The Stepmothers: (I Dream I'm) Innocent!

(Image courtesy of record collectors of the world unite)

Many years ago, before Google Blog Search made a mockery of the word rarity, The Stepmothers made that apocalyptic sort of music that the Trouser Press raved about but which you could not lay your hands on. Back in the early eighties, all I knew of them was the hand-clappy, marching-chanty, power-poppy anthem, "Where is the Dream?", from Rodney on the Roq Volume 2.

So, since I've only recently actually heard their mutinous bounty, I'll have to rely on MRML readers for some 'back-in-the-day' anecdotes and I'll just give you the quick n' dirty version.


The Stepmothers, Steve Jones* on guitar and vocals, Jay Lansford on Guitar, and Larry Lee Lerma on Bass and a succession of drummers, hailed from Claremont, California. They began by playing that incessantly catchy pop-punk Posh Boy's Robbie Fields (and KROQ D.J. Rodney Bingenheimer, America's John Peel) nurtured so brilliantly in the early eighties. Led by a fine, slightly Idolish, lead singer in Jones and an ace guitar slinger in Lansford, they sounded ready to kick the shit out of the pop charts, like as if the gang from The Wild One had formed a band. It never really came together, instead the Stepmothers' metalized punk bridged the gap between SoCal pop-punk of their time and the Hollywood sleaze metal to come. After the band broke up, Lansford joined Channel 3, really bringing up their game (see here), and Jones formed a genuine brass ring conten-dah named the Unforgiven.
*Not that Steve Jones.


"(I Dream I'm) Innocent!" is a later-period re-union song and fucking hell does it tear flesh. Cover art aside, this is no dated topical song - listen to that opening Stanley Kowalaski line, "Baby, I got viciousness just seeping from my skin". It's a terrifying tale of domestic horror, the horror that always ends unspeakably.




Download I Dream I'm Innocent! b/w Bloodstains 7"



The band's entire discography is available on the kinda dodgy digital incarnation of Posh Boy - good luck!


Thanks to Ian E. for pointing me towards this particular track.

V.A. Punks on Drugs

"I can't understand why anybody should devote their lives to a cause like dope. It's the most boring pastime I can think of. It ranks a close second to TV."
Frank Zappa

"Frank Zappa is probably the single most untalented person I've heard in my life. He's two-bit, pretentious, academic and he can't play his way out of anything. He can't play rock n' roll because he's a loser. And that's why he dresses so funny. He's not happy with himself and I think he's right"
Lou Reed

After Lou Reed (more here) and all that smack-talk it's time to post this dodgy compilation, which even by Lou's standard has a pretty seedy track list:

1 New York Dolls - Pills 2:55
A fine 1973 demo.
2 Urban Dogs - Cocaine 2:23
UK Subs' Charlie Harper plus the Vibrators' Knox do a bracing version of Dillinger's reggae classic (itself an adaptation of an old blues song).

3 Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers - Chinese Rocks 2:55
Y'all know this one from L.A.M.F. - The Lost '77 Mixes.
4 Fallen Angels - Amphetamine Blue 2:32
The Vibrators' Knox plus half of Hanoi Rocks makes for a near perfect pop song.

5 Simpletones - I Like Drugs 2:09
The first band of Jay Lansford of the the Stepmothers (more here) and Channel 3(more here) offers up a classic early SoCal pop-punk song.
6 Chron Gen - L.S.D. 1:55
A UK '82 chant-along rocker.
7 Family Fodder - My Baby Takes Valium 3:26
Tinkly-synth post-punk from their Playing Golf (With My Flesh Crawling) single
8 Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers - One Track Mind 2:35
Thunders once said "I'm addicted to sex, my guitar and White Russians" but with songs like this who would believe him?
9 Urban Dogs - Speed Kills 1:20
Glad someone here said it.
10 UK Subs - Killing Time 2:19
A blazing track from the Harper-Garrat reunion of 1988.
11 Creaming Jesus - Smoke (Skin Up For Jesus) 2:05
(How did this crappily-named tuneless goth-metal band merit inclusion?)
12 Eater - Waiting For The Man 2:26
Eater were close to the bottom of '77's barrel but this Velvet Underground cover is charming.
13 Heroes, The - Too Much Junkie Business 2:24
Former Heartbreaker's Walter Lure and Billy Rath do their former boss's classic.
14 Adicts, The - Get Adicted 2:03
The Adicts drug of choice is stuttering, hooky punk rock as this song from 1982' Songs of Praise attests.
15 UK Subs - DF 118 2:04
Charlie Harper gets four tracks here(!), including this track from Occupied
16 Broken Bones - Secret Agent 2:52
Some more metallic UK hardcore here from the album Dem Bones.
17 Action Pact - Suicide Bag 1:54
Female vocals like fellow Uk 82'ers Vice Squad but lacking the strong personality of Bekki Bondage. From Complete Singles Collection.
18 Newtown Neurotics - The Mess 4:14
"Good pop on a bad budget" is how these eighties UK punks accurately described themselves. From Beggars Can Be Choosers
19 Slits, The - New Town (Live) 3:57
All-female reggae-punk, the Slits were (and are) a genre unto themselves. From In The Beginning
20 Only Ones, The - The Beast (Live) 6:09
The Only Ones (more here) never recorded a bad song. From The Big Sleep.



Punks on Drugs CD

Mad Parade: Cat-Bitten Tongue (1996)

Unlike some of their early 80's SoCal pop/punk/hardcore brethren like Bad Religion or Social Distortion, Mad Parade has never had a really wide audience. Like Channel 3 or D.I., the band has had to make do by building a narrower but yet surprisingly far-reaching following.

Mad Parade has pulled off the cult following thing with style and grit. Their discography is spread out over almost thirty years but remains committed to Anglo-American punk/pop hybrid full of catchy sing-along choruses , layers of roaring guitars and never-say ballad rhythms.





Cat-Bitten Tongue is 1996 single demonstrates the band's fidelity to it's loud, catchy n' pissed-off sound (even their mid-80's album where their label made them pout prettily on the cover still sounds like a Mad Parade record which you can't say for most of their peers). Besides the two rocking originals, the EP contains a cover of their under-known compatriots, The Stepmothers' song "If I Were You".

Tracklist
1     Concentration Girls     4:02    
2     A.W.O.L.                   3:04    
3     If I Were You              1:44

So what do you make of the career of MP? Let us know in the COMMENTS SECTION!

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