Have You Ever Seen a Dead Cop?: Remembering Area 51

"Have you ever seen a dead cop?"

You are likely more familiar with the other bands that emanated out of AREA 51—MODEST MOUSE, MURDER CITY DEVILS, and PRETTY GIRLS MAKE GRAVES, to name a few. However, AREA 51 deserves mention as well, for they made some of the best punk rock noise around for a brief spell in the mid ‘90s! Their self-titled 7-inch released in 1995 is a forgotten gem, a fantastic piece of grungy punked-out chaos. Screaming male and female vocals emanate from everywhere at once as samples galore from Over the Edge separate one song from another. AREA 51 reminds me of BLATZ in a way, but they are much faster and verging more out of control. This is also one of NATION OF ULYSSES guitarist Tim Green’s earliest studio recordings. AREA 51 morphed into the DEATH WISH KIDS later that year after Spencer Moody left the band. Not much else had changed; they perhaps attacked their songs with more of a focus and less all-out drunken chaos. DEATH WISH KIDS quickly released the There’s Nothing in School They Can’t Teach You on the Streets 7-inch on Hopscotch Records, but disbanded within a year to form the MURDER CITY DEVILS with Spencer. Hopscotch would also release an AREA 51 discography—the 7-inch and an unreleased recording—on 10-inch vinyl in 1998, as well as a four-song DEATH WISH KIDS demo as a one-sided 7-inch in 2000. Vocalist Andrea Zollo returned with PRETTY GIRLS MAKE GRAVES’ first release a year later.