Friday 15th April 2011

OLD MONEY 5: CRIME – “PISS ON YOUR DOG” (UNRELEASED UNTIL 2004)

Alongside not paying, another thing that Crime didn’t do is tolerate hippies. 70′s San Francisco had been 8 miles in the sky for so long it couldn’t remember why it got high in the first place. Whilst New York’s Bowery was buzzing once again, crusty San Fran had chilled so hard it was frozen. Someone had to defrost that pooch and what better way to do it then shower it in warm piss?

Over on the Eastside, Richard Hell was fantasizing, “Hey man lets dress up like cops, just think of what we could do?”, but Crime were one step ahead of Television’s daydreaming, having already taken to wearing police uniforms on stage. It was a decision that seemed indebted to their life in SF. The city had long been the perennial home of the 1970′s car chase, and stood in the shadow of Alcatraz and a flagrantly lawless counter-culture the band despised. To mark themselves out as something different to the alternative, they went straight for the jugular and dressed as the enemy. Somewhat contrarily, at the same time this would also irritate the establishment. Crime were outlaws to all.

Essentially a punk band, Crime embodied the values of that music to such an extent they couldn’t accept the tag ‘punk’, instead priding themselves on being “San Francisco’s first and only rock’n'roll band”. Again, not so much a swipe at the Woodstock generation, as a full on kick in its emasculated balls. The first of the West coast insurrectionists to release a record with the “Hotwire My Heart” 7″ in 1976, they pre-dated the better known Germs, Flipper, and Black Flag. Yet unlike their peers, Crime never got round to releasing an official album. What did emerge in 2004 was a compilation, San Francisco’s Still Doomed, that collected the songs recorded in their practice space, leaving only the embers of their fuzzed-out rockabilly punk rock.

“Piss On Your Dog” stands as a precursor to all subsequent loud-mouthed, sludged-up grotesque punk. It’ s an obese, knuckle-dragging ogre, ripping up trees to use as a tooth pick and spitting a tropical storm worth of mucus all over the loved out sunshine streets of Haight and Ashbury. No more than a maximum volume repetition of a 3 chord riff, it constantly revolves back into itself over a pounding incessant beat with call and response vocals echoing the classic detective partnerships. Although a massively loud distorted proto-punk rock song isn’t perhaps the most unique thing you’ll ever hear (even at the time The Stooges had all ready blown a thousand eardrums), the allure of “Piss On Your Dog” lies in how ugly it is – ugly, but smart and efficient.

This ugliness can still be witnessed in what stands as one of the most absurd and surreal performances ever – Crime playing in San Quentin, the infamous holiday home for murderers and rapists, whilst dressed as the same guards that walked the corridors.

(GUEST WRITER: Maltese Falcon)

DOWNLOAD
Crime – “Piss on Your Dog”

(Photo: Cosmic Parachute)