Far from New York, America’s West Coast punks were struggling just to be heard back in ’76. At their forefront were Crime, four greasers in cop uniforms whose bile-spattered extrapolations of The Stooges and rockabilly provided a San Franciscan correlative to The Ramones.
Largely ignored during their lifetime, Crime’s legend is justified by this expanded reissue of a 1992 compilation: two thrillingly crude demo sessions that are the closest they ever came to an album. The “Hot Wire My Heart”debut single (memorably covered by Sonic Youth) is essential, too: reckless, indignant, the very dumb essence of rock’n’roll.
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