Screeching Weasel

Screeching Weasel is the debut studio album by the Chicago-based punk rock band Screeching Weasel. It was originally released on vinyl with a limited pressing of 1,000 copies in September 1987 through local independent label Underdog Records and was the band's only album with bassist Vinnie Bovine, who was fired the next year. Screeching Weasel documents the group's early years as a hardcore punk band, with the music being heavily influenced by bands such as Adrenalin O.D., Angry Samoans, Circle Jerks and Black Flag. The album gained the band a minor local following and its initial pressing sold out quickly. However, Underdog decided not to repress the album to save money for a release by label owner Russ Forster's own band Spongetunnel. With no other label interested in repressing it, Screeching Weasel went out of print for the next decade until VML Records re-released the album on CD in 1997. The CD version was remastered by Mass Giorgini and featured a full-color version of the album art as well as several previously unreleased bonus tracks. Background The band was formed as All-Night Garage Sale by Ben Foster (later taking the stage name "Ben Weasel") and John Pierson ("John Jughead") in Prospect Heights, Illinois in 1986, changing their name to Screeching Weasel shortly after. Weasel took singing/bass duties, Jughead became the guitarist and Steve Dubick ("Steve Cheese") was hired as the drummer. However, Weasel would find it too difficult to sing and play bass simultaneously, so the group hired Vince Vogel (rechristened "Vinnie Bovine") as their bassist in November. Weasel then began looking up studios in the phone book to record the band's first demo, settling on Solid Sound in Hoffman Estates as engineer Phil Bonnet "didn't laugh when I told him we were a punk band." Bonnet loaned the band $200 and booked the band to come into the studio, which was delayed two weeks because Bonnet did not show up for the first session nor the rescheduled session the next week. As an apology, Bonnet let them record on the studio's 24-track machine for the same price as the 12-track machine when he finally arrived to the third session a week later on January 10, 1987. For the demo, the group did a number of songs that would later be re-recorded for their debut album, which were reportedly written by Weasel during his stay at a drug rehabilitation center in Maine when he was a teenager.