More Compliations

Kids today forget how essential compilation records used to be. (And stay off my lawn while you're at it.)

In the dark ages before the internet and google, youtube and wikipedia a person had to find out about music on the streets like an animal through actual human interaction with like minded individuals who a person would have to talk to in order to share information about music that either of you enjoyed and the other may or may not have heard of. You'd also have to listen to something called a "radio" and more specifically ones attached to colleges which weren't bound by commercial concerns so the kids who ran them could play pretty much whatever the fuck they wanted and did. There might also be xeroxed 'zines around that would also have articles and interviews with bands you might not know of, but may find interesting.

And then there were always compilations. These could be a goldmine of introductions to things. You'd get one for one song by one band you liked and you'd discover a couple more and the cycle of life would continue until you're old and sitting on a shit ton of records and wondering if you've wasted your life.

4 Now

So what we have here is a compilation of four bands from the Buffalo, NY area circa 1981. There apparently was a small but robust music scene in the area with enough stuff to cobble together a "Bloodstains Across" lp. This little slice is probably most notable for an appearance by the Vores, one of the vanguard of punk bands in Buffalo, who put out a pair of well regarded singles and who have existed periodically long enough to have a Facebook page. 

It's some decent stripped down rock and roll all the way through perfect for drinking beer and shoveling snow. It's not likely to change your world, but it's certainly not going to ruin your day.

Arizona Disease

This is an entirely different beastie. It came out on Subterranean Records also in 1981 and features some half baked recordings of bands that seem to have been from Arizona. (It's in the title of the record and I'm not going to argue.) This is very much in the vein of starting the band before learning how to play an instrument school of rock and roll primitivism . It's one two three Go!

There's not really much information on either bands to be found beyond a mention of their existence here and there and this page about Jr. Chemists from somebody who cared enough to type it out. Read it at your leisure.