In 1979 a four-piece called The Killer Bees put out a 45 on Limp Records. To rank “Buzz’n the Town” as an essential purchase might be overstating the situation, but not by much, for its two songs withstand the test of time with panache, succeeding on energy and clarity of vision as they deliver an inspired reminder of the no-nonsense basics residing at the root of the punk impulse.
During the final three tumultuous years of the 1970s, a whole lot of punk was captured on vinyl. A fair percentage of this surge was issued or distributed by large companies looking to capitalize on a new development in the pop/rock landscape, though as a sound/movement born mainly through social upheaval (while based upon solid historical rudiments) it just as frequently arrived in the retail bins either via upstart independents or enterprising bands taking shared destiny into collective hands and self-releasing to the masses.
A wildly varied phenomenon almost instantaneously, ‘70s punk was in fact so diverse that those trying to get a grip on its essence from the outside could find it a mixed-up and even contradictory experience, which it indeed sometimes was. By extension, any attempt to truncate the glorious messiness of punk’s eruption into a handful of consensus classics is a mistake, and if the selection is limited to or dominated by big label material (especially LPs) the endeavor becomes additionally sketchy.
But as said, the majors did spray out a substantial torrent of the ‘70s gush, often with hardly a clue over exactly what it was they were releasing. This is perhaps why such a high ratio of quality does reside in the punk output of the big(ger) businesses; if those assorted executives and their underlings would’ve had a notion what they were handling they probably would’ve dropped it like flaming spuds.
The major’s productivity remains the most well-known ‘70s punk (this isn’t the case post-1980, the big boys by then having totally abandoned the style), but it ain’t necessarily the best of breed. To the contrary; as the music sputtered commercially, at least in the country that spawned it, some of the finest examples of the genre went largely unnoticed by the public.
Nearly always 45s, these discs remained underneath the radar until the late-‘80s/early-‘90s, when various folks starting bootlegging them on fascinating multi-artist LPs such as the geographically-based Bloodstains series and the Killed by Death volumes. And under the radar they remained, but the latter comps did lend a name to this subgenre of sorts and a handy, commonly abused abbreviation, KBD, to describe the racket.
In the late-‘70s every large city/region fostered a punk underbelly (as did numerous smaller college burgs) and Washington DC/Northern VA/Maryland was no different. While newbies may think the Bad Brains and Dischord Records kicked off punk happenings in DC and its surrounding area, there was already noteworthy activity on wax from units like the Slickee Boys, the DCeats, the Nurses, the Chumps, the Razz, White Boy and the Shirkers.
And prior to Dischord, there was Limp, the label founded by Skip Groff, key scene documentarian and owner/operator of the Yesterday and Today record store, based for decades in Rockville, MD. Not all the punk-leaning units active in or near the District of Columbia circa-’78 to ’82 cut platters for Groff’s imprint, but every band in the preceding paragraph did. And notably more; “In My Eyes,” the blistering second Minor Threat 7-inch was initially a split release between Dischord and Limp.
:30 Over DC, issued by Limp in ’78, endures as one of the most consistently rewarding of the regional compilations documenting the original wave. Two further collections, The Best of Limp (…Rest of Limp) (featuring “Don’t Bother Me,” the first appearance of the Bad Brains) and Connected, are also worthwhile. In 7-inch terms, The Shirkers’ “Drunk and Disorderly” from ’78 and Black Market Baby’s “Potential Suicide” from ’81 rank amongst US punk’s greatest 45s.
Today the highest profile Limp bands (not counting Minor Threat and the Bad Brains, natch) are most likely Black Market Baby and the Slickee Boys, though the Nurses (the dark-pop outfit of long-serving musician/rock scribe/PR guy Howard Wuelfing) did receive a nifty CD-R survey Destroy Your Friends on Chuck Warner’s Hyped 2 Death imprint earlier this century, and the Shirkers’ sole 45, after gradually blossoming into a total KBD monster (and therefore very expensive), landed a well-deserved repressing a few years back.
Recently joining the Shirkers in the land of KBD-related rereleases is The Killer Bees, a DC area quartet that also managed only a solitary Limp 45. Comprised of Joe Schmidt on vocals, Jim Barnett on guitar and the Potts siblings Robert and Steve on drums and bass respectively, their two originals hit the racks in a sleeve with endearingly questionable cover design incorporating a rather dubious title.
For that matter, The Killer Bees as a name is debatable, but as someone who vaguely remembers late-‘70s fears over encroaching swarms of deadly bees, I kinda dig it. It’s not The Fuckin’ Flyin’ A-Heads, but it’s alright. Once chosen however, the temptation to adorn the debut with “Buzz’n the Town” should’ve been reconsidered. On the other hand, these quirky elements do aid in establishing the Bees’ KBD-aura.
Bluntly, nobody was second-guessing and attempting to streamline the Killed by Death-aligned groups for wider consumption. For example, these bands flagrantly frustrate supposed fashion boundaries; singer Schmidt aside, the Bees look more like a bunch of dads than The Damned. And skuzzy audio values and oddball production choices abound in KBD-land, though in The Killer Bees’ case the songs were competently self-produced at a DC studio unimaginatively-monikered Recording Services.
What they achieved there is basic but crucially energetic. Still, certain observers have and obviously will continue to disagree about “Buzz’n the Town”’s level of achievement. Groff’s enterprise was mostly regionally focused and therefore prone to geographical lapses of consistency. The Bees made the connection due to friendship with the Razz; the proprietor apparently had no involvement other than lending his label’s stature to the slab. To repeat, nobody was second-guessing this stuff.
Not everything on Limp is top-notch, but the dismissal of “Buzz’n the Town” by crotchety sticklers as mediocre or worse is a downright suspect point of view. I’ll confess to being eight years old when it first emerged, but even without the benefit of hearing it in ’79 I can deduce that both “T.V. Violence” and “Rock and Roll Hangover” stand up just as well (and probably better) today.
The tracks reveal a seeming disinterest in even a pretense toward originality, and by the end of ‘70s, the Bees might’ve sounded a tad bit retrograde. In a nutshell, they combine a heavy dose of Chuck Berry worship with currents of proto-punk Detroit and first wave Great Britain; the a-side distills it into a potent hunk of ranting and distortion.
It doesn’t climb to the unbeatable heights attained by The Victims’ idiot box-themed punk whopper “Television Addict,” but “T.V. Violence” does hang in there alongside The Normal’s “T.V.O.D,” The Ticks’ warped b-side “TV’s On,” and the Misfits’ “TV Casualty.” From a contemporary vantage point it easily equals The Sods’ “Television Sect” and is definitely fresher in the present than the terribly overplayed “T.V. Party” by Black Flag.
Working in The Killer Bees favor is Barnett’s gunk-laden guitar. The Potts brothers are skilled but never too flashy, and as vocalist Schmidt’s rasp is quite capable, though the words he’s barking out are essentially the 45’s weakest trait. Far from terrible, the lyrics flow pretty well with the raw atmosphere and unlike many KBD outfits they fortunately didn’t neglect the flip.
Where the Berry-isms of “T.V. Violence” reminded me a little of above cited rippers The Damned, “Rock and Roll Hangover” is so Chucked Out that persistent images of the denim-clad post-Sinclair MC5 gallivant in my head. It cements the deftness of the Bees’ execution, containing abundant stop-starts that can only be perfected by showing up for band practice, and it completes a very enjoyable KBD 7-inch.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
B+
