Cringer

Another band that I have been aware of for many years and only recently got a little more into is Cringer. Named after He-Man's feline sidekick, Cringer started life in the means streets of... Hawaii. I guess it's true that you learn something new every day. Apparently they started in Hawaii and then moved to LA and then to San Francisco. Anyway, my knowledge of the band is pretty much non existent. But one of my friends got into them a long time ago, and for whatever reason I was never too interested. But of course, when I inherited the record collection and was flicking through it, I figured it would be the perfect opportunity to give Cringer another try. And it was no real surprise given how much I have got back into the melodic stuff from the early 90s, that I found myself enjoying them.

I have ended up with three of their records. First up, the band's debut release, a 7" titled 'Perversion Is Their Destiny'. This was released by Vinyl Communications back in 1987. There were several different versions of this with different colour covers and colours of vinyl.

Unsurprisingly, this first releases showcases Cringer at their most basic. But as is often the case, a band's debut is where they sound the most unique. But also the least accessible.

Next, the band's only full length, which came out in 1990 on Vinly Communications, and which has one of the longest names for a record that I have ever seen. The record is titled 'Tikki Tikki Tembo No Sa Rembo Chari Bari Ruchi Pip Peri Pembo', which is the name of a character in a book.

This copy comes on clear vinyl. I have no idea if this is particularly rare or not, but it wasn't on discogs until I added it a few weeks ago.

The record is a definite step up from the debut 7" and contains some great pop punk, with a nice raw edge to it. It also contains a song that in my opinion should be the most played song in the world right now - the second song is called 'Russia'. It's one and a half minutes long, and takes 40 seconds to build up to a scream of 'Go back to Russia!'. Overall a very catchy record.

The third record I kept was a 7" called 'Karin'. This was released by Lookout! Records in 1990. I actually already had this one on red vinyl, but decided to keep this copy as it's more pink, as the photo completely fails to show:

I tried to take a photo of this one next to my red copy, but somehow they both looked exactly the same. So I had to resort to putting them on the window sill to get the light behind them to show the difference. The new one is the one on the right.

Anyway, given what is going on in Ukraine right now, I thought I'd end this post with the song I mentioned earlier in this post. Enjoy...