Discography

By Mark Prindle
markprindle.com

The Angry Samoans were a California band that began as an incredible punk/hardcore band and then turned to garage rock and poppier punk later on. Led by music critic “Metal Mike” Saunders and also featuring Gregg Turner and three other folks, the Angry Samoans didn’t particularly get along at the time, and REALLY don’t get along now. Such is life in the big city.

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Inside My Brain
(Triple X, 1980)

American punk rock! Snotty, young sounding vocals and even snottier lyrics trashing girls, fathers, Rodney Bingenheimer and anybody else who gets too close for comfort. The music seems a little sluggish by today’s punk rock standards, but heck this was 1980! The riffs are mostly angry and catchy (except when they’re Beach Boying it up in “Carson Girls”), there are some cuss words and, much like a lovemaking session with Sting, the whole thing is over in just 23 minutes. The singer’s weedy little voice might get on your nerves, but hey we can’t all be that guy in They Might Be Giants.

Back From Samoa
(Triple X, 1982)

This has always been one of my favorite punk rock albums. This time around, the tempos are much faster, the riffs much more creative, the guitars much louder and the lyrics MUCH more offensive (believe it or not).

Let’s see -- there’s a song about poking your eyes out with a fork (later to be covered by The Accused!), one called “They Saved Hitler’s Cock” (featuring the ridiculous couplet “If Hitler’s cock could choose its mate/It would call for Sharon Tate”), a vicious homophobic attack credited to “J. Falwell,” a 34-second song called “Tuna Taco” that one might logically assume is about a vagina of some sort, and of course the inevitable incredible “Ballad Of Jerry Curlan,” which you might say doesn’t exactly “hold back” on the foul language.

Every song is either catchy and slamminly fast or weird and intriguing. And, much like a mix tape of Sting’s finest post-Blue Turtles material, the whole thing is over in less than 20 minutes!

Yesterday Started Tomorrow
(Triple X, 1986)

WTF??? Why are the Angry Samoans now playing inoffensive pseudo-’60s bubblegum songs? Non-distorted guitars? Singing instead of shouting? A Jefferson Airplane cover, are you kidding me? It’s one thing to “mature,” but why bother keeping the name “Angry Samoans” if you have no intention of being “angry” or doing anything at all to appeal to the people that might be interested in purchasing a record by the “Angry Samoans” in the first place? Granted, none of the songs are honestly BAD, and one of them (Gregg Turner’s “Psych-Out 129”) is actually a really great, driving punk/metal song. But can you imagine the letdown on the faces of America’s childhood when the long-awaited followup to the classic Back To Samoa LP turned out to be a 6-song wade through Tepidsville, P-U.S.A.?

STP Not LSD
(Triple X, 1988)

On this album, they make a slight effort to return some of the “fun” to their sound, but it’s not FUNNY. A full quarter of the album devotes itself to unhumorously poking fun at rednecks (complete with vocals performed in annoying hick accents), and at least two tracks center around “hilarious” drug-related themes that Robert Klein and Buck Henry would have gotten a major kick out of in 1975. The rest of the songs are just the same sort of pleasant power pop that permeated “Pissterday Parts Pimento.” They’ve attempted to broaden their sound with acoustic guitars and different non-punky approaches (motorcycle rock, country-folk, ehh more power pop?), but the majority of the melodies are pretty simplistic (though pleasant enough, I guess). Four of the songs drive me wild (“I Lost My Mind,” “Wild Hog Rhyde,” “Staring At The Sun” and “Garbage Pit,” if you give a shit for some reason), but the rest leave me wishing that all the vocals had been performed through an octave pedal.

Read more Angry Samoans reviews @
markprindle.com

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