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I’m swamped this week, so I’ll keep my staff pick short. It’s a record I first heard many years ago, but has re-entered my world from a few different directions lately:
Legionaire’s Disease Band: Rather See You Dead (Than With Wool on Your Head) 7” (Lunar Lab Records, 1979)
I can’t remember whether I first heard Legionaire’s Disease Band on Bloodstains Across Texas or Killed by Death #12, but the a-side of this single is a song I associate with my initial dive into the deep end of KBD-style punk. For me, the seminal Killed by Death-style songs are usually totally over the top, to the point where they can sometimes be a bit goofy. I’m thinking of songs like the Nubs’ “Job,” the Mad’s “I Hate Music” (RIP Screaming Mad George!), the Freeze’s “I Hate Tourists,” and Freestone’s “Bummer Bitch.” While I wouldn’t say “Rather See You Dead” flirts with goofiness, the song’s chorus—an apparently wordless, vomit-like scream—is definitely over the top. While that scream is the highlight, the song’s main riff is badass too. It’s basically the as Zero Boys’ “Civlization’s Dying” (which came out two years after this) with some chunky palm muting steering it more toward Dead Boys / (Detroit) Dogs-type menace. The b-side rips too. While it doesn’t have the over-the-top quality of “Rather See You Dead,” it’s similarly heavy and nasty-sounding.
There are few original Killed by Death-type records I’ve ever hoped to own. I’ve lucked into a handful of things over the years—Public Disturbance’s S&M, the second single by the Eat—but I’ve never really pursued KBD originals the way I seek out original hardcore records. I just assume almost those records are astronomically expensive, so when I walked into Vinyl Conflict earlier this summer and saw a copy of Rather See You Dead on the wall for $50, I assumed it was a reissue. Actually, it was, kind of… a minty copy of the second pressing from 1979. The original self-released pressing (which came out earlier in ’79) is pretty expensive (current Discogs median: $160.92), but the second pressing goes for a fraction of that. To me, that seems silly. Yes, it’s on a different label, but to me a record that came out the same year as the first pressing is still an original, and I can assure you my copy sounds great. I can’t imagine upgrading to a first press would bring much additional joy into my life.
I’d been rocking my new-to-me copy of “Rather See You Dead” for a few weeks when Zack from the 185 Miles South podcast asked me to be a guest on an episode discussing his top 100 punk records of the 1970s. The episode hasn’t aired yet, so you’ll have to wait to see his full list. Hopefully, though, Zack won’t mind me telling you he ranked “Rather See You Dead” quite high. When he talked about the record during our discussion, he was clearly smitten with it, which made me stoked to listen to it even more. Zack’s analysis of music is so detailed and thoughtful that it often prompts me to hear records I’ve known for a long time in a different, fresh way.
While the episode on Zack’s 100 favorite punk records of the 70s hasn’t aired yet, he also covered Legionaire’s Disease Band in a feature called Six No Skips that appears on the 185 Miles South Substack (there’s also an audio version of the feature on their Patreon feed… behind the dreaded paywall (bwah ha ha ha ha)). You can read Six No Skips #4 here, and be sure to make it to the part where Legionaire’s Disease Band’s singer fakes his own death as part of a scheme to promote the record. What a wild man.
If you haven’t heard this single, check out the a-side here and the b-side here.
Until next week…