Back in the Day, 1980

Hypstrz

Hypstrization! (live)

(Twin Tone / Voxx / Bomp!)

By 1980, the Minneapolis helter-skelter Punk underground included soon-to-be luminaries The Replacements, as well as several lesser-reputed upstarts. Amongst that mongrel assemblage were The Hypstrz. The members leaned into lightning-slap reinventions of 1960s Garage rough-cuts, hurtling into concluding refrains practically before pogoing audiences realized tunes had abandoned  launch pads. 

A Minneapolis resident in 1980, this writer saw the quartet open for Johnny Thunders / Wayne Kramer vehicle Gang War, at the famed Sam's 7th St. Entry. Both the Hypstrz and Gang War performed versions of "I Go Crazy." Honesty requires that I relate the local grapplers' headlong reading bested the big-city visitors' somewhat lackadaisical one.  

The brotherly dyad of eruptive shouter Billy and razor-riffing Ernie Batson were joined by drummer John Haga (precision in flight) and machine-gun bassist Randy Weiss in wrenching out of sidewalk-surfin' soundtracks as much sweaty muscularity and uncouth dive bombing as clubs could withstand without blowing straight up. Safety-pinned Kamikazes (myself seizing in that number) collided against one another in beer-spattered euphoria.

These 14 club-stage cuts convey the bedlam juvenile time bombs craved.

(Reissued by Bomp! in 2005, with numerous souvenirs.)

Recommended: "In the Midnight Hour," "All or Nothing," I Go Crazy," "I Don't, "Talk Talk," "Tried to Hide," "Slow Death," "Riot on Sunset Strip," "Shake," "This Has Gotta Be a Joke," "Little Girl," "Louie Go Home," "Don't Look Back," "Let's Talk About Girls," "96 Tears"

Videos: "In the Midnight Hour"    "Tried to Hide"   "Louie Go Back Home"/"Riot on Sunset Strip"/"Shake"/"Midnight to Six" (That last doesn't appear on Hypsterization!)

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