Angry Samoans - 1978 Demo

Label: Bootleg

Year: 1978

With all this talk about punk being dead or punk being alive or punk being on ice, I felt the need to unleash this lil nugget of forgotten punk greatness. The first aural rumblings of Los Angeles' most offensive hardcore/garage band (until the Mentors I suppose) demonstrating their penchant for mixing the acid rock of Roky Erikson with the punk outs of X, and the beginnings of the Circle Jerks styled speed they would eventually run with for their first two (and most hardcore) albums. Personally, Angry Samoans are up their with Black Flag, Circle Jerks, TSOL, and the other primo LA first wave hardcore bands, but somehow they don't seem to get the same credibility as the others. Maybe it's because they were writing about goofy stuff (although, "T.V. Party" ain't exactly rocket science), or they were offensive, or maybe they weren't "tough" enough to quite fit in. Whatever the reason, Angry Samoans seem to slip through the cracks, and it's a damn shame because this demo, and their first two albums are essential. After that they started going downhill...fast, and possibly that's why their legacy isn't as revered as some of those other bands (but then, what about T.S.O.L.'s weird hair metal record, and Circle Jerks post "VI" have been wretched as well...so that argument doesn't hold water either). Shit, I don't know.

DL