APPLES VS JOLLY RANCHERS

Just a brief one, pun intended. I had a need for something a little raunchy and had been meaning to post the Briefs again. Throwing in the Didjits as well. Both are from the nineties, way after the initial punk era. That might explain the spikey hair and goofy sunglasses. I gotta say, whenever I see bands trying a little too hard to look punk or edgy, I always think about the stealth attack of Middle Class' Sears-worthy plain clothes and their proto-hardcore blast. (That's Middle Class, below)

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Listen:
The Briefs - Poor and Weird mp3 at Killed By Death
The Briefs - Rotten Love mp3 at Killed By Death Go there to get it.
The Didjits - Headless mp3 at Killed By Death
Middle Class - Out of Vogue mp3 at Killed By Death
Middle Class - Three others at Killed By Death Go there to get them.

MOHAWK?? YEAH, RIGHT.

Earlier tonight I was going off about the lack of originality and authenticity in younger bands. All of the bullshit hipster hype shit. I had to post the Middle Class, a late seventies band that, for me, has always been the best example of an un-hyped, non-posing, original and groundbreaking band. Informed by the early (pre-hardcore) L.A. punk scene, they were younger, from Orange County, and they played fast. Real fast. And they did it before anyone else. 1978. Some consider their "Out of Vogue" the first hardcore 45. I know it was the first hardcore record I heard. Even if you were used to the wildly varied salad bowl of L.A. punk styles, you had to stand back and think "Just what the fuck is this?!?" I'd seen them a few times before it came out, and even then I was taken aback. Those of you born into a world where hardcore already existed, imagine hearing it sped up like this for the first time. No one sounded like the Middle Class when they hit. And they were just kids, literally jacked up on soda pop, playing within their abilities, perfectly stripped punk rock blasts.

I went looking for clips and ran into two that were interesting, for different reasons. The first video is live in some bar in Reseda, from 2013, and while not the best Middle Class video, is notable for the lame pit. Watch the drama unfold. It starts as a small but relatively earnest group of kids whose parents probably hadn't even met when hardcore first picked up steam. It shows because by the 1:15 point in the video, they're just walking is a circle like the mental patients in "Midnight Express". I won't criticize the kid up front with the hat and "ska" emblazoned on the back of his jacket because he's probably the coolest kid back at school. It should be noted here that Middle Class never wore any of the clichéd punk or hardcore gear (leather, spikes, patches, bandanas, slogans, etc.). The photos above, taken roughly 35 years apart, are pretty representative of how they looked. Always stealth.

The second video, from the Echoplex in 2011, is particularly for those of you already familiar with the Middle Class. It's a cover of Devo's "Gut Feeling" and they manage to make it sound just like Middle Class, particularly Jeff Atta's monotonal vocal. It's followed by "Out of Vogue" and I gotta say it still has that punch three and a half decades later.

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Listen:
Middle Class - Out of Vogue mp3 at Killed By Death Go there to get it
Middle Class - Three other songs (from the first 45) at Killed By Death Ditto
Middle Class - Twenty songs streaming at Sonic Hits
Video:
The Middle Class - Live at Weber's Place (2013) at YouTube
The Middle Class - Gut Feeling/Out of Vogue (2011) at YouTube
Visit:
Interview with Mike Atta [RIP] at Agony Shorthand
Interview with Jeff Atta at Noisey
The Middle Class - Discography at Punky Gibbon

NOTHING FANCY (HEH, HEH)

See that unspectacular looking album cover above? Nothing all that special, eh? Try telling that to the anyone who was around the L.A. punk scene around 1979. They're likely drooling right about now. Most who owned it back then probably don't have it anymore. It was worn from play, a casualty of parties, stolen by the scene sleazebag, or sold when the rent was due. Fuck ups and societal aliens don't hang onto things as museum pieces. It's currency. Here today, gone tomorrow. And the day after that, regret that you no longer have that epic time capsule of what the scene was when the record was released.

The line up on this sucker is all time. I've always associated it with the Masque, which was going full steam at the time. Maybe because among the first Masque shows I saw were the Controllers and the Germs. I think I saw Middle Class there. The other bands had to have played there too. The Masque was the happening place around then, the Whisky was all but dead, at least for punk rock.

This album is an absolute DIY icon of that era. It was cheaply produced and had crappy cover art. I think I remember that the label, Upsetter Records (not to be confused with Lee Perry's label of the same name) was a Chris Desjardin endeavor. If you haven't heard it, it might sound like it needs a little more bass. That's what your bass knob is for. Regardless of the production, some of the songs are among the best representations of the bands at that moment in time. Three in particular, the Controllers' cover of "Jezebel", Negative Trend's "Mercenaries", and Middle Class' "Love Is Just a Tool" are worth the trip alone. Another thing, I don't think this LP has ever been reissued. I know I would have picked it up if I'd have seen one . All that said, you might not appreciate it as much as I do. So sorry about that. This is really for my fellow droolers.

It's a fifteen song compilation, with the Controllers, the Germs, Middle Class, Negative Trend, UXA, and the Flesh Eaters. Fifteen individual mp3s in a zip, a quick download, no pop ups, no obstacles. Yes.

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Listen:
Tooth and Nail - 15 song compilation at Good Bad Music For Bad, Bad Times (Go there to get it, bottom of the post.) The Controllers, the Germs, Middle Class, Negative Trend, UXA, and the Flesh Eaters.

YOU WITH THE MOHAWK, SIT DOWN.

