Outerwear

Outerwear

The Outerwear Limits

Scat

Outerwear were a more primitive, less ambitious offshoot of Cleveland's Spike in Vain, which means the rhythm section was so crappy that simple songs were a necessity and they took an inordinate amount of pride in just badly they sucked. In fact, sucking was so much the point that once the band had become "kind of good," they mummified themselves in gauze  at their final shows so their hands couldn't function nor could they see their instruments. This, along with painfully long versions of their slowest songs were enough to drive more than 200+ audience members from a hall show when opening for Social Unrest. Perhaps Outerwear's finest moment, aside from the day they were somehow allowed into a recording studio to record their 1983 cassette album, The Outerwear Limits, which against all odds, is fairly compelling. Given that Chris Marec of Spike in Vain sang, played guitar, and wrote all the songs, there's six string insanity in spades, and the morbid tales of amateur coroners and being buried alive somehow contain genuine hooks. Yes, you will find yourself singing along to "Bloody Toilet Paper," banging your head to "Fountain of Scuz," and then scratching it as you puzzle through the backwards guitar and trombone of "Piss II." But wait, there's more! Power tools! Tuba! Cello solos! Or how about the absolute worst version of the Ohio Players' "Fire" ever recorded by man? Amateur home lobotomy may become an attractive new hobby, because you'll want to remove the parts of...