Wednesday, February 18, 2009

BREAKING THE '78 SOUND BARRIER WITH ROCKS

We were just talking about Australia's X the other day - man, there was a time when I was just absolutely batso about every archival punk rock record I'd hear from Australia. There were so many, and thanks to bootleggers, they all started surfacing in the late 80s - X, RAZAR, LEFTOVERS, PSYCHO SURGEONS, THE NEWS, you name it. One for the history books, a total stone classic in its own right, is the "You'r So Boring" 7"EP from ROCKS. Such a refreshing wall of sound, just total hard and loud dumb-ass punk, done totally right the Aussie way. What AC/DC were for their scene these guys were for theirs - a total standard-bearer of simplicity. Hell, they even splash "You'r So Boring" on the cover - doesn't get much more simpleton-like than that. I also like the dueling vocalists on the various songs - the brash, braying burly man on the title track & others, vs. the weaselly, nasally fella on "Dam You" etc. Outstanding stuff.

Right around the time I was discovering the band ('88), they were putting out new records as well - I seem to remember a 12"EP on Waterfront or Au-Go-Go with some guns on the cover - pretty good stuff in the Stooges/Birdman vein. But nothing like this massive thud of a record. You can read a lot more about this 1978 record here; I suggest you take a listen and do some clickin' here after you do.

Play ROCKS - "You're So Boring"


2 comments:

Brushback said...

Wow- I think you could drop "You're So Boring" onto the middle of The Saints' first LP, and no one would notice the difference.

Unknown said...

Thank you so much for this one! I couldn't track down an MP3 of this EP for a long long time.