One wouldn’t necessarily think of Alaska as being the home of some hot underground female-fronted punk rock, but that’s exactly where the fantastic band The Anemic Boyfriends hailed from. Fronted by the teenaged Louise Disease, they released two singles between 1980 and 1981 before disappearing into obscurity. This archival single cherry-picks the scorching A-side to 1981 single “Fake I.D.” with the 1980 b-side, “Bad Girls In Love.”
It’s all about the a-side, though. “Fake I.D.” starts off with a rumble that recalls AC/DC, The Runaways, and Heart, before launching into a potent rocker that is most certainly not a teenage anthem for everyone. This is pure J.D. jailbait rock, with her singing about being fifteen and bored and wanting to go get drunk and get wild and get laid, and that having a fake ID will help her accomplish said goal. She sings with such power and confidence, it’s not hard to believe she did exactly that. The flip, “Bad Girls In Love,” follows suit; it’s an obvious homage to “Cherry Bomb,” and while it’s a rough sounding recording, it loses none of its power because of it.
And then…nothing. Gone. Disappeared. Very little information about the band can be found online, and their records are rather impossible to find, so this is it, really. The best of the best. (The other two songs are merely OK; these really are the best of the lot.) So there you have it–teenage rebellion in song, in obscurity, forever regulated to two amazing numbers and that’s it. Fleeting, much like youth. Ignore at your own peril.
The Recoup 
Leave a Reply