Junkyard - S/T (Geffen, 1989)
Current Gemm price: $1.00-$47.31
Price I paid: I don't, $8.99 or something, at Strawberries, or some such nonsense.
Worth: Every Cent.
By: Sascha
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I put this on the turntable with some apprehension tonight, having not listened to it in at least twelve years. I remember it as being good. But this…damned if I wasn't leaping around my apartment, flailing around on my air guitar and bawling out the choruses as if I was a underpaid and underlaid busboy. Which is what I was when I bought this, spending days lusting after the Boston University queens whose tables I cleared in a Kenmore Square eatery, and evenings in a Red Man and Brass Monkey induced stupor.

I'm getting ahead of myself though. There were a lot of people around in '89 who probably wanted this record to suck. After all, here was major label debut by a band that possessed not one but three members of beloved hardcore bands. On lead and rhythm you had Brian Baker, formerly of Washington D.C. giants Minor Threat. Baker had also slung his axe for the likes of Dag Nasty and The Meatmen. The nay-sayers were already in full effect at seeing pics of a long haired, leather clad Baker sitting at a bar on the back cover of this. I mean, Baker had been part of the quartet who had brought us "Straight Edge", for God's Sake! On lead guitar you had Chris Gates, formerly of Austin's Big Boys, another deserving punk legend. The Big Boys had also dabbled with horn sections and popping bass long before it became fashionable for White Boys to do so, big or otherwise. (Check out "Lullabies Help The Brain Grow" for a nice taste of their unique sound ). That alone would have been impressive, but Gates had also played in sleaze rockers extraordinaire Poison 13, a band that sounded like Lux Interior's wet dream. To cap it off, you had Patrick Muzingo of Angeleno thrashers Decry, whose attempt at hitting the big time with an Aerosmith influenced sound a few years prior had gotten them nothing but a whole lot of grief.

Of course, by 1989, scores of former punk and hardcore bands were playing hard rock or heavy metal, having grown out their hair and shrugged off some of the constraints of their past efforts. But Junkyard really pushed the envelope, even by those standards. And with labels desperate to sign the next Guns & Roses, this record smacked of bandwagon jumping.

But Junkyard proved to be even more the sum of their formidable parts. This is record is far from a lame Hollywood strip G'N'R wannabe some dismissed it as. Vocalist Michael Roach wails like his free drink tickets depend on it, and Clay Anthony's bass playing sounds equally possessed. As for Baker, Gates, and Muzingo, they have never sounded better. Tom Werman's pristine (but not sterile) production easily brings the frantic playing into clear focus, leaving us with an album that would have been huge if we lived in a kinder place.

It's the songs though, not the controversy or pedigree that puts this record right over the top. From the opening slash of "Blooze" on, side one of this disc doesn't even let the listener catch his or her breath for a moment. "Drive" has more hooks than a bait and tackle shop. "Simple Man" is a muscular Hammond-laced ballad that updates the essential idea of the old Lyrnd Skynrd song. When Roach snarls : "I never took anything from you babe, that I couldn't repay twice", you can only nod your head in agreement. "Shot In the Dark" rips, and the debut single, "Hollywood", is as much a roaring good and sleazy time as the title suggests. The gang shouted choruses utilized by the group remind us that the difference between heartfelt rock and heartfelt punk is really not that great.The flip side also boasts some great numbers with "Life Sentence", "Long Way Home" and the acidic "Hands Off", wherein Roach confronts his floozy giving head to his best friend. ("To think I tried to some kind of Woody Allen guy and said 'you can have your space'", he laments). A few of the other songs lapse a bit into the age old problem of not being able to duplicate the energy of side one--yes, there was an era of sides ago--but nonetheless, there is nothing you could call a bad track.

I'd love to be able to say these guys were amazing live, but sadly I'd be lying. Perhaps it was an off night, but when I saw them at The Channel in the fall of 1990, the quintet seemed decidedly sluggish. Junkyard were upstaged by equally underrated peers Little Caesar and soon enough this record was gathering dust in my collection.

I never kept track of what happened to the band. As Sleazegrinder has pointed out in one of his more recent slabbage columns, some incarnation of the group recently released an ep. Probably Junkyard spent the early 1990's imploding like so many other bands that never get their big break, whether they deserve it or not. Junkyard certainly deserved that break though, and fourteen years later, this is still a monster of a record.

Further: Junkyard official website

-Sascha

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