In 1982, Roger Rogerson, the original bassist of the Circle Jerks, curated this punk document for the notorious Mystic Records. He opted to cull twenty-three tracks from ten bands you've never fucking heard of and call the whole shebang You Can't Argue With Sucksess. F-Troop kick things off with three average tunes, nothing memorable. The Crewd are cool, they have some ugly guitar tones, play with gusto, and keep the songs short. Red Beret seem to bite off more they can chew and have an annoying singer. I want to like them more than I actually do, sorry Red Beret, oh and your name sucks, reminds me of that Prince song. Speaking of assy names...next is Nuclear Baby Food, who seem a bit out of place with their polished power pop, but their track "Suburbia" is pretty cool. Mad Society got some attention around the L.A. scene by having a 10 year old frontman. Their three tracks here are my favorite for that reason, primitive wonky punk with the cutest vocals ever. Their EP rules too, if you aren't a dick or a cop maybe I'll post it. Secret Hate are okay, energetic punk. No Crisis aren't super original or spectacular but their typically early So Cal punk is fun and genuine. I remember The Conservatives from the Hell Comes To Your House comp. Like most of the bands here they play quintessentially L.A. proto-hardcore beach punk. Even Worse are the only band featured here not form Southern California, they hailed from New York City, and had a government-hating female singer, but they too sound like they could have come from Los Angeles. So all in all we have a decent, not mind-blowing comp that does a an adequate job of documenting the time between punk and hardcore in Southern California.
8 comments:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Rogerson
Keeping in mind that here in Australia, for some fucking reason, we laud our criminals...
i am not a cop. and i try not to be a dick.
thanks for posting this.
they also released the first nofx record. maybe they eventually made some money off of it.
Mystic was already a fairly successful label before punk. Doug Moody's studio was responsible for recording Richie Valens "La Bamba" and other such stuff.
Thurston Moore played guitar in Even Worse for a while, though I have no idea if he's on this recording or not. Regardless, this is pretty sweet. Thanks.
Hell yea downloaded this few years back and the rar was fucked up, tracks were missing. Always have and always will love the golden age of punk the 80s.
this is cool i dig this old socal stuff- i dont why all the nowadays "car club punk" bands that worship this stuff screw it up so badly though
hey aesop,this was one of my faves back in high school.i was the lone punk rocker in my school (and before high school)starting in around 76,after deciding kiss,and jethro tull,were old men,and getting into the stooges,n.y.dolls,the ramones,and the new stuff that was happening at the time.mad society is one of the best bands ever,and i love the leave it to beaver thing on here.thanks(i have this on vinyl!)
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