendency to repeat great riffs only once or twice, and the abruptness of the final song). This delivery of playfulness combined with their witty lyrics and full-throttle, barely-coherent approach to musicianship have me immediately hooked. The pure vocal venom displayed in "Study Dates" coupled with its closing riff should be enough to convert anyone. Truth be told, they are easily in my three favorite bands to ever declare themselves straight edge. These folks didn't rest on their laurels after the breakup of this band (in January 2008) either, as you can now track them through groups like FAILURES, SOCIAL CIRCKLE, FOREIGN OBJECTS, CONFINES and BLANK STARE (most of those connections are the result of Ryan, one of the best and busiest drummers in punk). This cassette was followed up with a handful of 7"s and a one-sided 12". However, it is my favorite thing by them, and you can hear it HERE.

BODY ROT "TUFF MUSCLES" Cassette (Vinyl Rites, 2009)

Following up their debut cassette "We're All Pink On The Inside" (Cult Maternal, 2009) with a slight bout of re-instrumentation proved a resoundingly good idea for Tampa's BODY ROT. Now armed with a real drummer (I am told that the drum machine used on "Pink" has malfunctioned indefinitely) and one each completely novice keyboardist and guitarist, the group is more hook-concious but somehow simultaneously more unrelenting and dilapidated. No sooner is a hook established than it crumbles into a noisy game of catch-up due to the ensemble's inexperience with their instruments. Regardless, they have the courage of their strange, usually sexual/anatomical convictions, and that is frankly enough to sell it and makes this a great little EP. The male/female vocal tradeoffs work well, and the songs are genuinely catchy. Not-all-that-apt comparisons have been drawn to SICK LIPSTICK and MEN'S RECOVERY PROJECT - probably just because both of those bands utilize keyboards. This tape stands on its own merits. Unfortunately, a lack of lyric sheet seems to be standard for VINYL RITE's tapes - my Witches cassette doesn't even come equipped with a tracklisting. This release has been sold out from the label for a little while, but a few distros have copies, and you can hear it HERE.

Those inclined to ignore good things for bad reasons may note that CULT RITUAL's most notorious panty-thief mans the keyboard helm in this unit. Whatever gets you to check out this worthy release.

BASTARDS "MONTICELLO" LP (Glitterhouse, 1989)

This Minneapolis duo seems to not be receiving their due, in spite of the current resurgence of "noisy", "fucked up" and "blown out" punk and hardcore, even calling a luminous label of the style home. Following up a bevy of singles (available on an MLP collection), this eleven-song exercise in ugliness wallows in a veritable ocean of churning, mid-tempo blues-cranked-to-11 grunge punk. The manic, creepy vocals that are the sonic equivocation of contempt match lyrics about torching neighbors houses, self-mutilation, public urination, infidelity and other similarly uncomfortable themes. BASTARDS are generally at their best when they allow the tempo to quicken as on "Bo Diddley" or "The Joy of Gardening" (which is the closest the band comes to the typical punk rant against the faceless "you"), but the definitive track may be the titular closer. The slow groove exemplifies all of the album's most unsettling qualities (the vocalist gets to yowl during the verses and apply something resembling melody to the refrain of "there's something wrong in Monticello"), and the introduction may be the only respite from full volume instrumentation housed anywhere on the record, making it all the more effective. Butch Vig produced this record a scant two years before purportedly contributing to changing the face of popular music, but there are clearly few commercial aspirations involved here. I could not remark with any sort of authority about the last time it was in print, but YOU can download it HERE.