There's no end to overlooked obscure punk seven inches. First there was Sing Sing Records, inspired by Captured Tracks and Rob's House reminding the world about old, fantastic, impossible to find punk singles and Last Laugh followed shortly with their own represses of early '80s punk from all over and now Windian Records has their say in unearthing awesomeness from Syracuse with this Penetrators double sided single of one off's from drummer Curtis Seals and Christian D'Orbit.
Curtis Seals side "The Scandalizer" is winning me over with this sound quality like it was produced by Mike Rep himself, a muddy sax blows into the low end of the track just absolutely buried and almost warbling on this tape transfer. Great organ and lead from Curtis giving this thing that backroom soul feel. That underground gentlemens club that serves way too much alcohol and guys from the neighborhood sing covers with the house band. It's all recorded together with the rest of the band yelling from the background about being 'the best around'. Half weird joke, this starts to fall apart towards the end but they pull it together and nail this raw, stripped down bluesy soul sound with metallic reverb.
Christian D'Orbit does "Drive Me Crazy" opening into a watery phaser chorus guitar under big time jangle and this side is even better with Christian on snotty punk vocals her first line - "I used to be obnoxious!" Even though this feels like it's running the straight and narrow of shuffling pop rock, she wouldn't have anything to do with contemporary music in '81. Even less with her lyric that he's "driving me crazy" and not in a good I'm in love kind of way. I think more like he burned the house down and crashed the car again. Seriously the band is keeping this groovy rhythm as she peaks out the mic and is driven to screaming her lungs out. Both sides are the beat up heart and the soul of The Penetrators...I'm seeing these guys in a new light.
Pick this one up from Windian Records for the very reasonable price of $5.50.
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