Stimulators Loud Fast Rules! Import 45rpm 7" Vinyl Single

"Most New York punk histories skip from the original CBGB-era (circa 1974-1977) to hardcore (starting around 1983). Less covered, but crucial, was a six-year connecting scene, led by The Stimulators with close friends The Mad and - coming from DC monthly, then relocating - Bad Brains. Headlining CBs, equally fabled Max's Kansas City, Trax, Hurrah!, Danceteria, TR3, and dozens of dives, the Stims were so thrilling, their audience of 100-200 regular kids would knock aside tables and dance like maniacs the second they began. I was stunned at 17 when I first encountered them at Max's in 1979, opening for ex-Dead Boy Cheetah Chrome & the Casualties, to see a boy, 12-year-old Harley Flanagan, ferociously beating the skins, two mini-skirted women leaping and shouting backing vocals - Denise Mercedes lacing hard rock leads into whipping guitar runs and Anne Gustaysson belting bouncy basslines - and bug-eyed, wild, skinny gay poet-singer Patrick Mack stage-diving while crooning a la lggy, when that wasn't done.

Hooked and danced-out, I saw them and Bad Brains literally 70 times each; seeing either once, you'd never miss them. I co-launched our magazine The Big Takeover around then, June 14, 1980, and I'm still at it. And this self-released (the majors having lost interest in punk) 'Loud Fast Rules!' b/w 'Run Run Run,' recorded that 1979, remains the true document of what was so exciting; my heart still races at its sheer giddy propulsion and exhilaration, launched in sound and feral attitude, at a time when older punks thought the genre had shriveled. Too, I'm pleased to have preserved a sole-copy test pressing that manager Donald Murk gave me of a third song recorded at that session: 'You Will Never Break My Heart,' released here 39 years later, because I owe the band a debt I can't repay. All three songs remain jaw-dropping." -Jack Rabid (editor and publisher Big Takeover, drummer of Even Worse)