Testors - Original Punk Recordings New York City 1976 - 1977 Ten Inch

Label: Incognito Records; Year: 1995; Format: Vinyl 10"

There are truly not that many original punk rockers still touring the world, year in and year out. Sonny Vincent is one of the rare human species that is not only still doing that, but is still rather damn good at it too to this day. Back in 1975 Sonny formed the Testors in NYC with a guitar in his hand and lots of anger in his stomach. The band named itself after the Testors glue company, which would eventually get them into legal trouble, and set out to provoke the audience, sonically and physically. They did that with two guitarists, a drummer, and no bass player, and that seemed to work fine at venues like the CBGB’s or Max Kansas City but at one point Sonny got himself even arrested in Philadelphia for inciting a riot. The band never had any ambitions to record so thank god Incognito Records from Germany unearthed the recordings of this wild bunch that created some damn fine noise all these years back. Four studio songs, and two live songs are to be found on this 10”, and they not just kick ass, but are delivered with such furiousness and aggressiveness that many hardcore punk bands years later must have taken note of. The liner notes were penned by Cheetah Chrome and a second volume with more madness from this trio was also released on 10”, and will be reviewed in the not so distant future. 

Ramones - L.A. Explosion Ten Inch

Label: Fan Club; Year: 200?; Format: Vinyl 10"

In August 1976 the Ramones played for the first time in Los Angeles, and two of those shows took place at the Starwood in West Hollywood – a club that would be instrumental in forging many musicians’ careers in the years to come. Many moons later some bootlegger has managed to get their greedy hands on decent sounding recordings of the show from August 16 of said year, and a bootleg 10” was born by the name of L.A. Explosion. Make what you want of bootleggers but I for one am grateful for this piece of wax as it delivers twelve tracks of the Ramones in their early days yet sounding like a well-oiled machine already. The probability of these recordings to have ever appeared somewhere legitimately has always been very slim, and in this day and age with all four of the original members unfortunately no longer with us it is simply out of question. Rest assured that when putting down the needle on this little treasure you will not only feel like you are traveling back in time by nearly forty years to a period in time when the term punk wasn’t even coined, and Los Angeles was waking up from an overdose of English disco and glam rock but that you feel like you are actually witnessing a time when kids couldn't wait any longer for something new to kick off, and the Ramones had all the answers for them. We all know that it wasn't just LA that needed a proper kick up its arse, and that these four New Yorkers really got the ball rolling for which we ought to be grateful to this day.