The Terrorists 7" Crazy Life/Cry Girl Cry (Rorschach Records 1981)

Howdy everyone, it's been a while. I'd like to start 2012 with my best score of 2011. This 2 songer was quite headache inducing for me ever since I caught wind of it's existence a few years ago. Outside of a couple of folks around Bakersfield, the only other mention of the record that I had heard of was from collector great, Johan Kugelburg, on one of his blog posts. It has flown way below the radar of most collectors due to the simple fact that almost all of the records were thrown away by a band member. Coincidentally, another Bakersfield band and KBD alumni, The Lizerds, had the majority of their record pressing tossed out by a band member as well. Dumping their records wasn't the only thing these two bands had in common as the guitar player of the Lizerds also played on the Terrorists 7". Before I got the low down on the record, I questioned rather or not it even existed. After speaking with a couple of people who were involved in the scene back then and getting conformation that the record did really exist, I felt that getting a copy of my own was a pipe dream. The pressing info that was given to me was that a cringe inducing 107 copies were pressed to which 20 copies were sent to Rough Trade records in San Francisco, while a few copies were given away around town and some tossed out at a show only to be broken and thrown back at the band. Around 1985, a band member threw out the remaining press of between 70 to 80 copies. Out of the 2 songs, Crazy Life is my favorite. In a nut shell, if the guitar player of the Endtables joined the Grim/Klone Band and they dropped the drummer for Metal Urbain's drum machine I think it would sound like Crazy Life. The flip, Cry Girl Cry, falls somewhere between the Minutemen and Pere Ubu with it's bouncing base line and scratchy guitar skronk. Enjoy!

Almost forgot to say thanks to Greg and Chris Goodsell and also to Ronald AKA "Ron Jon Silver" for the background info on this one.

Side A: Crazy Life


Side B: Cry Girl Cry

The Crash Street Kidds 7" Sweet Sally/I Don't Love You Anymore (Self Released 1977)

This 2 songer was unearthed here in Bakersfield a few years ago and I still know nothing about it's origin except for the obvious. I do know that they are not the Minnesota band with the same name who released the "Little Girls" LP in 1982. I'm guessing they got their name from a Mott The Hoople song since the spelling is the same. The A-side is a catchy Power Pop number with Glam overtones that shows the band had chops. The solid drumming and vocal harmonies really stand out on this one. The B-side is a slower Beatles esque ballad with, again, great harmonizing vocals. There is no address on this thing and only 3 last names for the writing credits. I've Googled this thing to death and have found nothing.

Side 1: Sweet Sally


I Don't Love You


Man Killer


The One


UPDATE: With the help of Brian Devereux, members of the Crash Street Kidds have been contacted and their story has finally been unearthed. A big thanks goes to Brian, and band members Dave Warnke and Joey Sparks for the info and photos. CSK were from Porterville California which is a small town between Bakersfield and Fresno. The earliest line up of the band started in 1972 with Dave Warnke and Jeff Gilliam. By 1975 Joey Sparks joined on Bass and Brent Annestad took over on drums which would end up being the line up that recorded the 7". The band gigged around central California mainly playing parties, dances, small clubs and bars. The guys were very into Glam which is pretty obvious by their name but during the mid to late 70's, people around Central California weren't interested in hearing that kind of music. The guys would do covers by everyone from Alice Cooper to the Doobie Brothers, mainly to keep the local yokel satisfied but would also manage to slip in New York Dolls and Velvet Underground covers as well as their own tunes. In 1977 they booked themselves time at a recording studio in Fresno where they laid down the 2 tracks that would make up their one and only release. They sold their records at shows and anywhere else they could. The record was well received and even made it to local radio. The band continued playing up until 1980 and even recorded 2 more songs that they never released which I have uploaded for your listening pleasure. They played their last show on March 8th 1980 at a club in Porterville.