Thursday, September 27, 2018

Squarehead - Squarehead (Self-Released, 1992/1993)


I got this album released. You're welcome!

So on a messageboard I frequent, someone posted an album on YouTube by a band called Squarehead. Apparently they had been looking for a different band with the same name and stumbled upon this iteration.

This Squarehead turned out to be a kindred spirit of bands like Leatherface, China Drum, Hooton 3 Car, etc. A few of us pop punk lovers on said board were obviously intrigued, and bewildered how we had never heard of them before. We then embarked on a mad internet dash to learn more about this mystery band.

Google turned up nothing. Faithful ol' Discogs turned up...20 bands with the same name. But I finally happened upon the right one, whose only entry was a cassette tape that made up the final 4 songs of the album on YouTube. Where did the other 4 songs come from (especially the first one)? Why isn't this on CD or vinyl or Soulseek???

Well, I then shared the YouTube find with the appropriate demographic, a music group dedicated to all things Leatherface. Surely they must know something.

Lo and behold, one of the members of Squarehead was either a fellow member or alerted to my post and gave us a little history on the band:

Some info on Squarehead… Based in and around Swindon we were going for a couple of years from '92 to 94. Line up was Dave Ganner - Vocals/Guitar, Fred - Drums, Nick Osman - Bass and myself on Guitar and occasional shouting. The album on youtube is the 2 demos we recorded in 92 and 93 . We didn't do a lot really, played about 30 gigs.. good uns with Rancid, Leatherface, and Guns n Wankers and some shit uns. Dave went on to play with Strain who were excellent and Fred is half of the brilliant 2 Sick Monkeys. I'll sort out a free download thingy for anyone who wants it. Thanks for all the nice words, I'm chuffed to fucking bits!

And as he promised, he shared the album on Bandcamp. Check out the first song and you Leatherface fans will be saying, "Come to papa!"

This entire tale also happened over the course of 4 days. My most satisfying Bandcamp experience since finding the Hunger Farm stuff.

6/24/2019: So the album is gone from Bandcamp for some reason. But here are the mp3s:

Squarehead - Squarehead (vbr 0)