Angry Samoans

Angry at EACH OTHER, that is! (Have you seen my Gregg Turner interview? Yikes!)
*special introductory paragraph!
*Inside My Brain
*Back From Samoa
*Return To Samoa
*Yesterday Started Tomorrow
*STP Not LSD
*The Unboxed Set
*1978-1979
*The 90's Suck & So Do You!
*Fuck the War EP

The Angry Samoans were a California band that began as an incredible punk/hardcore band and then turned to garage rock and poppier punk later on. Led by music critic "Metal Mike" Saunders and also featuring Gregg Turner and three other folks, the Angry Samoans didn't particularly get along at the time, and REALLY don't get along now. Such is life in the big city.


Inside My Brain - Triple X 1980.
Rating = 8

American punk rock! Snotty, young sounding vocals and even snottier lyrics trashing girls, fathers, Rodney Bingenheimer and anybody else who gets too close for comfort. The music seems a little sluggish by today's punk rock standards, but heck this was 1980! The riffs are mostly angry and catchy (except when they're Beach Boying it up in "Carson Girls"), there are some cuss words and, much like a lovemaking session with Sting, the whole thing is over in just 23 minutes. The singer's weedy little voice might get on your nerves, but hey we can't all be that guy in They Might Be Giants.

Reader Comments

schlitzbeer@hotmail.com (Chris Bowden)
Ever heard anything about this one being on 8 track? I know it sounds crazy but that's what I found in a thrift store a few days ago. It definitely does not look like it came from the factory that way but maybe the band made 'em. I don't know but we are talking about 1980 and they did run their own record company back then (bad trip). It even has a printed label on one side and "Angry Samoans" is stamped on the spine. How many people would actually have an Angry Samoans stamp?

Add your thoughts?


* Back From Samoa - Triple X 1982. *
Rating = 10

This has always been one of my favorite punk rock albums. This time around, the tempos are much faster, the riffs much more creative, the guitars much louder and the lyrics MUCH more offensive (believe it or not). Let's see - there's a song about poking your eyes out with a fork (later to be covered by The Accused!), one called "They Saved Hitler's Cock" (featuring the ridiculous couplet "If Hitler's cock could choose its mate/It would call for Sharon Tate"), a vicious homophobic attack credited to "J. Falwell," a 34-second song called "Tuna Taco" that one might logically assume is about a vagina of some sort, and of course the inevitable incredible "Ballad Of Jerry Curlan," which you might say doesn't exactly "hold back" on the foul language (apparently said Mr. Curlan enjoys such activities as eating shit, fucking his dog, licking his mother's asshole and eating his sister's pussy, if the song's narrator is to be believed).

Every song is either catchy and slamminly fast or weird and intriguing. And, much like a mix tape of Sting's finest post-Blue Turtles material, the whole thing is over in less than 20 minutes!

Reader Comments

RebelJukebox@aol.com (James)
Yes. I totally agree with the 10 here. This is one of the best punk rock albums, if not the best punk rock album ever. And the best thing was I got it as a cutout for $2.99 at Circuit City.

Billsangry@aol.com
A rageing bloodsaw of an album! NOTHING comes close to this one! This makes FEAR sound like the Backstreet Boys. This makes the Ramones sound like the Osmonds! This makes the Sex Pistols sound like their dicks just fell off. This CD makes me want to throw eggs at cop cars and kick small animals! Tipper Gore was right -- if she was here, I'd be all over her big bootie like sex addict on crack! LIGHTS OUT!!!!!!!!!

Jcjh20@aol.com
Hilarious and fun release. A definate 10. And Mike's voice just makes the songs more hilarious in my opinion. Some highlights: "Gas Chamber", "They Saved Hitlers Cock", "Lights Out", "Homo-Sexual".

drazy@gatecity.com
Back in '82, there was a guy by the name of Peter Ivers who brought punk rock to Middle America via his USA "Nightflight" show "New Wave Theater." What's insane today is that almost twenty years ago, this program was giving a national forum for bands like Dead Kennedys, Fear, and this band. They performed "Gas Chamber," complained that they didn't make enough money playing gigs to put gas in their vans, and screamed "Billy Squier!!" at the end of the interview. I bought this album a week later. This album was politically incorrect even before there was a word for it. An important punk document that sounds like it was penned by fourteen year old boys during a time in which punk needed a good laugh. So what the fuck happened? Peter Ivers got killed, Billy Squier should have been, and the Samoans made some truly shitty albums after pinching this classic loaf. God bless 'em for stinking up the men's room at the punk rock club.

sarin13la@aol.com
One of the funniest and ripping hardcore records ever! Screw your wife from behind/Tell your kids you're doing fine!! They don't make as acerbic songs like this anymore. Originally released on Bad Trip Records. I stole my copy from a friend -- that's how good this is, or how much of a scum I am(?); then somebody stole it from me. Put my balls in plastic bag.

Who the fuck is Jerry Curlan (who also sleeps with midgets and drives a Ferrari) anyway? I've been dying to know for like ... 20yrs; man, I'm getting old.

