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Punk Business Manager

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PENTAJECT CORPORATION “BLACKMAIL STRETCH” 4-SONG 7″EP (CHICAGO, IL- OWN LABEL, 1982)






Here is the band circa late 1981 half-heartedly pretending hard to be businessmen
(l to r): Bob Brink, Bob Zasada, and John Nelles.  What I do know is that the wood
paneled wall behind Mr. Zasada looks swank like they all did in the late 70’s; Bob
Brink kinda resembles early 80’s Harold Ramis and his glasses scream creative
nerd (which is of course a good thing); and John Nelles looks like he’s about 15.



By request, here is a obscure and rare one from the Chicago area. Thanks to blog commenter C.S. for providing the rips! I do not have a vinyl copy of this record and not many people do, as it is rumored that only 200 copies were pressed and none had sleeves.  The price reflects its rarity, as copies recently on the- ahem- “open market” have been priced between $200 and $400 (!).



I know nothing about the band and information on the internet is scant.  The band has a MySpace page that was created in late 2007 (wonder what the impetus for that was), but they have not logged into it for almost 3 years the last time I checked.  The MySpace page has some songs you can stream, and two of these were not on the EP.  Somewhere else I stumbled upon the face that one of the band members also went by the name “Sid Hussein Hartha”.  Pentaject Corporation turned into a band called Scopdom Scop, which you can see on their MySpace page, was some experimental weirdness.



C.S. told me that Pentaject Corporation was apparently a cassette-only band (anyone have any of these?!?) and that this 4-song EP was supposed to be a “best of” from their cassettes.  The band has been listed as being from Chicago, but I don’t know if they were actually from the Chicago city limits or one of the many suburbs in the Chicagoland area, as was the case with bands from the area in the late 70’s and early 80’s time period.




It turns out that there actually WAS a real company in the late 70’s called Pentaject Corporation that holds some manufacturing patents– ha!  They were located in a ho-hum Chicagoland suburb called Algonquin that’s about 40 miles Northwest of the city.




Musically, the EP is a DIY-ish affair and it has an “outsider” kind of quality to it which is nice.  The first track, “Blackmail Stretch”, the shortest track on the record, is a slower affair and has some keyboards and a drum machine interspersed in the mix.  The next track, “Clamp Is Up”, is played with real instruments and is an interesting one with some subtle guitar noise that is kinda hypnotic.  The most upbeat track on the EP comes next with “What A Day” and is the closest thing to what we call “punk” (it’s my favorite song on the EP too).  There is some great shouting and a charming, no-talent guitar solo in the middle of it that begs for more practice- I always love guitar mastery like this.  The last track, “Shock Treatment…”, has some catchy bass noodling and is in the same vein as “What A Day”.  Nice ender.  I have no clue what the singer is saying throughout most of the record and this adds to the charm and mysteriousness of it all.  As does the production value.



If you know anything about the band, please leave a comment and let me know.  I am curious to find out more, especially what (if any) connection they had to the Chicago area punk “scene”.  Or maybe they were kings of their own basement and never played many shows (?).  You tell me.



Blackmail Stretch.mp3
Clamp Is Up.mp3
What A Day.mp3
Shock Treatment (Is Too Much For Me).mp3


21 thoughts on “Pentaject Corporation”

  1. Hi, I don’t know much more, but what I do know is that Bob B is Bob Brink and John N is John Nelles… maybe it helps.
    Cheers
    Burkhard

  2. Digging the last two songs! Catchy-but-not-catchy somewhat in Electric Eels/Urinals style!

  7. The order of the people in the cover photo is Bob Brink (Far Left), Bob Zasada, and John Nelles (Far Right).

  8. In case anyone is interested in the songs from the Red Menace “Farewell Suburbia” EP, they are available to hear and to download on Grooveshark and Songzilla. For more info, check out the Bored Suburban Youths wiki and facebook. BSY was essentially the same band. “Annihilation” by BSY is from the “There’s a Method to Our Madness” comp LP (Phantom Records). Follow the link to hear and download the song.

  10. I can attest to the rarity of this EP; Bob Brink is my father’s cousin, and at our last family reunion I was given a vinyl copy by Bob’s son, Nik. Nik is also a musician under the name Paranoia Music (http://paranoiamusic.bandcamp.com/)which is a fantastic eletronica/ambient project. I’m willing to bet that Nik is the one who created the Myspace pages for both Pentaject and Scopdom Scop, and he also plays in several bands in the Chicago area.

    Just a little more info about this EP: it is a “greatest hits” just as you described in the article. All of these songs can be found on Pentaject Corporation’s various cassettes, though I do not know how many cassettes still exist. The band got the name “The Pentaject Corporation” from the company you have listed above. It was where Bob B’s dad (Robert Brink, Sr.) worked and the band would use the building as their practice space (after hours, of course).

    Bob Brink provides the vocals on this and for Scopdom Scop, but I don’t know who else does what in either band. You can see Bob lip-syncing in the “Shock Treatment” video someone else posted the link to earlier.

