Spermbirds - Something To Prove LP

Label: Boner Records; Year: 1988; Format: Vinyl LP

For the past year or so every Tuesday I listen to a German podcast called "Und Dann Kam Punk" and on last week's show the two hosts interviewed the Spermbirds drummer Matthias Goette. As always it was a fun, entertaining but also informative talk hence I thought it was about time I played my copy of "Something to Prove" again as it's been ages since the last time. With most of my records I remember where I bought my copy and the year, or at least thereabouts. With my "Something To Prove" copy I really can't place it as it's the US version on Boner Records and when this LP came out I was living in Switzerland and would have surely picked up the We Bite pressing. My guess is that I found this one in Toronto when I briefly lived there in the early '90s, but that's just a wild guess and doesn't matter at all. Many of you out there interested in European Hardcore Punk will surely know that the Spermbirds singer Lee Hollis is an American based in Germany and was at the time of when the band was started stationed with the US Army in Kaiserslautern, Germany. According to the interview with Matthias Lee came from a difficult home and used the Army as an escape route to get as far away as possible from his parents, or his dad in particular. Since he has already been introduced to early US punk and hardcore Lee brought a fresh wind to the very provincial small town scene of Kaiserslautern. As a matter of fact before there even was the Spermbirds the band the other members were more keen on getting ahead with is Walter 11, a band vaguely speaking more steeped in traditional UK punk with its members being also big fans of their hometown football club FC. Kaiserslautern. So, when Spermbirds were started the band wasn't even aware that their brand of hardcore punk with a heavy influence of bands such as Angry Samoans was very popular in the underground scene of Southern Germany hence their first record, a Split 7" between Walter 11 and Spermbirds, was released on X-Mist, an influential label to this day. A year after that We Bite Records picked up the Spermbirds and "Something To Prove" was released in 1986. It should come as no surprise that it was licensed to the UK and the US as it's an excellent record that stands the test of the time. When I listened to it today it sounds just as fresh as it always has and the songs haven't aged at all if you ask me. What you get are fourteen original songs and a great cover version of Agent Orange's 'Bloodstains'. The production on the LP is great considering the band recorded and mixed everything within a few days and the LP is a mixed bag of either fast and furious songs or more mid-paced melodic tracks with great hooks. Considering where the band members came from musically the sound on this record makes perfectly sense with Lee's love for early Southern Californian bands and the rest of the band having more of a traditional early UK punk background the two main influences are perfectly blended into a unique sound. For some unfortunate reason I have actually never seen Spermbirds live, and I sure as hell don't know why. A classic record indeed!