The Blasting Concept Volume II

The Blasting Concept Volume II

1985

SST Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Saint Vitus: Look Behind You  2.  DC3: Theme From an Imaginary Western  3. SWA: Mystery Girl  4. Black Flag: I Can See You  5. Gone: Watch the Tractor   6. Würm: Death Ride  7. Overkill: Over the Edge  8. Saccharine Trust: Emotions and Anatomy  9. Painted Willie: The Big Time  10. Angst: Just Me   11. Meat Puppets: I Just Want to Make Love to You  12. Minutemen: Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love (Uncensored Version)  13. Husker Du: Erase Today  14. October Faction: I Was Grotesque  15. Tom Troccoli's Dog: Todo Para Mi


A 1985 SST compilation album that doesn't get a lot of love...This first "Blasting Concept" (released in '83) had 4 Minutemen tracks, 2 Meat Puppets tracks, 3 Black Flag tracks, and assorted one-offs from a small handful of other bands including Husker Du...In short, SST at its absolute peak with its very best bands on display...Volume II? A metric fuckton of Greg Ginn and Chuck Dukowksi side projects...

I know Greg Ginn can be a pretty divisive subject in the punk scene, with his lawsuits, constantly running mouth and bizarre guitar style, so if you're not down with Ginn and his skronky metal-sludge leanings then you might not want to touch this with a 10-foot pole...Greg and Chuck are pictured in almost every group shot on the album's back cover....

You must also accept that by 1985, SST Records (arguably the best punk label in the world at the time) had largely abandoned punk for sludge metal...If you can't stomach sludge metal or Greg Ginn noodling, this is going to gall you to no end...

And the bands from SST's golden era that do show up here tend to not do a whole lot with their timslots...The Minutemen show up with a cover of Van Halen's "Ain't Talkin' Bout Love" that already appeared on "Double Nickels on the Dime," although this version has altered lyrics and is longer than the Double Nickels version, so it's worth checking out...The Meat Puppets contribute an indeterminable cover of "I Just Want to Make Love to You," that on paper sounds like it should be a knockout, but in reality is so sloppy and endless that it's hard not to be relieved when it's done...Black Flag is represented by the "Loose Nut" album track "I Can See You," which is quite possibly my least favorite song from that album...The only old-school SST band that really pulls through though is Husker Du with "Erase Today," which I can't believe was a "New Day Rising" outtake...As  much as I love "New Day Rising," that album seriously peters out by the middle of side two...I had always assumed they were utterly and completely out of songs by the time "How to Skin a Cat" comes around,but nope...They had a good blast of pop hardcore they were holding out on us...

But if you're into sludgy punk/metal there's some neat stuff. First and foremost, Saint Vitus doing an earlier version of "Look Behind You" with original vocalist Scott Reagers. I love Reagers-era Saint Vitus! Back when they sounded like Black Sabbath fronted by Eric Bloom! Do people still vastly prefer Wino over Scott Reagers? If so, this might sound like blasphemy, but I like this version much better...Overkill is also here, with some Motorhead-ish metal/punk that I enjoy very much...

 Outside of the jangly punksters Angst (who are kinda awesome), the spoken word pretentiousness of Saccharine Trust, and the mildly interesting Painted Willie, the remainder of the album is all Black Flag Alumni: Dez Cadena's band DC3 unspools an epic (and poorly sung) Mountain cover...We have Chuck Dukowski in both SWA's "Mystery Girl" (which is grubby hair metal, which you're guaranteed to despise if you have no taste whatsoever for the genre (and don't beat yourself up too much if you haven't acquired that taste)) and Würm's "Death Ride" (which is a pretty fun slice of heaviness)...Then we have a large volume of Greg Ginn side projects (some with Dukowski), the best being Gone's instrumental "Watch the Tractor" that would have made for a killer late-era Black Flag track if they had thrown a Henry Rollins vocal on top of it...Low point? Probably October Faction's "I Was Grotesque" that tries to steal some of Saccharine Trust's pretentiousness...The vocals on "Todo Para Mi" by Tom Troccoli's Dog are almost as irritating but as least there's a bit of groove going on in the instrumentation...That poppin' bass is almost a dealbreaker, though...

Ultimately, I'd say the good (narrowly) outweighs the bad and this is a decent comp if you can get it cheap ($3.49 is printed on the cover and the record store I bought it at decided to honor that pricing, even in 2015)...Historically relevant if you want a firsthand listen to the decline of SST records...Still, there's some unreleased tracks by some of the greats (that Husker Du song is worth the $3.49) and if everything isn't great at least it's almost always interesting...