Thrasher, Northern California 80's punk rock sounds like if TSOL had a baby with the Clash and called it Childsupport.

10 MP3 Songs
METAL/PUNK: Garage Punk, ROCK: 80's Rock



Details:
"Come To Amerika" is Childsupport's 1985 anthemic masterpiece. Although only 1000 copies were printed by Neophlyte Records, critics loved the Lp, and College Media Journal chose it for a Futures pick. The 10 songs were remastered by Jack Endino up in Seattle in 2005. Primarily, a political record, the prophetic cover speaks volumes, and serves to provide a visual hint of what is in the grooves. Most all of the songs charted at one point or another with the Lp being picked at 40 out of 85 by KALX. It was 1985 and KALX was the number one college radio station in the nation at the time. John Ensign performs most of the lead chores here, Brian Penn on bass, D. Sputnik Juelich on drums, and Allen Ensign on guitar and vocals. Lead vocal chores are shared throughout the record, and backing vocals accompany most every song.
Orignal recordings for the record were made at Beef Studios in Orangevale, California, and the tapes were mastered by George Horn at Fantasy Records in Berkeley.

Hello Folks, Friends, Fans and Followers:

"Come To Amerika", the 10 song Lp (circa. 1984 - 1985) by the punk rock band, Childsupport, is now available online on CD, at www.cdbaby.com. "Come To Amerika" is what one would call a concept album, in the old sense, when artists created Lps, thematically stitched together, both musically and in terms of lyrical content. The title trak, and also the title of the Lp, Come To Amerika, kicks off the album, with a frontal assault on the industrial-military complex. J. Ensign, the primary composer of the tune, sings, "What am I to be, a god-damned mother fucking nothing/ Should I join your army, get a job washing dishes or something." Sincerely, angry generation X sentiment sets the stage, and runs nicely into the second cutt, primarily written by Mr. Penn. Penn pens a jem on "Sophisticated Jungle" and the song portends future outtings by Penn. "Jungle" is a wake up call, "Sophisticated jungle, look at the shape I'm in." An urban landscape is emerging of "barbed wire restrictions, you can't undwind". "Destitute" seems to drop back in time, more like a 60s stones feel replete with hoot-owl backing vocals, and yet, the lyrics address image over substance, and tells really of a lesson about discernment, and seeing through the surface of things. This thread comes up later on "Watch Your Step". "Yes/No Hesitations" another heavily Ensign-influenced compostion, is a speed driven number, as are the lyrics which seem to deconstruct the accepted or approved view of things. "Yes, no hesitations, that's what I said, rather be broke then to save my bread, no hesitations, rather be dead, then to be a spoke inside your tread, . . ." What I find amazing after all these years, 20 years infact, when I listen to this wonderful remaster (by the legendary Jack Endino), are the vocals. Sometimes Childsupport sounds like choir boys fueled on punk. There is plenty of soul and edge in the band's singing, voices crack, strain, and yet, unified the harmonies, and vocal parts provide a canopy of counterpoint throughout the album. Not bad for a punk band from Sacramento. "Tangents" rounds out the first side, on the vinyl, just to mention that fact, and sports a simply great and enthusiastic vocal by D. Sputnik Juelich. The guitar chording is well, original, quirky and jerky, but works for what is probably the most upbeat tune on the Lp.

"Give Me Your Opinion" belongs maybe in a Two-Tone lineup, ska-like, arrangement, and dials in the military-complex as a target of natural born angst. Childsupport pulls off the feel, however, seamlessly, and the tune sets up the corporate-dis song, "Watch Your Step". "I see you everywhere, advertising underwear." Childsupport has a sense of humour, dark at times, yes, but a sense of humor; but humor too is a tool of survival, as in the punk ballad classic that follows, "Thirty Minutes". Basically two lovers discover they have 30 minutes until the nuclear warheads arrive, and they decide to have sex. The song was well criticized in the 80s and generously played on college radio, as were most all of the tunes on Come To Amerika, . . .

"Don't Hurt The Children" penned primarily by John Ensign, is a punk rock masterpiece, of the first order. The double marshall stack, and the steel plate reverb create a feeling like the floor is lifting up and coming apart under one's feet, sort like being swept up in the wings of Rodan, or something. This is what rock and feedback and guitars are all about. The song transcends most definitions of punk rock, but here it is, as are all the songs by Childsupport on Come To Amerika, including the closer, "I'll Never Let Go", . . .a youthful idealism, yet an idealism, for the right reason, . . .

follow the links, enjoy the show, the folks at enkimusic & film and neophlyte records and primal scream publishing, and the folks at Whalebone Productions, are now getting the new Childsupport DVD (self-titled) up at Filmbaby, a subsidary of CDbaby. So now your kids can see us! Stay young, stay current, and when you look at the cover of "Come To Amerika" remember it was created in 1985. Sometimes art mimics life, they say, and sometimes life mimics art. Please read my blogs at myspace music account allenensign, and oh yes, lest we forget,

Check out the store at Whalebone, you can even find a sealed cassette from 1983 by Childsupport, . . .