In the annals of Punk Rock history, there are bands upon bands who are the Hardcore equivilent of 'one hit wonders'; bands from outta nowhere who had that one cut on that one compilation that set both your body and imagination on fire. Even though the sound of that one song was great in itself, the nerd in you had to ask (to no one else but yourself of course) 'What else did they have up their sleeve?'My personal Hardcore annal (guh whuh?) heaves with such names as Hostile Youth, Shit S.A, Double Cross, B.I.U, The Conservatives, Crankshaft and (of course) Demented Youth. On the tipity top of that teetering list is Fresno Californias' Maniax who supplied us with the beyond classic anthem 'Off To War' on the beyond classic 'Not So Quiet On The Western Front' double LP compilation in 1982. For nigh on twenty five years now, this track has intrigued the fuck outta me. Althought the sentiment of the song fit the time and place it was plunging from, the sound was a broadcast entirely of its' own. With the buzzsaw guitar dipping in and out of the 'mix' while a barely pubescent vocalist drones on and on recieting the words 'Off To War' over and over again, this wasn't your average young kid thrash-o-thon for sure. I always wondered if their other songs were this disorienting and wonderful. Well, I need not wonder no more! Maniax vocalist Gregg Mitchell has finally found the time to share with us the 'lost tapes' of Fresnos' youngest early 80's Punk band and it's every thing I've dreamed it would be and more. 34 tracks of bedroom recorded early teenaged Punk Rock anthems about dead dogs, posers and having a crush on Wendy O. Williams. Are they using an air organ on track 29? What the fuck? THE MOST ESSENTIAL AND NEEDED POSTHUMOUS PUNK ROCK RELEASE OF OUR CENTURY AND I MEAN THAT. Even though I really hate how nothing of the past is left to the imagination anymore these days, I gotta say my brain is exhausted after twenty something years of wondering what those other Maniax tracks sounded like. Thanks for the rest, Gregg.I know for a fact that raw foods enthusiast Chris Freeman has a few copies of this Maniax CD rotting away at the Fusetron compound. Bug him to sell you one. He's over there to the right in the linkage department.
And right now I'd like to say the only dude writing about music right now that I trust and respect is Chris Corry. Some of you might know CC as a member of Mind Eraser or F.Y.A. Some of you might know him as the mind behind the excellent bid hardcore blogsite. Me? I just know him as the only dude right now who sets my mind rotating with his insights into Hardcore and Punk (Kinda like Country + Western) He sometimes worries me at how much he cares and disects things on two levels. On the first, I worry he might just be spending too much time losing himself in his own world of cataloging numbers, matrixes and demo tapes. Don't become one of those guys! On the other, he's got me sitting here wondering if I missed something along the way as far as all the demos and seven inches I considered 'secondary' in my days of Hard 'Yore'. 'Did I miss something as far as True Colors or Fit of Anger goes?' I ask myself sometimes after waking in a cold sweat. Unlike the recent crop of kids who wanna write about Punk Rock from some sorta self-made thrown where they suck all the fun outta the situation with their text paper like analysis of the illegibilty of politics in Punk Rock or whatever drywit fuck concept they shat out this week, Chris keeps it down to the magic sounds and how they zapped his brain. When he does analize the situation, he does it with humour and insight. Dig on the boys' review of the Hellhammer boxset at the Shit-Fi site and lemme (and he) know what you think. Here's an unfancy link to the piece --
http://www.shit-fi.com/Reviews/Hellhammer/Hellhammer.htm
Linkage to Chris' normal blog over there to the right with the Fusetron link you should use to buy the Maniax CD mentioned up there. Dig on it!
Until next time, buy whatever records the other blog dudes tell you to buy and keep up with the scene and wake up in a year to the same thing...only slighty different. The whole process will kill time before you eventually die. In the words of co-worker and resident insane Jamacian Daniel Smith 'Wudda life!'