You're a funny guy, Krinkle, but why do you listen to that satanic music like Genesis, Yes and Supertramp. How come you don't have Stinx and Kansass reviews on here too?

John Lazon
This record really is the shit. I can overlook all of the Samoans' other mediocre material because of this one 20 minute masterpiece. Songs like "Gas Chamber," "Tuna Taco," and "Steak Knife" really paint a twisted portrait of a severely fucked-up adolescent male. I think the bassist Todd had a stronger presence in the band at this point, and perhaps it's his psychosis that's really taking control of the music ("Jerry Curlan," for example would really support that). There's not much out there this dark and negative. You really have to dig for this shit (I'm 18 right now; I wasn't a part of the whole SoCa hardcore explosion). The only good comparison I can make is Turbonegro, who if you haven't already heard should check out. They're from Norway and they claim to work with an operating principle they simply call Darkness. I think you seriously have to be mentally ill to understand this shit but I really do, whatever that says about me.

Noah.Brown@ajilonfinance.co.uk
My pal Alex from Fuck Hate Propaganda (little plug there - really, really brutal screaming HC from Stoke, home of Discharge...check 'em out..they hurt) burnt me the entire recorded works of the Samoans onto one CD. Marky lad is right - the mofo often is, it seems - Inside My Brain is pretty good, bit more sedate, 'garagey', less sharp than this one, but this kicks heads. Snotty as a dribbly mongchild, offensive as this joke - "What's got three legs and lives on a farm? The McCartneys" - and more fun than hitting a chimp. Early 80s kinda anti-PC punk-as-fuck hilarity, they don't make em like this anymore. Making it more amusing is the homophobic overtones which seem to mask a bit of, y'know, sexual confusion??? After this Metal Mike wrote countless lame "rock'n'roll" songs whining about a chick leaving him in his squealy bent little voice. How someone can go from "My Old Man's A Fatso" to THAT astonishes me. Very sad indeed, so much so that once this CD-R gets to track 20-something it gets ejected faster than my hot manfat. Just get this, don't bother with any of the other stuff.

And now, we have Good Charlotte. Where's my cyanide pills BEEEEYATCH?

steve.robey@mindspring.com
"GAS CHAMBER" IS ONE OF THE GREATEST HARDCORE SONGS OF ALL TIME.

There, I said it. Never wanted to admit it before, but damned if that song hasn't been stuck in my head for the last 17 years. I used to play this album in college for people whose idea of "punk" was.... was.... dammit, NOBODY even knew punk existed back then! Christ, the heaviest thing going was Guns N' Roses back then. This album was good for a chuckle too - "Lights Out" and "Jerry Curlan" are two of the funniest songs here, and my roommate and I would sing them as duets at drunken parties. The former is an enthusiastic "call to arms" to try out the latest cool fad! Poking your eyes out with a fork! Right on! The latter crams more insults and profanity into one song than any other song I can think of. I almost wrote out a sample lyric, but I don't want want to get into trouble with the internet police. Great job you're doing, by the way, guys. Want some candy? hehehehehhh.

vance_kingsley@hotmail.com
THE GREATEST BAND OF ALL TIME (TIED WITH BLACK SABBATH)

You either Get It, or you Don't. (And anybody putting down Metal Mike doth not comprehend Metal.) I bought "Back from Samoa" when it first appeared in stores, and immediately knew I'd found my favorite band. 20 years later, it remains an unparallelled slab of pure genius. The smartass-stoopid humor still makes me grin like a mental patient, and the buzzsaw riffs still strip the paint off the walls while burning down any other "punk" contenders before or since. "Inside My Brain" is equally classic. Only two other bands can hold up to the Samoans standard of quality: The Ramones and (possibly) The Dictators. Also note the trash-movie references rampant on these albums (check the album covers - "Monster of Piedras Blancas" and the '60s axe-murdering Texas psych-out version of "The Black Cat"... "Not of This Earth" -- "I'll buy your vacuum but you'll never leave cause I'll PUT YOUR HEAD IN A MILK BOTTLE!!!"): more proof of the band's absolute coolness.

Saunders, Turner and (especially, for some reason) Todd Homer all have great vocal styles, so your snooty comments only show you up as a fuckin' SQUARE who doesn't get the attitude, baby. The pot-shots at Saunders seem to indicate you are either a shill for an embittered ex-bandmate, or a young dope whose puny musical acumen does not encompass the Shadows of Knight, 13th Floor Elevators (Haizman = Roky) or any other band from the '60s garage-era (aka the REAL punk rock).

The early Samoans demos are also well worth seeking out for their righteously HOSTILE renditions of "Steak Knife" (Todd on vox!), "Homosexual" (more Todd; J. Falwell = Steve Besser), the ESSENTIAL R. Meltzer/VOM pervo-masterpiece "I'm In Love With Your Mom", plus undiscovered gems incl."Time to Fuck", "We Bleed", "D For The Dead" and more. I personally recommend you listen to "RU A Square" for some much-needed remedial advice.

"Yesterday" & "STP" are both fine by me, as they sincerely pay homage to what the Samoans were all about in the first place. But "Back From Samoa" will always remain the band's definitive legacy -- it accomplishes more in 20 minutes than you will in a lifetime.

