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Dwarves - “Lick it?” Destination Bomp! Song released in 1988. Compilation released in 1995. Garage Punk / Punk Rock / Trash Rock / Psychobilly

From critic Matt Carlson:

Short of G.G. Allin, it would be hard to name a punk rock band that went further to establish a bad reputation than the Dwarves. Playing deliberately crude, high-speed punk rock dripping with bad attitude, the Dwarves -- led by vocalist Blag Dahlia and guitarist He Who Cannot Be Named -- matched their music with lyrics that celebrated all sorts of bad behavior, and their album covers almost invariably featured full-frontal nudity. Add in the band's live shows, which often lasted less than 20 minutes and occasionally included a physical assault on the audience, and you have a recipe for infamy, which the Dwarves rode to a lasting cult following via incendiary albums like Blood Guts & Pussy (1990), Thank Heaven for Little Girls (1991), and The Dwarves Must Die (2004).

You know that phrase “live fast, die young”? It’s sort of like a life code for a lot of musicians, especially punk rockers; people who want to make their indelible, outrageous mark and then disappear forever; people who live in the now and only the now. Well, the Dwarves are a band that have more than fulfilled the first half of that phrase, but they just absolutely refuse to die. They’re geezers now, but they’re still kicking around out there. And you’d think for a band who plays as insanely as they do that they’d flame out almost as soon as they’d formed, but this San Francisco group has managed to completely defy the odds...so far.

The Dwarves actually started out in Chicago though, as a group of punky psychedelic garage rock revivalists who called themselves The Suburban Nightmare. But when they migrated to San Francisco, they decided to add a lot more shock and chaos to both their sound and stage show. You could hear it all starting to come together in 1986 for their first album as the Dwarves, Horror Stories, which was punkier than their Suburban Nightmare album, but still had the psychedelic garage rock sound, too.

The same year that Horror Stories was released, drummer Sigh Moan wrote one of the band’s most notorious tunes, “Lick It?” But it wouldn’t be until 1988 that the song would appear as the a-side for the band’s first single. Then in 1990, the Dwarves were signed to Seattle grunge label Sub Pop, for whom they shed their psych-garage stylings and decided to go straight-ahead shock-punk. It was a weird pairing to have this brash set of punk rockers on a flannel-clad grunge label, and in pure Dwarves fashion, they were kicked off the label for making a fake press release that stated that their guitarist, HeWhoCannotBeNamed, was fatally stabbed in Philadelphia.

But let’s get back to “Lick It?” then, which is a brilliant tune that catches the Dwarves between their psychedelic-garage phase and their solely punk phase. While the band’s earliest work was mainly psych/garage rock revival first and punk second, “Lick It?” appears to be the inverse. And it’s more than just that. There’s a pure, greasy trashiness to it, too, as well as a countrified twanginess. It’s The Cramps meets The Stooges meets The Trashmen. It’s a piece of southern-set B-movie horror whose fast-clanging country chords drone chaotically as they drag you down to hell; it’s that part of the movie where you’re careening down an empty, unlit farm road trying to escape from a reanimated skeleton who has evil intentions, only to look over and find that that skeleton is suddenly riding shotgun with you. “Lick It?” is punk, it’s garage revival, it’s trash revival, and it’s psychobilly. It’s an eighty-plus-second whirlwind of beautiful sleaziness, ambiguously telling you to “lick it,” much like how Frankie Goes to Hollywood was controversially telling you to “suck it” some years prior. What those two bands were telling you to lick and suck though, isn’t made apparent, but you can use your imagination.

For what it’s worth, HeWhoCannotBeNamed is notorious for playing in the buff during performances while donning a luchador mask, so maybe the song’s about his exposed dingus, and when he plays the song live, that thing just freely bobs up and down as he menacingly jitters on his guitar. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

One of the Dwarves’ best tunes. Some company ran an ad with this song trying to advertise stamps once.

The Vertebrats - “Left in the Dark” Battle of the Garages: Part 1 Song released in 1981. Compilation released in 1994. Garage Rock / Power Pop / New Wave

The Vertebrats were pioneers. They didn’t last very long and were never a full-time band, but they pretty much spurred on a vibrant local scene in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, a metropolitan area that’s about 130 miles slightly southwest of Chicago, and the home of the University of Illinois’ main campus. As the band’s lead singer and one of its guitarists Ken Draznik tells it, “[r]ight before the Vertebrats, in the late ’70s, it was disco, country and hard rock. That’s all there was.” The Vertebrats took their cues from 60s garage and British invasion bands, delivering super hooky, well-crafted rock tunes. They had an indie and DiY streak that allowed them to develop a local cult following, and they inspired many other townsfolk to start their own rock bands. They also somehow managed to do all these things while either being students or holding day jobs.

