Cementing The Seams

Earlier today I was reading some months-old missive about the band The Shins breaking up and thought two things.  1) I actually like The Shins, but wasn't at all upset about their breaking up.  I suppose I just have no desire to hear a new Shins album. 2) Maybe now Scared Of Chaka will get back together.  This of course will never happen, but it lead me to a third thought: HOLY CRAP I haven't thought about or listened to Scared Of Chaka in way too long.  The reason I was reminded of Scared Of Chaka is that they are sort of tangentially connected to The Shins, in that they share the same guitarist/bassist.  He was also in band with The Shins' singer (called Flake Music) who released a split 7" with SoC.  Other than that they are in no way similar, so this whole Shins introduction is pretty useless and going nowhere.

I first encountered Scared Of Chaka on a sampler cd sent to the record store I worked at. I don't actually remember how I got it, it may have came in the mail, or I could have dug it out of a box (I should edit this out, but I'm not going to  Sorry you had to read it. And this.).  Anyway, the cd was some sort of not-for-profit promotion released by Sub City Records (a division of Hopeless Records) that had something to do with blindness prevention (it's only now occuring to me that this could be metaphor) and featured bands like Fifteen, Dillinger Four and Kid Dynamite.  In contrast to the absolute garbage that this label puts out today, this compilation was exactly what 14 year old me was into and Scared of Chaka stood out on a roster of pretty fucking amazing bands.  So I immediately ordered their most recent LP ("Tired Of You"), and played it constantly.  Now it's one of my all time favorite punk albums.

For fans of:  Dillinger Four, Deadly Snakes, Hot Snakes...  Regular Snakes

Scared of Chaka on myspace

Get it.