The Germs - '(GI)' (Slash)

I never understood the title of this or why the parentheses/brackets are part of it. This is an iconic record in every possible way - the sound, the artwork, the premature death of the vocalist .... yet it never jumped out at me as revolution-inspiring. I, of course, tend to gravitate towards smart-guy punk like Wire or Alternative TV, at least as a younger man. These days, the fury of the Germs is something I connect with, though maybe in a nostalgic way for some life I never led. The lyrics are of course the best part, but not included here and not always so decipherable, so the Internet is helpful here, though I tend to focus on clunkers like 'Embracing my life / between your thighs' rather than the moments that are way intelligent and poetic. Crash's words deal with (among other things) the role of the self against the emergence of technology, the existence and viscerality of the body, and power relationships between people and systems. Which is not to dismiss the rest of the band - Pat Smear is somehow still an underrated guitar player, and his lines snake and crawl around Crash's delivery, which is what Carducci would write is great rock music (and he's right!).  The Germs are a classic case of a band that remains influential for the wrong reasons, but when you watch their performance in The Decline of Western Civilization the power of this band becomes abundantly clear. The record doesn't downplay it towards new wave or pop production sensibilities like so many other records of the time, which is a credit. And they put the short fast songs on side 1 and leave the slightly longer ones for the second side, which was a pretty good move, I'd say. 'Another day, another crash' is a lyric from 'The Other Newest One', perhaps Darby's titular line, and while the backstage footage in Spheeris's film shows him to be a confused and sad kid, here he sounds the force of pure nihilism come to life. It's heavy without being metal (it's a single guitar band, after all), and the songs are as sophisticated as they can be given the self-imposed boundaries. ''We Must Bleed' is pretty fucking incredible, and leaps out of the speakers with a cutthroat monotony. Songs such as 'Communist Eyes' actually have some pop hooks buried in them - the Germs were punk, not hardcore, at least to these ears, and that's a crucial distinction. And maybe that's what remains so valuable about (GI) thirty-seven years later - the idea of punk is manifested not by his sad death (which, to be honest, is the kind of death that defines clichés) but by the force that he became when put behind a microphone, on stage, and even in the studio. 

Exclaim - 'Critical Exploder' (Sound Pollution)

Extreme Japanese hardcore, though there's little in the sound to indicate it's far-East origin. This outlier in my vinyl accumulation exists as a gift from a friend, and a much appreciated one. Though they're probably forgotten already, this 2001 release stands as an document of some amazingly fast, uncompromising hardcore - this is similar to a style known as 'power violence' but I'm not sure if Exclaim strictly qualify (nor do I really care). What I do know is that this is super fast, super aggro, and recorded just poorly enough to be exhilarating, but not too badly as to lose it's impact. Song titles in English, lyrics apparently in Japanese, and a few stick out of the lyrics sheet like 'YES' 'YES' 'KEEP ON PUSHIN'. There's parts where the (single) guitar and the voice becoming indistinguishable as a mess of static. There's always been a lot of back and forth on the boundary between 'noise' and 'hardcore' - some of these are balanced better than others (Combatwoundedveteran, anyone?) and others fall too clearly into one camp. There's not a lot of 'noise' here in terms of electronics or improvised mess - the guitar playing is pretty straight - but it's a total buzzsaw and somehow this transcends everything into truly remarkable territory. I'm not expert on hardcore but my tastes have always gravitated towards the unusual, extreme examples which can be appealing to fans of all/any extreme musics; hence, the continued existence of Critical Exploder amongst all the wimpy folk and indie-pop records. 45 rpm of course, so it's louder, and faster, and while it's pretty short to be a proper 'LP', it's a fully satisfying assault.

