Rarely do you even get a chance to hear long forgotten punk single like this from1980 let alone get a first hand account of the recording session from the guitarist Joey Pinter himself! I have to hand it to the Attacking The Beat blog who comprehensively covered this single and Joey’s history from first hitting the streets of NY long before the Knots even got going. It’s a fascinating look into this single, and ultimately is what makes this release so great. Hearing about those details, from almost getting signed by Seymour Stein to the vinyl run mistake only makes this crazy snapshot of pop punk NY better. Remember, if you need a way to justify picking this up, Harry at Almost Ready is saving you something like $600 on ebay and hopefully Joey finally got a copy of his own single.
The A-Side "Heartbreaker" opens with warm, slightly distorted chords with a big compressed echo on the vocals. It's got an early '80s super pop sound, but a gritty solo drags this back to the 70’s throwing gravel all over this shiny beginning. It’s even sounding glam with this layered vocal with all of the attitude on that sleeve photo. Crazy synth bleeerps in at the end of this, sealing up that cars sound*. (Go read that interview at ATB for the story on this – ed)
B-Side’s "Action” has a great riff to kick this off, easily the better of the two in my book, somehow clearer and driving right down the highway center line of glam punk. This is a mostly punk, stripped down guitar that you don't need effects on a melody this great. The chorus 'all I wanted was ACTION baby' is killer, the hand claps and solo… it completely rocks headbands and all, simultaneously tough and anthemic glam. They throw some phaser on that distortion to break up the chords, with the punch of those drums and guitar rhythmically falling in perfect line, a staccato punching machine gun as minimal as possible. A solid punk single with equal parts snarling attitude and eyeliner.
From Last Laugh Records.
(I'll be damned if it isn't out of print again! Email Harry anyways, it might get him to do yet another repress)
or you can email joey at knots77heartbreaker@gmail.com if any one else is interested in repressing this.
ReplyDelete