Shredding Paper
Vol. #9 http://www.shreddingradio.com/sp.html
The Offs "Live at the Mabuhay Gardens Nov 7 1980 ; in San Francisco California as it was....when it began" CD.
Now I have ran across mentions of the Offs and pictures of Don Vinil in just about every punk book I have come across,but,it was this disc that introduced me to their sound.
The Offs are working with alot of different shit in their bag...including straight up punk-rock ( with the dash ) but,expanding to reggae, art-punk ,ala Wire,and I suppose,most importantly,Ska-Punk.but this was ska-punk before there was ska-punk. I don't even mind it either.I'm not calling it ska-punk,or anything,I listen to this disc and appreciate what I hear.
To be honest,the Offs sound like they were trying to rip off Black Randy and the Metrosquad,but,with less funk and more ska.Take it or leave it. Fuck you.
The Offs also appear to be one of the few bands that utilised Saxomophones to their fullest extent.Once again, fuck you.
You got your raging punk rockers with tracks like " Black Sun ",the minimal set topper " 624803 ", " 100 Dollar Limo ", " The Pusher " ( it's downright scary when he sez " I wanna go out and get me a gun " ) and " A Million to One "...
You got your Black Randy type punk-funk with their hits " Everyone's a Bigot ", " You Fascinate Me ", and " Funk It Honey "
You got your Reggae-punk explosions like " Die Babylon ", " which I played three times in a row after listening to it the first time,because it was a fucking rager !
You got your ska-punk pick ' em ups ( except they say that a total of ZERO times in their performance ) that make Operation Ivy look like the wanna be's they were,like " My World. "
The Offs also manage to pull off several covers like " Heroin ", " Sweet Jane ", and " I Got the Handle " to mention a few...They add a twist to their originals and make them sound like originals which is what a band covering songs is supposed to do. They take James Brown's " Think " and really make it sound unique.
Since this is all Live, let me dispell any preconceived notions of poor sound quality. It's not bad, on a scale of 1-10,I would give it an 8,which is very suitable for me...
So you got this Vampir Records which this disc is released on....it's some guy named Terry Hammer who was a part of the Mab scene back in the day,but,now,lives in the Empire of Ohio,and is finding a use for all those tapes he made of bands BACK IN THE DAY....
He's done something by the Lewd,and now the Offs. I like what I'm hearing.more,more, (more) ! ( SAB )
Vampir Records 37 Western Ave. Mansfield,OH 44906-2624 email : vampirrecs@hotmail.com
The Big Takeover :
issue #48
You never knew what to tell people about what you'd seen. Like their U.K. contemporaries, Blurt, they were sort of all these things, and still others we haven't invented names for . but, what tied them to the punk community ( caffeinated singer Don Vinil, who sadly died of a heroin overdose here on 9th St. in 1983, was a close friend and friendly competitor of Jello Biafra in the old S.F. days when both bands started out together ) was the basic burping energy to evereything they did. These weren't a bunch of art-school posers, they were smash-it-up party skanksters who wanted to do something fresh within an absolutely remarkably creative late 70s Bay Area scene-in cahoots with Crime, Nuns, Avengers, Negative Trend, Flipper, Pink Section, Tuxedomoon, Vktms, Mutants, Lewd, Dils, Zeros, and more. Tired of the same-old - same-old ? These guys didn't know what that was, and it really comes through again on this excellent-quality radio broadcast.
( 37 Western Ave., Mansfield,OH 44906-2624 ; vampirrecs@hotmail.com )
