The Offs - Live At The Mabuhay Gardens: March 1, 1980 (CD)

Release Date: 07/07/23

SF punk/ska band formed in 1978 moving to NYC in the '80s. Genre sound bending post-punk styles of ska and no wave on this rare live recording

The punk/ska band formed in 1978 by singer Don Vinil and guitarist Billy Hawk. They were soon joined by former Hot Tuna drummer Bob Steeler and a rotating lineup of horn players, including Bob Roberts, Roland Young, and Richard Edson. At the time, Edson was also active on the New York scene as the original drummer for Sonic Youth and post-punk dance band Konk. In 1984, Edson's career grew to also include movie acting, as he made his film debut as one of the three leads in Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise. Edson played trumpet on the Offs' 1984 debut album, First Record.

The greatest thing about the sextet when they would play Max's Kansas City (they lived in New York on Prince Street for part of each year and released a single on the Max's label) was how uncategorizable they were. Were they punk? New wave? Avant-garde? Art rock? No New York noise? A new strain of art jazz? Some odd form of mutant ska gone wrong with bleating sax? Similar to U.K. contemporaries, Blurt, they were sort of all these post-punk sounds and styles. What tied them to the punk community. Caffeinated singer Don Vinil, who sadly died of a heroin overdose in New York in 1983, was a close friend and friendly competitor of Jello Biafra in the old S.F. days when both bands started out together. These weren't a bunch of art school posers, they were smash-it-up party skanksters who wanted to do something fresh within an absolutely remarkably creative late-'70s Bay Area scene -- in cahoots with Crime, The Nuns, The Avengers, Negative Trend, Flipper, Pink Section, Tuxedomoon, Vktms, The Mutants, Lewd, Dils, Zeros, and others. These guys didn't know what that was, and it really comes through again on this excellent quality radio broadcast.

The 15-track set was recorded at the Mabuhay Gardens on March 1, 1980 and features covers of The Velvet Underground, T. Rex, Ray Charles, James Brown, The Slickers and The Essex.

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