F – Mess You Up 7” EP

SuperSeven Records – West Palm Beach (1988)

John Galt – vocals

US Ken Decter – guitar

Eddie Nothing – bass

Pete Moss – drums

Shoot It Down

My Girl Has Balls

Clock Strikes Ten

Crack His Skull

White Xmas

These wacky bastards searched high & low for the worst label they could find and found it in the Mystic Family of labels. The record has logos on it for Mystic Records, SuperSeven Records, Thrash Records, Doug Moody Productions, Bootleg Records and Ghetto-Way Records. Kind of like a punk rock General Motors. Shoot It Down is F’s best song that’s not on You’re an EP – great big rock guitars and the way Mr. Galt sings “he’d like to do something right one day, but he won’t….he just can’t” is perfect. Given their reputation as pranksters, I will assume that My Girl has Balls is a work of fiction. Clock Strikes Ten is somewhat sped up and very well executed, but not different enough from Cheap Trick’s original version to be completely necessary. Crack His Skull means well, but doesn’t rise to A-list F. White X-mas is pretty fukkin cool, from the Tiny Tim intro (real Tiny Tim? – I dunno), to the fairly standard punk rock treatment of the carol (strangely also covered by Stevie Stilleto) to the unexpected petal steel guitar and electric guitar solos at the end – it works! And they remember to leave Christ out of X-mas! The true spirit of Florida punk rock, for better or worse, all rolled into one record.

F-BOYZ – Sinnin’ Like Mad EP

Destroy – Pembroke Pines (1988)

Psycho ‘88

Don’t Fuck Me Up

Satellite Kitchen

Bus of Doom

Sexist and Proud

Matty Luv – guitar

Seaweed – vocals

Scotty – bass

Gorgeous George – drums

Best South Florida punk band of the late 80’s right before they said “fuck it”, became the Fuckboyz and eventually scurried out of town. A real breath of fresh air after hardcore had run its course (and yes – it ran its course!) Recorded with finesse by Mr. Hal Specter. All five songs are excellent and most primarily concern extreme loutish behavior. Psycho ‘88 contains one distinct phrase describing bad behavior every 7 1/2 seconds (including eating green eggs and ham)– it’s quite an accomplishment. Don’t Fuck Me Up shows the Boyz’ sensitive side – and is great poppy-punk. Satellite Kitchen is more poppy punk – this one about loafing and doing nothing important in the future (sci-fi indolence). Bus of Doom concerns a city bus that shuttles its passengers to hell (the deli of despair) rather than the mall. On Sexist and Proud, the F-Boyz apparently offend even themselves as it doesn’t appear on their retrospective cd. Then again the target audience for the sentiments voiced here is kind of limited in San Francisco, where they relocated – for example – “I like the way things used to be – I don’t care about equality”. There might even be a city ordinance against it.

DOLDRUMS -- No Idea EP

No Idea Records -- Gainesville (1988)

Believe

Stabilizer

Conquer the Fear

A Place to Hang Your Head

Pete Brightman - vocal

Russ Johnson -- guitar

Victor Wilkinson -- drums

Greg Pierce -- bass

No Idea Records started as a punk rock fanzine in Gainesville and in their sixth issue, in 1986, they started including 7" records with each issue. The first of these was this one by the Doldrums, a band that included some of the most solid Gainesville punks and musicians of that time. Live, this band was monstrous, with a tight powerful sound and threatening and deranged frontman Peter Brightman.

Unfortunately, this doesn't entirely translate onto vinyl. Don't get me wrong; this is a fine disk, with 'Believe' and 'Stabilizer' as standouts. In the faster cuts, you can hear something like the early 1980s hardcore band Scream, and indeed Scream did play Gainesville a couple of times around then.

But recall also in the late 1980s a lot of good punk bands started experimenting with metal -- and promptly ceased to be good punk bands. There is some crossover influence here, no doubt.