A LIFE OF CRIME
Mick Farren starts his liner notes for Destroy All Music by noting: “On August 16th, 1977, at least two events occurred of major rock & roll significance. Elvis Presley died on his Graceland toilet, and the Weirdos cut three songs for Bomp! Records, ‘Destroy All Music’, ‘A Life of Crime’ and ‘Why Do You Exist?’. The session – in a home studio in Tujunga – was produced by Craig Leon, who had overseen the Ramones’ first album. It was a hot damp night in Los Angeles, and, by all accounts, the weather was much the same in Memphis.
“Even the Weirdos copped to the fact that the death of Elvis was fractionally more important than their first record. ‘The King Is Dead’ was scratched into the metal stamper of the Bomp release ‘Destroy All Music’ that became a classic of late 1970’s L.A. punk, and prompted critic Mark Deming to call the band ‘one of the best and brightest American bands of punk’s first wave.’”
“Destroy All Music” and “A Life of Crime” were instant favorites the second I heard them the first time, and the other music by the Weirdos has the same high quality wrapped in barely contained coiled chaos. Sadly though, the quantity is not there, as these first-wave punk bands tended to burn out and break up quickly, due largely to indifference from the buying public. The three songs from the 1977 Bomp session mentioned above are on the album, along with four demos that include those songs again plus “Teenage”.
(March 2017)
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An early release by Iggy and the Stooges on Bomp! Records is a 7” EP from 1977 called I’m Sick of You, consisting of “I’m Sick of You” b/w “Tight Pants” and “Scene of the Crime”. The catalogue number, Bomp EP-113 is in the original sequence for the Bomp! Records 45’s, so I’m Sick of You might even have predated the release of Kill City; anyway, it does not appear to be part of The Iguana Chronicles. The EP came out right after the release by the Weirdos on Bomp 112, “Destroy All Music” b/w “A Life of Crime” and “Why Do You Exist?” (all three massive first-wave punk rock classics by the way).
(December 2017)
