KILLED BY PHIL COLLINS

Most of you who were around back then will agree that, music-wise, the mid-late 80's were a pretty dire time. Take a look at the 1987-88 charts and what you see is the very worst shit in the history of shit; if it wasn't assembly-line disco by Stock, Aitken and Waterman, it was syrupy balladry by old troopers like that Al Bundy-lookalike out of the Righteous Brothers, or the omnipresent Phil Collins. However, the worst thing about those years was the fact that the punk scene sucked just as bad. Hardcore, which was great up until about 1984, morphed into bad metal and weak careerist rock. There was the start of Emo, which basically amounted to 1 great LP (Rites of Spring); after that, 1,000 Echo and the Bunnymen-soundalikes. The garage scene at the time I didn't care much for, to me it seemed mostly about having the right haircuts.
Sure, there were a couple of great bands around, but even with a decent band their record would probably sound like overproduced shit. So I spent most of the mid-to-late eighties in a kind of virtual seventies, digging up every record from the early punk era (and before) that I could find.
It wouldn't be until the early 90's and the bootlegging of obscure early punk on comps like Killed By Death #1 until #5,894 that some kind of "KBD" primitivo punk esthetic was formed. Suddenly, records by local bands like Shith and Obsessions that I used to see piled up in stacks around here for years became collectors' items.
It was also at that time that a bunch of great new bands like New Bomb Turks and Devil Dogs came on the scene. I think it was MaximumRock'nRoll who declared the New Bomb Turks' Destroy-Oh-Boy LP "best punk record of 1992 and the preceding 5 years". Well, that was what it felt like!
But I guess in a couple of years someone will put a bunch of great punk obscurities from the wilderness years of 1985-1989 on a series of bootlegs called Killed By Phil Collins or whatever. I know at least one song that's going to be on it: "Fast Food" by the Blisters. The Blisters were from New Jersey and put out their brilliant debut EP (featuring aforementioned song) in 1987 in a press run of 500 copies to next to no acclaim, apart from I think Jeff Bale at MR&R upon whose rave review I ordered a copy from the band. It has been one of my faves throughout the years, even though to ears weaned on '90's lo-fi punk it doesn't sound quite as raw anymore as it once did. Just like the 90's records featured at the great Static Party blog, this EP is still pretty easy and cheap to get hold of secondhand; find it now, in 5 years it will be worth $100!

Blisters - Fast Food
Blisters - Good Thing Going
Blisters - Too Many Years