The right side of my mind is electrocution, baby -- don't look what you will find, it's your execution, chump!

nmccully@haydenfrye.com (Nick)
Back in 82 just out of High School I burned a hole in the Back From Samoa record. I was lucky enough to see them in early or mid 83 in Richmond Va. In a bar that could hold maybe 100 people (Benny s). This band really has one of my greatest memories of all the shows I went too. Everyone was really amped on seeing them, and they were delayed a bit. I remember them walking on stage everyone screaming, the all looked kinda the same as far as height hair color and genes white t shirts and of course black leather. The singer grab the mic and just stood at the edge of the very small stage that was at the most a foot off the ground and he just kinda glared at everyone and waited for it to get quite. Then like some sort of subliminal message they started with Gas Chamber and it was like we were all in on it too. It was just weird the way the band and the slammin started right on Q . I can certainly say I am glad I got to see them it wasn t often that we got the west coast bands back then, then with the East coast being a couple of steps behind. Then also being lucky enough to get the word of a show in advance and being able to get your shit together to go. I am from Virginia Beach about a 2 hour drive not many of us had reliable transportation back. Thanks for letting me rant.

Us east coasters we will always have Minor Threat.

thepublicimage79@hotmail.com
In addition to being one of the most offensive punk albums of all time, this platter of demented, insanely catchy juvenilia is also one of the best.

"Lights Out" and "Haizman's Brain Is Calling" rock the hardest, "They Saved Hitler's Cock" is the funniest, and "Ballad of Jerry Curlan" is the best.

I've wondered who's been singing these songs.

as far as I can tell, it goes like this:

Gas Chamber - Saunders
Todd Killings - Turner
Lights Out - Saunders, Homer, Turner
My Old Man's a Fatso - Saunders
Time Has Come Today - Saunders
They Saved Hitler's Cock - Homer
Homo-sexual - Saunders, Homer
Steak Knife - Turner
Haizman's Brain Is Calling - Saunders, Homer
Tuna Taco - Homer
Coffin Case - Saunders
You Stupid Jerk - Saunders
Ballad of Jerry Curlan - Homer
Not of This Earth - Saunders

I'm sure parts of that are wrong. but who knows, other than the dudes themselves?

Jim Smith
One of the best hardcore albums of all time, before there was hardcore.

I bought this album in college when it came out, based upon the name of the band and the cover art. It was pure gold.

The single most sublime lyric in all of Rock and Roll History?

"I'll put your head in a milk bottle!"

"Metal Mike" Saunders
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.193885823986403.39634.180682158640103 Angry Samoans 1979 - 1984 (facebook folder, photos and narratives whatever)

i.e.the ACTUAL studio log/songs/info of the summer1981 / fall 1981 / fall 1981 / spring 1982 / summer 1982 shit-budget tracking sessions. contrary to the complete idiot-gibberish that has been circulated for three entire decades by a certain former member of the band. (for starters: the once-only "Jeff Dahl session" was considered by all non-jeff parties back then to have been a complete unusable disaster (except for Ballad of Jerry Curlan) and was never mixed (except for one other song, Tuna Taco which later was also deemed "unusable."). and that's why i was contacted (at Todd's insistence, for months before it happened and sent a rough-mix cassette dub of their same-cassette of the Marin shitsession. meaning, double note: i was never even in the same room once as those multi-track, unmixed tapes. never. not once. and the ONLY song that i "sang to re-do (todd's) lead vocal was, duh, the "Take It flexi" Mystic Sound version of Steak Knife. duh! it was a great sounding backing track, same as the "mixed and finished" Lights Out and They Saved Hitler's Cock (from the 7" ep). but You Stupid Jerk and The Todd Killings were deemed (by gregg and todd, and later by me) to be "awful sounding" (i.e.Mystic Sound) and so they got re-cut as 2/5ths of the last session, Quad-Tech's five tracks to finally (18 months later after the start of the 5-studio low-budget odyssey) finish the album. so: ONE SONG ONLY that i "sang over someone else's lead vocal" because that would have been the -- "do you have another track i can use? i just thought of something else i need to sing" -- POSHBOY'S COCK hahahaha, right after i'd done the keeper vocal track for Steak Knife.

SO and i was nowhere near the "liner notes / credits" put on the back cover of the Back From Samoa album once it had finally been finished -- and no one else either (thought of the fact that todd's and my voices did sound a lot alike on certain songs -- i.e. Time Has Come Today. that one's all me. Homo-Sexual from the Pirhana Studios session? again, me. Todd's 4 and1/2 lead vocals came from #1 marin county Ballad of Jerry Curlan; #2 and 2 and 1/2 Hitler's Cock and his 1/ 2 of Lights Out from Mystic Sound; nothing from Pirhana and todd wasn't at the short session where i had to do the vocals for My Old Man's a Fatso, a crap vocal on Haizman's Brain Is Calling, a pretty ok but nowhere near great one for Homo-Sexual, and for reasons we wondered about later (ike why? this song sucks, don't we have anything better? at that point, no);then Todd's lead vocals # 3 and 1/2 and then finally, 4 and 1/2 the re-recordings of You Stupid Jerk and Tuna Taco at Quad-Tech.

so the correct final piece count on vocals was -- mike 9, todd 4 and 1/2, and gregg just 1/2.