The Vertebrats built up their profile like so many other bands have done by playing gigs at popular hometown venues and getting their tunes in rotation on local radio. But what got them to a slightly higher plane was their appearance on Voxx Records’ Battle of the Garages, a 1981 compilation formed out of a national contest. Indie tastemaker Greg Shaw, who founded Bomp! Records and published Bomp! Magazine, had a sublabel called Voxx, named after the brand of guitar that every 60s garage band used. Shaw published advertisements in some of the US’ foremost rock publications at the time, asking bands to send their best garage rock revival material to him. Jon Ginoli, a DJ at U of I’s radio station and a big believer in the Vertebrats, obliged, sending along a song he played constantly on his show called “Left in the Dark”. An impressed Shaw wrote back to Ginoli and picked the song to appear on Battle of the Garages.

This song has had an interesting legacy. It’s received the cover treatment by a bunch of bands and it’s all because of Battle of the Garages. The Replacements have played it live, Courtney Love has recorded something, yet she has never released it, and Uncle Tupelo has covered it, too. It seems to live on interminably, continuing to dazzle rockers enough to record their own version. And it’s well worth covering because it’s a fantastic song and a midwest power pop classic.

Ken Draznik wrote this song in a fit of rage and heartbreak and it shows. His level of passion is reflected in the varying amounts of scratchiness he applies to his slightly nasal, Jaggerian vocals. And although this song is definitely upbeat and catchy, his vulnerability is both endearing and relatable. With a very cool mix of electric guitar jangles, acoustic strums, three simple chords, and a steady drumbeat with a punchy kick, we ride along Draznik’s rollercoaster of raw emotion as he builds up, calms down, and blows up. His mind frantically races during his verses as his lines become shorter and faster until we hit the multifaceted chorus, which comes in kind of hard and heavy with an added tambourine. Draznik then turns to quiet scorn before his sudden wailing “I’ve been fra-a-a-a-amed!” realization, which is a line that has undoubtedly encouraged audience participation. The song concludes as Draznik lets off his most passionate yell yet, which is then followed by some furious electric jangles and acoustic strums.

Brilliantly catchy early 80s garage rock / power pop from one of Champaign-Urbana, Illinois’ most important bands. One of those songs that has a way of letting you blow off some serious steam while also putting a smile on your face.

Tav Falcos’ Panther Burns - “Brazil” Straight Outta Burbank: The Bomp 25th Anniversary Collection Song released in 1981. Compilation released in 1999. Psychobilly / Roots Rock / Garage Punk / Psychedelic Rock

A lot has been written about the history and sound of Memphis’ Tav Falco’s Panther Burns:

From the band’s own record label, Frenzi,

Raised in rural Arkansas, Tav Falco formed the first incarnation of Panther Burns in Memphis in 1979, offering an artful mix of punk, garage, rockabilly, and ‘art damage’ influences, and sharing stages with the likes of The Cramps and The Gun Club. Legendary friend and mentor Alex Chilton (ex-Box Tops and Big Star) orchestrated their acclaimed debut long player Behind the Magnolia Curtain for Rough Trade Records...

From Tav Falco himself, “The Panther Burns are the missing link between earlier forms of swamp blues’ unbridled howl and the psychological onslaught of the new millennium. We are, essentially, the ditch diggers in American music.”

From an article in the Memphis Flyer,

The group itself, some say, was the result of Alex Chilton’s recent experiences at New York’s famed CBGB’s, ground zero for the early punk movement in America. And in fact, Panther Burns was a manifestation of the punk ethos: deliberately sloppy, amateurish, even downright nonmusical. But in this case the anti-formula had the unmistakable bluesy, rockabilly swagger of Memphis.

From AllMusic, “The master of a raw and shambolic fusion of rockabilly, blues, and fractured noise, Tav Falco was, along with the Cramps, one of the earliest purveyors of what would come to be known as psychobilly...”

From an L.A. Record article, “An ‘art-damage’ polyrhythmed rockabilly freakshow with a manifesto to ‘stir the dark waters of the unconscious’ through the reinterpreting of some of the best blemishes of early American music.”

And my own description: Tav Falco’s Panther Burns are a 50s singing cowboy doll with an eye sprung loose and a dying battery. When you pull the cord, you get your country rockabilly sound, but with a warped and heavy dose of dazed, jarring noise along with it.

Tav Falco described the vision of his band in an interview with L.A. Record when commenting on the garage rock scene:

They like what they like, but it’s like Charlie Feathers told me once. He said, ‘Tav, if you’re not doing something different, you’re not doing anything at all.’ You can’t create art or a band out of a vacuum. It’s never going to be totally original, uninfluenced by anything. But you can constellate your own vision out of what is given you in your environment, and to what you are drawn — spiritually, artistically, musically, and otherwise. With that, you can create something original. And I think there is an original gradient in Panther Burns, and that’s what we cultivate. And if it’s out of style or out of tend, we’ll live through that, we’ll survive it...You know, we tend to polarize an audience, but invariably there are those in that audience who are elated and who are moved to emotion and to dance, and there are others who greet us with howls of contempt.

Falco and Alex Chilton linked up in 1979. Falco was a huge blues aficionado and Chilton was a big early rock & roll buff. Chilton attended a show in which Falco sawed a guitar in half and it was love at first sight for him. Soon, the two would be creating music side by side as the foundation of Tav Falco’s Panther Burns.

