All power to the freaky children of Northampton!Suburban boredom in the early 1980s was the catalyst for every good thing in the world today (like Ritalin). It inspired bright small town kids with overactive brains like the RUSSIAN MEATSQUATS to create some of the greatest unassuming and unpretensious freakshow hardcore ever made.
These kids had too much bad hair and too much time on their hands. But luckily the Lehigh Valley in eastern pennsylvania has always been blessed with lots of outlets for destructive/creative kids; like dog clippers & community radio courtesy of Lehigh University and Muhlenburg College (back then, the college kids were way too square to be playing anything other than REM or some shit, forget about hardcore or anything very underground. The vast majority of the cool shows were run by 15 to 18 year old high school locals from the community summer staffs). They had way too many weird things on their minds too. Cossack dances! Socks on heads! Chunk lisps! Kev drives! Artfag no wave records! DEVOlution! Gay Slang! Local Retards That Every Small Town Has (like Mice and Men)! Girls! Boys! Or simply how boring life was unless you did something un-boring.
I think I met Paul Meatsquat by calling up his WLVR radio show and bugging him all the time, and him bugging me back. He was 14 or 15. This was like late 1982.
I think I first met him at the old Play it Again Records in Bethlehem. When I came in, Joe Hanna was smacking him on the head with a toy guitar.
In eastern Pennsylvania back then, let alone the rest of the world, there weren't many 14 to 16 year olds obsessed with the ART BEARS, PUNISHMENT OF LUXURY or the fucking RESIDENTS. There weren't many 10 year olds playing bass on hardcore tirades with lyrics like "fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck suck" either.
They must've been the only band anywhere to completely rip off a classic Japanese band (THE STALIN), and they did it way before that country's groups were considered hip.
The early RUSSIAN MEATSQUATS must have been the biggest, weirdest, most way out freak show to see the light of day, especially considering this was before the era of HAPPY WORLD, OLD SKULL or the BOREDOMS (or OXYGEN AUCTION). The songs were about important and timely topics like Ronald Reagan! Touchy feely scout master pedophiles! Preppies! Caffeine overloads! Snack pack attacks! Bent over PA Dutch fat asses! Trooper Rossi the driver's education shithead! Phantasm! People that take long shits at work and who are wrestling fans! Or simply how life is for a fruity kid in small town jock land.
Paul Meatsquat was one of those rare teenage geniuses and a look at the lyrics he wrote or a listen to the songs he wrote will make this plainly obvious. Chunk was like an elementary school kid who was gonna get in trouble for staying out late. He was like 10 or 11 years old. Scott was a varsity squad freak dressed up like Kevin Seconds but with a blood splattered butcher's coat on. Adam was a shy kid who looked like a fucking preppy. Their shows at West Catty Hall were super frantic comedy massacres set to stripped down hardcore; the soundtrack to the original bloodthirsty LV punch thrash.
Vegetables and meat would be flying around the hall, courtesy of Weiss markets. People would be yelling and letting loose and throwing shit at them. They'd play "stepping stone" like all the LV bands did. The punch thrash would turn into a dog pile. People would die. Out of town fuckers from Philly or wherever wouldn't understand (though lots of north Jersey hardcores thought the SQUATS were cool). And Paul would jump out from behind his drums and do the Cossack dance. Most of these shows are still among the coolest moments I've ever had...
And of course their one LP only can hint at what they were all about.
They started getting heavy early.
And when they went totally metal and got Jeff, Ken and Lou and the Casio and the big amps they became way heavier. But they simultaneously became way smoother and more adept too. They were no de classe metal bullshit. They were like no metal you'd ever heard to that point. The songs from this era were incredibly tricky and tight. I remember watching them at Airport Music Hall (pre evil nazi era Airport) and thinking that some of the shit they were playing was impossible to do, but at that time i wasn't exactly sure what was indeed possible because if you think about it, at any moment in your life, do you know what is indeed possible?
Releases
LET'S HANG OUT! LP (Whoopsie Kerplonk, 1986)
Reissues
KEV - THE ONE WHO DRIVES tape (Easy Subcult Research/Whoopsie Kerplonk, 1991 - early demos and two live shows)
LIVE AT STATE COLLEGE CD-R (FOE)
KEV - THE ONE WHO DRIVES CD-R (Easy Subcult Research, 2001 - early demos and one live show)
Compilations
GET THE HELL OUT CD (FOE, 1993) "Phantasm"
INFO
The Easy Subculture
This label put out the Kev - The One Who Drives tape and CD-R (still available), and you can download some tracks from it here.
FOE Meatsquats Webpage
Find the tracklist to FOE's Meatsquats live CD-R, as well as a mid-1980's interview that appeared in FOE zine.
Angry Bald Guy Productions
This label put out the Russian Meatsquats tribute CD in 2002.