I'm Forced To Forget How To Give

During my '80s "youth crew" days the original XClaim! bands were practically like gods (little g) to me, though SSD and DYS quickly proved with their post-XClaim! output that they didn't know their way around a rock n roll riff at all. Not true with the F.U.'s/Straw Dogs and Jerry's Kids, luckily, and even though the Jerry's Kids re-union LP ("Kill Kill Kill") is referred to as "speed metal" all the time-- as if they were C.O.C. or The Accüsed or something-- it's still pretty much a hardcore punk record. Sure, the drumming's not the same and it's a bit slowed down from the hyper-thrash found on "Is This My World?", as you might expect, but it's still way more hardcore than a lot of the other shit from the same era that other people try to pass off as hardcore (Gang Green's "Another Wasted Night", for instance). Plus, the riffs on "Kill Kill Kill" are given every chance to do their work, which is a great thing, and overall it sounds exactly like the record you'd expect Jerry's Kids to make at that point in their career, instead of the abomination that became "How We Rock" or whatever.

Jerry's Kids are also the only original XClaim! band that I got to see live, at CBGB's after their re-union in 1987. I can't recall too much about the show, or even who else was on the bill (maybe Verbal Assault? Government Issue?), but I know they were more than good enough. I remember at one point during a slow part to one of their songs (perhaps "Spymaster", which is a La Peste cover, or "Satan's Toy"), Bob and Rick held their guitars like oars and started paddling them in unison to whatever riff was being played, which was some pretty funny shit.

I've ripped both sides of my copy of the "Spymaster" single here-- even though neither song is anything exclusive or rare -- only because this single actually came in 3 different versions with 3 different b-sides, pretty much all of which can be found on "Kill Kill Kill". Flip a couple of bucks Curtis' way, and you can even own a copy of "Kill Kill Kill" or "Is This My World?" on a shitty cassette for $1.99!

By the way, a little name clarification: despite what everybody thinks when they first look at the back of this record, "Jack Clark" isn't the same Jack Clark who played for the SF Giants and the Boston Red Sox.




Jerry's Kids -

(these files are now listen-only)

"Spymaster"

"Need Some"