The Ex - 'Joggers & Smoggers' (Ex)

This has always been my favourite Ex album, where they full embraced their avant-garde tendencies and made a huge, sprawling record that's meant as a statement - a statement of purpose, but also a roadmap to future explorations. Some may disagree, as this can also be seen as an inconsistent scattering of sketches and unfinished ideas. Either way, if this isn't a turning point, I don't know what is - it's a 34-track double LP packed with guests from Dutch jazz as well as Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo and other such titans. But it also has a textual influence not yet seen, with various other writers contributing ideas (including Kafka, Brecht and Emma Goldman). The opening track announces that this is something different - it's a rumbling, staticky sketch, like something from a soundtrack, resisting the urge to explode in punk fury. And throughout Joggers & Smoggers we find a different, more open Ex. Whether they're accentuating their lineup with instruments yet-unheard of on Ex records, or just letting the songs breathe more, this is a conscious change. The results are stunning - as long as it is, it never gets tiresome and the lyrics seem to reflect this new openness as well. 'People Who Venture', deep on side three, is a nuanced dissection of individuality and systems, and they're printed in the gatefold so they can be enjoyed separately. I hear a lot of Beefheart, whose always been somewhat of a spiritual influence through the herky-jerky root sound, but also in the sprawl. The second side brings in some funky horns, growling voices, and the occasional classic Ex 'song'. The rocking bits move towards the sound of discordant bands like the Fire Engines or Dog Faced Hermans more than Crass; a Scottish influence perhaps? The next full-lengths after this, which I sadly don't own in physical form, are the two collaborations with Tom Cora, seen by many as the high point of the Ex's (and Cora's) career. It's easy to listen to Joggers & Smoggers and declare this as the warmup to a more improvisatory form, but really, the Cora records are tighter and more song-based than even this.

Crass - 'Stations of the Crass' (Crass)

The second record is an album-and-a-half (three sides at 45 rpm, the last a live half-album at 33) and maybe the defining statement from this band - before they got committed to conceptualism, which is from what I remember everything that follows. (Penis Envy, Christ the Album, Yes Sir I Will ... and while conceptualism in punk is certainly welcome, sometimes you just want to hear a band doing what they do well. Of course, I am a Crass dilettant, and quite willing to admit that I don't really understand the full vision and philosophy here. I use the term philosophy without any irony, because my understanding of Crass is that they were first and foremost a way of life, and the records were an effect of this. Or were they a symptom? And what of the music anyway, which is the primary focus of Dislocated Underbite.... ? To be honest, it's something I've rarely considered before - my tendency is to read Crass as if it was a radical art collective, which it was. But they were also a band. At least here and in Feeding of the 5000, it's punk as typically manifested - fast and aggressive, surely a reflection of the frustrations and the desire to irritate and confront general society. This is 1979, when this sound carried some weight - I firmly believe that Crass's later experimentalism came from the desire to stretch out and continue their activist tendencies through music. And likewise, I see later groups such as Chumbawumba (at least their early records) to be true followers of Crasstactics (or at least moreso most other shitty crust bands I've seen in my life). The experimentalism is here though - Eve Libertine speaks out similar to the deleted 'Asylum' on the first record, but in 'DemoNcrats' the music gets quite ethereal, creating a really provocative sound piece. It's a product of its time, but it's also not. 'Walls' gets into proto-new wave territory, with it's dissection of feminine space rather brilliantly expressed. But most of Stations of the Crass is still punk fucking rock. The songs are mostly fast, but occasionally drop down a bit to breathe. One tendency that's developed since Feeding is the embracing of piercing, shredding guitar noise at times - noise annoys, as the Buzzcocks taught us, but Crass actually use it that way. The recording is better on this sophmore effort, and the bass in particular really shouts out. 'White Punks on Hope' moves along with a creepingly familiar chord progression, driven by Pete Wright's bass. There are glimpses of their contemporaries - Black Flag at times, though I dunno how much influence was there (in either direction); 'Upright Citizens' though, could be an early Mekons single. You can actually sing along at times, but not too often. The lyrics are all printed on the foldout, and holy shit are there lots of them and it's really hard to read because of the (what else?) typewriter approach. Penny Rimbaud's artwork is stunning though, and I can only imagine what a loss this would be on a CD. Reviewing Crass now is a strange one - their anarchist ideology isn't so important to me (not that I am dismissive), but their place within the whole continuum of underground music as well as art/activism is pretty much untouchable. It's kinda strange to me to think about how much of a cornerstone these images, sounds and concepts are for so many people - and how unknown and irrelevant they are for so many others.