Band from out of state? Think your album should get reviewed in the Chronicle anyway? No problem – just dedicate a couple decades of consistently excellent work to our paper first. Oh, and be a seminal part of music history. As a teen punk coming of (r)age in the Reagan Eighties, staff photographer Jack Anderson played bass in several key D.C.-area bands. Scholars of the era will know the most famous – the churning and misanthropic No Trend. But until renowned label Drag City swooped in, few had a chance to discover his first, SKAM. No Name‘s 40-ish minutes of heretofore unreleased recordings vary in audio quality and technical skill, but consistently present a band on the more melodic end of 1980-83 hardcore. Even when, say, accusing the U.S. government of genocidal cleansing, the music hits with wide-eyed buoyancy and youthful fizz; SKAM sounds simply thrilled to be playing. Now we can finally hear them.

SKAM

No Name (Drag City)

This article appears in September 29 • 2023.

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