THE UNDERGROUND

Punk rock around the clock

By Sam Pfeifle

Peter Walsh has a plan to bring the New England punk scene just a little closer together. His Good Cop/Bad Cop Records will be recording 24 punk and ska bands in 24 hours, for a compilation to be titled Scene of the Crime, this May at Big Sound Studios. Each band will have exactly one hour to record one song for the disc.

“It’s been brewing for about a year,” says Walsh, singer and guitarist for the Providence punk outfit Meat Depressed. “We’ve been talking with the Queers about it, but with their touring schedule it’s hard. Joe Queer’s saying, ‘There’s no way you’re going to pull it off,’ I’m like ‘no, I think I can do it.’ ” Walsh now feels the time is right, even if the Queers are in Japan, or some other such place. “I started hearing other people talking about it, so I said, ‘hey, I just have to do this.’ ”

According to the plan, all of the bands will use the same equipment, including mics, amps, bass rig, and drum kit; so your basic three-chord punkers will need only to plug in their guitars. “Any band with special instrumentation, horns, etc., has to let me know ahead of time,” Walsh says, and they can accommodate them in a special isolation room.

Jim Tierney, who runs Electric Cave Studio in New Hampshire, will share production duties with Huck Bennert, formerly of the punk band Chucklehead, and a frequent producer at Big Sound. “You couldn’t have one guy do the whole thing,” explains Walsh. “Bands number 21, 22, 23 would get pretty pissed if the guy’s falling asleep on the mixing board.” Right now, the recording session will happen either May 5 and 6, or May 19 and 20, with a tentative release date of July 13. Ten bands are currently signed up to participate, and though none yet are from Maine, both the Marvels and barbie and the bruizerz have expressed interest.

This is no free ride, however. Each band needs to pony up $500 for their hour. In return, they will receive 200 copies of the disc each, as well as Walsh’s services advertising the CD in punk and music mags, and shopping the compilation around to distributors and labels. “They’re going to make their money back,” says Walsh, “but they’re going to have to work. [The CDs] aren’t going to sit in the basement, or in the back bin of Newbury Comics.” Even if the bands sell the discs at the suggested $5 price, they’ll pull in $1000.

But for Walsh, it’s not so much about making money, but pulling the scene together, like the New York punk scene of the late ’70s and early ’80s chronicled in Please Kill Me (1997 Penguin), a book by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain. “Back then, if the Ramones were playing, then the Talking Heads and the Dead Boys were in the audience,” says Walsh. “Now if you play a bill, everyone just comes for their part and leaves.” Walsh is hoping that the bands that interact for this event will end up booking and playing shows together throughout New England.

Big Sound’s Joe Brien is certainly all for the project. “I’d love to see it happen,” he says. “That’s 24 bands that might come back and record here later when they’ve got more experience. I think it’s a neat concept.”