Gas Chamber -- mike
The Todd Killings -- mike
Lights Out --- todd and gregg, equally
My Old Man's a Fatso -- mike
Time Has Come Today -- mike
They Saved Hitler's Cock -- todd
Homo-Sexual -- mike (todd always sang it live, i believe. but gregg/me/steve besser had to COMPLETELY rewrite the lyric for it the night i went in w/gregg to hear the Pirhana tapes for the first time, and sing vocals for all five of its songs. since NO vocals had even been attempted. which would place Pirhana as having happened after Mystic Sound, i think).

Steak Knife -- mike
Haizman's Brain Is Calling -- mike. crap vocal, imho. but no time for "let's try that one a couple more times" same as any other low-budget "i guess that's good enough, let's move on to the next one" band back then
Tuna Taco -- todd
Coffin Case -- mike. ("why?" actually the music is good. could have stopped cold, then repeated it all over again as an INSTRUMENTAL and been just fine with a little bit of vocals/words maybe. but the lyrics are SOOO crummy not even the best vocal ever would make it better. so whether my vocals were crap (my opinion, not factoring in how bad the lyrics were) becomes irrelevant i guess. ("were you guys totally out of fast/short songs?" yep, totally. Coffin Case was written as a last resort before the last session!)
You Stupid Jerk -- todd
Ballad of Jerry Curlan -- todd
Not of This Earth -- mike

NOTE: only FOUR times (out of the 5+ 5 = 10 possible times, not counting S1 TK6 into S2 Tk1) does the same lead singer sing two songs in a row fuckin' excellent, that system of why it's super useful to have "two real lead singers" in the same band. FOUR times same guy twice, but SIX times it's the other #2 guy following guy #1 or vice versa. it ain't john and paul, but it sure beats the fuck out of hammerin' hank from DC singing an entire black flag album. (badly, imho. #keithmorrisfan,fwiw (and) #fuckhankrollins although that always draws 15-yd flag for "piling on" etc)

SO the vocal splits would look like this --

S1 Tk1 thenT2 would be mike
S1 Tk4 then Tk5 again mike while S1's Tk3,Tk6,and Tk7 flipped it back andforth (those song's lead singers) S2 Tk1 then Tk2 mike S2 Tk 5 then Tk6 todd
while S2's Tk3, Tk4,and Tk7 flippit back/forth = for a grand total of SIX leadsinger changes.

while true,"real singing groups" (like this one, the most popular Relay Dance in history, by Mamamoo R2014 (debut year 2014 if it was a R baseball rookie card) who admittedly are "the greatest four vocalists combined" in music history, rock/pop any decade /any country / any genre -- but not the point. which is ALL FOUR are lead singers (even their one rapper moonbyul who is a Top 5 all time kpop girlgroup rapper) AND -- all four of them know every single line (and choreo) that the other three sing. and can goof on it in their sleep (right here).

29M for just a "relay dance" is still the record apparently

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKikNWDs7ko
Mamamoo HIIP (Relay Dance / where the next person in line / and the vocal lines coming up, get scrambled really quickly, which is the whole point of it)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gUZyreIE-4
hmmm Gogobebe capped out at 12million. but it PRECEDES its followup(s) Hip and then Dingga. and Hwasa (the one full-chinese in the group) is world class here. and moonbyul (blonde hair) is always "i'm the coolest person in the group, i don't even have to try hard" so, ok sure.

SO but only god and todd homer could have sung Ballad of Jerry Curlan AND They Saved Hitler's Cock and, uh, lent true 'artistic vision' to the musical expression contained within. all the cuss words, y'know. you can't just sleepwalk through that shit,man. you have to CUSS IT LIKE YOU FUCKING MEAN IT. which was no problem for young 20's guys (like todd). and todd was stone cold sober (delivering the studio vocal for Ballad of Jerry Curlan. contrary to bullshit story #97 from the other member of the group who was there

(note: Mystic Sounds' bizarro world xx-track recording head meant that you could ONLY mix right there, where you had recorded. conversely, the 2-song Gas Chamber / Not of This Session tracking session w/vocals cut there five seconds later,lucked into a "down time, 12mid-6am" half price session at a REAL recording studio Cherokee with a good mixing engineer (while the hollywood scenesters summer 1982 were celebrating the "record release party" of X's mostly miserable and semi-flop first major album whatever it was called, on major label Elektra/warners. when gregg and i realized this (during our first 10 minute "break time,'" we simultaneously thought/said "oh, we gotta do this." and figured out where the "doors to the MAIN recording room" were. and silently opened one of them, walked through straight to the other side, and out. and we definitely noticed a couple of people's faces that FROZE. like the devil's disciples had just walked in and were chewing on a couple of bloody severed bats' heads, or worse. hahahahahahaha. well definitely one of the Top 10 moments of being in that cursed band (ours), if there was an actual top 10. maybe Top 5 anyway.