A 1984 article in a Memphis music zine called Music Fest, written by Lisa McGaughran, describes Alex Chilton and the band’s dynamic:

Chilton...is the same guy who as a sixteen year old led the Box Tops to international stardom with songs like ‘The Letter’ and ‘Neon Rainbow’ in the 1960s. In the 1970s he contributed to the world various guerrilla projects popular in New York and London, such as his band Big Star. Highly skilled and talented as a musician, his professional background at time makes for a dynamic clash in the sound though his artistic inclinations meld well with the band’s intent. The basic dissonance in sound is a combination of trained musicians...mixing it up with untrained, intuitive artists.

“Brazil,” which comes off the band’s 1981 debut album, Behind the Magnolia Curtain, is a deconstructionist “wreckabilly” masterpiece of unbridled raucousness. Featuring two guitars generating a frenzied and dissonant sound as they play two separate rhythms (one of which sounds like the unpolished jangle employed by the Velvet Underground), booming jungle drums, and Falco’s mawkishly camp vocals, the Panther Burns reimagine Frank Sinatra’s version of this Brazilian samba classic, turning it into their own version of thick, buzzingly paranoid and charming rockabilly.

Kaos - “Alcoholiday” What? Stuff Song released in 1980. Compilation released in 1990. Punk Rock

Kaos were an awesome, little-known late 70s-early 80s punk band from Los Angeles. Headed by Johnny Stingray, they formed when his other band The Controllers broke up. Kaos only ended up releasing a 3-song 12 inch EP throughout out their less than two year existence, but that EP is absolute gold. In 2003, Artifix Records, called the “punk archaeologists” by Johnny Stingray, released a 19-track compilation along with an audio interview and a video of Kaos’ work. The compilation is comprised of the tracks from their lone 12-inch, demos, and rehearsal tapes.

Part of what makes Kaos so cool, besides their fantastic sound, is that they were a mixed-gender punk band in 1979. So were the Controllers. I feel like that was definitely a rarity in early punk rock, a totally male-dominated genre. “Alcoholiday,” the opening track on Kaos’ 12 inch, Product Of A Sick Mind..., features Amy Wichman on bass and Lisa Adams on guitar.

While “Alcoholiday” is undoubtedly classic LA punk, it does have a sort of rhythmic and raw garage rock quality to it, along with a lot of power. Wichman plays a deep and bouncy bass rhythm as one of the guitarists (either Lisa Adams or Johnny Stingray) provides a scratchy and splashy blare on every other beat. Stingray sings in somewhat of a mid-range monotone about the things that are stressing him out and how he needs some time off to get wasted and forget about his problems.

The chorus is very catchy as the lead guitar switches from short blaring to longer, jangly chords. Pete Curry can be heard mashing out on his drums, too. Later on, we get a solid bridge solo and in the last chorus, those jangly guitar chords move to a more unrestrained, wailing sound, which extends into another solo for the grand finale.

A fantastically raw and powerful early 80s LA punk anthem.

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Tell-Tale Hearts - “Just a Matter of Time” Destination Bomp! Song released in 1985. Compilation released in 1995. Garage Rock

The Tell-Tale Hearts were an 80s band from San Diego who just wanted to revive the freewheeling and raucous sound of 60s psychedelic garage rock. A five-piece formed in 1983, they landed on Voxx Records, a label that specialized in garage rock revival and was named after the famed thick, twangy, psychedelic sound of the Vox guitar, which was used by just about every garage band in the 60s.

A write-up of an early Tell-Tale Hearts performance appears in the liner notes for their 1994 compilation, High Tide [Big Noses & Pizza Faces]. It describes both the band’s energy and fun ridiculousness:

The wild-eyed singer snarled and leapt about like a monkey, all the while shaking a pair of maracas and banging on a cow bell, wine bottle, or beer can. The drummer hid behind a relic of a kit and pounded his tom-toms like they were tribal war drums. The tall, red-haired guitarist snaked about on stage, by turns stroking and stabbing at his instrument. The organ player, his hair completely covering his face, kicked at his amplifier and rolled on the ground, wrestling with a harmonica. And the long-haired bass player sneered at the crowd from behind a pair of sunglasses, looking positively wicked.

The Tell-Tale Hearts’ second release, a 12″ EP, The "Now" Sound of the Tell-Tale Hearts, leads with “Just a Matter of Time,” a wild and jaunty throwback tune that genuinely sounds like it was recorded in the late 60s. Ray Brandes sings with an easygoing and cool demeanor, backed by Eric Bacher’s alternating simple Vox chord strikes and jangly plucks, Mike Stax’s deep electric bass plucks (which sounds more like a jazz double bass), David Klowden’s cymbal and kick-heavy drum beat, and Bill Calhoun’s somewhat subdued, but indispensable organ. Dig Bacher’s fun, surf-rockish, psychedelic solo and Klowden’s short and lonely snare segments.

60s rock, but from the 80s.