Adrenalin O.D. "Theme from an Imaginary Midget Western" b/w two others (1988) Buy Our Records.

AOD were a particular favorite of mine in the mid-80s -- a guilty pleasure, I guess, since I rarely admitted this among friends. Although a lot of people poo-poo'ed them as just more kiddy hardcore, I dug their brand of speedcore: finger-nail shredding guitars, drums that you swore must have been recorded at a slower tape speed and one-note bass because that's about all he could do to keep up -- they also had a keen sense of humor and delighted in covering off-beat songs like the theme from Masterpiece Theater. Their live shows proved this wasn't done with studio tricks.

"Theme from an Imaginary Midget Western" came after their seminal "Let's Barbeque" EP (now a hard to find collector's item but reissued in a double CD with their 1st LP ->), "Wacky HiJinks" LP and under-rated "Humongousfungusamongus" LP and shows more of a progression from adolescent-styled speedcore to more metalish odes to pop culture that I suppose was inevitable given their crack-up approach to music. Not sure that I liked the new direction but whatever..."Midget Western" certainly isn't speedcore, it kinda cruises along there and is almost conventional rawk.

This 45 EP is actually a precursor promo to "Cruising with Elvis in Bigfoot's UFO" LP and includes two rock and rollers that didn't appear on the LP - "Coffin Cruiser" and a cover of Kiss's "Detroit Rock City". It has a big stamp on the front that says its for promotion purposes only and not to be resold! Ooops.

As for AOD, they appear to be defunct. This website seems pretty dormant with their last album out in 1995. Here's their Trouser Press entry which appears incomplete.

Theme From an Imaginary Midget Western

Epilogue: I meant to do more this weekend vinyl-wise but weather here in DC has been outstanding -- sunny, lowish humidity, etc. and I couldn't pass up a visit to the Maya exhibit at the National Gallery of Art. Lots of phat 1500 year old sculptures of monkey scribes, pointy headed baby-masked priests, evil witchy midwife Gods and brutal torture of war captives. Plus cool jade necklaces, awesome incense stands (pictured below - this stands about 5-6 feet) that lined the temple stairs...


Post-Epilogue: Also, to be added to my links eventually (along with that kewl I94 Bar zine), I came across this neat blog while looking for info on Scrawl. Citizen Keith bounces all over the place in his commentary but has quite a bit of his music online from his various projects which I'll have further comment on once I have digested (it makes for a nice CD full of tunes!). He's a cow-town guy so comes from a rich tradition of DIYers (Ron House, Gibson Bros., early Scrawl, Dark Arts, etc.). Anyway, drop by and read his commentary and listen to his tunes at the same time.