Smart Dads: Bummer Summer 12″

Description

In our humble opinion, San Antonio, Texas the Smart Dads are the embodiment of lo-fi cassette punk at its finest. This LP contains the only recorded output by this short-lived group of military school misfits, who self-released a 7-track cassette in 1982 with an obnoxious 7-sized insert, inconveniently housed in an oversized zip-lock bag with a badge clipped to the front. The title track or any of the other 6 tracks, for that matter would have found the perfect home on Bloodstains Across Texas or any of the Killed By Death volumes, had it made it to vinyl during the bands original tenure. This record is a testament to what we at Radio Raheem HQ love 100% junk, full-on punk, completely sincere, and scarcely heard.

Our take: Radio Raheem Records works their magic again, this time on a real obscurity: a 1982 cassette from this band out of San Antonio, Texas. While I have heard of a couple of the projects that Smart Dads members went on tothe underrated Bang Gang as well as Hickoidsthis was totally new to me, and unlike a lot of stuff thats been dug up in the past few years this is fuckin great! Despite the rather late date on this one, Smart Dads sound way more 77 than 82 to my ears, with nary a trace of hardcore in their sound and a whole bunch of big riffs and choruses that betray both their love of the Ramones and Sex Pistols as well as the classic rock they no doubt grew up on. Of course theres a sprinkling of the weirdness that I associate with early Texas punk, but at their core these are just amped-up, energetic rock songs, and really good ones at that. The best of the bunch is the title track, which leads off the tape with its massive chorus hook, but the whole thing is solid. Had they been from a city with more of a punk infrastructure I have no doubt that Smart Dads had a classic punk single in them (if they were from California they seem like theyd be a shoe-in for Dangerhouse), but Ill take this snazzy-looking one-sided 12, cassette transfer issues and all. Oh, and since this is on Radio Raheem of course you get an extensive, full-color booklet jam-packed with photos, flyers, and interesting liner notes. Definitely in the top tier of recent punk rock archaeological finds.