DMZ
When I Get Off

At school, they taught me that when doing an addition or a multiplication, changing the order of the numbers doesn't change the result, and thus 3 + 5 is 8 just like 5 + 3, or 3 x 5 is 15 the same way as 5 x 3. Maybe if they had taught me better the use of the Italian language...

But aside from that, as years passed, I discovered that in the musical field that shocking little math rule doesn’t really hold.

Take garage-punk (there we go); it's definitely not the same thing as punk-garage.

For example, I have loads of garage-punk records, from the Gravedigger V to the Lime Spiders, from the Wylde Mammoths to the Electric Shields: they are always bands that play '60s garage blending it with '77 punk energy.

As for punk-garage, on the other hand, I have very little: right off the bat, or rather seated at my computer, only «When I Get Off» by DMZ comes to mind. And here it’s a punk band that plays punk mixing it with garage sounds from ten years earlier; and what comes out is very different from garage-punk, indeed.

A bit of history is needed here, as I suspect few know DMZ and those who do maybe only know them for being the precursors to the more famous Lyres.

So, DMZ formed in Boston at the beginning of 1976, and in less than two years they changed formation five or six times: among the various members, the one well remembered even today is the singer and keyboardist Jeff Conolly and, less so, bassist Rick Coraccio, who with Conolly went on to form the Lyres in 1979.

I hope there's no need to explain who Jeff Conolly is to the majority of those reading; to the unfortunate souls who have never seen the Light, I’ll just say that Jeff is a true institution of the most uncompromising punk-garage, so much so that he boasts the nickname "Monoman", which I’m not entirely sure if it stands for "monomaniac" or "man who records only in mono", but anyway... And above all, he is the author with the Lyres of three of the greatest anthems of the genre: one, two, and three. The Lyres, however, compared to DMZ, reversed the crucial terms and are a classic, great garage-punk band.

The DMZ, I reiterate, play punk-garage and if anyone still hasn't grasped the difference, just listen to «Busy Man», the track that opens «When I Get Off». More than a track, it's a monstrous one, an overwhelming masterpiece that shatters eardrums with a lethal riff halfway between a «Search & Destroy» (no need for a link, right?) and any chosen nugget (for me «Don't Look Back» by the Remains and «I Need You» by the Rationals, above all). And already here, there is enough to justify the five stars I’ve slapped on the album.

But it’s only shortly after that DMZ really start to look for destruction, determined not to take prisoners, and pull out a «You’re Gonna Miss Me» that’s a scream, so derailing and unhinged as to degrade the Birdman version to a hymn for well-behaved girls: a simply sensational cover! And here I’ll stop, because I'm already in orbit.

Or not, since I already hear the pleas of you DeBaserians imploring «Come on Pinhead, tell us something else, as only you can do». It’s never enough for you!

Alright then, but I’ll only tell you that in «When I Get Off», in addition to all the studio/live material recorded for Bomp Records between 1976 and 1978, there is also «Can't Stand The Pain», «Barracuda», and «Are You Gonna Be There», in order Pretty Things, Standells, and Chocolate Watchband: just to level even the ruins and finish off anyone still breathing.

As the unfortunate Flo & Eddie deserve for having tamed the original fury of DMZ in the homonymous (and unique) lp: but how can one entrust the production of such cavemen to two with faces like that?

Death to false punksters & garagers!