BOB BOB LP
BOB was an absolutely flipped-out art-punk quartet in early ’80s San Francisco who put out two singles and an LP on NOVAK’s Dumb Records imprint before falling apart, and this new anthology collects that entire recorded output with the addition of a really great fold-out insert with archival photos and an interview with the band. The first BOB 7″ from 1980 (“The Things That You Do” / “Thomas Edison”) remains a total US DIY classic, two raucous rushes of shrieking, call-and-response male/female vocals and Morse code rhythms—think fellow Bay Area freaks PINK SECTION, or even really early B-52’S—pushed to an even weirder extreme given that an urgently bashed vibraphone was the instrument at the front and center of both songs. BOB’s subsequent records lost some of that frenetic edge and leaned more into an oddball new wave direction that, thanks to the still-present vibraphone, could almost be described as mutant lounge (the less wound-up counterpart to No Wave’s mutant disco explorations?). In my original memories from picking up 1983’s Backward LP, none of the songs left quite as strong of an impression as that first single, but revisiting them in the context of this compilation, I honestly have a renewed appreciation for a lot of it—”Bird Lanes” or “(My Pal) Joe” aren’t really too far removed from Hardcore-era DEVO or mid-to-late-period SUBURBAN LAWNS. Mandatory listening for enthusiasts of the most off-kilter sounds to come out of the 1980s punk underground.