Flipper “Love Canal” and “HaHaHa” 1981. 45 rpm, limited edition red vinyl reissue on Superior Viaduct records (2015). Punk minimalism with a “knuckle-dragging tempo,” distortion and subversion.

Love Canal, the waterway/neighborhood in New York, was a BIG DEAL in the late 70′s after the discovery that Hooker Chemical Company dumped tons and tons of toxic waste, causing a public health crisis including birth defects and cancer. The scandal eventually helped the creation of the Superfund project for environmental cleanup. “Love Canal” lyrically decries the incident:

We set sailing
Floating down the love canal
We set sailing
Drifting down the love canal
We seem strange
Our bodies are breaking down
We are breeding
Our children look like monsters
We are breeding
Not to children but to monsters
We feel pain
Poison is killing our every cells
We are bitter
Poison is killing our very cells
We are dying
Our common grave is the love canal
We are dying
Our common grave is the love canal