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Monthly Archives: January 2008

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Bollocks

BOLLOCKS “ALL ROCK STARS SHOULD BE DRAFTED” 10-SONG 7″EP (BALTIMORE, MD- FETAL, RECORDED FEBRUARY 1981/RELEASED 1982)

Here’s
a real catchy, fun, unique-sounding EP! And from the early 80’s D.C.-area scene of all places, which at the time was
dominated by lots of thick n’ chunky traditional hardcore. 
This EP has energetic drumming, quirky bass plucking and great guitar
noodling with some- gasp!– ska influenced strumming here and there.  Now, the term “ska punk” (Operation Ivy et
all) usually causes me to clench my teeth, cover my ears and run for the nearest
bomb shelter.  But on this cool record it
totally works for me.  And what makes the package complete is the DIY cut-and-paste nature of the sleeve where they cram as much text and
pictures as humanly possible onto both sides (including what appears to be some Arabic text in the lower right corner- cool!). 
The two-sided insert is also jam packed with clip art, good
ol’ handwritten text as well as stuff down on a typewriter (yeah!).  Nice and raw looking like packaging on a punk
record should be.

The
Bollocks were the three Dagher brothers from the Baltimore, MD
area- William, Joe and Azar (who had to be the first and only member
EVER of a punk band with that first name- awesome!). These three brothers of Middle Eastern descent
ran the Fetal label which had a number of releases back then including the
pretty good Law and Order 7″EP which had similarly DIY packaging and a rawer,
sloppier, more straight-ahead HC sound (and a few of the Dagher brothers played on it too). 
The Bollocks put out the more mellow and new wave-ish (but still pretty good) “Mediterran” 7″EP in 1982 and that was it.  They later morphed into some band called
Braver Noise in the mid 80’s who had two LP’s on the Fetal label.  Since I have never heard that band, I cannot
say one way or the other whether they blew or not.  But I am scared that since it came out in punk’s “dark days” of the mid 80’s that it might not be my cup of tea.

Enough
of my babbling- this EP runs the gamut of different sounds, and I love it.  It goes from a great quirky, hooky sound on
the first cut to more HC-ish stuff on the 2nd tune, to more
traditionally punk-y sound on the 3rd cut, then into a bunch of more
cool and catchy unique-sounding tunes full of off-kilter tempos and lots of hooks.  One of my favorites is the very funny and quirky “All Rock Stars Should Be
Drafted”.  [As a sidenote, funny that a
few of the bloated rock stars they mention in the song like Mick Fucking Jagger are still kicking around
nearly 30 years later- yikes (!)]. I’d have to say my favorite songs are Tracks 1, 3,
4, 7 and 9 but I included all 10 tracks for your listening pleasure.









ENDNOTES
An MRR Scumpit article from 1989 on the old D.C.-area scene first got me interested in hearing this EP after they recommended it as a good yet more obscure one.  At the time my knowledge of D.C. area stuff was limited to either Dischord-related or 1/2 Japanese. J.T. taped the EP for me a few years later and I was instantly hooked.

I then raved about it and taped it for Scott (later of the very sorely-missed Antenna Internet Radio site of which I was a contributor in the interest of full disclosure).  Scott dug it and shortly thereafter unearthed a boatload of copies in a big warehouse find in the D.C. area.  Being such a cool guy, he was nice enough to send my multiple copies of the EP.  What is very curious is the different sleeve variations- the PS came in a variety of colors, from white to light yellow (see above) to darker yellow and even a minty-green one if I remember right.  Then some of the different sleeve colors have slight text variations on the front- I’d have to check all my copies when I get a chance, but I believe some less stuff written on the shoe.  But I’d love to know how many copies were pressed in total and which colors constitute a 1st pressing, 2nd pressing, etc.  Their later “Mediterran” EP also came in a variety of sleeve colors, including white and green.  Again, I’d have to check all my copies to see which ones I have and if there’s any others.

HERE IS THE TWO-SIDED INSERT

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Public Disturbance

PUBLIC DISTURBANCE “S&M” 3-SONG 7″EP (NEW JERSEY- MUTHA RECORDS, 1983)

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[FIRST OFF, I HAVE NOT POSTED ANYTHING IN SOME TIME BUT WORK-RELATED NONSENSE AND IMPORTANT FAMILY-RELATED MATTERS HAVE TAKEN UP MOST OF MY TIME OVER THE LAST FEW MONTHS.  I HAVE LOTS OF POSTINGS IN MY HEAD THAT I’D ABSOLUTELY LOVE TO THROW UP HERE BUT ADVANCED WARNING THAT I MAY FADE IN AND OUT AGAIN AS THE YEAR UNFOLDS…]

What a great EP, but very “out of place” if you will.  First off, it came out in 1983 when speedy atonal hardcore was taking over the land and unique, out-of-the-box PUNK records like this ‘un were few and far between (and probably frowned upon by the majority of muscle-headed hardcore conformists emerging at the time).  Secondly, it came out on the Mutha label and sounds rather different from Mutha’s other output at the time.  Thirdly, they break the “KBD Rule” of “first release is the best” since Public Disturbance released a rather generic LP (Mutha 003) prior to this EP (which is Mutha 011).

