Punk Business Manager

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.