Cut-Out Classics: Saigon Kick and The Lizard

Music collectors remember the "cut-out" bin, where excess copies of unsuccessful albums would be dumped, with big box cutter cuts in the edge of the LP or the back to the cassette or CD. Many a disc had to have the plastic blown off carefully so it wouldn't get scratched. On the other hand, "cut-outs" were $1.99-$5.99, considerably cheaper than full-priced LPs, CDs or cassettes. Granted the albums hiding in the cut-outs was more Pretty Boy Floyd than Pink Floyd but I spent many hours poring over those bins and going home with huge stacks of new (and old) music.

So here at the Hair Whip we present another in our series of Cut-Out Classics, great albums that you can probably find for a….song.

Saigon Kick only made two records before singer Matt Kramer walked out of a session for their third album, leaving guitar man Jason Bieler to take over frontman duties. But it was the tension between the intellectual Bieler and the wild-man Kramer that made the first two discs by this Florida-based quartet tick.


The band's 1990 debut is a thrilling ride through a bewildering number of musical styles. After the trippy opener "New World" the band follows up with a one-two punch of "What You Say" and "What Do You Do?". From there things get weird. Highlights include the swirling psychedelia of "Colors", the sexually dysfunctional "Down By the Ocean" and "My Life." One of my favorite songs to play for friends (mostly to watch their jaws drop) "My Life" features a great Beatles pastiche on the verses, a soaring, echo-laden anthemic chorus and best of all, a third verse played entirely on multi-tracked kazoos. A strong and confident debut that sounds better with age.


The Lizard is a much more problematic record. The guitars are heavier, and the hooks are still thick and meaty, staying in your ears long after hearing them. This record has the band's one major hit (the acoustic and career-sinking "Love Is On The Way") but the real gems here are the stomping "Hostile Youth", the decidedly strange "Peppermint Tribe" and the driving acoustic-based tracks "God of 42nd Street" and "All I Want".

However, the overall impression of The Lizard is a band so devoted to experimenting and sounding like other bands that it sounds like a compilation of other contemporary groups, "My Dog" sounds like Jane's Addiction right down to the riff from "Stop!" "World Goes Round" is the best King's X song never written by that Texas trio. And "Body Bags" channels the fury and rage of Skid Row at their peak. (Ironically, powerhouse drummer Phil Varone later wound up in that band.) The Lizard is a good record overall, but a little schizophrenic.

By the way, if you like Matt Kramer-era Saigon Kick (and I do, otherwise I wouldn't be writing about them!) check out his website here and his first solo album, War and Peas.
All images from MattKramer.net