Bob: "The Things That You Do"

Seems like most collector-types in this little scene we got here will fall over themselves to talk shop, talk obscuro shop, about best-of-KBD shit. I got this single, I paid this much, this song is tits on a high-hog, you've never heard it, allow me to enlighten you, that sorta jive. Well, I'm outta the sweepstakes. I don't have the money or the wherewithal to investigate the whole shebang so heavily anymore, whether it's on Soulseek or on Gemm or in bargain-bins across this great goddamn country of ours. I'm too busy doing absolutely nothing, or bitching about inconsequential hoo-ha, or thinking about real life and fretting to the point where I gotta souse myself in order to handle this/that/other.

But I have gotten my mitts on some decent comps, sure. A tenner for a good comp is worth ten obscurities in the bush, or somesuch. You get the idea. Take the "Brainkiller" rec: Good one, very good one, got some hits all over it. Cover is A-OK: Bloody head of a random femme, as seen on the Angry Samoans' "Inside My Brain." Eye-catching right off. So I ponied up the dough one day, brought the fucker home, threw it on. Decent, decent, decent, decent, decent then BAM! Enter Bob's "The Things That You Do." Not decent, no, but bonafide AMAZING, you bet!

Real understated Casio tinkles skate across the even less obvious rhythm section and that monster of a guitar hook, a real Godzilla stomper. Guy's maniacal vox slap-bang into it all, and it gets messy, just barely together, and by the time the chorus jerks in, we got his femme counterpart careening her vox right into his and the song really starts going. Then we she takes over the lead voc, we're treated to her side of the insult-o-rama. Lyrics detail a bitchy back 'n' forth between an unsatisfied couple who typify the punk luv ethos as mentioned in alla those books you and I have read, as seen in alla them pics we've spied of Dee Dee and Connie (or whomever). Like: "You always wanna go to discos/I wanna go to cheap motels." "You wanna meet punk rockers/and I really think it's rude/You wanna live together/I want your friend named Ruth." And: "Call me from a payphone/just to start a fight/Bet you think you're macho/Can't get it up tonight?" Last one was the femme's line. Sounds like a ballbuster. Reminds me of the girlfriend from wayback, way, wayback -- she was a ballbuster, too. I like ballbusters. They got heart and so does this chick and her screech matches the guy's throaty howl step-for-step. And as the vox alternate, note how that monst guit riff turns itself inside out. It's like a circus in there! And I hate the circus but this one's good.

Flip to this single, not featured on the "Brainkiller" alb, is a throwaway called "Thomas Edison." But the A! Woulda been right at home on Dangerhouse. But it's not on Dangerhouse, it's on this "Brainkiller" LP, so do yourself and your friends and neighbors a favor and scope this one out. The more ambitious of you can spent next month's rent on the real-deal 45, then trade it to me for a spaghetti dinner and a staring contest.