Electrify Me

NOTE: this album is for reanimation, not for charting rotation as its well over 30 years old and not a re-release.

Heres some rare vinyl I ripped for the station: 12” 45 of foundation LA punk, mid late 70’s. This band was 3 young guys who created catchy “punky” (don’t call it “new wave”!) rock that had the edge people wanted in those days. Despite being anything but hardcore, they’d find themselves on bills with Black Flag, Circle Jerks, and X (who also were not hardcore). Their cover of La Bamba became an instant classic, made LA airwaves via DJs like Rodney on the ROQ, and also belied their roots in the East Los, Latino community, and made them synonymous with the ethnic diversity that punk had early one (before it became the white bread and butter of disaffected suburban white kids). All songs really great, have a certain rhythmic quality that is lacking in most “punk” of the same day (maybe from growing up in households that loved good music, valued el ritmo?).

CRANK THE LEVELS ON THIS CD AS I MASTERED IT ON THE LOW SIDE (this retains the vinyl dynamics)

1) (1:48) bouncing driving 2) (2:18) pleasant, despite dark lyrics 3) (3:02) some backbeat carribean/reggae stylings going on with this very chill title track, exemplifying how diverse musically and culturally early LA punk/hardcore was 4)* (2:23) bouncy urgent punky 5) (1:33) the classic cover of La Bamba – urgent and crowd frenzy material, en espanol por supuesto 6)* (2:35) cool riffage and bouncy beat 7)* (3:00) bouncy with cool twangy guitar licks 8) (2:08) urgent fast kind of a surfy feel, is that a sax?, they flip the tape and it goes backwards for a measure toward end, super cool 9) (1:53) simple fun feel, dance moves references 10) (2:00) urgent punky fast, bass led 11) (2:17) melodic quintessential stuff, man this band was great