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Hates: Panacea 12” (Faceless Records, 1982)
I’ve been packing a lot of orders lately (thank you!), and I’m realizing that being on my feet, ostensibly with my mind on some routine task but with a little brain power and attention to spare, is a great opportunity for listening to music. A few times lately I’ve brought in a stack from my personal collection to listen to while I’m working, and I realized I enjoyed those records even more at work than I did at home. Usually when I’m listening to records at home, I’m sitting on the couch, and when I’m exercising at the gym or on a walk, I’m listening to music on my phone. Most of the music in my collection sounds better on vinyl, and most of the music in my collection makes you want to move, so I relished the opportunity to feel like I was matching the music’s power and energy. It definitely propelled me faster and further than I would have gone otherwise.
One record that really stuck out this week was Panacea, the 1982 12” EP from Houston’s the Hates. I picked this up at All Day Records in Carrboro a few weeks ago when I was out flyering for the Slant show. I was already familiar with the Hates and this record—we’ve had originals come through the shop from time to time, and we also carried a 2019 reissue on Italy’s Rave Up Records—but it never hit me with the impact that it did this week. A 45rpm 12” EP, this has all the energy and power I associate with the California bands that were on that bubble between 70s-style punk and hardcore: Rhino 39, the Dils, Modern Warfare… that kind of thing. I love the trade-offs between the two singers, the thin and scratchy guitar sound, and the recording’s raw, live feel. The songs are hooky and pop-oriented with hummable choruses, but played almost exclusively at hardcore tempos (the exception is “This Year’s Model,” which, according to something I read online, was usually a fast song the band decided on a whim to slow down for this session).
Panacea also opens with a cover of the song “Houston,” written by Lee Hazlewood and made famous by crooner Dean Martin. I wasn’t familiar with the song, but the chorus’s broad descending melody sounds great at the Hates’ hyper-speed. Their version reminds me of classic Dickies covers like “Eve of Destruction” and “Paranoid,” where there’s a glimmer of the original shining through, but so much of the band’s voice in the execution that you’d hardly know it was a cover if someone didn’t tell you. After listening to versions by Dean Martin and Lee Hazlewood, I appreciate the artistry of the Hates’ version even more.
In case you don’t know about the Hates, they started in 1978, so they’d been around for four years when they released Panacea in 1982. Their first EP, 1979’s No Talk in the Eighties, is well-regarded in KBD collector circles for its four strong punk songs that firmly establish the band’s style, and that the EP ran through three pressings over the years means it doesn’t carry the eye-watering price tag of some KBD rarities. For me, though, the Hates really hit their stride with 1980’s Do the Caryl Chessman EP, where they speed things up and get a little wilder and noisier, while still keeping the Wire-esque minimalism that defined their sound from the start. While Panacea reels things in a hair (there’s nothing like the chaotic guitar solo in the song “Do the Caryl Chessman”), it pretty much picks up right where Caryl Chessman left off.
From what I’ve read online, the Hates’ initial three-piece lineup dissolved shortly after recording Panacea, with the band continuing to release music consistently into the 2020s. I know I have one of their later cassette-only releases somewhere in the chaos of my tape collection (I think it’s either 1992’s New World Oi! or 1993’s Texas Insanity) and I remember liking it, but I wasn’t able to dig it out for a revisit before my deadline.
If you’re into this style, Panacea is well worth a listen. It certainly fit well with the similarly fast and minimal punk I was playing alongside it this week, like the compilation Life Is Ugly So Why Not Kill Yourself, which features a bunch of bands from California whose music has a lot of the same characteristics as Panacea. Same for the Dils compilation album I really dug when it popped up on album shuffle in my car a few days ago.
If you’re ready to jump in, Panacea is available to listen and download on what appears to be an official Hates Bandcamp page, though it only features Panacea and none of the band’s other releases. There’s a message on that site complaining about the sound on the original release and noting the band’s bass player has remastered the tracks, but I think the original record sounds great. It’s exactly the kind of minimal studio recording I love. The tones are all clear (though it’s a little fuzzy, like maybe it was recorded on used tape) and the drums are right up front and powerful. You can hear the bass better on the remastered tracks (LOL!), but I don’t think they really sound better, as the new master mutes the drums’ impact somewhat. I don’t know whether that Rave Up reissue uses that master or not, but even if I prefer the original, the digital version still captures Panacea’s many strengths.