35th anniversary review: GWAR – “Scumdogs of the Universe”

This review is part of a series looking back at significant albums on their anniversaries. Through the benefit of hindsight we will be viewing the album not just as it was released, but how it stands the test of time, as well as its place in the band’s discography and the genre in general.

Master Records, Metal Blade Records – 08 Jan 1990

A classic of debauchery and offensiveness

As I progressed from my teens into adulthood, I started to realize how much music was around the house when I was young. Aside from from the exposure that two older sisters provided- a lot of Britpop (sooo much Duran Duran) and, in the case of the middle sister, a healthy dose of new wave, techno, and more underground music- I also had my parents regularly listening to the music of their youth on the radio, record player, and tape deck. Music was always around. As a kid I also cultivated some of my own tastes, including “Weird” Al, The Clash, and other bands. But in a sense even those were still fed to me by the media and MTV. I didn’t “discover” the music as much as I found what I liked out of the stuff that was already being offered up.

It wasn’t until I was in junior high when that changed: someone made me a tape of bands I hadn’t heard, on the hunch that I would like it. That tape had The Dead Milkmen‘s Big Lizard in My Backyard (1985) on one side and, on the other M.O.D.‘s U.S.A. for M.O.D. (1987) on the other. I loved them both. In a way you could say that that moment cemented my penchant to search out bands that are irreverent and bit out of left field both musically, lyrically, or both. It also kickstarted a life-time love of many styles of music, from rap (and into hip-hop), metal, punk, indie, shoegaze… basically all of that stuff in the TGEFM motto.

And that brings us to high school in mid-1990. Again, one of my friends had an album that recently released which he thought I should hear, and recorded it on one side of a blank cassette tape. It was 45 minutes of heaven (more on that later). It was GWAR‘s sophomore album Scumdogs of the Universe.

By now just about everyone who is familiar with music know who GWAR is. Maybe not the specific songs, but the costumes, the “blood”-drenched shows and, thanks to some daytime TV talkshows back in the day, as a “shock rock” band. At the time though, I just saw these goofy doofs dressed up on the cover, and an intro song full of some sweet lixx.

“The Salaminizer” has a fun metal beginning, for sure. But it’s the lyrics that tell you what GWAR is all about, and what journey they’re going to take you on. I mentioned rap before, which is important here. If I hadn’t enjoyed the stylings of N.W.A., I wouldn’t have noticed that the verses of “The Salaminizer” are a direct parody of “Gangsta Gangsta.” To me this was an amazing coup of musical genius. Many of my friends who were into punk, metal, or just weren’t into genre-hopping didn’t catch on to this. To this day I’m still surprised, and slightly bemused, that there are GWAR fans who don’t know.

At the time, Scumdogs was the most metal thing GWAR had done. But that isn’t saying much since their debut, Hell-O was definitely more of the “art punk” side.. It’s a fun album, to be sure. But in the grand scheme of things, a bit clumsy. With Hell-O you were either there for the fun, or not at all.

Here, though, the band ups their game while still keeping the irreverent and shocking humor dialed up. “Slaughterama,” “Black and Huge,” and “Sexecutioner” are all a blast to listen, and giggle to. The mid-album run of “The Years Without Light” through “Vlad the Impaler” is one of the best sections of any album I’ve heard. To this day “Love Surgery” remains one of my favorite songs. It’s composed and performed so perfectly, while also letting just a bit of that tongue-in-cheek mentality shine through (“Ooooooo… Scary!“).

I mentioned before about that 45 minutes thing on the cassette, right? Well, I had no track listing or anything else and, I didn’t realize until I picked it up on CD over a decade later that the final track, “Cool Place to Park” with Beefcake (Michael Bishop) on vocals was completely omitted. It didn’t fit so my buddy just left it off and didn’t tell me.

Looking across over three decades and thirteen more full-lengths, GWAR definitely has had an up-and-down go of it. While Scumdogs and follow-up America Must Be Destroyed rooted the band in the hearts of metalheads and thrashers, it’s fair to say that 1994’s This Toilet Earth saw them slipping a bit back into the campiness of their debut Hell-O, while simultaneously looking to see how far they could push the envelope of offensiveness. While America featured the kidnapping tune “Have You Seen Me?,” which is already something you probably wouldn’t want your mom to hear, Toilet had “B.D.F.” (aka- “Baby Dick Fuck”), so controversial that the title (but not the track) was omitted from the follow-up pressing, and was eventually removed altogether after that.

After Toilet, from the mid-90s to the turn of the century, GWAR would put out three albums which, if I’m being honest here, are not very good at all. Sure there are a few standout tracks amongst them (“Meat Sandwich,” “Crush, Kill, Destroy” and “Hate Love Songs” [the latter two feature Beefcake on vocals]) but, overall, they felt too long and too plodding. I never thought I would think this, but for five years and across three releases I kept thinking to myself “when will this album end?”

2000 would thankfully see GWAR return to their metal roots with the slightly loose, totally frenetic, and gloriously thrashy Violence Has Arrived. They never really looked back as all subsequent albums retain the more metal and thrash stylings that started with Scumdogs and bled into America. Although there is always a special place in my heart for Scumdogs, both Violence and 2006’s Beyond Hell (which is their best concept/lore album) remain my favorites.

In 2014 founding member and longtime vocalist Dave Brockie (Oderus Urungus) passed away from a heroin overdose. Former Beekcafe Mike Bishop would return to the band providing vocals as the new character Blöthar. While this was a marked change from GWAR, they did the right thing of not attempting to replace Brockie, whose humor, stage banter, and voice are irreplaceable. With Bishop/Blöthar in place, the music is still primarily thrash-metal, but with a different, and unique tenor to that his voice and presence provides.

Throughout their career GWAR have always been pushing boundaries. It is weird to look back to a time when Scumdogs was fresh off of the presses and, soon thereafter, I searched out Hell-O and found just how silly their debut was compared to it. Looking forward from Scumdogs we see a band who were always striving to see how much they could push against the boundaries of “civil society” in the name of art. Sometimes this boundaries were pushed too far and sometimes, maybe, not enough. Musically they dipped a bit on the latter half of the 90s, but brought it back into a strong run going for 25 years now.

Scumdogs was what put GWAR on the map. It landed at a time of musical uncertainty as the 80s were in the rear-view mirror and glam rock bands were on their way out, Metallica was about to go full mainstream with the Black Album, and the bands that would push grunge and, after that, punk, to the forefront of popularity were already champing at the bit in small clubs and garages. Scumdogs‘ release GWAR would see some of their biggest mainstream success, but their spot in the public eye was more often due to their stage act and the content of their music. The surprisingly light-hearted and well-received interview on Joan Rivers’ talk show later that year is a notable example.

In retrospect, Scumdogs is even… quaint(?) now compared to what would come after. Still a banger of an album, though.