They hailed from Dayton, Ohio, they had 3 members, they played some bad ass poppy, sloppy punk rock, and I when I was 16, I quit my job at Hardee's to go see them open for Buzzov-en (sadly, i wound up getting high and not even going to the show). The Larry Brrrds played Huntsville once or twice more, but I was never able to check them out. I did, however, snag every record I found of theirs which totaled up to the three we have here. This, I'm sure, is by no means a complete discography. I know that they have a full length CD out there somewhere, and I wish the hell I owned it and/or knew how to find it (that being said, I haven't really looked that hard). I've zipped up these 3 in one convenient zip file [unlike most music blogs I've seen, that's how I'm going to do things. It's annoying to me to have to download multiple zips with only 3 or 4 songs each].
"Eastown" 7" - This, as far as I know is their first release and it was the first I bought way back in 1994 or so. I had just gotten my driver's license and recall spending a few lonely nights listening to it on repeat while driving about aimlessly. It's a one-sided disc with only 3 very short songs. It's much simpler and more conventionally pop punk than the rest of their stuff... not bad, but not exceptionally good, either. Guitarist J.P. Sinister handles all the vocals and pretty much sounds like a frog being strangled in the studio. It's a little rough to get past at first, but the songs are solid and do well to make it worth listening to.
This one is a split EP with a band called Lynnard's Innards. 4 songs, all very awesome, all very short, and all a more mature continuation from "Eastown". There are no credits on this thing, so I don't know which member has decided to join is as co-lead vocalist, but I'm sure as hell glad he did. Sinister's gutteral croaking is now much more tolerable when complimented by (who I'm going to assume is bassist) Lucky Millions, whose pipes are well above par from your average punk rock crooner.
This one has no title, so I'm guessing it's just self-titled. I'm not sure where this one falls into on their timeline, but it's the third and final record I bought of theirs. Side A contains what are probably two of my most favorite punk songs of all time. They're fast, melodic, ridiculously catchy, and make me wish to hell I myself was in a punk rock band right now. Side Two is good, but is powerfully overshadowed by the first and pretty much the reason I had listened to it maybe twice before I just now digitized it.
Bonus Track: This is a very haphazardly assembled compilation* that features a bunch of punk rock bands of varying notoriety (Propaghandi, Less Than Jake, F.Y.P., and even Huntsville's Themack) covering television theme songs from the 70's and 80's. The Larry Brrrds are heard here performing a rendition of the theme from "Fame".
* No booklet is included, just an apologetic, xeroxed slip of paper alerting the buyer that he/she can write for a copy. It also includes a bonus 7" with one song accidentally recorded at 45 rpms while the rest are at 33 1/3.
Download the whole mess here from Sendspace (i don't have any webspace, and until someone offers to let me use theirs, this will have to do - also, if this link has become inactive, just email me and i'll fix it).
7 comments:
Awesome! I love the Larry Brrrds!
A few notes:
Eric, the guitarist for the Larry Brrrds, is a Portlander. I was introduced to him, shortly after moving here in the early part of the decade, when a mutual friend pulled a '90s zine of mine out of the local zine library and discovered I'd reviewed a Larry Brrrds record. We had a good conversation about how they'd played at least two shows in Alabama which inspired me at a young and impressionable age. (We'd also shared a compilation, as my band Themack was on that Punk TV record with them.)
As an aside, I believe Eric was probably the gruff-voiced singer who dominates the earlier single.
As far as the Punk TV compilation is concerned, I'd hardly call it "haphazardly assembled"—more like haphazardly mastered. In addition to the song on the included 7" which was mastered at too slow of a speed, a number of songs on the LP itself were as well. This was a mastering plant error that was never corrected, and a quick run-through of the record just now reveals that it afflicted the tracks by Braid, Hellbender and Themack.
Illustrious company, to be sure; I recall being thrilled to appear on a record with so many other bands I was into at the time—Zoinks!, Propagandhi, Less Than Jake, in addition to the aforementioned—but I was always bummed that our one brief moment on nationally-distributed vinyl was marred by the fact that I sounded like a monster! One of these days I'll send you an MP3 of what the song was supposed to sound like, and you'll understand what could have been.
god, i'm so 13 again...
These guys did record a full length in around 1996 (for Rhetoric) but it was never released, and presumably the master was lost. I have a copy of the 11 or so songs though, and they're all really great. I put out their split 7" with Lynyrd's Innards (who incidentally celebrate 20 years as a band in 2008) as well as a split 7" with Jon Cougar Concentration Camp. Joel (the bass player) and Dave (the drummer) went on to play in The Barnhills, and Eric moved to Portland and played in Kil Kare and some other bands I think.
The full length may actually be up in the stock room at a record store in Seattle now. Long story short, the Rhetoric catalog ended up in a basement in Portland. It was eventually dismantled and the owner of a store on Capitol Hill grabbed a U-haul and bought what was left of the collection in bulk. Speaking with the owner last year, he mentioned there were a bunch of unlabeled masters and test-pressings he had no idea what they were. If I have the time - as I worked at Rhetoric in the 90s and live in Portland now, too - I might head up there and try to match those up with their respective catalog release schedule. Regardless, the unreleased album sounded great from what I recall.
Martin! Please do that! I mean, I'm the last guy to demand someone take hours out of their lives to undertake a time-consuming project; I can barely get anything done myself. But if you ever decide to, I know I'm not the only person who would be thrilled and grateful to hear a lost Larry Brrrds album (or just any new/unheard songs by them).
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