The Torpedos – “Damn The Heartbreakers” LP (1984)
The Torpedos were a bunch of sausage-eaters from Chicago, IL. That’s the bad news. The good news is the managed to crank out a couple decent Punk records. This band had more of an early 80’s West Coast sound to them and played some great, gritty, boppin’ Punk that we all love, coupled with the kind of dumbass, obnoxious lyrics that Mr. Poopy loves. Can’t say much more about these guys ‘cuz I really don’t know squat about them and I’d left old Chi-Town in the dust by the time I got around to listening to this record. Not that I’m one to offer much of an endorsement, but if you’ve grown tired of some of the old Punk standards being offered elsewhere, and hunger for some old-school Punk that you haven’t heard before, I would suggest this LP, as it contains several Punk ragers that seem to have been lost in the winds of time. Also, it’s pretty unlikely that too many copies of this made it out of the Chicagoland region, as these guys strike me as a bunch of righteous fuck-ups who probably didn’t give a fuck.
The Torpedos
SAMPLE TRACKS:
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The Torpedos – “Blow Me Or Die” LP (1987)
This is the only other Torpedos LP that I know of and, while it’s not quite as great as the first one, it’s still some fine Punk rockin’ stuff that is at least as good as the tasteful album title and contains the best cover of “Proud Mary” you will ever hear in your life. According to the liner notes, all but two songs on the LP were recorded live, in the studio, in July ‘86, which is exactly how a band like this should be recorded. A pretty solid slab of Punk shit for the most part that, at times, sounds a little like Fang. I’m honestly surprised that, with all of the bottom-of-the-barrel Punk scrapings that have been foisted on a gullible pack of record geeks over the years, no one bothered to dredge up this band. The Torpedos were a good scumbag Punk band and deserve some glory.
Blurry Live Pic
SAMPLE TRACKS:
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Scott & Lucy Arvin – “Diamond Time” Cassette (1993)
Here’s an oddity that might mean something to some of you but will very likely leave the rest of you scratching your heads. Does anyone remember Amway? Actually, Amway is still around, although they often change their name due to the bad press they have received over the years. This tape was put out by a couple of Amway members and “Diamond Time” is in reference to being a “Diamond”, which is the highest station you could achieve as an Amway member.
I probably never would have noticed this tape at the thrift store if I hadn’t been hit up by Amway reps three times during my life. I was living in a dirt-shit poor city at the time where folks weren’t too fond of book-learnin’, which is the exact kind of environment shysters like this organization look for. So what is it? Basically, it’s a pyramid scheme where they try to sell the sucker on the idea that, by pushing Amway’s products, you are, in fact, the owner of your own company when, in fact, you are little more than a sales rep with the one notable difference that, unlike a salesman, you can recruit people below you to sell their crap as well, with you serving as their boss or “up-line”, making a little money off their sweat as someone above you makes money off of yours. And, if that scheme isn’t hair-brained enough, the products are crap, basically your typical household items like toilet paper, chewing gum, cleaning supplies, and knick-knacks that you could buy at Wal-Mart for cheaper than you could get them at cost from Amway. However, all that was neither here nor there, as ultimately you would be foisting the junk on your family and friends, who would buy the shit from you out of pity until they kicked you to the curb in frustration.
However, as dumb as this all sounds, there was an even more sinister element to this operation that held my fascination once I figured it out. Firstly, each time I had these turkeys try to rope me into it, things got real ugly and emotional, as I patiently tried to explain to them that they were being suckered. I remember being called a “loser”, a “coward”, “scared to take control of my life”, and even an “anarchist” by these brainwashed lemmings. These were all people that I ran into from my work and I would describe them as being more desperate than stupid. After the third encounter, I took it upon myself to look up the organization and, since it was now the mid-nineties, I was able to do so on the Internet, finding literally hundreds and thousands of heart-rending tales by people who had their lives ruined by this company. You see, there was more to it than just selling—they actually roped their members in on a more spiritual, almost religious level, pitting family member against family member and husband against wife, as reasonable people tried to stop the chumps from throwing away vast amounts of money and time on this fool game. Many people got divorced and many more people lost all their money and savings. Amway members were encouraged to stop associating with non-Amway members (sometimes referred to as “dream-smashers”) whom were merely fools standing in the way of their climb to wealth and riches.
