When Ryan Wells & Scott Soriano, two gentlemen of my acquaintance, decided to start an mp3 blog called STATIC PARTY featuring rare 45s of what they call “punk’s third rail, 1990-2000”, I figured the thing would be pretty solid. What I didn’t count on was just how much terrific spazz/garage/noise/ punk these vaunted record hoarders were swooping up in those unheralded years, and how much stuff they had that I didn’t. STATIC PARTY, about once or twice a week, posts a 45 direct from these fellas’ hallowed stashes, and more often than not, the tracks are pretty friggin’ wild. They’re certainly unavailable elsewhere. If they weren’t doing it, not only would you (and I) not know about these gems, virtually no one else would know either – because I’ll bet dollars to donuts that virtually no one else owns such a dizzying array of garage-influenced punk rock vinyl from that age. I know you can say that about a lot of mp3 blogs (Soriano’s CRUD CRUD, for instance), but this microscene is territory that only Static Party is mining, and I’ve found a large bucketful of new favorite songs as a result of their labors.Here are three stunners I downloaded straight from the site. All are from Seattle (a coincidence, honestly), and as of this writing, two are actually still available on Static Party itself. They won’t always be – most disappear after 3 or 4 weeks. THE STITCHES are a band I saw in 2003 up there – they put on monkey masks or something & jumped around like goofballs, and never in my wildest dreams did I think they were capable of balls-out raw power like this. (Correction, May 19th - I'm confusing "The Stitches" with "The Spits". I know nothing about either band, but I've been corrected in the comments below - The Stitches were a California band, and I assume they did not employ monkey masks). MAN-TEE-MANS – well, it’s a Rob Vasquez band, post-NIGHT KINGS, and I’m dumbfounded that I sold this 45 back after I bought it in 1994, despite featuring the Great Man and my pal Caryn to boot. I think I was burnt out on Rob’s tuneless “learning to play” bands, but this sounds like pure genius now, as simple and unadorned as the first URINALS single, and even more dumb. I saw STEEL WOOL a few times back in the 90s, but never did they sound as roaring and loose as they do on “Devil’s Night”, which out-Mudhoneys MUDHONEY. Check them all out below and at STATIC PARTY.
Play or Download THE STITCHES – “Cars of Today”
Play or Download THE MAN-TEE-MANS – “Man Tee Mans (theme)”
Play or Download STEEL WOOL – “Devil’s Night”
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8 comments:
Yeah, I've been diggin' Static Party, too. Great shit.
I always thought The Stitches were a bunch of OC guys. Their gtrist worked at a shitty record store in Huntington Beach for years.
Mrow, you're right, I'm wrong. I confused them with "The Spits". Correction to be issued.
On a different note:
If for a minute you could click over to
http://mrowster.wordpress.com/2007/05/20/33/
you'll find both avid SWA worship as well as some honest to goodness AGONY SHORTHAND praise/thanks!
I'm glad they're doing this, because I'm of a similar mindset regarding that general time period being the 3rd "punk" revolution (or at least one of the high points in minimalist rnr archetypes). Like the other periods, oldsters hated it, people scoffed at the stuff soon after and went all progressive (or basic in an uninspired, tired knock-off fashion), while these records sat in bins for a quarter. Luckily, I always loved this "era" and picked up a lotta cool shit. So many great Rip Off/Crypt style records, mostly off everyone's radar because so many bands were doing the 77-into-66 style at the time. These guys know what's up and I'm too lazy to do this kinda thing myself so go Scott & Ryan!
-trickknee
I owned many of the singles they write about, and still own the ManTeeMans. But I sold many of them in cheap lots on eBay in the early 00s. Goes to show being at ground zero can make one feel jaded, as the records they write out were practically "mainstream" in the little orbit here at the time. KI
Been diggin' Static and Crud for awhile now. My copy of Man Tee Mans is on cassette, recorded off radio, static-y an' pirate-radio-like.
I tried to keep up, to an extent, with "new" bands back in the mid 90's but unfortunately I missed out of awesome stuff like The Man Tee Mans. Static Party is one of my favorite blogs, 90% of the postings sound great to my ears. A lot of the Vasquez-related stuff from the 90's can still be found for criminally cheap-- I found a copy of The Man Tee Mans a few months ago on GEMM for $4, found a copy of the Gorls/Flathead split here in Chicago for $3, most Night Kings stuff on eBay for between $4-8, Ape Lost 7" for $5, etc. FYI, Vasquez plays drums on The Man Tee Mans EP and not guitar.
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