Skunks

Reviews

Skunks Mad Song / Persian Radio 7″

I confess to being a tad perplexed at this 7″. Australia’s SKUNKS released a four-song 7″ EP in 1982 called Scratch N’ Sniff. I imagine the opening song, “Dance With The Fuhrer,” raised a few eyebrows in their native Adelaide. Did the average punter grok the sarcasm of its stiff-armed salute outro? At first, I thought maybe the reason that only half the original songs appeared on this small-run reissue was that the band wanted to avoid any appearance of aligning—justified or not—with such reprehensible ideas. But then I saw that there was a faithful four-song repro released in Australia concurrently with this particular edition. Preserved On Plastic is based in South Korea, so perhaps there is a licensing issue at work? Regardless, on this version, we skip the two-step with Hitler plus a re-christened Xmas tune (“Violent Night”). What remains is “Mad Song” and “Persian Radio,” both of which slot nicely with contemporaries like JUST URBAIN and THOUGHT CRIMINALS.

Skunks Scratch ‘n’ Sniff EP

This Aussie EP is sort of a mixed bag. The SKUNKS do a sleazy modified version of “Silent Night” entitled “Violent Night,” a fast punk blast with sarcastic lyrics (“Dance with the Führer), a dynamic mid-tempo punker (“Mad Song”), and a totally mundane ’77-type number (“Persian Radio”). It’s hard to make an overall judgement when faced with such unevenness.