just after getting out of high school. I was beginning to explore more of the original LA punk scene's bands, and Fear is definitely one of the big names in that bunch. They were definitely responsible (amongst others like X and Black Flag) for giving Los Angeles its own strain of punk, inspired by the urban LA life of the late '70s and '80s. Fear was formed in 1977 by singer and guitarist Lee Ving and bassist Derf Scratch, with Scratch bringing in second guitarist Burt Good and drummer Johnny Backbeat. Ving is an interesting persona in the punk world. He began playing mandolin at an early age, and guitar at 11, and was very into the blues, which you can hear in his vocals on a number of tracks. He was actually in a few heavy metal bands in the mid '70s, but apparently was very taken with punk rock, and became one of the preeminent punk frontmen of all time. This song is the opening track on the band's 1982 album The Record, which had all of their songs that they had been perfecting over the last few years. It has a great guitar line that does some really interesting stuff. It opens with (all powerchords) F#, G and A, repeating. This feels like it is going to resolve to D, but instead, moves to an E mixolydian riff, playing E, D and sliding back and forth between C# and D. In the break, we finally get that resolution to D we've been waiting for, as they repeat the 'There's too many of us...' line, but with a new guitar under it, sliding down from F# to E to D. All simple ideas, 3 chord sections, but very interesting and original.