“S&M” is a total instant classic, I have absolutely loved it since the very first time I heard it many years ago when someone taped the whole EP for me.  The guitar noise totally rules- it’s haunting and weird in all the right ways and sounds kinda psych-ish.  For some, a great song is judged by just the geetar noise.  For me, it’s got to be “the total package” which is the case with this ‘un.  The drummer pounds away, the bass player plucks along and the singer wails aways in a crazy manner with the goofy lyrics and they all create a nice, tight package and get it so damn right.  To top it all off the song is full of off-kilter breaks that you don’t see coming, especially at the end.  And fear not- this is not yer typical KBD record with one “happy accident” and a bunch of other bad songs– it’s a winner from start to finish for me.  “Destroy The Fad” is a crazy one.  It calmly starts off with a great out of tune guitar intro and then dives right into things– dig how the drummer REALLY pounds away on that one.  “S&M” is the best tune for me but the last one, “Do The Gilly”, is the craziest- the guitar wails away and gets really outer space-y and things get pretty insane and reach a very fevered pitch throughout until it just abruptly ends.  Yeah!!!

I absoutely love records with crude, crazy amateur-ish artwork and this one has it in droves from the dripping band logo to “Oh God!! I should have stayed at football practice”… completely hilarious.  OK, I get that the guy on the left is the scared jock and the guy on the right is the punk (wearing what appears to be knee-high fishing boots and not biker boots as they may have intended) whose face tells me that he is about to enjoy the upcoming S&M from the angry lass.  But who is the naked balding guy in the middle supposed to be?  A tortured school teacher, an uptight suburban dad.. or perhaps a paying client of the Mistress?  You tell me.  And, oh yeah- you gotta always love the homemade Mutha Records logo which graced their releases.   Almost forgot- the artwork from this EP graced the cover of 1995’s superb Killed By Death #8.5 comp if you didn’t already know (“S&M” led off Side 2 of said LP).

S&M.mp3
Destroy The Fad.mp3
Do The Gilly.mp3


ENDNOTES
OK, I guess I do these endnotes because I already babble too much above when people probably just want to listen to the music I posted instead of reading paragraph after paragraph just talking about the record.  Perhaps you’ve made it this far so here goes…

In a trade about 10 years ago, I was very excited to get a vinyl copy of this Public Disturbance EP.  The vinyl and sleeve were dead mint too, natch.  The guy who traded it to me said that the picture sleeve appeared to be a photocopy and was not sure if it was an original.  If I remember right, he said that his sleeve looked a bit different.  The foldover sleeve with mine did not appear to be a photocopy, though- first off, the picture quality is very very good, almost too good to be a photocopy.  Also, the paper is a thicker and glossier which is atypical of yer typical Xerox.  I described my sleeve to the Yahoo! KBD Group about a year ago to get a consensus about it.  Someone that bought a copy of the EP when it came out responded back and said his looked the same as mine.  So I guess mine has an original sleeve- cool!  Cumstains across my record collection!

There were lots of great “Welcome To The Scumpit” articles in MRR between 1988 and into the early 90’s (I particularly remember that 1989 was a very productive year for the Scumpit).  These one-page articles were great sources of info on lots of obscuro stuff that I had never heard of before, and I used to comb the articles for names of bands and records unknown to my ears. Some records or bands I discovered through the Scumpit articles remain favorites to this day, including the Public Disturbance EP.  I was first tipped off to the EP when it was mentioned in a “guest Scumpit” written by none other than Tim Yohannon in the June 1989 issue.  He did a short roll call of some of his favorite obscurities so you know it was quite a list.  When he described the off-kilter nature of the Public Disturbance EP I was intrigued and had to hear it. Regarding Tim’s list and very discerning taste, the article appears to have been very influential because most of the then-unknown records he listed ended up being on various early volumes of Killed By Death or other sorta comps in the early-to-mid 90’s from the 1st Middle Class EP to the Public Disturbance EP to Deiter Meier’s “Cry For Fame” 7″ to the Village Pistols 7″.  A variety of enterprising collector scum must have taken note of Tim’s recommendations.  Although it didn’t appear on a KBD volume, Tim’s article also mentioned the wonderful proto-hardcore SS 12″EP from Japan and, lo and behold, there was a CD reissue of it in the early 90’s on an official label too and not as a boot.

The other interesting thing about Public Disturbance to me is that they had a black member (see the back of the sleeve- turns out his name was Darryl Hell and he played bass).  I have an affinity for punk bands with black members since it was and unfortunately still is an anomaly in many ways (check out the pretty cool 2003 documentary Afro Punk while you’re at it since it’s now out on DVD after being on the festival circuit for a while).  The always great Roctober ‘zine helmed by Jake Austen did us all a favor- a 2002 issue of the ‘zine did a very great article called “Black Punk Time” whose purpose is to be a comprehensive list of black people in punk and sorta-punk bands.  The list continues to be updated on their site (I have provided some info myself for it even on mostly KBD-type bands)- go here for the article.  Darryl from Public Disturbance is mentioned in it, and someone updated his listing to say that he played in some other bands (none of which I heard of) and is currently working as a DJ- here is his MySpace page if you’re interested.

FROM JUNE 1989 MAXIMUM ROCK N’ ROLL