Saturday 20 December 2014

Skag Heaven

There are some bands that I have had weird relationships and/or interactions with over the years. One of them is Squirrel Bait. I first read about this band in some dude's personal zine in the mid 90s. I'd never heard the band, but the article made me curious. This was back before the internet existed, so I couldn't just go online and check them out as you can today. It was probably another 6 years or so by the time I got around to listening to Squirrel Bait. I stumbled across their first LP for cheap somewhere, so with the zine article still fresh in my mind, I took a chance on it. It was (and still is) an incredible record and I played it a lot when I first picked it up, which I think was circa 2001, although I am not exactly sure.

The weird thing was that I never got around to checking out anything else that the band released. I don't even know why. But a couple of months ago I was playing my ipod on shuffle, and a Squirrel Bait song came on, which instantly reminded me how good they were. I then decided to look up what else they had released. There actually isn't much - two albums and a 7". I picked up this green vinyl copy of their second LP, 'Skag Heaven' for very cheap on discogs. I guess not too many people care these days.

If you've never heard this band before, well, I can only advise that you check them out. There's not really any band that I can think of that sound like them. But they are in the same kinda ballpark as Dag Nasty and Hüsker Dü, yet catchier than both. Trust me.

5 comments:

JUST SAY YO! zine said...

Check out the Selt Title 12" EP, it's a classic !

paulw said...

You do know that 2 of the members went on to form Slint, right?

mcs said...

I did know that someone from Squirrel Bait went on to Slint, but didn't know two of them did. I'm actually not a Slint fan. I tried twice but never got into it.

paulw said...

Brian McMahan and Britt Walford went on to form Slint. There's some good information about Squirrel Bait in the book "Slint's Spiderland" published by 33 1/3 (actually, it's one of the best books in the 33 1/3 series). Your might find it interesting even if you're not into Slint.

mcs said...

Thanks, man. Interesting. I did see the Slint 'Spiderland' reissue and it looked great. Made me want to give them another try.