Rise of the Nashville Compilatons pt. 1: Our Scene Sucks

Various Artists - Our Scene Sucks 7" [House O' Pain, 1993]

From the annals of time and the archives of Music City history, I introduce to you now this four part series featuring those sure-fire golden nuggets of punk rock history -- the coveted compilation 7”.

The first is a tongue-in-cheek, self-deprecating package titled Our Scene Sucks by House O’ Pain Records. While I like to inject a little personal insight to each of these reviews, I was 14 when this was released and lived about 100 miles south of Nashville, so most of these bands are unfamiliar to me. But luckily, the Nashville Scene is a little more on top of things. They wrote this about the comp in 1997:

Five years ago, House O’Pain Records issued a broadside of a compilation EP under the modest title Our Scene Sucks. The music was snotty, sloppy, and loud—a ragged artifact of underground Nashville in the early 1990s, when House O’Pain and the appearance of Lucy’s Record Shop triggered a burst of local activity. Back then, the EP’s title might as well have been the mantra of the city’s disenfranchised teenage punk audience.

“What it’s intended to say is that the Nashville scene doesn’t suck,” says Kendall, co-owner and cofounder of the pioneering local punk label... [Donnie] Kendall notes, House O’Pain had to work to scrape up decent tracks.

Of the four bands on this comp: Floor, Lethargic, Canibal Holiday and Teen Idols -- the only one I’m familiar with is Teen Idols, who I saw and enjoyed many times in their prime. But, there’ll be plenty more on them later once I gather up a little more of their catalog. In the meantime, enjoy this 7” time capsule and all its DIY glory and anticipate more of them to come.

Attack of the Huntsville Comps pt. II: Fuck the East Bay

Various Artists - Fuck The East Bay, This is ¡NOK! CD [¡Nation of Kids! 1997]

The Huntsville compilation series continues now with the only other one I own (there were several other cassette-only releases I'm still trying to find). Curated by Joey Tampon, this CD release was originally intended as a split betwixt The Toxic Shocks and North Carolina's Pink Collar Jobs. But Joey was never one to waste perfectly good space on any medium, so he filled the rest of the disc as best he could with odds, ends, knick-knacks and previously released material from a whole bunch of other bands as well.

Most everyone was still doing cassettes and vinyl at the time, so that this was on CD was kind of novel. However, given the questionable choice by Joey to dedicate only one track to each band -- streaming each song continuously, back-to-back -- negates most of the convenience of this format. But it may make for a more interesting iPod experience when the Toxic Shocks' 11 song selection comes up in shuffle mode at your next party.

Some of the bands represented here have already been discussed at length, so if you want more info on The Jawas or The Slackers, look at my older entries.

The 565 Burnouts were a short-lived outfit featuring Neil Delbaccio (The Burning Radios, Toxic Shocks), Jason Burke (Shitboy from Outerspace, Xpia), and Neil's wife Penny. They seemed to be modeled after East Bay faves Blatz, released a demo cassette I never picked up, and played out through the Summer of 1995 before breaking up.

Random Conflict I think it's safe to say Random Conflict have been at it for at least 20 years, save for a short hiatus in the '90s. Coming punk the thrashy skate punk scene of the late '80s, even today, these dudes haven't been changed by the times whatsoever.

The Peeps No scene was complete in the mid-90's without a ska band. While both punk and ska remain enjoyable to me to this day, I've grown to loathe the punk/ska hybrid more than Bill O'Reilly, child abuse, and the Holocaust combined. That being said, I can't help but maintain a special place in my heart of hearts for The Peeps. Subject of a recent, somewhat interesting documentary, this 4 to 8 man ensemble contained members from half the bands in town.

Shitboy from Outerspace This is actually Shitboy 2.0. The first version of the band included J. Tampon, and this short-lived, ressurected edition saw him replaced with Jimmy from Property and The Peeps, Scott Cox from Jabberjaw, and probably someone else I'm forgetting. Also, Elijah Horgan of The Peeps and 5 Star Generals played drums. The band was fronted by Jason Burke, later of The Pins, Paperbox, and now Xpia.

Anyhow. This concludes the Huntsville comp series for now. Hope you've enjoyed,.