Circle Jerks’ Wild in the Streets Deluxe Reissue + First US Tour in over 15 Years
Wild in the Streets, the scorching 1982 sophomore album by the pathfinding Southern California hardcore punk band the Circle Jerks, will receive a remastered, augmented LP reissue on February 18 by Trust Records.
Succeeding Trust’s 2020 re-release of the band’s 1980 debut, Group Sex, the package will include remastered audio by Pete Lyman and rare April 1982 live performances of material from the band’s first two albums, captured at the Elite Club in San Francisco. A lavish 20-page, full-color 12-by-12-inch booklet created for this release assembles historic photographs, club flyers, and an 8,200-word essay by veteran Los Angeles journalist Chris Morris, including new interviews with founding band members Keith Morris, Greg Heston, and Lucky Lehrer.
You can preview the remastered version of the album’s title track “Wild in the Streets” with a new music video directed by storied photographer and skateboarder Atiba Jefferson. The video features a live Circle Jerks performance from 1982 and skaters Tony Hawk, Lance Mountain, Christian Hosoi, Eric Koston, Kevin “Spanky” Long, Steve Olson, Victoria Ruesga, Sal Barbier, Rowan Zorilla, Sean Malto, Anaiah Lei, Lizzie Armanto, Dashawn Jordan, Max Perlich, and more.
Of the video, Atiba reveals, “I grew up on ‘Wild In The Streets’, so to be asked to direct this video was a huge honor. I wanted to capture and preserve 40 years of history but also celebrate 40 years of punk rock and skateboarding history.”
Listen / Share / Playlist “Wild In The Streets”
Watch Official New Music Video via YouTube HERE
The release of Wild in the Streets coincides with the February kickoff of the Circle Jerks’ 40th Anniversary Tour with support from Negative Approach, Adolescents, and 7 Seconds (who will be reuniting for the first time in over five years). Circle Jerks’ current live lineup is vocalist Keith Morris, guitarist Greg Hetson (Bad Religion, Redd Kross), bassist Zander Schloss (The Weirdos, Joe Strummer), and drummer Joey Castillo (The Bronx, QOTSA, Danzig, BL’AST!, Wasted Youth). For a full list of dates, see below. To purchase tickets and for updates, go here.
Wild In The Streets – Deluxe Reissue Track Listing:
SIDE A
Wild in the Streets
Leave Me Alone
Stars and Stripes
86’d (Good as Gone)
Meet the Press
Trapped
Murder the Disturbed
SIDE B
Letterbomb
Question Authority
Defamation Innuendo
Moral Majority
Forced Labor
Political Stu
Just Like Me
Put a Little Love in Your Heart
Bonus Tracks:
Letter Bomb (Live ’82)
Wild In The Streets (Live ’82)
Stars and Stripes (Live ’82)
Circle Jerks Live Dates:
# w/ Adolescents & Negative Approach
! w/ 7 SECONDS & Negative Approach
^ w/ The Bouncing Souls
* w/ 7 Seconds
02/18: Observatory North Park – San Diego, CA # – SOLD OUT
02/19: House of Blues – Anaheim, CA # – SOLD OUT
02/20: Ventura Theater – Ventura, CA # – SOLD OUT
02/22: Fremont Theater – San Luis Obispo, CA #
02/23: Catalyst – Santa Cruz, CA #
02/25: Fillmore – San Francisco, CA #
02/26: Ace of Spades – Sacramento #
02/27: Whitney Peak Hotel – Reno, NV #
03/01: Knitting Factory – Boise. ID #
03/02: Midtown – Bend, OR #
03/04: Sessions Music Hall – Eugene, OR #
03/05: Showbox SODO – Seattle, WA #
03/06: Roseland – Portland, OR # – SOLD OUT
03/17: Grand Room Complex – Salt Lake CIty, UT !
03/18: Black Sheep – Colorado Springs, CO !
03/19: Ogden Theatre – Denver, CO !
03/21: Granada – Lawrence, KS !
03/22: Red Flag – St. Louis, MO !
03/24: First Ave – Minneapolis, MN !
03/25: The Vic – Chicago, IL !
03/26: St. Andrews Hall – Detroit, MI !
03/28: Town Ballroom – Buffalo, NY !
03/29: Mr. Smalls – Pittsburgh, PA !
03/30: House of Blues – Cleveland, OG !
04/01: Phoenix Theatre – Toronto, ON *
04/02: Corona Theatre – Montreal, QC * – SOLD OUT
04/03: L’Imperial Bell – Quebec City, QC *
04/05: Higher Ground – Burlington, VT !
