ANNOY YOUR NEIGHBOR: With noise bands and homemade punk rock
DD's first stab at joining the record industry has been cataloged by punk archivists on the net here.
Put together with my ex-wife while we were in the grad chem program at Lehigh University in 1982, Annoy Your Neighbor With This Tape was a professionally duplicated cassette featuring almost a dozen American punk rock and noise bands, some local to the Lehigh Valley. It was offered as an audio issue of Chainsaw, a fanzine we ran off through the school's publishing-and-copying office.
Reviewed by Maximum Rock 'n' Roll in 1983, editor Tim Yohannon opined: "From Chainsaw fanzine, this collection ranges from hardcore to hard noise. On the noise side, we have Smersh (a lot like the Screamers), Senseless Hate, Blight, and Attrition. There's slower punk by Roach Motel and the Bad Seeds, and a few cuts that have already been out on record (Cracked Actor, Angry Samoans), but the hit for me was Canada's Suburban Menace, a totally great group."
Also reviewed favorably in a Sunday edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer, the cassette sold through its initial printing of 500 copies in a couple months.
At the time there were no rock music studios in the Lehigh Valley which could be trusted with a project like Annoy Your Neighbor. If you were foolish enough to attempt to go to them for professional services, they'd take your money and happily ruin your work while trying to fit it to their standards.
Mastering and duplicating the tape required an end run around these nuisances.
My ex-widf was able to find a man who ran a home studio whose clients were local accordion and polka bands, polka being a significant musical activity in the Pennsylvania Dutch demographic of the Lehigh Valley. His name was Al "the Buttonbox" and he consented to assemble the tape, master it, and furnish it in final duplicated and packaged form. Al did a great job but told us he didn't want our business for future projects because of the bad language favored in punk rock.
The cover art was done by Carol Smith -- I still like it a lot, although it is probably something she would sooner not be reminded of.
Related update: The Gift of Noise.
Cassette index (band/song title):
01. Angry Samoans - Steak Knife
02. Angry Samoans - Lights Out
03. Roach Motel - Now You're Gonna Die
04. Spike Haytrid - Death to Preppies
05. Spike Haytrid - Dream Girl
06. Senseless Hate - We Destroy the Ants
07. Senseless Hate - I'm a Sociopath
08. Senseless Hate - Roasted Meat, Part 3
09. Meatmen - Meatmen Stomp (Intellectual Party Version)
10. Tony T and the Bad Seeds - Suicide Note
11. Cracked Actor - Nazi School
12. Cracked Actor - Judy in Disguise
13. Smersh - Right Wing Barbeque
14. Smersh - Put Your H.O. Car in Your Mouth
15. Smersh - Man Threw in Jail (For Stealing Cookies)
16. Suburban Menace - Get Outta My Way
17. Suburban Menace - Serena Dank (Go Away)
18. Suburban Menace - What's So Wrong
19. Suburban Menace - Skateboard Zone
20. Blight - Prophet of Doom
21. Russian Meatsquats - Society Sucks
22. Attrition - Dilemma
For the trivia buffs, Suburban Menace's "Serena Dank" was written about a woman who was one of the inevitable promoters of family values, the kind of person who pops out of the woodwork on a regular basis to raise warning about the bad influence of [fill in your genre of pop music]. Dank was the founder of something called "Parents Against Punkers," allegedly a "deprogramming" group. She was not nearly as well known as Tipper Gore or Mary Whitehouse (in the UK), who generally get the lion's share of credit as transient cultural warriors who took it upon themselves to rescue white kids from filth, vice and badness.
DD's first stab at joining the record industry has been cataloged by punk archivists on the net here.
Put together with my ex-wife while we were in the grad chem program at Lehigh University in 1982, Annoy Your Neighbor With This Tape was a professionally duplicated cassette featuring almost a dozen American punk rock and noise bands, some local to the Lehigh Valley. It was offered as an audio issue of Chainsaw, a fanzine we ran off through the school's publishing-and-copying office.
Reviewed by Maximum Rock 'n' Roll in 1983, editor Tim Yohannon opined: "From Chainsaw fanzine, this collection ranges from hardcore to hard noise. On the noise side, we have Smersh (a lot like the Screamers), Senseless Hate, Blight, and Attrition. There's slower punk by Roach Motel and the Bad Seeds, and a few cuts that have already been out on record (Cracked Actor, Angry Samoans), but the hit for me was Canada's Suburban Menace, a totally great group."
Also reviewed favorably in a Sunday edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer, the cassette sold through its initial printing of 500 copies in a couple months.
At the time there were no rock music studios in the Lehigh Valley which could be trusted with a project like Annoy Your Neighbor. If you were foolish enough to attempt to go to them for professional services, they'd take your money and happily ruin your work while trying to fit it to their standards.
Mastering and duplicating the tape required an end run around these nuisances.
My ex-widf was able to find a man who ran a home studio whose clients were local accordion and polka bands, polka being a significant musical activity in the Pennsylvania Dutch demographic of the Lehigh Valley. His name was Al "the Buttonbox" and he consented to assemble the tape, master it, and furnish it in final duplicated and packaged form. Al did a great job but told us he didn't want our business for future projects because of the bad language favored in punk rock.
The cover art was done by Carol Smith -- I still like it a lot, although it is probably something she would sooner not be reminded of.
Related update: The Gift of Noise.
Cassette index (band/song title):
01. Angry Samoans - Steak Knife
02. Angry Samoans - Lights Out
03. Roach Motel - Now You're Gonna Die
04. Spike Haytrid - Death to Preppies
05. Spike Haytrid - Dream Girl
06. Senseless Hate - We Destroy the Ants
07. Senseless Hate - I'm a Sociopath
08. Senseless Hate - Roasted Meat, Part 3
09. Meatmen - Meatmen Stomp (Intellectual Party Version)
10. Tony T and the Bad Seeds - Suicide Note
11. Cracked Actor - Nazi School
12. Cracked Actor - Judy in Disguise
13. Smersh - Right Wing Barbeque
14. Smersh - Put Your H.O. Car in Your Mouth
15. Smersh - Man Threw in Jail (For Stealing Cookies)
16. Suburban Menace - Get Outta My Way
17. Suburban Menace - Serena Dank (Go Away)
18. Suburban Menace - What's So Wrong
19. Suburban Menace - Skateboard Zone
20. Blight - Prophet of Doom
21. Russian Meatsquats - Society Sucks
22. Attrition - Dilemma
For the trivia buffs, Suburban Menace's "Serena Dank" was written about a woman who was one of the inevitable promoters of family values, the kind of person who pops out of the woodwork on a regular basis to raise warning about the bad influence of [fill in your genre of pop music]. Dank was the founder of something called "Parents Against Punkers," allegedly a "deprogramming" group. She was not nearly as well known as Tipper Gore or Mary Whitehouse (in the UK), who generally get the lion's share of credit as transient cultural warriors who took it upon themselves to rescue white kids from filth, vice and badness.
posted by George Smith at 2:01 PM
3 Comments:
I don't suppose there is any chance of MP3 versions? I doubt too much of that stuff is really available anywhere any more.
I recently found a bunch of old tapes of gigs at the 'Dutchess of York' in Leeds (from the 90's) and have no way to play - let alone transfer the damn things. I might have to get a bit more creative and go dig up a tape deck from somewhere.
the 'OMG HC' comp please!
also, please tell me about tony t.
somewhat legendary back then amongst us little kid punkers. was he really a huntington beach local exiled to the lehigh valley because of crimes he committed?
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