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Return To Samoa - Shakin' Street 1990
Rating = 7

This one's pretty hard to find so don't start all cryin' and shit if you can't find it and shit. Just take a laxative and shit. What it is - on CD anyway (apparently on vinyl it's shorter) - is 50 minutes and 25 tracks of rare demos, outtakes and live material from 1981 and 1982. More specifically, ten studio outtakes from 1982 and 15 tracks from a 1981 concert in NYC. Apparently Jeff Dahl sings vocals on some of these, but since I can't tell the difference between the three ACTUAL Angry Samoans singers, I can't make heads nor tails of who this "Jeff Dahl" might be. The whole band just sounds like "Metal Mike" Saunders to me!

The rare songs ("Are You A Square?," "D Is For Dead," "Permanent Damage," "Time To Fuck") all have an Inside My Brain feel to them, so it's a bit strange that they would have remained unreleased on either of the first two albums. Was it perhaps Jeff Dahl-penned material or something? Or did the band simply hate the songs? "Are You A Square" is kind of a tepid attack on glammers and the B-movie homage "D Is For Dead" is a bit slow by Samoans standards, but the other two are tiny, fast and kick some major ass! A few silly covers are included as well - a messy update of the Stooges' "!970" ("1981"), a fantastic hardcore attack on Status Quo's "Pictures of Matchstick Men," a celebration of/insult to NYC set to the music of "Louie Louie," and the grossest, lamest take on "Wild Thing" since Sam Kinison went "Oh! Ohhhhhh!" that time (sample lyrics: "You make my cock sing," "I want your teenage pussy," etc). All in all, it's a real set of leftovers!

Speaking of leftovers, the live material sounds like it was recorded from a scrambled cable station on a TV buried under six feet of dirt (possibly because a near-sighted gravedigger mistook it for a coffin). It's completely staticy, totally muffled and 100% sounding like shit. If you actually place your head inside the speaker, however, you can hear lots of onstage talking between each song as the band struggles to get their act together and actually play a full set.

Other highlights include a goofy radio commercial advertising the Back In Samoa LP, a rewrite of "Steak Knife" called "Posh Boy's Cock," the yucky non-LP Richard Meltzer track "I'm In Love With Your Mom," and a fat lonely radio DJ slowly, laboriously reading the profane lyrics to "Get Off The Air" over the airwaves.

It's 6:15 PM EDT on October 1, 2005. DON'T EVER FORGET THIS MOMENT.

Okay, it's 6:16 now. Don't worry about remembering this one. But in a little while, when 6:42 shows up, DON'T EVER FORGET THAT MOMENT.

These are special times. You will never be this young again. Cherish that youth! Cherish it! Don't let it slip away! Get a breastlift and face implants! You're only young once! Get a henna tattoo of a hen saying "Na"! Take a shit at the barber's! These are special times! Refine some oil! Call your teacher a "Smelly Old Pile o' Knowledge"! You'll never experience this moment again! Drink some raw cotton! Spraypaint "Fuck yo" on the Mona Lisa! This is the greatest day of your life and you're WASTING it! Do it again!

Reader Comments

Joel Rizzo
just for the record, the fat,lonely radio dj is indeed Mr. Richard Meltzer hisself. excerpted from his old Hepcats From Hell radio show. and i believe he lost his gig as a result of this lil' recitation. also at the end of the "live shit" part of this disc. one of the Samoans namechecks a number of towns/cities they consider to be nowheresville and prominent among them is....drum roll pleez... Ft. Myers. which is where i am right now and they were right. btw i hope things have improved for you personally. u deserve a good life, i think.

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Yesterday Started Tomorrow - Triple X 1986.
Rating = 6

What the FUCK??? Why are the Angry Samoans now playing inoffensive pseudo-60s bubblegum songs? Non-distorted guitars? Singing instead of shouting? A Jefferson Airplane cover, are you kidding me? It's one thing to "mature," but why bother keeping the name "Angry Samoans" if you have no intention of being "angry" or doing anything at all to appeal to the people that might be interested in purchasing a record by the "Angry Samoans" in the first place? Granted, none of the songs are honestly BAD, and one of them (Gregg Turner's "Psych-Out 129") is actually a really great, driving punk/metal song. But can you imagine the letdown on the faces of America's childhood when the long-awaited followup to the classic Back To Samoa LP turned out to be a 6-song wade through Tepidsville, P-U.S.A.? I can, because I was there, man. You weren't there, man. I was there, man.

(in 1990, buying it at the Camelot Music in Gwinnett Place mall)

Reader Comments

Billsangry@aol.com
This Can't be the same band..

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STP Not LSD - Triple X 1988.
Rating = 6

On this album, they make a slight effort to return some of the "fun" to their sound, but it's not FUNNY. A full quarter of the album devotes itself to unhumorously poking fun at rednecks (complete with vocals performed in annoying hick accents), and at least two tracks center around "hilarious" drug-related themes that Robert Klein and Buck Henry would have gotten a major kick out of in 1975. The rest of the songs are just the same sort of pleasant power pop that permeated Pissterday Parts Pimento. They've attempted to broaden their sound with acoustic guitars and different non-punky approaches (motorcycle rock, country-folk, ehh more power pop?), but the majority of the melodies are pretty simplistic (though pleasant enough, I guess). Four of the songs drive me wild ("I Lost My Mind," "Wild Hog Rhyde," "Staring At The Sun" and "Garbage Pit," if you give a shit for some reason), but the rest leave me wishing that all the vocals had been performed through an octave pedal.

