With great attention to detail and an obvious respect for the music, the lovingly assembled OFF! First Four EPs seven-inch box set, recently released by Vice Recordings, is a must get collectable set (featuring Raymond Pettibon art + booklet). But even more importantly, OFF!'s music kicks some serious ass. "Pure punk rock" is how the band was accurately described by Karen P at Amoeba Hollywood, where OFF! had a most memorable instore a few months back. Drop the needle on any of this box set's eight sides and OFF! will instantly remind you of all the reasons you loved punk rock in the first place; provided, like me, you appreciate that loud, raw, fast, angry manic punk that harks back to the original hardcore SoCal sound. And no wonder -- that is where and when the core of OFF! hails from.

"The collective history of this band equals the power packed in Einstein's E=mc theory," wrote Thrasher of OFF! who are literally a "supergroup." Comprised of Keith Morris (Black Flag/Circle Jerks), Dimitri Coats (Burning Bridges), Steven McDonald (Redd Kross) and Mario Rubalcaba (Earthless/Hot Snakes/Rocket From The Crypt), this LA punk rock group, whose impressive individual histories you can read about on their website as well as in the booklet that comes with the box-set, have somehow managed to sustain the wild aggressive, confrontational energy all these years later, as they continue (in the true original punk aesthetic) to crank out short, simple-but powerful, rebellion & alienation themed punk rock masterpieces.

This week we will be putting out a ton of recently priced and marked down box sets; look for them near info next to the new arrival LPs. Also, over on the south east wall, we will be changing out all of the punk and hc collectible rows.

I recently found a bunch of old California punk flyers buried in a box that had been stored for years since back in the 80s when these shows that took place in both the Bay Area (SF and Berkeley) and in SoCal. This Amoeblog focuses on some California punk flyers from the 1980's.

Almost as much as I loved the music itself, I equally loved most of the simple but impassioned flyer designs and the raw energy that went into making them. They were  often created by a band member or one of their extended crew. While the styles ranged a little bit from one flyer to another, they were usually just handdrawn graphics or images or maybe just one simple image cut out of a magazine and slapped on the page.

Sometimes the main information (the band names or club info) might have been handwritten or else typed out, but not like today on a computer. Back then it was usually made on a typewriter, then blown up on a copy machine to match the scale of the flyer.

Compared to now, when everyone has the luxury of a tricked-out computer oozing with graphic programs etc. that can do every type of desired design at the click of a finger, this was an archaic and simple time. It was when cut-and-paste meant literally cutting out an image or graphic with a scissors and pasting it with glue or Scotch tape or sometimes just spit to hold things in place. Having a friend who worked at a local Xerox store or working there yourself was always a plus. Same went for those who did fanzines. I remember many show flyers being so rushed that they would be Xeroxed and all passed out before anyone would catch some glaring typo or ommission such as the date of the event having been left off the flyer! Or sometimes with handwritten flyers it was impossible to make out the name of the venue or the date because it was so badly drawn or so artisitically done that design prevalied over content and legibility.