Free MP3 : The Wards and their Weapon Factory …
Posted on April 9, 2003 at 9:14 am | No Comments
The other day, world tensions put me in a mid-80s state of mind. Global instability, nuclear fears, and all that Reagan-era jazz. A paranoid teenager who wasn’t allowed to watch The Day After, who fantasized that the W.O.P.R. was real.
All that paranoia, somehow, got me thinking about mid-eighties punk, and more specifically, a band that not only helped me learn what punk rock was, but showed me it could come from your own hometown. I was 16, living in Vermont suburbia, and making the sudden, life-saving switch from mainstream radio over to the Cure, the Smiths, U2, and REM. College radio helped me dig even deeper, and the UVM station, WRUV, was always playing the hell out of this band called The Wards. “Burlington, Vermont punk rock”. I didn’t even know there was such a thing until ‘RUV told me so. Given the state of VT radio at the time, I was just lucky to have heard The Clash, and that was punk to me… not a bunch of guys playing downtown at the teen center. Then I discovered that was obviously the entire point of punk… the oft-repeated “anyone, anywhere could do it”. Should do it. Doesn’t matter if you can’t play, if you’ve only got one riff, one thing to say in one short, simple song. Just say it like you mean it.
In 1983, the Wards had released the seminal seven-inch “The World Ain’t Pretty and Neither Are We“. 10 songs, mushroom cloud on the black and white cover, blue vinyl inside. 1000 copies made at most, and never reprinted. “Reagan”, “The Ghetto”, “Weapon Factory”. Reactionary, message-driven, straight-to-the-point songs that get in, do their thing, and get out quick. I dug this sucker out the other day, and while some of the delivery is a little goofy in retrospect, and a couple songs are pretty damn dated, it still brings back a lot for me.
In the spirit of sharing, and in the spirit of ‘preemptive strikes’, continued bombing runs, and failed weapons inspections, I give you seminal Wards song “Weapon Factory“, converted straight from blue vinyl to mp3. Take one riff, rinse, and and repeat. I challenge you to find a more impassioned cry out against “no coffee breaks!” on wax.
Happy Birthday, Mr. Saunders / A Good Week for New Music …
Posted on April 7, 2003 at 12:48 pm | No Comments
A Hearty Happy Birthday shoutout to Matt, my former (and hopefully, someday, future) rhythm section pardner and future lawyer-boy. If the high price of heating oil still has you down, Matt, you can just use the heat from the candles on your cake, old man. Good luck on your big oral exam, and drink an extra one for me tonight, will ya?…
I haven’t bought a new cd in awhile… not since the new Throwing Muses, Kristin Hersh, and Ted Leo discs came out last month, anyway. Trying to be frugal and all that. Tomorrow, however, it looks like I’m going to have to break open the piggy bank…
New Portastatic, new Yo La Tengo, new Essex Green (which I’ve heard and is just absolute genius), not to mention the already-out Nada Surf, which Chris sold me on with a gushing email the other day. When Chris gushes, it usually pays to listen.