04/07: Paradise – Boston, MA ! – SOLD OUT
04/08: Stone Pony – Asbury Park, NJ ! – SOLD OUT
04/09: TLA – Philadelphia, PA ! – SOLD OUT
04/12: Paradise – Boston, MA !
04/14: Irving Plaza – NYC, NY !
04/16: Black Cat – Washington DC ! – SOLD OUT
04/19: Orange Peel – Asheville, NC !
04/21: Brooklyn Bowl – Nashville, TN !
04/22: Masquerade, Atlanta, GA !
04/23: New Orleans, LA !
04/26: Mohawk – Austin, TX !
04/29: Paper Tiger – San Antonio, TX !
04/30: White Oak – Houston, TX !
05/01: Granada Theater – Dallas, TX !
05/13: Hollywood Palladium – Los Angeles, CA !^
06/22: Sunshine Theatre – Albuquerque, NM #
06/24: Van Buren – Phoenix, AZ #
06/25: Rialto Theatre – Tucson, AZ #
More About Circle Jerks and Wild in the Streets:
As writer Chris Morris – who received a Grammy Award nomination for his writing for the boxed set No Thanks! The ‘70s Punk Rebellion — notes in his history, the Circle Jerks’ wound-up rendition of Garland Jeffreys’ “Wild in the Streets,” originally issued in a different version on a 1980 Posh Boy Records compilation, “was the first music released on record by the Circle Jerks, and the number became a suitable and highly appropriate calling card for a band that lived up to its title.”
By 1981, the quartet was regularly tearing up Southern California clubs and halls, drawing large and frequently riotous crowds. Following the release of Group Sex by the independent Frontier Records, the band was in the hunt for a new label, and their then-manager Gary Hirstius convinced David Anderle, vice president of A&R at A&M Records, to take a look at them at an L.A. club gig.
Vocalist Morris, then one of the reigning wild men of SoCal hardcore, recalls, “We play, and after we dry off and socialize a bit backstage, Gary introduces me to David Anderle. David Anderle looks at me and says, ‘I’ve got to record you before you kill yourself.’”
Though signing with A&M was a bridge too far for the prominent label, Anderle volunteered to co-produce an album for the group, which was recorded at label co-founder Herb Alpert’s private studio on the old Charlie Chaplin film lot in Hollywood. Like its predecessor, the record that became Wild in the Streets was essentially cut live, with minimal overdubs; recording and mixing took a total of four days.
Guitarist Hetson says, “Pretty much everyone there was like, ‘Just do your thing, it’s great.’ [Anderle] wanted us to set up and play. That’s what our goal was. We weren’t trying to make a quote-unquote finely produced album of art. We were doing our thing, and hopefully it got captured in the studio.”
Drummer Lehrer remembers, “The songs seemed to fall into several categories. There were the songs that were fun songs and more in the spirit of, like, the ‘50s, let’s say. And then there were the songs that were more in the spirit of the Dead Kennedys that addressed either topical or legal or political issues. And then there were the songs that were by Keith Morris, that were were basically, ‘I’m frustrated, I’m angry, I’m not getting what I want in life, I’m trapped, why me?’”
The Circle Jerks ended up signed to Faulty Products, an indie distributor/imprint run by the Police’s manager Miles Copeland, whose A&M-distributed I.R.S. Records released best-selling records by the Go-Go’s and R.E.M. The design and release of Wild in the Streets is recalled in the new notes by I.R.S./Faulty staffers John Guarnieri, Betsy Alexander, Carmel Conlin, and Carlos Grasso, as well as by legendary punk photographer Edward Colver, who snapped the classic cover shot of the band members and their friends invading a San Francisco street parade.
Following a run of local shows that drew frequent visits from riot-equipped L.A. police and a near-fatal drug overdose by bassist Roger Rogerson, the band embarked on a chaotic six-week U.S. tour – their first major American trek – which climaxed with a New Orleans show (promoted by Carlo Nuccio, later the drummer for Keith Morris’ band Buglamp), where the Jerks’ diminutive, out-of-control lead singer was locked in one of Lehrer’s drum cases.
On the heels of the Circle Jerks’ return to L.A., Faulty Products was shuttered; though Wild in the Streets quickly became unavailable, re-releases of the record by Frontier and Epitaph kept the early legacy of L.A.’s hardcore pioneers alive. The new Trust LP issue of the album, which tells the complete story of its remarkable genesis and rampaging aftermath, will stand as the definitive rendering of this crucial early punk opus.
