Punk Business Manager

CHICAGO SERIES, PART 4

RAZER “DON’T BE TAME / ANOTHER KIND OF MAN” 7″ (CHICAGO, IL- SNAP CRACKLE & ROCK, 1978)




Sorry for the crappy .jpg, but no one has the sleeve
for this record! More on that later…



The label name “Snap Crackle and Rock” is so cornball to me.  It gets even worse when they put that “Just add milk” quote under it- good thing the music on the record makes up for this misstep.

Part of the songwriting credits are given to this guy whose last name is “Matthys”.  My search for more info on who this was turned up nothing.

But we get the full name of Mark Durante, and some quick research on that name turns up this guy– wonder if this is the same Mark Durante from Chicago (?).  If it was, then he was also in a band called Public Enemy in 1978 and in the 80’s went on to some bands like the The Slammin’ Watusis (‘member them?!) and others.


I know next to nothing about this band- you type “Razer” into Google and see what comes up!  The only thing I do know comes from the liner notes of 2000’s Hyped To Death #1 comp which is where I first heard “Another Kind of Man”.  Chuck Warner’s very brief liner notes said that most copies came sleeveless but a few had an elaborate hand-made promo sleeve.  I assume the back of the sleeve (which I have never seen) had a Chicago address printed on it, and that’s how Chuck knew the band was from there.  Anyone have any scans they’d like to share??

“Another Kind of Man” took me some to grow on me, as initially it sounded too “rock” to me and not punk enough.  But now I recognize it as an interesting, unique-sounding mixture of rock and punk.  But I don’t consider it “punk n’ roll”, if you use something like the Nervous Eaters’ Just Head or Corpsicles’ Big Doings as a reference point like I do.  For the “Another Kind of Man” I am going to call it “punk friendly rock”.  Perhaps an accident that this song appeals to punk fans, and not the intention of the band at all (?).  I wonder if they had any ties to the loosely-organized punk/”new wave” scene of late 70’s Chicago and its surrounding suburbs.  Anyone have any old flyers to share?  Perhaps Razer were a studio-only project?  All speculation, as they are a mystery band to me.  There is nothing about them on the Chicago Punk Database, and I don’t remember them being mentioned in the You Weren’t There documentary.

The pace of some of the guitar riffs on “Another Kind of Man” and especially the sound of it sorta brings to mind the Plastic Idols’ IUD.  Very hummable, or whistle-able.  The chugga chugga break at the 2:42 mark makes that part of the song sounds like it would fit nicely on the Victims’ great Annette EP.  Weird coincidence.  The other tune, “Don’t Be Tame”, is a faster-paced, high energy tune that is essentially hard rock with some “gunka gunka” punk-ish guitar jabs here and there.  A metal guitar solo that starts at the 2:30 mark, though, does not appeal to me nor does the last 20 seconds of the song where they drift again into metal territory with their “outro”.  But overall not a bad song.


/files/98398-90993/02_Another_Kind_of_Man.mp3″>Another Kind of Man.mp3

* My above rip of “Don’t Be Tame” is unfortunately missing the first few seconds of the song and cuts off at the end so if you have a full-length, high quality rip of this tune please let me know!