Ducks Battle Satan

It’s hard for me to pick my favourite Killozer record. All of the records done by the original lineup of the Hobson brothers and Michael Gerard are in my view pretty fucking essential. Out of all of their releases 12 Point Buck and For Ladies Only are the  ones that most people remember. Although I don’t think 12 Point Buck by itself is the  most essential thing they did (I’m a huge fan of the midwestern creepy gothic they did on the preceding Lil Baby Buntin’) it came out at a time when the American underground (Sonic Youth, Butthole Surfers) started to get major label attention. Killdozer always seemed to be destined never to be the subject of a bidding war. Their gothic black humour, their throbbing/grinding version of hardcore punk and the acquired taste of Michael Gerard’s abrasive vocals didn’t add up to MTV success. What 12 Point Buck did do though was bring in some colour to Killdozers relentless, menacing throb. The horn section on Lupus (about Flannery O’Conner), the attempted pop interludes and accordian on Free Love in Amsterdam all pointed to (although not a change in direction) a willingness to try new things. 

This like every other thing Killdozer has done is now out of print. You can buy a copy of this on CD for $50 on Amazon. Although the CD version of this record also includes Lil Baby Buntin’, $50 is a lot to pay.   Killdozer were invited to play Touch and Go’s 25th anniversary party but sadly T&G still won’t rerelease their back catalogue. And given my opinion that Killdozer are one of the most important hardcore bands of the  1980’s that business decision kind of sucks.

This entry was posted on August 24, 2008 at 5:21 am and is filed under Killdozer, Music with tags Killdozer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.