DMZ - Relics (Voxx - 1981)

The first ever record i bought from the Lyres was "A Promise Is A Promise". I promised you things by Jeff & Co. so let's start. To this day i still can't pick out a record from Jeff as my favorite. However I know well that one of my first perseverance's were DMZ. An early literature work of how rock n' roll should sound in the 70s. A study on what is punk and who were his grandfathers. As i said many times here, when i was in my teens the calendar wrote 1992... It wasn't easy to find records like this in a country so many thousand miles away from the east coast of the United States in the heart of the grunge craze. So it took me long time to find and complete the discography of these Boston legends. This Voxx LP was my first hit. I still remember clearly how my eyes got out when i saw it packed in a chain of other records. Never got a second thought. I spend my pin money quickly and ran home to hear this platter. Four songs here produced by Craig Leon, later known from the works he did with the Ramones. The other five are 4-track rough n' wild demos and all together a sexist and fun-y punkadelic beast that even today has no rival. Their version of  the Standells' "Barracuda" is my favorite ever. No one ever got even close to this. 13th Floor Elevators well known now (not then) standard "You're Gonna Miss Me" is sure sodden but not on psychedelics, full on speed n' amphetamines and don't forget that Monster Magnet stole "Busy Man"'s intro for their hit "Powertrip". "Can't Stand The Pain" is the Pretty Things classic and who ever can overlook the Conolly penned punk vignette "Lift Up Your Hood"?
These songs re-released by Bomp! (Voxx's parent label) on CD many years before as "When I Get Off" and my eye just caught that the same label recently put out the same LP this time on big fat 180 gr. vinyl. Hurry up. As i like to say, you must own music like this! This is a vinyl rip that i did quickly this afternoon, of course on 320 Kbps. Taste the vinyl scratches on digital format!

When I Get Off