Much
thanks to Rob from Kill the Heroes blog located in Northern Ireland. He provided the Viva Las Vegas
compilation that I re-posted here last week as well as some other treasures
which I’m a bit unfamiliar with. This cassette has demos from Abeyance, Remains, and Sampson’s Army. I have no idea about the first two bands but I am familiar with Sampson's Army.
Fact
is Sampson’s Army played at the
first “punk” show I ever went to.
Me and my bud Jeff Hughes were completely naïve freshmen at Eldorado
High, shit maybe we were still going to Dell H. Jr. High at the time? We weren’t sure how
to dress for a “punk” gig so I recall we wore surfer shirts hoping we’d blend
in. I’m talking Town and Country, Catchit!,
Op, or similar crap we’d talked our parents into buying for us at the
Meadows Mall. We stuck out at the
show but not because the crowd was stuck up. Instead of being intimidated we were pressed against all
manner of people which was uncomfortable yet strangely comforting. It was a far cry from the butt rock arena shows we'd experienced. Our first "punk" gig, for lack of a better word, was at the Troubadour night
club and the headliner was The Damned
on tour for the Phantasmagoria album. Sampson’s
Army was the opener.
Sure
the Damned were considered one of
the first “punk” bands ever in the grand scheme of history but by 1986 they
were far removed from “punk” in terms of sound and sentiment. Yeah all that shit’s subjective and
it’s pointless to split hairs on who’s punk, punker, and punkest. But to give you some perspective the next underground show me and
Jeff went to a few months later was Fuck
Shit Piss, Schizoid, and Doggy Style at the North Las
Vegas Elks Lodge. That was a raw HARDCORE punk show comparatively. In In 1986 that was as punk as you could get in Las Vegas, Nevada. I'm sure right now somewhere in the world there’s an equally raw punk show
happening in some shitty venue in the sticks and the crowd is going apeshit as the shockwaves of the everchanging "punk" aesthetic reaches to every corner of the globe.
That momentum is a train that will never stop until it’s reached unsuspecting teenagers at the
ends of the Earth. But I’m getting
off base here.
Jeff
and I were familiar with Sampson’s Army
from the radio. We knew their hit
single “Young Man, Old Man” and we thought it was cool pop. But neither of us was all that heated
over it. In fact we knew very little
about the Damned at the time. I would go on to dig their Phantasmagoria album a tiny bit. At least it was better then their next
album titled Anything which was god
awful. Somehow I never listened
to any of their “essential” early punk albums until just a few years ago. Machine Gun Etiquette rules. Even the corny shit off Phatasmagoria has it's charms.
As pop sounding as it was Sampson’s Army is a special case. It’s solid mid 80’s powerpop. I went through a powerpop phase some years ago and now I've got a real appreciation of the style. The sound seemed to peak in the early 80's but S.A rode it out to good effect pretty late in the game. That late 80's powerpop really stood out in terms of production as opposed to the bubblegummy, new waveish sound so prevalent in the early part of that decade. S.A. seemed to have more dynamic songwriting which was much more guitar driven with less of a jangle pop edge making them border on the 70's glam rock style. I wanna the production style is akin to the Cult vaguely. That's probably just because that's the kinda shit I was listening to at that time. If I'm approaching it from that angle I might as well throw the Church in that mix. But S.A. don't really sound like any of that stuff, realistically I'd say they were in the same league as bands like SVT (who fucking rule), or Pezband (at their most rockinest), or maybe Game Theory at their most ballsiest. I don't know... it's the only thing I could compare it to right now. The sound was slightly aggressive but still super catchy. I thought they were great songs even back then but I was a teenager and particularly close minded at the time and this stuff couldn't hold a candle to Corrosion of Conformity. Typical one track mind. Probably why I never bought the album. Now I kinda wish I had.
This
demo is short but sweet and sounds like the hopes and dreams of the 80’s that
were smashed like dreams often are. Sampson’s Army
never crossed over and never released another album to my knowledge. But they were a great band
nonetheless. Even though I hate
that fuckin name.
I was lucky
enough to get to see them play one last time when I came down to visit the
folks for Thanksgiving a few years ago. They put on a good show in 2009. But I’ll
always remember them in the excitement of that night at the Troubadour. Wondering if we were gonna get beat up
and wondering why no one was slam dancing if this was a punk gig? We were still figuring it out. I suppose you never really stop
figuring it out huh?
I
recognize at least one song that was later featured on the Sampson's Army album which was entitled Where's Dan? That song being Let It Rain. The version on the album is way better
produced and has a lot more energy than the demo version heard here.
But it was great to hear this version just to remind me that the song exists. It’s been buried under years of memories. Now that I've heard it again it's been playing in my head all week. I'm glad it's back.
Todd
Sampson passed away a few years ago.
If you’ve read this entire post you probably already knew that. I didn’t know him so I have nothing to
say about him as a person. But the
music is fucking great. In fact it’s amazing. It sounds like this demo was recorded
right off the Rock Avenue radio show.
I’m sure we’ll never know.
Rob from Kill the Heroes blog promised to include the Abeyance demos in the future. I don’t know anything about that band but if you are interested in
hearing them go here.