I suppose if you look at it from a purely aesthetic standpoint, Pissterday Parts Pimento wasn't a very good parody of Yesterday Starts Tomorrow.

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The Unboxed Set - Triple X 1995.
Rating = 8

Contents include as follows: Inside My Brain, Back From Samoa, Yesterday Started Tomorrow, STP Not LSD. One on 75-minute CD! If you ask me, the first eleven songs are really good, the next 14 are incredible and the remaining 18 are merely pretty good. Round that out and an eight appears! Magical like a Christmas beers!

Reader Comments

linebacker2@shaw.ca
This is the ultimate collection of the Angry Samoans. Everything they ever did together on one CD. How the fuck can you go wrong?

gleather@speakeasy.net (Glen Leatherman)
I concure with linebacker2. This is great. I play it alot, along with my 9 Pound Hammer collection and my Oblivians discs. Garage, baby.

heartgrenade@msn.com (Brux)
A WICKED GOOD TIME, this album is skata punk old skool punk rock to the max. Weather yer campin or sleepin over yer buddies drunk dad's house The Unboxed Set keeps you feelin good and cozy inside, classic sounding, Angry Samoans are essential punk rock and still goin strong. One of those bands you can really get into loaded with inspiration. This album packs all the old and the new into one, from "Death of beewak" to hot cars, to right side of my mind, ah the whole cd kickass meaan

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1978-1979 - Unreleased
Rating = 7

2011 UPDATE: six of these tracks (the original six-song demo) can now be purchased as an MP3 download on Amazon entitled I'm in Love with Your Mom.

NOTE: I WROTE THIS REVIEW IN 2008, MANY YEARS AFTER THE OTHERS ON THIS PAGE.

For some reason I never noticed this before, but the Angry Samoans didn't begin their career as a punk rock band; they began as a proto-punk band, clearly more influenced by the midtempo, sloppy hard rock stylings of The Dictators etc. than the high-speed tight speedpunk of The Ramones et al. But this is just one of the many wonders about my inability to notice things before. For example, how is it possible that I used to think Metal Mike sang 95% of their material? There are clearly two or three different lead singers in this band, and none of their voices even sound alike! Did I have shit in my shoes and a dick in my ear for the first 30 years of my life? Don't answer that, lest you hurt my feelings with your honesty.

1978-1979 isn't an official Angry Samoans release; it's a homemade compilation put together by Tha Saunders Bros. (Mike and original A.S. guitarist Kevin Eric 'Bonze') that will hopefully at some point be released by somebody. It comprises the band's very first six-song demo, 14 live tracks from a pair of Rhino Records performances, and an unreleased demo from 1987, the inclusion of which raises more questions than it answers but I suppose nobody needs an album called 1978-1979. Oh, And That One Song From 1987.

Completists may already own some of this material -- three of the demos and two of the live tracks are on The Boxed Set, a fourth demo and two more livers are on the hard-to-find Return To Samoa, and it's possible that a few of the live performances are also on Triple X's Live At Rhino Records EP, but I don't own that so can't verify your suspicions. Either way, there are AT LEAST 2 demos and 4 live tracks that aren't available elsewhere. Plus there's no review for Live At Rhino Records on this page, so consider this a review of that album PLUS MORE!!!! Except there's a rare song on Live At Rhino Records that isn't on here. FUCK!!!!!

As not unexpected of a brand new young band of young people experiencing youth for the first time, the demo tracks are a little too tentative and unconfident, marred by jarringly slow tempos and bored-sounding spoken vocals. It's hard to deny the catchiness of "My Old Man's A Fatso," "I'm A Pig" and "Right Side Of My Mind," but all three would get much, much stronger as the band gained confidence over the next year or two. As for the other rarities, "Too Animalistic" stinks as much in demo form as it does live, and "I'm In Love With Your Mom" is driven by a killer Blue Oyster Cult-style riff, but the lyrics are so gross you'll swear off milk forever just because it's so close to 'milf' in the dictionary ("I got my fingers in you baby/Wish they were in your mom/Sucking on her nips, that's right/and her sucking on my prong"). For that matter, "Too Animalistic" is so gross you'll swear off food forever ("Bob and Coozy are sitting on the couch/She wants to eat, the Cooze ain't no slouch/She says come on baby, I want a Sara Lee up my crack/The Cooze is gettin' hot, she wants some action in the sack"). So get ready to spend your twilight years ingesting nothing but clothes and pine tar, because the Angry Samoans are (something something)

The live section, on the other hand, is rough, raw and rockin'! (If this CD never gets released, be sure and buy the Live At Rhino Records EP as a substandard substitute!) It also contains such essential non-LP dainties as screamy energetic punk rocker "Todd's Not Here," obnoxious anti-new-wave trudger "Are You A Square," a cover of The Ramones' "Commando" (only two years after its release!), and a lyrically indecipherable - and thus far superior - rendition of aforementioned "I'm In Love With Your Mom." It also includes a yucky "Weird Al" Yankovic-esque parody of The Troggs' "Wild Thing" that I'd rather not discuss (see Return To Samoa for details). I do like the line "What do you mean, 'it's only two inches long'?," but honestly I can't even stand the original "Wild Thing," so I certainly don't need a gross parody of it.

