Crime
San Francisco's STILL Doomed

THE REVIEW

Dear DeBaseriano, have you ever found yourself falling in love with a band's image? It happened to me with Crime, and so the first piece of advice I can give you, if you don't know this band yet, is to search online for their iconographic material, from the covers of the (few) published records, to the concert posters, to the flyers... Whether they're dressed as 1940s gangsters or in the uniforms of the local San Francisco police, captured in an auteur black and white, they appear as credible protagonists of a hard-boiled novel à la Dashiell Hammett.

Johnny Strike, Frankie Fix, Ron "The Ripper," and Hank Rank proclaimed themselves the first and only rock'n'roll band in San Francisco. Arrogant and boastful enough, but also aware of their own greatness.

Because they were among the greatest, despite a rather scant official discography, comprising only two singles, the explosive «Hot Wire My Heart / Baby You're So Repulsive» from 1976 and «Murder By Guitar / Frustration» from 1977; in fact, there is also a third single, the (in my opinion) dispensable «Maserati / Gangster Funk» from 1980.

And yet, to testify to the band's value are also, and above all, the many other episodes that at the time remained locked away: from «San Francisco's Doomed» to «Rock'n'Roll Enemy No. 1», from «Crime Wave» to «Piss On Your Dog», these are just some of the diamonds brought to the surface with this anthology, as evidence of an undeniable talent.

It is true, they are rough diamonds (since the recording quality isn't the best), but there are cases where perfection and sound cleanliness as well as precise execution are certainly not a flaw; and this is the case with Crime, indeed.

Crime played punk, and indeed you might find them cataloged in some anthology of the genre. But they were more punk in attitude than in substance: theirs was in fact a blend of ancient flavors, from blues and '50s rock, filtered through the urgency and tension of '77. To give an idea, I think that if the Rolling Stones had been infected by the punk wave, then instead of «Exile On Main Street» they might have produced any of the tracks in this anthology; but I am equally convinced that when Jon Spencer played «Now I Got Worry», he kept Crime's lesson very much in mind.

Paraphrasing a definition stuck to the aforementioned Stones by someone who understands much more than me, Crime really sounded «filthy and nauseating», perhaps rightly so «The first and only rock'n'roll band in San Francisco».