    As far as any “scene” involvement goes, I am not 100% sure. I know they would do performances under a variety of assumed names and various band names, but I do know there’s a live recording of them (at least, I think it’s the same band) that Nik played for me called The Bugs – Live at the Insect Lounge. It’s mostly them doing punk covers and hyperspeed punk versions of classic rock songs (Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Johnny B. Goode) and the average song time is under 2 minutes. I can talk to Bob and see if there’s any chance of us finding that show.

  12. Ryans info is, of course, quite accurate. They first organized under the name “The Bugs” and hacked out some of the worst music ever to invade a human eardrum. The photo was taken in the sales office of Pentaject Corporation; an office whose ceiling band members fell through from time to time. They practiced their “craft” in the area above the company offices which was not floored except for boards and plywood they’d placed but not necessarily nailed.

    Three of us that worked at Pentaject had played or were playing in bands and we often suggested they rename themselves to “The Village Idiots”. Monday mornings usually greeted us with some surprise left by The Bugs; beer cans scattered, leftover pizza and a broken copy machine jammed with an image of Bobby’s butt.

    One morning we were blessed with the sight of Bobby’s latest guitar innovation: the neck of some poor instrument hacked onto a used yellow toilet seat. Actually it was quite appropriate for the stuff they were playing at the time…and all time, really. I still have a photo of that toilet guitar around here someplace plus one (or more) of The Bugs guitar picks. I also dragged one of Bobby’s blown amp heads out of the garbage, repaired and used it for a number of years before donating it to a church for use by their christian rock band.

    As for gigs…I’m not aware of any they played that they got paid for but I can’t attest to anything that happened after 1984 because that’s when the company went under, closed its doors and I moved on to other things. I do know that they played in a battle of the bands that took place at Meadowdale Shopping Center in Carpentersville, Illinois though. They didn’t even come close to winning but did create some havoc when they decided to totally destroy all the amps and equipment they’d rented for the gig while on stage. Bob Brink (Bobby’s father) was not at all amused by the price tag that accompanied that stunt.

    I was quite amazed to see that all band members are still alive. We (at Pentaject) pretty much figured they would eventually dare each other into extinction by licking lamp sockets or some such cleverness.

    For those of you who would like to pay homage to the “birthplace” of this band it can be found at 210 Dowdle Street in Algonquin, Illinois.

  13. Buzz- thanks for leaving a comment!  Very informative, and very funny!  It is always great to hear from someone who was there “back in the day”.

  14. The following line just plain screams for clarification and, so, here it is:

    “…and a charming, no-talent guitar solo in the middle of it that begs for more practice- I always love guitar mastery like this….”

    Read this very carefully so it sinks in….there was no guitar mastery involved. What you hear is, unfortunately, as good as Bobby could play a guitar. I’m not certain but I think one of the employees (and good friend of mine) tried to give Bobby some guitar lessons at one point. You could verify this (and other things) if you contact him on Facebook under Mark Rogalski.

    And, per Ryan:

    “…that Nik played for me called The Bugs – Live at the Insect Lounge..”

    I am almost positive that the “Insect Lounge” was the Pentaject shop area and the live “audience” was probably uderage friends enjoying the beer while the kings of hackdom created sound waves that only dogs could hear (but didn’t want to).

    “…I do not have a vinyl copy of this record and not many people do, as it is rumored that only 200 copies were pressed and none had sleeves. The price reflects its rarity, as copies recently on the- ahem- “open market” have been priced between $200 and $400 (!)….”

    If one feels lucky and adventurous they might try searching the hillside across the creek from the p0arking lot in front of the Pentaject location. As I recall a few of them were sailed off like fisbees in that general direction. They flew much better than they sounded.

  15. Funny!  Thanks for posting another comment!  Like Pentaject Corporation’s EP, there are similar stories from other punk bands in the late 70’s and early 80’s using their vinyl EP’s (which were underappreciated at the time) as frisbees as they figured no one wanted a copy.  One band in Texas even tossed some of theirs into a cow pasture (!) in the late 70’s.  Thus making it very rare in the “supply and demand” market of punk record collecting 30 years later and driving the price through the roof for the few available copies.

    Today, more and more punk bands are VERY self-concious and purposefully do very limited pressings of their records in the range of 100-200 copies as they anticipate collector demand to immediately be high for them (and not 20-30 years later!).  Then, within those 100-200 copies, there may be 10 copies with a special sleeve, different color vinyl, etc.  Being so self-concious about it in 2013 kind of turns me off, though.

  16. Just to clarify again, the image is captioned incorrectly. The order of the people in the cover photo is Bob Brink (Far Left), Bob Zasada, and John Nelles (Far Right).

    A lot of the post-pentaject music can be found on youtube. A lot of it recorded and filmed in the same factory. A good sample: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2erD16bK6s

    Bob B. and John N. recently reunited to produce a Chicago band’s first EP. This can be found here: http://www.reverbnation.com/themuzzlers

  17. Whoops!  I kept on forgetting to change the picture caption the last time someone corrected me- it is now fixed.  Thanks for the reminder, and for the post-Pentaject band info!

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