Surgery
Nationwide

We are at the beginning of the 90s, in a seedy dive in New York. The audience consists of about thirty people, mostly drunk kids in ripped jeans and long hair. A dense cloud of smoke rises in the venue. Poor-quality cigarettes. Beer flows like water. Someone is vomiting right there, on the floor, right in front of the stage. But who the hell cares. Surgery is playing. A wild mosh pit begins. The crowd is too wasted to think about the headbutts and elbows. The band is even more messed up than the few present. It's only rock and roll. I imagine a Surgery concert just like that... and I wish I had been there, in a late 80s Big Apple. Stuck in a seedy bar, getting smacked around by a group of greasy-haired teenagers. A wall of distortions that wipes everything from your mind. It's just fucking rock.

"Nationwide" was released in 1990 by the legendary Amphetamine Reptile Records. 9 alcoholic tracks born from a sick blues ("Maliblues" is the best example) and dissonant. Tons of fuzz and a voice more ungraceful than Mark Arm's. Surgery could be defined as the bastard cousins of Mudhoney, relatives devoid of melody compared to the already not so melodic rockers from Seattle. A band that could have jumped on the bandwagon pulled by Kurt Cobain if only it had been thrown into that deformed cauldron called "grunge". But, you know, life is unpredictable and often screws you over. After 3 albums, almost unnoticed, the singer Sean McDonnell bit the dust due to a ferocious asthma attack. Oblivion. Few came to know that these 4 filthy, drunk, and rowdy guys wrote one of the truest and most adrenaline-charged noise/rock pages of that period. Songs with the punch of "L-7" or "Do it to it Dynamo" don’t get crapped out every day. And neither does a dark and tribal blues like "Highway 109", damn it. Muddy gems that absolutely need to be discovered.

Often, it's the eternal losers who are the true winners... even if they never know it.