I still have the sticker on my sock drawer: “Making powerviolence a cheezy catchphrase since 1989!—Slap-A-Ham Records.” Oh, powerviolence. How big the bubble got, then popped to almost nothing. It was a good run (being generous: 1990-2000). It rallied against pop punk. Think of it as the angrier, more abstract, crushing, funnier, crushinger yet, hostile cousin to Lookout! Records in an EastBay smackdown. Spazz was a “power(violence)” trio of Dan Boleri, Chris Dodge, and Max Ward. Spazz, in particular, introduced Snufalufagus (played at 78 RPM) and The Cookie Monster’s (at 16 RPM) voices to blast beats and “After School Special”-style soundbites into powerviolence’s oeuvre. And Slap-A-Ham—founded by original No Use For A Name guitarist and Me First And The Gimme Gimmes liner notes writer Chris Dodge—was at one of powerviolence’s epicenters, releasing between sixty and seventy records during its eight-year existence. Max’s label 625 Thrashcore is responsible for this re-issue and it sounds and looks great. And Chris Dodge now lives in Alhambra. It seems to me that he can’t seem to get away from things with “ham” in them.
–todd (625 Thrash, 625thrash.com)