While Chi Pig, the hard-living front man of Edmonton's S.N.F.U., lives, one of his inspirations, Jack Klugman,who played a medical examiner on the seventies TV show Quincy, has died at the age of 90.
Despite the incredible idiocy of that infamous 'punk' episode of Quincy, Klugman was a fantastic actor (watch his Twilight Zone episodes, Twelve Angry Men or even The Odd Couple as proof) and his passing deserves note, even on a blog that deals mostly with music.
What did S.N.F.U. (more here) stand for anyway? It's pretty clear that near the beginning it was Situation Normal - all Fucked Up but the band was always cagey about its exact meaning. Sometimes you heard it meant Society's No Fucking Use or Sobriety's No Fucking Use, Stupid Name For Us or even Sally Never Fucks Us. At bare minimum that F had to be some permutation of the verb to fuck. Other than that, as the Chi says at the start of this ferocious 1985 San Diego show, the exact meaning always remained TBA.
When first I witnessed him, I thought Chi Pig a marvel: an acrobatic punk rock front-man, possessed of a wild head-dress of hair with a life of its own and the most ghoulish sense of humour. Mr. Chi Pig (Kevin Chinn) has led a version of S.N.F.U. for over a quarter of century of lows and highs; lost friendships, break-ups, disappointing albums and one horrifying descent into addiction.
Alongside the brothers Belke, Marc and Brent, on guitar and an ever-changing rhythm section Edmonton's S.N.F.U's hit their glory years after the (north) American hardcore scene had peaked in 1983. After so many left to play speed-metal or college-rock, those who remained in the punk underground (mostly skater kids and freaky nerds) grabbed onto this band who played as tight as a metal band but whose front-man channeled the skull-rattling energy (and unusual singing style) of vocalists like Keith Morris and Iggy Pop into some demented form of martial art.
My first witness of S.N.F.U. occurred upstairs at Wellington's (Teenage Head were playing downstairs) back in 1985, where I met the first girl who'd break my heart (Damn you Chi Pig!) It was my first real punk show, y'know, the first one where I slammed, the first one where I met my fellow misfits, and, consumerism alert!, the first one where I bought an album AND a T-shirt. The album, And No One Else Wanted To Play would dominate my listening over the coming months and I'd eventually wear the Berni Wrightson inspired T-shirt down to the threads.
Today's offering is a rarities collection from 1989 called The Last of the Big Time Suspenders but it's a minor addendum to their major work of the eighties and their inconsistent but worthwhile work since their frequent returns to action.
MRML Reader: Leave us a comment with your take on the works of S.N.F.U.
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Re: Re-Ups
MRML does not plan to restore all of the content lost in The Great Mediafire Gutting of 2012. Polite requests may be made in the appropriate section, regular commenters will get priority.
