Seven inch vinyl pressing. THE Stimulators, whose original line-up featured two women (Denise Mercedes, Anne Gustavsson), a gay man (Patrick Mack), and a child (12-year-old Harley Flanagan), began to attract a cult following with young NYC music fans (including Big Takeover's Jack Rabid) that were drawn to the band's punk sound, especially since the original CBGB bands had distanced themselves from punk. In 1980, The Stimulators recorded the Loud Fast Rules! 45. The phrase "loud, fast, rules!" came from bassist Nick Marden (who like Flanagan, had been around rock music from his early childhood.) Marden wrote the LFR on the back of his motorcycle jacket and Denise used it as a song title. Frontier Records continues with it's legendary original punk 45s reissues with this crucial 45- while combing through the band's archives, a never before released track - You Will Never Break My Heart-was discovered on a test pressing. We are proud to offer you the original single plus this track, a fold-up punk rock picture sleeve and colored vinyl at a great price. You're welcome! Our take: Much-needed reissue of this NYC punk gem from 1980. I remember wondering about Loud Fast Rules for years because Jack Rabid wrote about the Stimulators so much in The Big Takeover, but for a long time this was a record that was difficult to hear. Like the Bad Brains (with whom the Stimulators played often), the Stimulators had a cassette on ROIR that later got reissued on vinyl, but I always heard this single was where the action was at. The dodgy vinyl rips I could find online did not confirm that fact, but this well-done official reissue seems to capture the record’s charms much better. Hearing it now, the record sounds more Anglophilic than most any US punk that springs to mind, particularly in 1980. One thing that makes this record sound so British is that, on the one hand, it’s nakedly commercial (“Loud Fast Rules!” is about as straightforward as a pop song gets), but it’s also raw and handmade. It reminds me of Good Vibrations Records bands like the Outcasts and Protex, bands that tried to make pop music, but were limited by the materials at hand and their still-developing skill sets. Even though a 13-year-old Harley Flanagan plays drums (and appears on the cover), there’s nothing hardcore about this record. The bonus track is good, but the liner notes (from Henry Rollins and Jack Rabid) aren’t especially informative and the bubblegum pink vinyl feels a little cheesy. However, I’m happy to have this one in my collection despite those minor quibbles.
