No Alternative – Johnny Got His Gun / Flipper – Earthworm
Tools – Asexuality In The 80’s / VKTMS – Ballad Of Pincushion Smith
First release on San Francisco’s best loved record label, three great studio tracks and a live track from Flipper…This was the first time Flipper had been on vinyl. Flipper went onto become a massive influence on the rest of the post punk scene worldwide when after a couple more singles on Subterranean, the band released the ‘Generic Flipper’ LP. The other bands on this 7″ single I know little of…but the track by VKTMS is very good, and must be checked out. Kind of like early X from L.A or The Avengers.
Tim Yohannan (sadly no longer with us) from the San Francisco magazine ‘Maximum Rock And Roll’ talks to Subterranean Records and comments thus: Read here
Nic
February 19, 2008 at 1:12 pmGreat compilation…It would have been a blast to be at some of the Deaf Club concerts in SF back then, getting a full-on blast of Flipper and early Dead Kennedys…
And, yeah, Flipper obviously kill the whole thing outright with that killer version of ‘Earthworm’: total sludge scum fuckery…
The VKTMS were great though, weren’t they? Definitely a Siouxsie influence…
Have you ever heard the first EP by them? It’s got a great song on it called ‘My Baby’s A Midget’ which features some great lyrics like:
“My baby’s a midget – and that’s alright with me,
’cause he’s a real first-class lover, and he’s only 3 foot 3!”
Their later single “100% White Girl” is also a great sleazy New York Dolls-inflected blast…
Nina (vocals) died in 2000…RIP…
No Alternative generally had a Clash / SLF influenced sound to them, and this is one of their better tracks: it was inspired by Dalton Trumbo’s ‘Johnny Got His Gun’…
They put out a single in 1980 which has a couple of throwaway tracks, but also has a great song called ‘Make Guns Not Love’ which features a minimal riff that is incredibly similar to ‘Victimised’ by Chaos UK (hmmm… 😉 ) and a lead guitar line that mimics the siren of a police car (a very important thing to do in the 80’s 🙂 )…
They were still gigging recently…
The Tools put out 3 other singles (including an ep in 1981 featuring ‘Asexuality…’)…they’re a bit too square for me, but OK…
edu
February 20, 2008 at 12:19 pmman oh man… that song from flipper is a masterpiece!