Battalion of Saints
Second Coming
Nutrons Records
Released: 1984

George Anthony – vocals
Terry “Tezz” Bones – guitar
Ken Ortman – bass
Mark Bender – drums

1. My Mind’s Diseased
2. Animal in Man
3. Right or Wrong
4. Holy Vision
5. Buddies and Pals
6. No More Lies
7. Second Coming
8. Beefmasters
9. Fair Warning
10. Too Much Fun
11. Intercourse
12. Solitary is Fun
13. No Time
14. Doomed World
15. Ace of Spades

In my eleventh grade year of high school, I’d already been into the “punk scene” for, about, three years, a guy from one of my classes, Bill, got into punk and wanted to start hanging out with the “punk” guys from school. So, one Saturday afternoon I got dropped off at Bill’s house, and he played some music, and started pulling out some Flipside magazines – talking about which bands he liked, on and on like that. I started to get a bit bored, and was going to head out, and then Bill says “You wanna do some crazy punk stuff?” I admit I was curious, so I said “what do you have in mind?” Bill said follow me, and I followed him over a couple of fences, up a tree or two and finally up the side of a building and on to a roof top. Once there, I was like . . . now what? Bill then ran to the side of the building, and came back with an arm full of oranges. Orange trees were growing alongside of this building. So, I sat down on the edge of the building, and waited for the show. Bill started crawling on his belly military-style, until he got to the edge of the building, once there he started beaming oranges at any car that drove by. Now Bill came from a relatively upscale neighborhood in Encino, so the cars he was nailing were BMW’s and Mercedes. Fifteen minutes of this — sirens came blaring. Which made Bill extremely excited (he was possibly ADD) and he tells me not to worry he has this planned out. He just yelled to follow him, and we went down a drain pipe, through a school gymnasium, over some other fence and finally into his backyard.

Once we got into his house I asked him what was that all about? He said he was hoping to hang out with somebody who down for some real punk rock stuff. I just shook my head, and asked “how was that punk rock?” And Bill says “Punk rock is about going ape-shit!” I told him “Bill, I’m not an authority, but tossing oranges at your neighbor’s cars isn’t exactly punk rock.”

Bill was pretty bummed. We didn’t hang out again. About ten years later my Brother and I bumped into him, he was working at a Blockbuster on Ventura Blvd. in Encino. He was a funny enough guy.

Review:

Throwing oranges might not be punk rock, but these guys are. When Battalion of Saints released their first EP I was a huge fan of it. So much so that I solicited a few guys I know to paint their dragon emblem on the back of my leather jacket.

After I bought the EP, I bought the BYO compilation to get the few Saints songs on that. But this album, I didn’t get around to picking up until early this year (twenty-three years after its release), and I don’t like it as much. If I bought when it was released I probably would’ve dug it as much as the EP, but as it stands, it’s fair.

With the Saints, and George Anthony, I don’t think punk and San Diego would’ve ever been mentioned in the same sentence.

Beefmasters
“They’re the meat inspector of the human loin,
The Beefmasters hook you and tell you where you are going,
They’re after your milk vein, need a corporation slave,
Hang you on their work hook and break your moral everyday.

Beefmasters, Beefmasters, work you to the bone,
Where’s the ladder to success?
Beefmasters, Beefmasters, know what they want,
They want you to suck their dicks.

On your way to the slaughter house, they want you in your prime,
Work you for a shitty wage and tell you that you could climb,
Ain’t got no education – puts you in a different line,
You wonder what went wrong; you’re just a grissel of life.

Chorus:
Fuck the meat run nation, so you try to get away,
You don’t know what to do; you’re so used to being told,
Beefmasters need a cut, they hold their branding iron,
Who’ll be the next one in line for the Beefmasters iron?”

On a separate note, tomorrow (Saturday, October 22, 2007) Battalion of Saints will be playing in Malibu at the Malibu Inn at 22969 Pacific Cast Hwy. And the might TSOL will be playing across town in Long Beach at The Vault, located at 350 Pine Ave. The TSOL show has 45 Grave, and The Crowd listed as opening acts, it’ll be a great show.

Rating: ** *** two out of five stars.

RIP: This month is the one-year anniversary of the passing of my Uncle Rick White, the first “Punk Rocker” I ever knew.

This was the latest from Mike E. When he’s not writing articles of punk past he manages an online comic book store. Visit him at Web Comics.