DOGFIGHT

I was familiar with this '90s Minneapolis act by name only for many many years before I heard them. Saw the name around on flyers for missed shows, heard the band mentioned in passing during jaunts through the Midwest, plus Karoline had a gloriously threadbare DOGFIGHT shirt that was a mainstay during the first several years of our marriage before it was deemed a relic. But I believe that my first proper introduction was when I popped this tape in last week. Acquired from the Daniel Gatewood collection two summers ago, I just kept putting this one off, more interested in the things I had never heard of or the things I already knew I liked and wanted to hear more of, DOGFIGHT always slipped into the "listen to this later" category (the scourge of too much stuff and too many tapes, really: the hundreds that are in line, just waiting for love and recognition, constantly pushed to the side and into the shadows by some newer, fresher, cuter kid at the dance...). But, good things come to those who wait (or, in this case, to those who procrastinate), right? I feel like DOGFIGHT couldn't exist in 2017, and if they did, they would be shoved into some obscure art punk subgenre to be celebrate by a criminally small minority of the larger punk scene (cue '90s nostalgia rant here). Lazy and funky freakouts with multiple vocals, a horn section, and songs that are overwhelmingly dominated by furiously clanging and shockingly proficient bass guitar. File alongside SUBMISSION HOLD, DOG FACED HERMANS, CRASS at times, but all of these categorizations only mean that DOGFIGHT was doing their own fucking thing and didn't sound like anything. Which is exactly why this tape hits me just right, even though I'm hearing the band 20+ years after I should have. 

DOGFIGHT