I was always fond of the L.A. band 45 Grave. You’ve heard of death metal? I guess they played death punk, much like Christian Death, the Flesh Eaters and TSOL. They had a Goth look, but a punk/new wave sound. They’re probably best known for their song “Partytime,” because of its use in The Return of the Living Dead (1985), which I also referenced yesterday.
The core members were Rob Graves (bass), Don Bolles (drums), Paul B Cutler (guitar), and Dinah Cancer (vocals). Bolles also played with The Germs, Vox Pop, Three Day Stubble, Silver Chalice, and Celebrity Skin. Graves (real name Rob Ritter) played with Thelonious Monster, Gun Club and The Bags; he died in ’91 of a heroin overdose. Cutler was in Vox Pop and Dream Syndicate and was a producer. Cancer was in Castration Squad, Cambridge Apostles, Vox Pop, Nervous Gender, and Penis Flytrap and still tours with a new version of 45 Grave.
Here is a 2004 interview with Don Bolles and an interview from that same year with Dinah Cancer. All of this should serve to give some sense of the wacky world of L.A. punk.
Speaking of which, today you get the original album version of “Partytime” (not the version on the TRotLD soundtrack) , which is a cheery song about a five-year-old girl that gets raped and murdered by her mother’s boyfriend. That’s how punk rolled in 1983. And from the Phantoms EP, here’s “La Tomba.” At the beginning, when the voice intones “La tomba, cuarenta y cinco,” it basically means “45 Grave.”
From YouTube:
45 Grave – Partytime — BUY
45 Grave – La Tomba
Tags: 45 Grave, L. A. punk, The Return of the Living Dead, MP3s