SKAM - No Name

Guy: We played a great party, like the total
best, with SKAM over in Virginia.
Brendan: SKAM are a good band. Look out
for SKAM.
Guy: SKAM are hot.

- Excerpt from Insurrection interview,
Touch and Go mag, 1983 (three years
before Brendan and Guy joined Fugazi)
Lost in time yet always in season, here's a blast of that
ol' perennial, the punk rock, representative of the swiftly
changing times around Bailey's Crossroads, just outside
Washington, D.C., in the early 80s. Skam recorded this
stuff in '82-'83, then broke up, leaving these songs to be
released. . .maybe never? Or more preferably, now, to race

into the bloodstream of jaded, faded today with all the vig-
or and rigor of Skam's eternal youth.

Though they didn't release any records during their

three years of existence, it'd be wrong to call Skam "nev-
er-was" -in addition to these recordings, there's a trail of

flyers for shows with Scream, No Trend, United Mutation

and Media Disease, as well as the memories of the stu-
dent alumni from Bishop O'Connell High, class of '83 or so.

The conglomeration of scenes around the greater D.C.

area at that time produced a variety of bands, but the pre-
vailing recollection of the era is of the incendiary hardcore

punk and subsequent straight edge values of the Dischord
bands. The band that became Skam was a world apart;
they were posited for the first time by 8th graders Vince

Forcier and Jack Anderson at a Jackson Browne con-
cert, and their initial rehearsals in their parents' basement

were highlighted by covers of Beatles, Stones, Who and
Led Zeppelin songs. Bad covers. It wasn't until they'd
been playing a bit that they discovered The Ramones,
and it was then that the die was cast and pedal pressed to
the metal for another frantic couple of years.
The Skam recordings from '82 have an undeniably
Clash-like countenance that sets them definitively apart

from the "First Four" of Dischord-in some ways, prefig-
uring the pop-punk sound of Green Day at the dawn of

the '90s instead -but subsequent recordings found them
quickly evolving-or devolving-into a personal mastery of

savage riffs and tempos, as well as post-punk concep-
tions. But even as they were verging into this new territory,

their three years together had frayed their alliance and they
soon broke up. Jack joined No Trend, Vince played in
Racer X and then, the second version of Second Wind.
And life went on. But the rediscovered Skam tapes make
for an incredible addendum to the more well-known music
of that incredible time and place. No Name is the name,
grab it now!

Vinyl release of Skam - No Name. Released through SEA NOTE and available on LP.