Stun Guns – I Can’t Believe it’s Not Murder, Brand New Year // Hitman, Bullet in the Head (Starcrunch Records) 1995. Y’know something that is just totally under-represented on this site is punk rawk from the 1990′s. Why is this? Well its cuz I sold out to “the man” in the 1990s. Duh. It was all pretty simple, really. See, I was as hardcore as the next schmoe in the 1980s. I loved bands like Decry, DI, The Big Boys, Battalion of Saints, you name it. Shit I even liked me some Uniform Choice. But then the jock-core thing happened with the hooded sweatshirts, Yankees caps and such and I just couldn’t abide. I tried really. I bought a couple of albums by bands like Insted and Bold. But in the end I just wasn’t hardcore enough. So I started getting wasted a lot and listening to Chrome, Hawkwind and various Amphetamine Reptile releases. Eventually however, I got tired of eating ramen noodles and smelling like cat piss and that is when I sold out. I remember it like it was yesterday. I went to downtown Columbus, Ohio (where I was living at the time) and I entered the big Nationwide Insurance skyscraper. I took the elevator to the 73rd floor where I entered a big long cavernous office at the end of which sat “the man”. He asked me to rebuke hardcore and had me spit on a photograph of John Porcell. I did as he asked. He then confiscated my oxblood, 14 eye Doc Martens and showed me the door. As I left the building I had an unquenchable urge to listen to some trip-hop. It wasn’t until years later that I saw the error of my ways. Today, I listen to this 7inch by Miami’s The Stun Guns and I think to myself, “why…oh, why?” Hindsight is 20/20 I guess. How low can a punk get?
Hardcore Podcasts
September of 2010 I put together eight Hardcore Podcasts. You can check them out here if you are interested. For more insight into how I came up with the years 78-90 for the First Wave you can read about The Hardcore Superiorty Myth.
nice!
These guys also had an Lp released a few years after they broke up that’s worth picking up if ya don’t have it already. They’re good but, they’re no Chickenhead.
I don’t suppose you have the Gaunt LP? Saw them a million times back then but never bought the record.
Generally, the late 80′s and early 90′s were a pretty lame period, although it didn’t seem that way at the time. Sub-Poop? AmRep? All that shit was fucking terrible and boring as hell. I used to take crap for listening to all that “old stuff”, only to find myself miraculously cool when Green Day got popular around 1994 and people started getting interested in old Punk again. The “old stuff” was simply better.
Yeah I always listened to the “old stuff” as well. I got that Gaunt album by the way. It doesnt really stand up too well. Kinda like the NBT recordings. Not as good as live. Now the Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments stuff and other things on Datapanik are pretty hot.
The original ‘official’ STUN GUNS LP w/ silk screened covers on Shut Up Records (2003) is out of press BUT you can get the repress through http://www.shutuprecords.com It has both 7″s unreleased songs/comp tracks + an EAT cover! The 90′s were not the 80′s were not the 00′s but whatever, right? The Stun Guns featured members of older Florida bands Lethal Yellow/Broken Talent and the Trash Monkey’s plus same era-band Chickenhead.
I’m still trying to sell out but now it’s probably too late. Maybe it’s because I actually made the leap to jockcore thus insuring that I’d waste another six years of my life.
i don’t know the 90s had cool bands but yeah most stuff was the as stormtroopers of death put it douch crew. i actually like crippled youth (became bold) and underdog and a few joke bands but yeah it was dumb. this rules though. thanks so much joe.
Another quality post, Joe. Thanks a bundle for all this stuff.
AWESOME. i have some tape of them and love it. don’t think this is on it tho.
thanks!