This Is Nothing That We Really Haven't Seen

I remember thinking "what the heck are these guys up to now?" when this record first came out, since the front cover photo is both totally brilliant and totally ridiculous-- not to mention the gatefold sleeve, which to that point was something that mostly only '70s rock stars got to have. There was always an implied amount of glam/camp in Death of Samantha's delivery, but even with keeping that in mind it's still hard to look at that cover without grinning (especially once you notice Steve-O's rinky-dink plastic trident from the budget costume shop).

There are days when I think that "Where The Women Wear The Glory and The Men Wear The Pants"-- taken from a line in "Lucky Dog"-- is Death of Samantha's best LP, but even on the days when it isn't ("Strungout on Jargon" is some tough competition), it's easily their hardest-rocking full length. There's any number of songs here that can kick you square in the balls, most notably "Good Friday", which about the closest D.O.S. ever came to outright metal. Still, it's not staunchly rock 'n roll all the way through; for example, the Doug Gillard-penned "That's All That Matters" and a cover of Peter Laughner's "Sylvia Plath" show some pretty good restraint. I won't bother posting any of the acoustic stuff now, though, since I know most of you don't have the attention span for it. I think a link to the entire album is still active on Panzan's Blog, if you want to hear the rest of the songs.

The clarinet/raw skronk found on a couple of D.O.S.'s earlier discs isn't as prevalent here (but not completely missing), although there's still some weirdo moments, like the car-honk "doo doo doo doo doo" backing vocals that all of a sudden pop up towards the end of "Savior City"; try not to laugh when you first hear them. Petkovic manages to toss out his usual fair share of lyrical references and one-liners, with my particular favorite being from "Staring Through It Now": "Hey, Mr. Has-Been/Your hair ain't as long as it used to be/Hey, David Crosby/Your brain is fried as it used to be". Anything that makes fun of hippies is okay in my book.




Death of Samantha -

"Harlequin Tragedy"

"Good Friday"

"Savior City"

"Staring Through It Now"

"Lucky Dog (Lost My Pride)"

Let's Cut Away The Skin That We Don't Need

As someone who dug the big rock action of Death of Samantha's "Coca Cola & Licorice" single a whole lot, the monster riff of "Blood & Shaving Cream" (which practically references directly back to "Coca Cola & Licorice") made this EP a welcome sight when it first showed up in my P.O box ages ago. "Laughing In The Face of a Dead Man" could be the toughest-sounding Death of Samantha release out of all of them, being straight rock almost all of the way through (save for a little goofing around at the end); project "Yellow Fever" ahead a few years and it could fit on a Humpers single, even. Keep your ears peeled for "sorry I'm late but I got held up at the bank", another great Petkovic throwaway line... standard operating procedure means that they would cover "Werewolves of London" and turn that jogging, happy melody into a complete mess entirely, of course.




Death of Samantha -

"Blood & Shaving Cream"

"Werewolves of London"

"Yellow Fever"

I'll Just Drink All The Time

"Come Al Ye Faithless" is the one Death of Samantha LP with the slimmest number of standout tracks, and "Rosenberg Summer" isn't one of them (you can disagree if you'd like). However, the b-side to this single finds D.O.S. giving Bowie's stuffy "Heroes" the big rock treatment, and even though I'm not normally one for six-minute rock epics (unless Damon Che is somehow involved), this one's got the horses as far as I'm concerned. It was around this time that Doug Gillard became cemented in my mind as a guitar player that I particularly wanted to listen to.




Death of Samantha -

"Heroes"

(this file is now listen-only)

Going From Parallel To Perilous

This here is some amazing shit, and I know it seems like I say that about everything I post (except for maybe that Noiseville comp-- shit was terrible), but in this case I mean it. If "Strungout On Jargon" doesn't make it into my top ten records of all time, well, the competition's pretty fierce-- hell, it might not even make it into the top ten Homestead releases of 1986, if only because the Dogmatics record was just that friggin' good* (and I may never get back the $8.98 I spent on "Break It Up", either, I'm just starting to find out now).

But seriously, though, this is some amazing shit. I've yet to nail down John Petkovic's delivery, how he sounds like he's making up the words as he goes along (apparently Death of Samantha recorded this album live in six hours-- okay, sure) or else he's about ready to break into a croon at any minute, but that's half the party. It's hard not to chuckle when Petkovic shouts, "Hey, Jim Krane, check this one out!" as the intro to "Bed of Fire" (one of the tracks I've left off here, you'll have to own the album to hear it), or when he completes a line by actually saying "he completes the line" in "Simple as That". "Take this from simple soul", there's another one.

Petkovic may wander but he knows what he's doing, as all the songs here clock in at around a tidy three minutes or less, save "Couldn't Forget 'bout that (one item)", which is pretty great anyway. It all comes down to Doug Gillard's amazing guitar playing, and Steve-O's drumming, which at times can be suprisingly fluid and rock solid, I mean, for a guy who's probably wearing a muumuu. I might not have listened to enough Velvet Underground or Pere Ubu or Rocket From The Tombs growing up, but at least I knew what they sounded like, and besides, Death of Samantha came along and brought them all together, which saved me the trouble.

"Coca Cola & Licorice" and "Simple as That", the two lead-off tracks, also appeared as singles; I'd posted the "Coca Cola & Licorice" 45 a while ago, but the LP rip is better (the 45 crackles), so forget about the other one.

*that's a joke, son, The Dogmatics really sucked




Death of Samantha -

"Coca Cola & Licorice"

"Simple as That"

"Ham & Eggs 99c"

"Conviction"

"Grapeland (I'm getting sick)"

"Sexual Dreaming"

"Couldn't Forget 'bout that (one item)"

(these files are now listen-only)

One Two Three Steps And You're Cured

This record didn't sink in with me right away when I first bought it (note the original Brass City Records price sticker up in the corner, which I tried to peel off unsuccessfully 20-plus years ago), but luckily I still had it filed away when sometime later I read a review of "Coca Cola & Licorice" in Forced Exposure. The review basically said, "Didn't strike me at first, but now I can't stop playing it", so I pulled the record out again, and whaddya know, the guy was right. Hopefully a few plays right now will help lead you to the same conclusion:

"This here is a motherfucking jam." *college-rock speak so that you'll get it

Of course, Death of Samantha went on to make some incredibly rocking LPs for Homestead (a couple of which I still have, so get ready for more of that action later), which, along with the primo "They Pelted Us With Rocks and Garbage" compilation, really jump-started the whole Cleveland thing for me. I eventually owned something like 8 of the first 10 singles on St. Valentine, and CLE bands like Starvation Army and the almighty Prisonshake became some of my all-time favorites.

Now that I think about it, that was one of the few times reading Forced Exposure ever did me any good, even.




Death of Samantha -

"Coca Cola & Licorice"

"Listen to The Mockingbird"

(these files are now listen-only)