MAIDS- Back to Bataan 7″EP (Anemic Records, USA, 1979)
The MAIDS one and only release has been posted here and there before, but that just can’t hold me back from running my own feature. The two songs on this 7″ were first introduced to me by a fellow tape and record trader from Germany, very late, just before the internet changed everything. I had never heard of them before; it was one of these little treasures that were easy to oversee in the before-KBD / internet times (they came almost parallel, did you ever notice?). A local band, a small press 7″, a weird band name. I was fortunate enough however to having seen a copy of this in a local record store just days earlier, so once I caught the bug (in a matter of seconds), I just could go there and buy this 7″ for a couple fränklis. The incredible sound of the actual vinyl alone made me hold my breath: Popping fresh, raw and with very present guitars on both “Back to Bataan” and “I do I do”. Fantastic how the band stays somehow vague about what’s going in these few minutes here: Were they serious about their music, were they being ironic? Is there a subtle message, something like a key that would allow you to understand what the fuck is going here? You guessed it - there ain’t and if there ever was, it got lost in time and during the shift of the music to another continent. To me, this is pure, youthful joy, a powerful kinky slap in the face of powerpop and beat revivalists or the emerging wave of grim Hardcore taking over the Californian Punk scene at the time. Name of the guitarist: John Ritalin - how great is that?! The song writing is basic and I don’t think these two songs are really innovative in terms of composition – yet whatever it is; it WORKS. And how it works. The break on “I do I do”, with the bass strings sounding like atomic elastic bands or the incredibly riffing in “Bataan” and the sweet vocals on top of everything: It’s pure energy, joy and a good dose of aggression of the non-aggressive sort. One of the most defining moments in in the as of yet unwritten history of the music of underground Punk worldwide! If you don’t understand this, you have no brains and if it doesn’t make you happy, you have no heart.
Read the extensive and funny L.A. Weekly story on MAIDS and the KBD-hype around them here. A must read, although the article is 8 years old (fuck, time flies!).
Hi-quality transfer from vinyl and scans of the very rare insert (only 100 copies had this, apparently).
brain jam wrote:
One of the true KBD all time winners. Great that you posted the insert and the sound of your mp3 KILLS.
Posted on 27-Aug-08 at 3:47 pm | Permalink
blake wrote:
im not sure if you know this. red is a mans name. “red snapper” is the name of a fish and sometimes the slang (somewhat outdated) word for a red headed womans genitalia. i think he trumps Mr. ritalin.
Posted on 27-Aug-08 at 8:35 pm | Permalink
Peter - KBD Records wrote:
Ahh just as my post of it made you think about doing your own little post, which you did at last, this post makes me want to do a repost. Can Maids be posted too much? Not in the post post punk post hardcore post posting punk blog days.
Posted on 28-Aug-08 at 1:23 am | Permalink
Admin wrote:
Long live Prostate Punk!
Posted on 28-Aug-08 at 1:29 am | Permalink
Marcel wrote:
couple of fränklis … haha, lucky “siech”!
Posted on 28-Aug-08 at 5:16 am | Permalink
Dave wrote:
I never heard this one before…I like. Thanks E.
Posted on 28-Aug-08 at 6:54 am | Permalink
Stuart Schrader wrote:
Here is something I wrote in Game of the Arseholes zine #7 in 2003 about this record. The article was on “great guitar sounds”…Paradoxically, I think the inside jokes/references are even more obscure in the “internet age,” which must be a good thing.
The Maids “Back to Bataan”: Killed by Death #7 had the best motivation: one scum-maniac used the tasty items wantingslist from the compiler of KBD #5 and KBD #6 as the tracklist. He even put the poor fuck’s address on the back. Genius! It’s a doozzee of a comp, too, complete with the first appearance of the Absentees, a gratuitous pic of Chain Gang’s “Deuce Package” on the back even though it’s not on the comp, and a few of my favorite punk tuneages (“They’re Back,” “Armed Rob,” “The Source,” “UFO Dic,” etc.). But instead of continuing down that psycho-path, let’s inhale deeply the roughage from the axx of The Maids. I’m not even going to touch their bizarro lyricality. All I can say is that I picture these freaks sitting in their bamboo hut strumming the gitarrer with a pick made of pumice.
Posted on 28-Aug-08 at 9:38 am | Permalink
Admin wrote:
Thanks Blake for the translation of “Red Snapper” - I did not know that!
Brilliant info, Stuart - much appreciated and good to see we seem to have a similar kind of “taste” .
Posted on 28-Aug-08 at 9:43 am | Permalink
f.m.l. wrote:
i simply love it!
Posted on 28-Aug-08 at 2:15 pm | Permalink
Sickgirl wrote:
Thx!Great Sound!
So Why Obama For President When There’s Erich…?
Posted on 28-Aug-08 at 4:40 pm | Permalink
straw berry wrote:
true bubblegum punk! one of the best singles I heard but on tape only. now finally a rip from the best ripper in the blog world. and it sounds even better!
Posted on 29-Aug-08 at 4:48 am | Permalink
Ape Mummy wrote:
Hot damn. What a pair of scorchers. You’ve done it again, Erich!
Posted on 31-Aug-08 at 9:58 am | Permalink
Pär wrote:
finally got the time to listen to this and I wish I´d waited a bit longer cause this was pretty horrible.
Posted on 03-Sep-08 at 8:26 pm | Permalink
Martin wrote:
This is such an amazing record! Thanks for the insert as well as I never quite got the lyrics to Back to Baatan. The lyrics to the third verse rules!
Posted on 17-Sep-08 at 2:24 am | Permalink