Whither the Nuns

(not necessarily punning here)

"Romania" was issued a few years later and was starkly different. It was a mall Goth record before there were mall Goths and had largely given away the sound that made the first LP a smack in the face. As mood music, it was fair. Generally, it's not my cup of tea and the guitar sound was poor, sounding thin and over compressed as compared to "The Nuns."

Infrequently, other CDs have appeared, but the first vinyl LP is the high point.

Some of the songs:

Weird People
Eating Soup
Nazi Snatzi
Doomed
Kiddie Porn

"Natzi Snatzi" was my favorite. "You're storm trooper killer; you want to start a war." The hook was good, and in the chorus, set
to "Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler!" People reacted badly to it when I played it loud in grad school.

Very much into punk rock as hard rock well before hardcore and the
fossilized modern idea of it as therapy and community for large peer groups of ninnies. In league with the long lost Christ Child LP, which might have preceded it by a year or two.

Another favorite in that mode is the Zero Boys' Vicious Circle. I saw that band several times, liked 'em a lot, and was disappointed when the album came out and I saw it reviewed in Flipside or some other punk zine as being boring, dated, slow, etc. The DC bands were ascendant, Damaged was out, and the game was changing.

Everyone got "Taliban-ed" by hardcore. That's a good word for it. And it wasn't exclusive to the West Coast. Pre-Dick Destiny band, The Guns, was a fast and lean hard rock trio which by default wound up geographically stuck in the punk rock scene from the region. The hardcore punks in the shires were as conformist as the people they claimed to despise from the mainstream, and that was in the early-mid 80's. I remember doing a show at one well-attended gig and everyone was let in for the soundcheck which they cheered for. By the time the show rolled around, two numbers in The Guns do "Roadkill" -- which the mullahs thought was literally a recommendation to go out and run over animals on the highway. They fold up their arms and do a boycott.

So it was good to remove yourself from that scene early and play to drunks or more mainstream audiences, if -- as a hard rock band -- you didn't want to have a fatwa taken out on you by the fundamentalists.

I had my revenge when I became the primary pop music writer for the local newspaper a few years later. Hardcore bands, particularly the regional and local acts, were a great source for humor pieces and ridicule by dint of their similarity to clans, odd political parties (viz., the followers of Lyndon LaRouche) and religious sects.

Re: The Bizarros Mercury LP - sounds like The Strokes

um, that would be the other way around, i think.

The Lewd LP with "Mobile Home" goes good with it.

They definately stood out from what someone else already noted was a politically tight-assed scene, the Rubber City Rebels excepted because they were funny as hell and were like 999 vs Dead Boys over some Pabsts.

There was another Cali proto-goth girl group but damned if the name will come.