I Feel The Power Of The Sun Upon My Back--Louisville's Squirrel Bait

Quite often early punk and alternative rock is lumped into place categories. NY, LA, San Francisco, Chicago,London, Manchester. That's where the important stuff happened. But the reality is that good things happen all over. There was Athens, Georgia, Austin, Boston, Vancouver, Seattle, Washington DC just to name a few places.

And Louisville, Kentucky.



The Tale's Got Taller, Your Hair Did Too

 The music of Squirrel Bait still amazes me after all these years. They were teens when they made this music and their talent and originality belied their youth. They broke up because band members left to attend college. The music is informed by other bands like Husker Du and Minor Threat but they really came up with something that is their own. The closest sounding contemporary group to them may have been Mission of Burma. Their music is pretty complex and musically accomplished--there are a lot of tempo and dynamics changes in their music. I first heard them on the Homestead compilation Wailin' Ultimate which had Sun God. It's really fantastic that label had the taste and foresight to sign this band and put out their music. I have the earliest Cd which is Skag Heaven with their eponymous Ep appended on the end.

Peter Searcy is Squirrel Bait's hoarse throated vocalist and he rips it up with intense panache on this record. David Grubbs' aggressive thrashy guitar work is superlative. But maybe the secret weapon here is drummer Ben Daughtry who is equally superb. A good drummer makes such a huge difference in a band.When I was a teenager, my band was trying to play Bachmann Turner Overdrive. I'm still a little jealous. These guys were rewriting the alternative rock playbook at a similar age. And there really was not a big punk rock scene to draw from when they first started a group. And this was true of most parts of the US. The early punk bands like Black Flag were almost like modern day explorers, reaching out into to the hinterland, gaining toeholds gradually, while suffering massive reversals on a nightly basis. Read about in Michael Azerrad's informative, essential, and funny book Our Band Could Be Your Life. In addition to Black Flag, he writes chapters on groups like Husker Du, The Replacements, The Minutemen and Burma. Through the efforts of touring bands like these, punk rock slowly soaked into our National Consciousness. And new music scenes sprouted up.

Squirrel Bait's recorded output is nothing short of the A-list. Sun God is simply a monster of a song--all the pent up ankst of adolescence explodes from your speakers. That song and Kid Dynamite were regularly on mix tapes I made throughout the 80's. Kid Dynamite, the first track on Skag Heaven, just destroys--listening to this is like eight rounds in a boxing ring. The music resembles hardcore, but there is so much sonic and rhythmic diversity here. Black Light Poster Child is another exhausting scorcher with almost soulful vocals by Searcy. Pummeling and melodic in one neat package.

If you like your music noisy and intense, this would be a perfect selection. Virgil's Revenge is another hard hitting, speedy low end riffing basher. Too Close To The Fire is a little more subdued, but no less effective. Rounding out the highlights are the bitter ballad Short Straw Wins, and the hard hitting cover of Phil Ochs' Ticket To California. The rest of the ep included on the disc is just as good as Skag Heaven.When I Fall is one of their best, maybe a bit more straightforward than the music from the Lp. The closing song Perfect is another furious rant. Hammering So Hard, Mixed Blessing and Disguise are also all great.

If you like Nirvana, The Replacements, Fugazi, you will love Squirrel Bait. If they did not break up after their first album, they would easily be well known legends of postpunk/alternative music. Which is what they should be, anyway. The band members of Squirrel Bait did go on to form bands such as Slint, Bastro, and Gastr Del Sol, but this band remains my favorite.