Stick #1: SNFU - Better Than A Stick In The Eye (1988)

Lately, as my baby brother was scouting my hardcore vinyl collection looking for cool artworks and illustrations, after several years of dusty oblivion and enforced distance from the turntable, some of these vinyl gems came back to my eyes and ears. The idea of an 1980-1990 hardcore punk audioblog was a consequence of that rediscovery. With no exhaustive historical intent i just randomly picked some pieces from the crates, got inspiration for a proper name and started the whole process by scanning, digitalizing, and reminiscing, while trying hard to hold back some tears. And finally here we are with a stick in your eye #1.



S.N.F.U. - G.I. Joe Gets Angry With Human Kind
S.N.F.U. - Postman's Pet Peeve

Open Your Mouth And Say: S.N.F.U.!! Well, S.N.F.U. belongs to that era when hardcore music was a product of spontaneous creative, somehow disturbed, young minds, when money wasn't a big thing in the perspective of bands willing and ready to tour the world stuck in a tiny stinky van. Everything was unheard, unsaw and new, breathtaking. Cover artworks, lyrics, stage approach, you'd come to expect something wicked all the time, especially from bands who were bringing to the stage the neckless attitude of the skate thing, mixing it up with the sharp glance-at-reality of a punk rock background. Back in the days, S.N.F.U happened to be the summary of all that. Starting from their record cover illustrations, always portraying some kind of juvenile disturbed nightmare, all the way to the lyrics, filled with smiling twisted visions of typical ordinary aspects of otherwise dead-boring everyday teen life. Some amount of the peculiarity that set them apart from other bands, lies in the driving charisma of Mr.Chi Pig, the flying super-bizarre frontman that led their frenetic shows as if there was no gravity on stage. Voted "Best Live Band" by Flipside in 1987, by that time they already had released two superb lps and toured Canada ad the U.S several times. "Better Than A Stick In The Eye" had a top recording quality remarking their typical fast furious yet still humorous cannibal-cafe flavour. That was the time when i first saw them live, here in Amsterdam, experiencing the raw deep impact of their gigs. Although i decided to narrow this blog's visual to just the 80-90's period, i'll have to mention the fact that S.N.F.U. are nowadays celebrating their 25 years career: on July 20th with a tribute event at the Cobalt in Vancouver, the legendary hardcore bar where Mr. Chi Pig hosts a karaoke-scaryoke show every Sunday.

LINKS:
S.N.F.U. - OFFICIAL WEB SITE
S.N.F.U. @ MYSPACE
MR. CHI PIG @ MYSPACE