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Stream 'We're Loud: 90s Cassette Punk Unknowns'

We just discovered your new favourite double album LP of obscure 90s garage punk that thankfully includes Lukey and the Chicken Slitz.

As Black Gladiator records “Bazooka” Joe Almeida mentions in the liner notes of We’re Loud: 90s Cassette Punk Unknowns, Las Vegas in the 90s was a place “lousy with bars where you could shake your ass and make your ears bleed to live, screaming punk and garage action on the reg.” Bars like the Double Down Saloon hosted touring national acts such as Cheater Slicks, the Oblivions and Teengenerate and welcomed local bands and colourful local characters far removed from the tourist traps and casinos of the Strip.

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Bazooka tells the story of a guy who spent 100 straight hours in the Double Down walking around with a tissue in his nose to keep blood from leaking on his jacket. He eventually shot someone.

It was the Double Down and Vegas that Jaime Paul Lamb arrived at the end of the 90s after a drug fuelled decade crossing the USA in search of sobriety and people to form rough garage bands to play with and record on his Yamaha MT50.

We’re Loud: 90s Cassette Punk Unknowns is a double album of 33 scuzzy punk tracks from 19 bands taken from Jaime’s national criss cross that took in places like Costa Mesa, Phoenix, Minneapolis, Houston, Tucson and Las Vegas.

Recorded between ’93 and ’99 most of the tracks from bands like Barf Bags, Riky and the Buttz, and Lukey and the Chicken Slitz are taken from micro-released and unreleased cassettes.

The one thing they have in common (besides being totally lo-fi and generally obnoxious) is that Jaime Paul Lamb was either in the bands, recorded them or acquired tapes from them.

Like the recent [Destroy All Art!](http://comp http://noisey.vice.com/blog/destroy-all-art) comp, We’re Loud, released by Black Gladiator / Slovenly, sheds light on obscure garage bands from the 90s. There’s not many other places you are going to hear “Herpes Attack” from the Fucking Pigs.

We had a chat to Jaime Paul Lamb to find out more about the bands involved in the comp.

Noisey: Not many people have heard it as a lot of were such small runs. How small?
Jaime Paul Lamb: I think the largest run of cassette copies was the Heck Yeah's Pappy Sessions tape and there were only, like, 25 or 30 of those made. I think the winners had a small run, as did the crawlers cassette. but certainly not over 20 copies. so, I guess the short answer would be "insanely small runs".

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You have lived in a lot of towns. Which has the best punk scene?
Most people don't even know what punk is but I'm not going to split hairs. I liked the punk scene in Connecticut when I was a kid in the 80s. It was actually what you would call hardcore. It was a lot of fun to go to this place called the Anthrax Club in Norwalk and I used to get buried alive slam dancing and all these sweaty teenage boys stagediving and bodies everywhere and everybody all geeked out on Jolt Cola. It was real teen energy and not that fakey bullshit that people do when they're 45.

Which had the best heroin scene?
I liked the heroin in Phoenix because it was cheap and strong and you get black tar there and good coke for speedballs. It’s not like that bullshit white powder dope you get back east. people out west think it's so great to get Chinese or Persian or Afghani dope - jajaja! Mexican junk is way better. But I haven't done heroin or any drugs in many years. I’m totally clean. I don't smoke grass or cigs and I don't drink at all. I haven't even eaten meat in 10 years.

You have battled with addiction for a long time. Has music helped you? Do you think without heroin your music career could have advanced?
I have no regrets. I’ve had a lot of fun and good times and I’ve gotten to move around a lot. I wouldn't change a thing. Nobody knows what's good or bad anyway. You get a lot of ‘successful’ people who blow they're heads off. I’m not one of these people who approached music as a career anyway. I’m a fan. music has been great to me as an art form because it helps me understand the world. like good art. and I don't have any regrets about junk either. It’s part of my past. the only difference is that now I’m living the kind of life that I don't feel like I have to escape from. I’m into authenticity.

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Songs such as Dismalt’s “Coach Blake”, “Johnny’s Packing a Gun”, “Community Cunt”, “Jenny Was a Christian” are very honest about real people. Do you prefer songs about real people/things?
This guy Danny wrote "Coach Blake". It was about about his middle school gym teacher who punched him in the stomach. That's super punk. Lukey wrote, "Johnny's Packing a Gun" (I wrote the music and played that weird synth keyboard thing) - and I think he wrote that about some ideal cool cat sort of persona that he wanted to be.

I wrote “Community Cunt” about this rockabilly chick who was hanging around and was always down for whatever. She was a really cool chick. Really liberated. I don't know why people are so puritanical about sex. Frankie Violence wrote “Jenny was a Christian" - I’m not sure if that was about a real person. Next time I talk to him I’ll ask.

I know this is a tough question but do you have a favourite on the album?
I’ll go with the Pink Fingers "Man in Pain" but I’ll change my mind in an hour. I can still see singer Kevin Foster standing in my apartment on 32nd Street in Phoenix, holding this Radio Shack mic. Oh my God that mic! I think Danny from Dismalt has it. He was the Crawlers drummer and the Van Buren Wheels original bass player. This has to be the world's most incestuous garage punk compilation!

‘We’re Loud: 90s Cassette Punk Unknowns’ is available Sept 18 through Black Gladiator /Slovenly records.

If you are in the Las Vegas or Greece area get along to one of these shows:
Sept 18 – Las Vegas at the Double Down Saloon, DJ Rex Dart is premiering the album with a one time only performance from Giant Frown featuring Jaime Paul Lamb and members of other bands featured on the LP.

Sept. 18-19: Athens, Greece with The Kids (Belgium), New Bomb Turks (USA), Magnetix (France) and more information here.