SATAN’S RATS

“You Make Me Sick”

(Evesham, England 1978)

In England, punk rock ended up being more about media than music. Once the media bubble burst, even the Clash had to come to the USA to create a lasting legacy.

Suburban kids who just wanted to make records that rocked like the Damned were dismissed as pathetic copycats. Satan’s Rats never had a chance, apparently. The band tell their story here.

“You Make Me Sick” was produced by the incomparable Vic Maile, who also brought us The Godfathers’ “Birth, School, Work, Death,” Motorhead’s Ace of Spades, and Royal Court of China’s Geared and Primed.

DJM Records was the label division of Dick James Music, an old-line UK music publisher that controlled a lot of Beatles and Elton John song copyrights. They signed a slew of punk bands in a vain attempt to cash in on the Sex Pistols.

There wer no hits, but this is one of the best ‘77 era punk records.

• Download “You Make Me Sick”

(DJM Records DJS 10840)

HOSE

“Dope Fiend” & “You Sexy Thang”

(NYC 1982)

I realized last week that it’s been almost twenty years since I had an argument about Hose.

Fighting about Hose was almost a blood sport in the 80s. At first, they were dismissed as a feeble Flipper tribute band. Later, as Def Jam records started to take off, they were called guitarist Rick Rubin’s vanity project.

Wrong, and wrong again.

Hose were awesome and their music says a lot about why Rick turned out to be such a great producer.

This EP was allegedly recorded in Rick’s NYU dorm room on a boom box with the player’s built-in condenser microphone before becoming the first release on Rubin’s Def Jam Records. Rick takes both a producer credit (recorded between the hours of 10pm and 1am) and “art and design” credit (adding, helpfully, “Cover Based on Piet Mondria, Tableau II).

I don’t believe the condenser mic part of the story, but this record was made by kids thrilled by their ability to make an infernal racket. All the stumbling in the groove just adds to the power; they’re learning to play as they record these songs.

And I’ll go a step further: Flipper was a conceptual art project masterminded by a group of (relatively) old San Francisco punk hippies. No doubt, the first few singles and the Generic Flipper LP are crucial records, among my favorites. And Hose desperately wanted to make records that sounded like Flipper.

But Hose were an uncalculated, reckless and downright foolish band, just happy to be there, pissing off their neighbors. Flipper is smart, Hose is dumb. And dumb usually wins in rock.

I saw Hose open for Hüsker Dü at City Gardens in Trenton, NJ in 1984 and they still were running a vacuum cleaner through the PA to create extra distortion during their set. I voted Hose then, and I vote Hose now.

• Download “Dope Fiend”
• Download “You Sexy Thang”

(Hose EP - Def Jam Recordings Def SLP1)

GIRLS AGAINST BOYS

“Bulletproof Cupid” & “My Night of Pleasure”

Live at JC Dobbs, Philadelphia 1993

When Girls Against Boys signed to DGC Records in 1995, people in the business believed it was the largest deal ever for an unproven rock band.

The legendary unpublished memoir Wasting Away: How the Major Labels Got Drunk on Punk Rock and Forgot Everything They Knew About the Record Business tells the story in grisly detail, but we’ll settle for the short version here.

GVSB waited three whole years to release Freak*On*ica on DGC in 1998. The album got lukewarm reviews and had weaker sales than their final album for Touch & Go.

Even though I was frustrated with the album (mostly because the band refused to take any A&R advice from me whatsoever), I didn’t distance myself from the band when it would have been a strong career move to let everyone forget that I spent a year following the band all over America and Europe.

Geffen/DGC got shut down, the artist contracts got transferred to Interscope and I was asked to leave the company shortly before Universal bought Girls Against Boys out of the balance of their contract.

You’d think I’d have more perspective on the foolishness after ten years, but watching this video convinces me that I’d do it all over again. This band should have saved alternative rock and spared us all the nü metal reign of terror. And they’re still the handsomest band in the history of rock.

“Bulletproof Cupid” is the best song from Venus Luxe, the album that started all the craziness. “My Night of Pleasure” has always been my favorite GVSB song. This performance was recorded just a few months before I first saw the band and it’s certainly $2 million worth of rock.

GVSB will perform Venus Luxure No. 1 Baby on July 20 in NYC at the Bowery Ballroom & July 22 in LA at the El Rey Theatre as part of All Tomorrow’s Parties “Don’t Look Back” Festival.

DIETER MEIER

“Cry for Fame”

(Switzerland 1978)

Yello, the Swiss synth group fronted by Dieter Meier, is supposed to be an art project but they’re really just an annoying, cut-rate Kraftwerk.

So I’m not sure how serious Dieter Meier was when he made “Cry for Fame.” Is this a real punk record or an arch European commentary on a punk record?

• Download: Cry for Fame

(Periphery Perfume Records PP 00178)

CINECYDE

“Don’t Come Crying to Me”

(Detroit 1982)

If Cinecyde had released this song on a single, I’m sure that 45 would be one of the most highly coveted records of the era.

Unfortunately, “Don’t Come Crying to Me” appeared on I Left My Heart in Detroit City, an album that isn’t as good as its title or its unsettling cover photo.

• Download: Don’t Come Crying to Me

(Tremor Records TRLP-104)

THE CELIBATE RIFLES

“Sometimes (I Wouldn’t Live Here if You Payed Me)”

(Sydney 1984)

I’m not sure how widespread the mid-80s Australian rock explosion was outside of Boston and New York but, for a couple of years there, the East Coast seemed to care a lot more about Sydney than Los Angeles.

When the Celibate Rifles arrived at my Somerville apartment in 1986, they were a ragtag military unit of hyperactive boys led by a jaded and dissolute commander. This was the story: Damien Lovelock was a legendary Sydney surfer & self-styled poet who corralled a group of much-younger high schoolers into giving a punk-rock accompaniment to his onstage rantings. Damien styled himself as an Australian Leonard Cohen but he probably more resembled a blonde Jack Sparrow.

Now, I’m not sure how much of that was true. Looking at the photos now, Damien doesn’t really look much older than the rest of the band. Guitarist Kent Steedman was hyperactive but he might have been the real driving force behind the band.

Damien Lovelock did have incredible powers of persuasion; he somehow convinced me to let him smoke in my car as I chauffeured him around Boston during the week I hosted the band.

This single version of “Sometimes” was a giant hit on the Boston College radio stations in early 1985. The song was recut for an album at some point but it was this version that convinced What Goes On Records to sign them and bring them to the States.

• Download: Sometimes (I Wouldn’t Live Here if You Payed Me)

(Hot Records 718)

AUTHORITIES

“Radiationmasturbation”

(Stockton, CA 1982)

I’ve yet to encounter a black mood that this record can’t improve.

California hardcore bands weren’t taken very seriously on the east coast, probably because they never let their politics get in the way of being funny.

• Download: Radiationmasturbation
• Authorities page on MySpace

(Selecta Records Pick 1)