Let me set the scene for you. It's 1978. The west coast punk rock scene is in full swing, with major hubs in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The music is louder, the looks of the bands more esoteric, and the collective posture is one of "fuck 'em, we'll do it ourselves" type DIY. With few exceptions, the music, though often sloppier and simpler, was not all that much of a departure from the New York Dolls, the Stooges, the MC5 and the like. Contemporary higher profile punk bands like the Sex Pistols and the Ramones may have provided reference points, but both of them still had one foot in traditional rock 'n' roll. 

The look of the bands and a large part of the audience, while not always as outlandish as the media often described it, was intentionally sending a message that "we're not like you". Ragtag ensembles of thrift store clothes, crazy hair colors (rare back then), badges, leather, slogans plastered on anything and everything, spiked hair, boots and a lot of black. This is not a description by some clueless knucklehead decades after the fact. I'd seen scores of punk bands at that point, read the magazines, scooped up independent punk 45s, and, with like minded friends, put out a fanzine and put on shows. I was as familiar with West coast punk rock as just about any other participant. But nothing prepared me for the Middle Class.

I don't remember where I saw then first, but I do remember them taking the stage as an opening act, looking totally normal, like they just got off work. They were young, and not derelict or dangerous looking at all. The only thing that was punk rock about their look was that there wasn't any of the rock star wannabe posing, nothing flashy. In fact the only thing that looked different about them is that they didn't seem to go out of their way to look different. Then they plugged in and started to play. Ho-ly shit. It was as if they had all of the angst of the entire scene bottled up, and let loose like a can of shaken soda pop. One short aggressive song after another, some played faster than anything I'd ever heard. Total teen fury. Their first self released 45 was no different. It's regarded as one of the very first, if not the first, hardcore records. Pre-mosh moron hardcore, and that was a small window.

I ended up meeting the band and, with friends, put on a show in which they were sandwiched between the Alleycats and, if memory serves, the Crawdaddys. After the show, I hung out with them, Black Randy, and Alice Bag, in the hotel they were spending the night at. I'm only mentioning that because I spent enough time around them to surmise that this was a band of nice, unassuming guys, with nary a hint of posturing. They were different. Different from "normals", different from rock bands, and different from other punk bands. They were unknowing trailblazers. Middle Class were, in their own way, more punk rock than punk rock.

All of this came flooding into my head in the last twenty four hours, after learning that Mike Atta, the guitarist of the band, lost his battle with cancer on Sunday. Folks, he was one of the good guys.

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Listen:
Middle Class - Out of Vogue and three other mp3s at 7 Inch Punk
Go there to get it. The first four song 45. Not an EP because there's nothing extended about it.
Visit:
Suddenly In Vogue - Excellent band profile at OC Weekly 2002
Local punk pioneer Mike Atta dies of cancer at OC Register
Middle Class - Music available at Frontier Records

"Look, I'm John Denny!"

Visit punk oriented mp3 blogs enough and you'll eventually run across Black Randy downloads. They'll come and go, and it's often the same songs. I've always put off posting the links, until now. I thought I lost "Give It Up or Turn It Loose" for good, and I panicked. Eventually I found my way back to the site that I originally downloaded it from a year ago, and ran across one of my comments on the page with the post. It was about a night in a hotel room with Middle Class, Alice Bag and Black Randy (after a San Diego show).

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Middle Class had stored their equipment that night in my Mom's garage, and I went with them, Black Randy and Alice Bag to a hotel on Rosecrans to whoop it up. I've always had a few vivid mental snapshots of that night. Alice Bag playing the Bay City Rollers on a portable cassette, Middle Class sitting on the edge of the bed, and the most memorable, of Black Randy with a lampshade on his head saying "Look, I'm John Denny!" [John Denny, as in the singer for the Weirdos.]

..

After re-reading my comment from a year ago, I wondered how accurately I remembered the incident. I thought I remembered it clearly, but it was about 1978 or '79. Regardless, I proceeded to download "Give It Up..." and was preparing to post a link when I decided to search for an image of Black Randy that wasn't already all over the web.

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On the second page of the search results, I hit paydirt. This wasn't just an uncommon Black Randy photo. This was one of him replete with a lampshade on his head. In a case of mega-deja-fookin'-vu, the pose was exactly as the one in my mental snapshot, with one hand holding up the edge of the lampshade. Too weird.

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I'm thinking this must be a gag that he did all the time back then. So, I click on the photo. It takes me to Alice Bag's online photo album at Flickr. The photo was from San Diego, on a trip with Middle Class. (I'm in utter amazement at what can be found online.) Upon closer inspection he's holding the San Diego phone book. That night he had called for cab for me (and gave me cab fare) to get back to my Mom's. Even weirder. What are the chances? (Note: Besides the lampshade, the John Denny "wardrobe" included the clear plastic cover of the lampshade as a tube top. I had forgotten that part.)

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This is not to illustrate that I was in some sort of hip inner circle. I barely knew Middle Class and had never met Alice Bag or Black Randy before that night. No, this is to illustrate that I can actually remember something.

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And I've written this embarrassingly long thing just to tell you this: download "Give It Up and Turn It Loose" before it's gone for good. Random, yes, and technically it's not a Black Randy song. It's an instrumental by the Metrosquad, his ragtag band of ersatz J.B.'s. Think about that: a ragtag version of James Brown's J.B.'s. Playing trashy punk funk. What are you waiting for?

Last Days of Man on Earth has all 13 cuts, including Give It Up or Turn It Loose, from Black Randy's Past the Dust, I Think I'm Bowie, each posted individually. Give It Up.

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Alice Bag's photo of Black Randy used by her permission through Creative Commons