I do like "Louie Louie" by the way, in case you're sitting there thinking "Hay Mark doesn't like 'Wild Thing.' Why doesn't he like rocking roll?"

Incidentally, all of the 78-79 material features Kevin Eric "Bonze" Saunders on guitar, so if it's P.J. Galligan you're after, get lost ASSHO!!!!! He wouldn't join for another few minutes, after Kevin retired following the Rhino shows.

Finally, the REAL reason you showed up -- "Reverberation" by the ribtickling Steve Drojensky line-up! This is actually a really good dark acid rock tune from the Samoans' later garage-psych era. Its lack of appearance on STP Not LSD is puzzling.

Best bit of stage patter: "This is a song that was taught to us by our idol Robert Fripp, back in the heyday of King Crimson" (before "Commando")

Most confusing bit of stage patter: "This is a surf song, and we fuckin' hate surf music" (before "Carson Girls" -- if they hated it, why'd they play it!?)

Most non-existent bit of stage patter: "Mark Prindle rules! He's 5 years old."

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The 90's Suck & So Do You! - Triple X 1998.
Rating = 4

Metal Mike Saunders tried to put out a few solo albums in the interim but I guess they didn't sell too well, so in 1998, he grabbed the old Angry Samoans drummer and a couple of girls and recorded this eight-song lovey-dovey power pop crap project. Sounds just like the Huntingtons, Screeching Weasel, the Riverdales and all those other bands whose sole purpose in life is to sound as much like The Ramones as possible, while at the same time completely missing the elements that made the Ramones so great to begin with (killer riffs and drug-fuelled aggression). It's fuzzy stupid beach music about girls. A couple of the songs are worth singing to yourself, but the others range from catchily passable to worthless and irritating. Plus, much like the time it took me to write these reviews, it's only about 17 minutes long. Luckily, the singer keeps his voice pretty low-key throughout the record, which is good because we can't all be susceptible to urine poisoning.

I will however note that the album is pleasingly heavy. It hardly bends at all - very thick, heavy vinyl. Makes you want to tape it to your wenis and wear it to a chic New York nightclub in 1974, during Lou Reed's skinny heroin period.

Prior to his reaching new levels of underground acceptance with his risque, controversial "I Love You Suzanne."

Reader Comments

Mike Saunders
hello, since you probably own a lot of records...the big ones where the credits are readable...I'm gonna guess you might occasionally read the credits on a record/s before reviewing it/them. On the 3rd and 4th Samoans' record, the musicians' credits clearly indicate that 50% of the lead vocals (9 of 18 cuts) are sung by the other two singers, Todd and Gregg (with the specific tracks indentified). This would imply a grammatical correction from "singer's" to "singers'" (& "voice" to "voices"), and I'm gonna guess their feelings might also be hurt that you didn't similarly appreciate and love their weedy voices too.

There's a generic Q/A 'writers' interview up just recently at the top of the cue/list at "rockcritics.com", with a link at the end (of the early 70's articles list "rockpages.com" over in England required copies of, for their web archives) that pulls up a list of all the longish things written for Chuck Eddy (for NYC Village Voice) the last couple years...in case anyone ever wonders what an 'Angry Samoan' would be saying in press-hyping the pop likes of the A*Teens, Britney, Toy-Box, the Josie & The Pussycats sdtk, Green Day, pre-formatchange Radio Disney, etc. If nothing else the Q&A does clarify forever when and where and what two writers used the terms "heavy metal" and "punk rock" for the first time (in the same issue of a well known rockmag) ever in the rock press, in early 1971. I was one of em but it

sure wasn't the dreaded PUNK ROCK term. For the nitpickers, similar to Lenny Kaye (aka Link Cromwell in 1965) I was playing in bad 60's Little Rock garage bands for several years before ever setting pen to paper (at age 16), and an entire 14 recording/album by samoans Mike&Kevin's last highschool band (@1969) is included on the Triple X cd "Surf City Or Bust" (all pre-Beatles style for the trainspotters)

WBinder007@aol.com
Wow, Prindle. First East Bay Ray thanks you for your interest and now Metal Mike makes fun of you. I gotta say, the page keeps getting better. To make this relevant, I gotta say The 90's Suck And So Do You kind of...okay, really sucks the big one. Still, though, "I'd Rather Do The Dog" is one great song title. And as far as saying it sounds just like Screeching Weasel and The Riverdales, I'll just say that while it does suck... okay, it REALLY sucks, it's not quite as bad as some, or all of Screeching Weasel's output. I don't even consider The Riverdales to be a real band, seeing as 3/4 of Screeching Weasel's old lineup just decided to write songs that were actually worse than the ones on SW's first few albums. Now that, my friends, is impressive.

