Bum Kon (named after Korean mass murderer Woo Bum Kon) was one of the best punk rock bands in the early ’80s, even if few outside of its Denver home knew it. To those who were familiar – Fanatic’s own Dave Clifford for example, who witnessed the band during his very impressionable pre-teen years — Bum Kon was the coolest, most intimidating band on the planet, gliding from a blisteringly fast style on par with legends like the Circle Jerks and MDC into equally intense sort of SST art-metal on its later pair of albums. Larry Denning, Mark Thorpe, Erik Oberhausen and Bob McDonald thrashed with more wild abandon than nearly any other band of the now well-documented early underground scene depicted in the popular documentary film American Hardcore.
In 1983, the band recorded its only single, “Drunken Sex Sucks†(released by Local Anesthetic Records and recorded by Bob Ferbrache), which sold through two pressings at the time and now fetches up to $150 on eBay. Five songs appear on the single but twenty more were recorded at the same session and have been unavailable until now. Some of the tracks that did not make the single are arguably better than the ones that did.
Shortly thereafter, the band focused its energy into two albums in an evermore intriguing mixture of Scratch Acid art-rock crossed with Voivod style tech-metal and these recordings were forgotten over the years. The original tapes were found while mastering the Local Anesthetic compilation (also recently released on the Smooch Records label) and now the best hardcore record from ’83 that was never released can finally see the light of day, a mere 25-years after its recording.
The fact that its four-song 7-inch EP on Local Anesthetic Records (the Denver label whose full catalog also recently received deluxe reissue treatment) has remained eminently collectible is testament to the frenzied power of Bum Kon. This album is co-released by MAXIMUMROCKNROLL Records and is guaranteed to please punks both old and new.