CLAW HAMMER, ACT FOUR

Posting the CLAW HAMMER early 1990s discography has been one of my raisons de etre, if you will, since I started putting up mp3s on this site a couple years ago. We've taken their masterwerks and unleashed them to you in order, starting with their earliest compilation tracks, into their first 45 "Poor Robert", through the second single "Sick Fish Belly Up" and up until the 3rd 45, "Candle Opera". Now we come to this Los Angeles band's fourth single, a fantastic slab of white-hot molten grease called "Brother Bricks Says" b/w "Don't Walk Away (live)". The former track showed up in a (very) slightly different version on the band's debut LP in 1990, and pretty much everyone agrees it was one of their finest scorchers, a tribute to an older and more rambunctious brother of singer/guitarist Jon Wahl's, and a track that made just about every set list back in the day.

"Don't Walk Away" is a bit of a rarity - a live song with guitarist Chris Bagarozzi pressed into rare vocal duties, and you can listen & learn as the young man screams his friggin' lungs out. Wahl comes in and rescues the proceedings about halfway through, but the aural damage has been done by that point. Seriously, this has all the hallmarks of the classic CLAW HAMMER sounds - extremely amped guitar, weird Beefheartian riffs, power chords straight off of "Kick Out The Jams" and a supreme dose of righteous boogie.

Play or Download CLAW HAMMER - "Brother Brick Says" (A-side)
Play or Download CLAW HAMMER - "Don't Walk Away (live)" (B-side)