Pagans - What's This Shit? 1977/1979 (Thermionic, 2014)

Pagans
What's This Shit? 1977/1979
Thermionic
2014

Rating: 7 wife kites out of 10

I bought this Pagans record on a whim this past Record Store Day, not because I wasn't sure what to think of the band, but because I had no idea the release existed!  I'd never heard of the label - they appear to only exist to put out Cleveland punk records, and very sporadically at that.  But it was distributed by Light in the Attic and I trust their tastemaker status in the industry these days, so why not give it a shot?  Plus, only a thousand copies were pressed, so I'm sure I could get my money back down the road if I wanted to. 

Side A of the record is a live set by the band from spring of 1979.  It's sort of a sloppy mess and includes both a Who cover ("I Can't Explain") and a Rolling Stones cover ("Heart of Stone," with many of the lyrics missed or forgotten), but the sound quality is pretty good and it's a fun listen of a an incredibly underrated punk band from the first wave.  

Side B is sort of a repress of their single "Six and Change" - a single that the last time it came up for sale on Discogs it sold for eight hundred bucks!  Their version of this single only had that one song on both side of the record, but here the seven inch version is paired with two unreleased outtakes of the same song.  Those outtakes aren't really needed to be honest, and why they placed the outtakes before the official version is somewhat confusing, but I suppose they need some material to make that side of the record a little longer.  

It's a pretty good record, especially if you're already a fan of the band or early punk in general.  Worth a shot if you fit either of those criteria.