Please welcome Whipping Boy to Blackhouse Records Limited.
Whipping Boy was the product of two minds, both with the same thought: do something musical that was not shit. The Fall of 1981 Steve Ballinger being spotted by Eugene S. Robinson, on Steve’s walk to the library at Stanford, while Eugene was riding a fire engine red moped in the exact opposite direction. Right before he stopped and asked Steve, “so I hear you want to start a band?”
He did and they did. Commandeering a rhythm section consisting of Dave Owens (drums) and Sam Smoot (bass), Whipping Boy was born (after having had the band reject the possible name “The Fucking Idiots”). Ballinger would take on guitar duties, with Robinson as vocalist, respectively.
Its first claim to fame: appearing on the Maximum Rock and Roll Not So Quiet on the Western Front compilation. Their most regretful? The first riot that saw they punching Glenn Danzig in the face at what became known as The Misfits riot.
Getting beyond that and into the van Whipping Boy played with Minor Threat on their last tour, to round out the best of their hardcore years. Years that came screeching to a halt when they, not wanting to be restrained by hardcore as orthodoxy, they branched out into the weird of the weird with their second record, the decidedly not-hardcore MURU MURU, produced by the Dead Kennedy’s bassist Klaus Flouride.
Vocalist Eugene Robinson’s book A Walk Across Dirty Water & Straight Into Murderer’s Row details almost of all of the present early history of Whipping Boy.
This year, the master tapes for MURU MURU received a new breath of life. Fully remixed by Grammy Award winning producer Joe Chiccarelli (Oingo Boingo, Frank Zappa, Agent Orange), re-mastered by John Golden (Sonic Youth, Johnny Cash, Tom Waits), and all new artwork by Aaron Turner (ISIS, Mammifer, Sumac), MURU MURU sees a release on Blackhouse Records later this year, in both physical and digital formats. More details soon, including pre-order dates, formats, and more.
Photo: Matt Etheridge