Americana pioneer Pete Berwick recently released two obscure recordings from his shadowy past and they provide a valuable glimpse into his foundational roots. Live At the Kmart 1981 is his punk rock EP, and not all that surprising, really, as Pete has always displayed a bit o’ punk attitude on his shit-kickin’ country-rock albums like The Damage Is Done and Just Another Day In Hell. The Generics were a short-lived but hard playing outfit that banged around the Midwest for three years circa 1981-1984.
The six songs here don’t so much as caress your cerebellum as carom off your gray matter with a short, sharp shock. The sound sucks – definitely an audience or off-stage recording – with all the sonic artifacts that implies. But the songs are fast-paced, bristling with energy, and showcase an underlying melody that bursts out of the bootleg-quality taping with a reckless fervor. Two tracks, “I Wanna Be With You” and “There She Goes Again,” received regional college radio airplay and the EP overall is highly recommended for fans of late ‘70s/early ‘80s American punk…plus, it’s cheap!
Buy from Bandcamp: The Generics
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Fast forward a few years and Berwick – who would soon be haunting the side streets and dive clubs of Nashville – is fronting a more traditional rock ‘n’ roll outfit in his Chicago hometown, albeit one that veers dangerously onto cowpunk turf. Another audience recording, ten tracks, nine originals, and a wonderful cover of the Stones’ heroin ode, “Dead Flowers,” makes for a nice, tidy collection.
The sound is marginally better than on the Generics EP, but still bootleg in quality – which does nothing to diminish the intoxicating cheap thrills that Berwick and his band Interstate serve up with Poster Above the Urinal 1987. The punkish edge is still obvious on songs like “Wild Ones” which, at six-minutes-plus, is adorned with too much cool Duane Eddy-styled guitar licks, wildass harmonica, and explosive drumbeats to be mistaken for Green Day or the Descendents.
“Ain’t Good Enough” amps it up even further with a machinegun rhythm that Berwick’s vocals dance atop while the satirical “American Family” brings the twang with skewed humor and a stripped-down, ramshackle country sound built on aggressive guitar strum and harmonica. Berwick’s lyrics reveal his uncanny songwriting skills and dark sense of humor, skills that would only get sharper through the years. The last few songs on Poster Above the Urinal 1987 get increasingly twangier, with “She’ll Never Know” standing out in the crowd for its Dylanesque fervor and blue collar poetry and “White Lines” is just a solid hard rock jam with raging harmonica and chiming guitars underlining the lyrics.
As for the aforementioned cover of “Dead Flowers” – which is really more of a Gram Parsons song than true Jagger/Richards composition (IYKYK) – Berwick’s drawled vox and nuanced fretwork wrap the song’s dark-hued lyrics in a blanket of pathos and a doomed Hank Williams vibe. Poster Above the Urinal 1987 provides a roadmap for Berwick’s eventual Nashville sojourn while documenting his evolution from young punk to seasoned roots-rocker, Berwick one of the most criminally-overlooked talents in the increasingly stodgy Americana sphere.
Buy from Bandcamp: Pete Berwick & Interstate
