3 Teens Kill 4 was born in the summer of 1980 in the East Village of New York City. They took their name from a New York Post headline. The group consisted of Doug Bressler, Brian Butterick, Julie Hair, Jesse Hultberg, David Wojnarowicz. There was a conscious decision not to have a front person or lead singer. David made cassette tapes with voices and sounds that he held up close to a microphone, fast-forwarding and rewinding. Julie tried different rhythms on a Korg rhythm machine. Brian played a Casio drum machine and Jesse was on bass. Doug joined the group in time to make the debut album. He was a music lover who understood how to avoid covering over the band’s non-musicality.
Their debut 7-song mini-album “No Motive” was recorded in Fall 1982 and self-released in 1983. Utilizing rhythm boxes, tapes of news reports, odd percussion tools, snatches of song, they chanted political narrative ideas about the modern mess at the time. The album is an amalgam of urban life, a twisted, anti-rhetorical approach to social issues. Songs weave together to create an intelligent, jarring sound. Razor sharp guitar licks and hauntingly ominous bass lines create a tense, oblique abstraction of pain and chaos. For this reissue we’ve added 3 previously unreleased bonus tracks. Doug says, “These songs are very deliberately an experiment in Postmodernism. Sound bytes were stolen from the airwaves and recorded onto bargain cassette tapes. We were stripping the structure of the popular song to the bone. A sort of sonic Duchamp. And throughout it all, runs a childlike sense of play: the judicious use of toys, the schoolyard chants. All of this was happening during the dark and soul-numbing Age of Reagan, with the AIDS crisis looming on the horizon.”
All songs have been remastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios. The jacket features a replica of the original front cover with a black and white photo by Seiji Kakizaki and updated back cover featuring a never before seen collage by David Wojnarowicz. Each copy includes a 12-page booklet with liner notes from each band member, photos, lyrics and press clippings. We’ve also printed a special 12”x24” fold out diptych painting by David Wojnarowicz whom this reissue is dedicated to. “We were representative of our time and place. East village, New York City, 1980s. All-night, after-hour busboy jobs in trendy nightclubs, early morning breakfast at Veselka’s diner. Drugs and no-drugs. Gay and not-gay. New York.” - Jesse Hultberg
Includes unlimited streaming of No Motive
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lyrics
Right over here are you shittin’ me?
Right over here are you shittin’ me
Are you shittin’ me?
No I don’t want to sit down
Hell no I want you guys to go
Cause I’m panhandling out here ok?
My wife’s been dead for six years
And man I went to hell for six years
But thank god I got two beautiful daughters
And they both own their own homes
Their husbands are independent
And I’m a disabled veteran
And I’m out here doing what I want to do
No one really knows just where you been
It’s like a visitation
Seeing a black dog
Lying in the snow
Blood like red poppies
A bloody glyph that starts to grow
We were buying milk and eggs
We were walking down the street
This quiet day, quiet light over the river
This car careened around the corner and burst into flames
No one really knows just where you been
It’s like a visitation
A man dressed in red and white
Crawling through a dark tunnel
In the middle of broad daylight
You know that man has got a disease
I dream my anger at the fascist regime that I know exists somewhere lurking.
No one really knows just where you been
It’s like a visitation
He puts a revolver to
The base of your skull
Pushes you down on your knees
He blows it apart like a porcelain bowl
We were down on 2nd Street and Ave D
Looking for a friend of ours
All of a sudden there was this bright flash in the sky
People in uniforms sense of steel
We didn’t understand what was happening
No one really knows just where you been
It’s like a visitation
He sticks all his fingers in
He washes them like laundry
He washes them like sin
Oh man I’m weary, weary
We left the club at 4am, We were walking down the street
This quiet night, this car careened around the corner and burst into flames
Things had been so easy up till then
I am just a young boy
Take away the atom bomb
Don’t treat me like a science toy
Fascist regime
Light over the river
Burst into flames
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