various artists - Monitor This! April / May 09

This comes to us courtesy of the Missus' record collection. She brought some truly exceptional recordings to our now-shared collection. And some pieces like this, a freebie that came with purchase of an associated title. I would hope that she purchased Doves' "Kingdom Of Rust"; I fear it was instead Rocco DeLuca & The Burden's "Mercy".

So why share something I mostly don't care about? Well, in the course of researching this series, I uncovered that this was the audio giveaway from the Record Exchange, a branch of which was the first record store I ever spent my hard earned dollars. I bought my first Fugazi record from the Record Exchange in Roanoke, along with demo tapes for a bunch of mostly-forgotten alternative and punk bands from south-western Virginia. "Music Monitor" was just as important a source of information as "Rolling Stone", "HeartattaCk", and "Maximum Rock & Roll". So this sampler, headlined (for me, at least) by Doves, Diana Krall, and Lady Sovereign, brought back a few fond memories of well-spent youth, digging in the crates and discovering a world I knew little about.

Discogs

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Swank - Bound

Most of us didn't grow up on the Upper West Side, or taking the train into Boys Town, or sneaking in from the Valley. Mostly, we lived in small towns, on farms, in suburbs without distinction. We felt "off", which is why so many of us caught the first thing leaving town to chase a punk rock dream come true.

Not long after I learned about Fugazi and Bad Religion in the early 90s, I got turned onto what was happening in my town. There was Surge, whose singer was in my drama class with me. There was Suppression, who had two songs on a cassette comp with Surge and whose power violence made Megadeth sound like baroque pop. And then there were Swank, who all went to different high schools from me, but were literally the band to see in Roanoke. They became the link to the outside world; if they played with an out-of-town band, I checked them out, because they probably were awesome. When I moved from southwestern Virginia to suburban Baltimore, they became a bona fide. I could tell another kid who was into Maximum Rock 'n' Roll or Flipside that they were who I went to see back home. They were a common point of reference.

Their second full-length, "Bound", came out the fall I graduated from high school. I saw a Whirled Records ad in HeartattaCk promoting it and an Action Patrol record, and plunked down $10 to get both. They were the first people I'd ever met who put out a CD! So cool! And they'd play alongside all these bands from Florida and New York City, who ended up putting out records with No Idea and Moon Ska. I last "saw" them on a bill in College Park, MD, in 1999. They opened for (ahem) Leatherface, Hot Water Music, and Panthro UK United 13. I was broke as shit, so I sat outside during their set, listening in, then split and drank alone.

All of this is a long way around the block to mention that Swank got back together last year and released a new record, sans saxophonist and The Fest founder Tony Weinbender.. I just ordered a copy, unheard, because that's what you do when a band from 25+ years in your past puts out a new album. While I wait for it to arrive, here's "Bound" in its entirety. You'll probably dig it if you enjoy 90s punk weirdness, early 3rd wave skapunk, or kids channelling the Big Boys.

Get your nuts off.

Discogs / Bandcamp

Click here to download.