Punk History – Vol. 2
Various Artists
Liberula barriguda recordings
February 17, 2007

1. Buzzcocks – What Do I Get (2:55)
2. The Lurkers – I’m On Heat (2:11)
3. UK Subs – Warhead (2:44)
4. Angelic Upstarts – Never Again (3:08)
5. The Rezillos – Somebody’s Gonna Get Their Head Kicked in Tonight (1:53)
6. 999 – Homicide (3:42)
7. The Adverts – One-Chord Wonders (2:36)
8. X-Ray Spex – The Day The World Turned Day-Glo (2:51)
9. The Dils – Mr. Big (1:44)
10. Generation X – Your Generation (3:17)
11. Stiff Little Fingers – Law And Order (3:16)
12. The Undertones – Teenage Kicks (2:26)
13. The Weirdos – We Got The Neutron Bomb (3:00)
14. D.O.A. – Smash The State (1:31)
15. The Dickies – You Drive Me Ape (You Big Gorilla) (1:53)
16. The Germs – Lexicon Devil (2:05)
17. The Members – The Sound Of The Suburbs (3:55)
18. Angry Samoans – Right Side of My Mind (2:08)
19. The Mekons – Where Were You (2:43)
20. Resistance 77 – Advance Factory Units (3:34)
21. GBH – Faster Faster (2:57)
22. Cock Sparrer – Riot Squad (3:08)
23. The Exploited – Dead Cities (1:54)
24. Circle Jerks – Wild In The Streets (1:34)
25. Peter And The Test Tube Babies – Maniac (2:40)
26. Minor Threat – Think Again (2:19)
27. The Business – Harry May (2:13)
28. Plasmatics – Tight Black Pants (1:46)
29. Cockney Rejects – Here We Go Again (3:48)
30. Hüsker Dü – Indecision Time (2:13)

Here we are again . . . it has officially been two years since my first article on Strange Reaction. Including this article, that’s one hundred, and nine pieces I’ve written. I’m definitely not doing it for fun. It’s all for the fame, and glory.

Anyway, I keep getting requests to write a book based on my misadventures as a youth, and stuff like that. Well until I do, I can offer anyone interested, a book of poetry I did in the late 1990′s. Send an email to punk.con@gmail.com, and I’ll send you a PDF of the book. I produced a hundred copies of it back in 1999, and I have one left. So, if you’re a spoken word buff, I’ll shoot you a copy. The book is called When Some, Lose Sum. It may seem corny, but I thought it was very clever back then.

Another story of a misspent youth . . .

I went to a private school for half of seventh grade (I attended with pro skater Bert LaMar), and then went to a public school for eighth grade, using a fake address (met Linda Daniels, and started my descent into punk). Finally, it was too hard dodging the bussing situation, so my Mom had my hearing tested, and I was hearing impaired enough to attend a local junior high, then a local high school, which both had small deaf and hard of hearing programs. This was very new to me; I didn’t know sign language, or anything about this culture. But it kept me from spending four hours a day on a bus.

One Christmas, towards the end of my final year in junior high my Dad bought my Brother and me our dream skateboards: Sims Lonnie Toft deck, Tracker Trucks, and green Kryptonite wheels. Mine was a ten-inch deck and my Brother’s was eight and a half. Allot of us punk guys in late ‘70’s, early ‘80’s rode skateboards constantly, I kept board in the trunk of my car until I was twenty-one in case I broke down.

Anyway, I used to ride my board to and from high school, our lockers were too small to store the board, and so I used to put mine in the coat cupboard in my health class, and come back at the end of school and go home. This worked six months without a problem, until one-day two guys, Eddie V. and John Bailey, both hearing impaired, snuck into the class, and stole my board without the teacher noticing.

I came into the class at the end of school, and I was devastated. I looked everywhere, and a couple of kids told me who did it, but no one seemed to know where the board was. I confronted them, but they denied it. I waited until almost 4:00, and they just sat on a stoop by their lockers, and my only way home was a bus, and it was about to leave, so I hopped on and never saw my board again.

For those who think I should of wrecked these guys . . . listen to how their lives turned out.

A couple years after graduation John Bailey showed up at a former classmates apartment, a girl named Theresa (she was profoundly deaf), looking for a booty-call, he was being a bit forceful, they scuffled, and she ran, and locked herself in the bathroom. A few minutes later, Theresa’s roommate Troy comes home and John, mistakes him for her boyfriend, and they start fighting, John starts getting the best of him, and Troy grabs a screwdriver off the counter and stabs him. John falls dead.

A year or two later Eddie V. and his Brother Caesar are on a motorcycle on the 101 freeway, Eddie is deaf, and so him and his Brother are looking back at each other doing sign language. Right at this time a truck full of white-boy gangsters are driving by, and mistake the sign language as gang signs, so they throw their neighborhood at them, and Eddie and Caesar look at the guys, and give them the finger. The white-boys pull out guns, and shoot and kill Caesar, and leave Eddie with two or three bullets in him.

Once the story hits the news the white-boys flee to New York to stay with some wealthy relatives. Eventually, they are caught. Due to poor medical coverage Eddie still has at least one bullet in him.

Now, what’s the moral to this story? Don’t ever steal my fucking skateboards, karma is a bitch.

On with the review . . .

This is a great starter package for somebody who is just getting into punk, or for us old guys to listen to on a road trip.

If you don’t own it, track it down and give it a listen.

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

Currently:
Reading: There’s No Business (illustrated by Robert Crumb) by Charles Bukowski
Listening: Various Artists – Someone Got Their Head Kicked In
Watching: End of The Century: The Story of The Ramones directed by Jim Fields & Michael Gramaglia