Vicious Circle 

Produced by Zero Boys & John Helms

Good Shit ***** 

1981

"I have no heroes / Just havin' a good time / Don't remember the Beatles / Don't like the Stones / You seen them live in the 60's / Die in the 70's…Turn on the radio!" -- Zero Boys



With proclamation of "Livin' in the 80s," these Hoosiers were obviously saying so long to the past (at least everything from the past except maybe mid-70s underground from places like NYC, Boston, maybe even Australia, bands likely so important to so many people reading this, but so unknown to almost everyone back then you didn’t have to say “except” when saying so long to the past…elements of Ramones and Stooges, some NY Dolls snotty pop swagger mixed with 80s hardcore, scrawny punk-boy vocals with a killer muscular driving rhythm, charging forward, sonically and historically, powerpop laced with benzedrine, production tight as a noose, not a weak moment.  Essential punk from the 1980s. -- winch

(I’ve never asked Ken about this, but while I feel Marked Men became a key flagship of @dirtnap_records, I would not doubt it if in the beginning the sound of Zero Boys had an influence on the label, maybe as a touchstone of what bands might wanna aspire to if you think Dirtnap might want to be the home of the new record you just recorded.) -- winch

"From 1979 into ‘83, the Indianapolis based ZBs were the finest hardcore blitz in the Midwest if not all the lower 48 states. Proof is Vicious Circle and the two decades since of copyists, bootleggers, practitioners and reunion concert pogoers. Though before and after that LP’s 1982 release they recorded the Livin’ in the 80’s 7”, songs for three comps and released the post-mortem History Of... cassette revealing their transformation into a toured band warming to the metaphysical and their demise while still waving torches of rock ‘n’ roll panache. Ramones made it, the Zero Boys found it; Adding a slam brigade fist to the Blitzkrieg Beat. The Zero Boys managed to come with one of the best early 80's punk records, or one of the best records ever, period. Between Vicious Circle and History Of, the entire recorded output of this legendary Midwest punk band’s original line up is, finally, collected.