The Beatoffs by Strangulated Beatoffs

"Today, I don’t think people can accurately understand the cultural void that was the suburban Midwest in the early 1980s. No internet. No email. No cell phones. No social networking. Shit, there wasn’t even cable in 1983."
- Joe / Last Days Of Man On Earth

In 1984, Fritz Noble was performing in “White Suburban Youth” the faster, snottier act that would later evolve into Ultraman, St. Louis most commercially viable punk-rock band. Meanwhile guitarist Stan Seitrich and vocalist Mike Doskocil formed Drunks With Guns in opposition to the fast-louder-faster punk mantra and slowed the whole works down to a crawl, driving three chords into a primal relentless pound, years before the Melvins, Mudhoney and Sub Pop took the sound to the bank.

Drunks With Guns imploded in 1987 and Seitrich teamed with Noble to form Strangulated Beatoffs, picking up where Drunks left off. The Beatoffs would drive the riff to its logical extreme starting with their debut 7” single “Shake Your Dick”, ultimately reducing their music even further on the “Days of Our Lives” LP, and then refining their sound by devolving into a series of loops as on their breakthrough “self-titled” album also known as “Beating Off All Over The World”.

But “Days Of Our Lives” was not the Strangulated Beatoffs true first LP. In 1988, the Beatoffs embarked on recoding their debut LP, consisting entirely of Beatles covers. Tapes of the session were lost and Chopper Records, the label responsible for releasing the Drunks With Guns LP, was able to salvage four of the songs which appeared as the band's second 7”, “The Beatoffs”.

Now, a quarter century after it was recorded, Strangulated Beatoffs debut long-player has surfaced, bathed in tape-hiss, beer and tongue-in-cheek misanthropy. While some songs would be at home on Sub Pop a few years later, others anticipate the sound Drag City became renowned for in the 90's. Beatles standards like “You Know My Name (Look Up The Number) fit shockingly well into the Beatoffs' oeuvre, while songs like “Norwegian Wood”, “Ticket To Ride” and “Don't Let Me Down” take on new layers of meaning under the Beatoffs watch - and their cover of George Harrisions' “Savoy Truffle” sounds like a lost Drunks With Guns track with a tanging snare, vitriolic vocals and Seitrich's head-crushing sludge guitar.

www.skingraftrecords.com