Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Nar - Four 7"s
Nar s/t 7" (Secret Center, 1991)
Nar Holiday Routine 7" (Moo-La-La, 1993)
Nar Belgian Gambit 7" (Generic, 1993)
Nar Four Song EP 7" (Yakamashi, 1997)
There are crimes and there are CRIMES. Crimes are things like jaywalking and murder. CRIMES are ignoring great bands because...hell, I don't know because why. A CRIME is a CRIME because it is irrational. Thus, the fact that many a punker still don't know the band Nar is irrational and thus a CRIME. Now before you accuse me of circular reasoning let me tell you about Nar.
Nar started in 1989 in Sacramento, California. The first line up was Scott Miller, Ed Carroll, and Jason D. These guys made one half of a split LP (with fellow Sacramentans Pounded Clown), 3 7"s, and appeared on many comps (much too many to list here). In 1993, Jason D. moved to Portland and was replaced by Scott Mauer. Scott toured a few times with Scott and Ed and played on the Four Song EP. During their existence Nar had about 50 loyal fans in their hometown Sacramento, fifty more hardcore fans in Knoxville, Tennessee, and little pockets of Narheads in other shitty towns.
I saw Nar almost a hundred times or maybe two hundred times. My old band toured with them. I put out one of their records. I do not apologize for raving about them. Forget my bias, Nar is a great band. Unfortunately they appeared at a time before power pop had influenced the garage punk scene. So their garage pop got ignored by the garage scene, often written off as pop punk, which is fucking insulting. The pop punk kids didn't dig them because Nar wasn't shitty enough for them to like. Add to the list of problems is one that plagued a lot of Sacramento punk bands: Maximum RocknRoll's stupid habbit of calling every band from Sacto "drunk punk" or "silly punk" or "drunk silly punk." Blah blah blah. Listen to this stuff and know that Nar were great.
When Nar broke up in 2000, Miller started the Bright Ideas (with the three original Nar members!). He also continued drumming for The Bananas. While Nar was around, Miller also played in the Tiki Men, as well as ran the Secret Center label. Ed Carroll went on to play drums for the Pretty Girls, FM Knives, and Lyme Regis. He also had a short stint in Los Huevos. Jason D. plays in the Bright Ideas from time to time and is a chef. Scott Mauer teaches kids for a living. (If you want more info, go here.) One note: Scott Miller is not the same Scott Miller as the one behind Game Theory and the Loud Family.
Blue Sky and Red Ronigun appeared on Nar's s/t 7". It was released by Secret Center. Three hundred were pressed. Holiday Routine comes from the 7" of the same name and was released in a pressing of 500 on Moo-La-La in hand made sleeves. Drunk & Benevolent appeared on the Belgian Gambit 7". The Generic Label released 500 of those. Christopher Street (originally by Felt) and Renaissance are from the Four Song EP, of which Yakamashi put out 500.
// posted by W/S @ 12:01 AM 
Comments:
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Excellent start. You know, I think Nar's "Holiday Routine" was the first record I ordered from Moo-La-La.
holy shit was this one of my favorite sacto bands ever. when is dustin reske going to get the lost Nar album off that bum 8 track of his? one of those rare instances where everything comes together just right to form a unique entity, that is of course completely ignored.
Man, I haven't paid for the inbredbands.com domain for a couple years. They're cheap as fuck now. I should kick in the five bucks to get it back. Or just keep playing Blue Sky over and over and over again. I try to yell that whenever I see the Bananas, but the fuckers just won't play it. My sadly neglected site is at: http://www.nokilli.com/inbred/
# posted by 
: 6:57 PM
: 6:57 PM
Okay, I'm gonna check at least two of these tracks out, based on your glowing reviews...I saw their records all over the place but was scared off by the cover art. The blame is mine.
hi we're nar, in and out.
thats a ripper.
Secret Center....one of the best 90's labels...completely ignored.
thats a ripper.
Secret Center....one of the best 90's labels...completely ignored.
# posted by : 6:03 PM
: 6:03 PM
Thanks everyone for saying nice things about Nar! It was fun as hell to be in even though, yeah, we never quite fit in or found our audience at the time. I've made 2 CDRs of Nar stuff - if anybody wants one you can email me at scottbanana@hotmail. I think there might be some overlapping on the 2, I'll have to check. I realize that's a lot of Nar! They're pretty budget but I guess so were we.
scott
scott
# posted by : 6:26 PM
: 6:26 PM
Holiday Routine and Renaissance are really strong songs. The others are kind of trire.
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# posted by : 12:25 AM
: 12:25 AM << Home
