Hero Zero – “Hero Zero” – [self]

Thurston Hunger   6/30/2018   7-inch, A Library

For as long as I’ve known her, KFJC has had
a fondness for the raw, for the rough and not
yet ready. For bands that sound like they
just got their instruments a couple of hours
ago. Call it punk or DIY or outsider or
lo-fi, whether it was made in the bedroom
or garage or Auntie Agatha’s laundry room,
the value of passion over precision is hard
to argue with…for me at least. I had these
thoughts listening to this and was going to
apologize to the band, but on checking the
actual record I see this is from 1994. So
you see KFJC welcomes abandoned bands even
if they salmon-jumped out of the mainstream
decades ago. Hopefully the guys in the band
will be driving around with their kids, and
when the iPod battery gets low, they’ll
switch on the car radio and here this rough
jewel.
Electrified guitar ricochets around with a
hint of cowpunk (played with a cattle-prod?),
drums are great and enthusiastic and thin.
They kind of chase after the song, then the
song turns around and chases after them.
Side 1 ends with chatter about skittles and
nerds, the other side has a zero-calorie
track allegedly. Well hand-written mention
of a track “17G” but it exists outside of
space and time and groove and discogs.com.
Is the band name a ref to Schoolhouse
Rock, or some psychic/sonic connection to
Royal Trux.
Good stuff, better times. -Old Man Hunger