Many albums are reissued for "reasons"-- Band X was ahead of its time, criminally underappreciated, it's influential yet out of print, whatevs. So there's something really refreshing about Swami reissuing the Penetrators' oeuvre just for the hell of it. Who needs reasons when you've got a reissue label and a bunch of tatty vinyl and live tapes sitting around?
The Penetrators didn't make much noise outside of Syracuse, but for once, it's not because national heads weren't ready for their prophecies-- there's little to recommend them for anything beyond the local bar and basement circuit. Centered around Eliot ("Spike") Kagan and Jack Lipton, the Penetrators released a few singles on their own Fred Records, shot a video for "Shopping Bag" that was summarily rejected by MTV (but got much love on Syracuse's public access cable), and petered out. They were a bunch of hammy dudes with bushy hair and smarmy mustaches, DIY as fuck (this may have been pragmatic-- it's difficult to imagine anyone doing it for them). Otherwise, they were a typical garage band, rocking hard and slightly sucking in the best way imaginable.
Basement Anthology doesn't so much redress an injustice as it laughs in the face of common sense. But a neat thing happens-- instead of sitting down with a punk reissue touted as important and trying to hear its salience through a bunch of tinny crashing and banging, you can enjoy the Penetrators' life's work for what it is: A bunch of dudes having fun, banging out garage anthems that hit the usual marks-- boredom and apathy on the wailing "Teenage Lifestyle"; complacent consumption on the skronking stomper "Shopping Bag"; the redemptive power of rock on "Rock-N-Roll Face" ("But you can't get on my case/ When I wear my rock-n-roll face!").
But most indicative of the Penetrators' spirit is "#1 Band in Town", which might as well have been called "Penetrators' Theme". Over a righteously swaggering riff, the band proclaims their dominance in a big sing-along: "We're the Penetrators, we don't fuck around/ 'Cause we're the number one band in this town!" While this record is thrillingly inessential, it's a time capsule for a simpler musical era, before the Internet and the indie infrastructure existed, when the being the best band in town was really something to be proud of.
