Four on the Floor

(Panic Button/Lookout!)
by Scott Hefflon

Short and sweet. Sweet like a SweetTart, not pure sugar candy, if you know what I’m sayin’. Panic Button pulls together four bands, three of which have records on Panic Button, for four tracks apiece, totaling a scant 32 minutes. You do the math: 4×4=16; and 16 goes into 32 how many times? That’s right, two. Let that sink in for a moment… And as far as I can tell, all these songs are previously unreleased. Enticing, huh? Trouble is, in some cases you can kinda tell why these songs were, shall we say, passed over. They just ain’t up to snuff with what the bands are capable of. While Screeching Weasel, Moral Crux, and Teen Idols were produced by Mass Giorgini and Enemy You was produced by Kevin Army, most of the recording sounds kinda thin. And with the exception of SW, most of the bands have sounded better. My favorite SW is the under-produced, stripped down, fast and pissed stuff. Call me old fashioned. Even the Teen Idols, one of my faves, fail to really get the blood boiling, the head bobbing and the toes tapping. But if, for some reason, you’ve never heard of any these bands (or you’re a ravenous collector and gotta have everything from one of these bands, whether it’s any good or not), here’s yer big chance.
(PO Box 148010 Chicago, IL 60614)