Crime - San Francisco's Still Doomed (Swami, 2004)

Crime
San Francisco's Still Doomed
Swami
2004

Rating: 9 giant burritos out of 10

I’m not a religious man, but it is times like these when I want to bless the lord for Swami Records. Not only are they responsible for putting out all things Hot Snakes, but now they’ve gone and re-issued one of the all-time great punk records “San Francisco Is Still Doomed” by Crime, a San Francisco-based punk group that recorded from 1976 into the early eighties.

To be honest, it’s actually a re-issue of a (sorta) re-issue titled “San Francisco’s Doomed”, but such is the game you play when you start dealing with more obscure stuff. When it was originally re-issued in 1990, there still wasn’t much interest in the Crime catalog except with hardcore collector nerds; the band had been criminally (no pun intended) neglected up to that point by punk historians, despite the fact that they were one of the first bands of this kind to be releasing music in the States. After the poorly distributed 1990 release (which culled 20 tracks from a couple of different unreleased studio sessions), the band began to finally get the recognition they so rightly deserved. Obviously, this meant their material became harder and harder to find, more and more expensive, and bootlegs of questionable quality began popping up all over the place. Thankfully Swami put out their version of the album, which was just like the original “Doomed” album with two additional outtakes.

Crime’s sound was that of pure rock and roll - fuzzed out blues-rock with a sneer you could actually hear in the music; imagine The Stooges with a little more intensity and a lot more attitude. The band seemed to regard the “punk movement” and the trendiness that rose with it to be a cancer upon the music, and they would have no part of it. But despite staying on the outskirts of popularity, they still had an influence that was not only local but far reaching – Sonic Youth were vocal supporters, and even covered the Crime classic “Hot Wire My Heart” on their legendary “Sister” album. For a while now, there have been rumors of box sets and complete discographies and DVDs, but until any of that materializes this release is your best bet to discover the greatness that was Crime.