Furiouser & Furiouser

Haven't read it yet, so no idea if due credit is given. (Now having scanned it, there's a lot of Frisco crap. What can you expect?)

They were fast, loud and furious – and when things got out of hand the police sent in the snipers. Alexis Petridis pays tribute to America's west coast punks

Points for this:

The music on Black Hole still sounds fresh. You'd search the annals of rock history in vain for anything quite like Black Randy and the Metro Squad. Black Hole features their track Trouble at the Cup, on which the portly Black Randy proudly yowls about life as a rent boy: "Schools and factories make me sick / I'd rather stand here and sell my dick!" It's a long way from the standard, Ramones-influenced chug.

And for the opportunity to run this:

Hey, Mr. Big!

Savage recalls interviewing the Dils: "They had a 'political manager' who talked a load of Marxism. I said, 'Well, what are you going to do when you get a record contract, when you get on telly, when you enter the beast?' And they just looked at me. I thought, 'Oh OK. You're not going to get a recording contract, you're not going to get on telly, that's the way it is here.' It was romantic, this complete outsider subculture releasing 1,000 copies of a 45. You could make your own culture."

Still can, yet it doesn't matter.

Scaring ourself UPDATE, four mins. after posting: "Mr. Big," by the Dils, plays on the shuffle. (And is over before we finish typing this update.)