Worse, yet, unlike other cults where they at least gave you all your dogma and propaganda for free, Amway made you pay for it! People would make their own motivational and instructional tapes and would then sell them to other members in their “down-line” who would be forced to buy them at $10 to $12 a pop but, of course, they could afford them since they were selling so much stuff to other Amway members, right? I used to go into thrift stores and find literally hundreds of these Amway tapes dumped off, presumably by some sucker who finally had enough. I used to own about a hundred or so of these tapes and many of them seemed to invoke sort of a religious tone to them. And so we have the tape I offer you in this post. While it would be presumptuous of me to fancy myself as some kind of musical anthropologist, it is safe to say that the phenomena exists where, once a bunch of people come together to follow a certain set of ideals, some guy or gal is going to come up with a song or two to rally the troops, a duty that, in this case, was filled by old Scott and Lucy here. Appropriately, this music is as insipid and cheesy as the kind of people who were fools enough to get sucked into this organization in the first place.
Inner Cover / Lyrics
THE SONGS:
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Elite Terror – “Flame Of Pride” LP (1990)
So I’m compulsively checking out the Punk / HC message boards in the areas surrounding my new town and I run across this one post where people are asked to site the best records that came out the year they were born. Unfortunately, the dates of most of the records posted were from like 1987 and beyond. Well, it looks like these guys missed the 80’s and, let me tell you kids, it was a heck of a time. It was a time when men were men, music was loud, and bare-chested skinhead dudes fought dragons in the middle of the street—just like on the record above. Actually, this record came out in 1990, but they were an 80’s band. I remember buying this thing on one of those days when you have money burning in your pocket and you’re at the record store and nothing looks good, so you go ahead and buy some shit you’ve never heard of on the hopes that it will be interesting. So I bought this on the fact that it came out on Rock-o-Rama, only to go home and suffer buyer’s remorse when I heard the badly played Metal and generic skinhead rock on this slab-o-crap flopping out of my speakers. But time heals old wounds and these retardo songs about Z.O.G. and affirmative action manage to crack a smile and a snicker now. This was a short-lived band from the Philadelphia area, home of the better known and much more rockin’ Arresting Officers and a host of other White Power bands over the years. At least these guys didn’t sing about beer.
SAMPLE TRACKS:
Elite Terror
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Beast – “Love In A Dying World” 7″ (1983)
Yes, that is, indeed, Bryan Gregory from the Cramps in the upper right of the band photo above. How that dude managed to go from “TV Set”, “New Kind Of Kick”, and “Drug Train” to this stuff is beyond me. This is their second 7” and it sounds like the fake band you hear playing when they show those Goth kids on South Park. Like a lot of guys, a few ladies in my life managed to boost my tolerance for these types of bands, but I still can’t fathom how some people managed to take this stuff seriously.
THE TRACKS:
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Rick Grossman – “Hot Romance” LP (1978)
Meet Rick Grossman, an average, nerdy-looking guy, who can’t sing, can’t play very well, and has the song-writing abilities of a horny fifteen year-old scribbling his sexual fantasies in the back of his History notebook. However, for some reason Rick had it in his head that he had what it took to be a successful pop star with the result of this mess I am now offering you people. This certainly isn’t for everyone, but those of us who are into high weirdness and enjoy watching a good train wreck get a kick out of records like this. I certainly do—I could play this thing all day and maybe I will. But the guy does deserve some credit, as he manages to put out an entire record of nothing but originals and if you look deep and I mean really, REALLY deep, you might find something that might pass for the faint hint of some genuine pop sensibilities—but I’m talking really, really deep. Generally speaking, this record will clear a room and lobotomize whoever is left. Kenneth Higney and Kit Ream fans take note.
Sweet Young Thing
SAMPLE TRACKS:
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