splashone@earthlink.net
I managed the Samoans from 81-83... I too have been bashed in print (2 times that I'm aware of) by Mr. Turner.. I don't think his comments were warranted or accurate... However (being the hippie that I am) I will focus on the positive and give my take on the 4 main players.. I think you can get as much from what I don't say, as from what I do say:

Bill Vockeroth..... a nice guy, even tempered, mellow in fact... An extremely talented drummer...One of the best....
Todd Homer...... I liked him, at the time got along fine. Good bass player and singer too. Was definitely a plus as far as image goes.
Metal Mike Saunders..........A good guy, very honest, very intelligent and am extremely talented musician, singer and songwriter.. I always considered him to be 75% of the Samoans....
Gregg Turner ....very intelligent

apa@nol.co.nz
I can't understand where they got the name Angry Samoans from. They are not even Samoan. Are you trying to make a mockery of our people? I find it offensive! We Samoans are respectful people who are proud of our nation. You obviously are very angry, lost bunch of people.

caseyreagan@earthlink.net
C'mon you fucking neo-nazi hitler youth give the Samoans a break, they've been out there doin' it for longer than some of you punks have been a menace to society. Personnel changes whiny assed singers and strung out guitar players are just a few of the ingredients that went into this classic, and those were the good parts. I know the Samoans are still fucken angry and don't need some sh!t eating fags to tell them otherwise, If you don't belive me...fuck you go see em in Vegas on the 28th of July, 04 they'll have you making nasty in your disgusting holy spandex. Get hip...

mets@warwick.net (Ellen Cosme)
First off, claiming Screeching Weasel has tried sounding like the Ramones throughout their entire career is just an ignorant statement. Aside from the fact that bands such a Screeching Weasel, Mr. T Experience, and all the other Ramones inspired pop punk rock bands of the early 90's eventually ushered in such garbage as modern day punk rock, most of what was produced in their older lineups was raw, angry, fast, everything that the Samoans once were. Another side note, Weasel had claimed that the original sound was more of a rip off of Adrenalin OD, the late great thrash punk band from NJ whose comical appeal seems to have been lost in "serious" songwriting shams of the present day punk scene. With that said, the TNSASDY isn't such a bad EP relative to everything else that is being pushed and poked at and prodded and shoved down the throats of so many. Of course we wish Mr. Saunders could have scrounged up a release that featured the classic yelps and shredding chords as the earlier years did...but what the hell do you want from the guy? Christ. Would you rather pick up an Anti-Flag CD? And if you do, stop whining about Metal Mike. The dude is a legend. I recently just saw the Queers cover Fatso live and I couldn't have been happier, the intensity is still there. Shit, my own band has been covering I Love Cops from time to time. We butcher it, but we still cover it just to acknowledge how much I love this music. Stop bitching you jerks.

Buckyclatterbuck@aol.com
HERE IS THE TOP 5 BANDS OF ALL TIME. #5 BARBARA STREISAND #4 FRANK SINATRa #3 SHANIA TWAIN #2 SURF PUNKS #1 ANGRY SAMOANS

dead-beat@socal.rr.com
I just like to note that "I Love Cops" is not an Angry Samoans and only been spread around as an mp3 by their name. I do like to get any information with who the real band is that plays the song though since it is pretty cool.

Aaaahhhh anyways, yes let's talk about the Angry Samoans, a great over looked band in the LA scene. They have a barely any mention in books like We've Got the Neutron Bomb and Lexicon Devil. Which is sad really cause they are fucking great! Back From Samoa easily one of the best punk albums to come out of LA scene period. It's kinda lame to see an Angry Samoans album only with one original member. But now they are all back without Gregg Turner? Who knows how good they are now.

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Fuck the War EP Bad Trip 2006
Rating = 4

Okay, this release makes no sense at all. It features the title track a simple midtempo punk rock song with abominable lyrics along with (a) three recordings lifted directly from Back from Samoa, The 90s Suck and So Do You and a Metal Mike solo record, (b) 12 minutes of music journalist Claude Bessy listening to The Damned s Raymond Burns and Chris Millar shout curse words at him in 1979, (c) a dumb-as-dingdongs parody of I ll Be Missing You by an pseudonymous British man, and (d) a poorly scripted, poorly acted Metal Mike radio spot. So hang on while I get my calculator that s a total of, mmmm .. ONE new Angry Samoans song.

Has Mike Saunders lost his mind!? Why would he issue an EP that not only features a mere 1:45 of new material, but devotes 2/3rds of its running time to material he had nothing to do with!? Oh this world and its questions. I give up, on all of them.

What color are my eyes? How the hell should I know!? I can t see em!

Who was the first president? Who knows!? Abraham Lennon?

Who killed John F. Kennedy? A small team of mafia hitmen and anti-Castro Cubans acting under the direction of Carlos Marcello and Sam Giancana.

What s the first letter of the alphabet? Christ, I don t know! A box of crackers?

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