Supercharger

by Chris Larry
Brought together by a love of rock & roll and a newly purchased drum set Supercharger rocked the early '90s with trashy guitar riffs and a full-throttle misfit punk attack. Based on the cretin hop of the Ramones and the Angry Samoans with a good knowledge of rock & roll's two-minute pop nugget history, Supercharger deconstructed songs till only the essentials of beat and hooks remained. Filling in the gaps with power and volume the music comes across like a cold slap in the face. Teenage mayhem and a general antisocial sentiment cast the band as delinquent savants like those that created the music originally in the 1950s. Calling San Francisco central headquarters, Greg Lowery (bass/vocals), Darin Raeffelli (guitar/vocals), and Karen Singletary (drums/vocals) formed in 1991 and before playing out or mastering singing and playing at the same time, they recorded their debut platter Supercharger and released it on their own label Radio X. As Lowery says of the record, "we basically were learning as we were writing the songs." A limited vinyl pressing of 500 created a collectors item, rumor has it fans/collectors in Japan pay upwards of 500 bucks a pop. Supercharger was later reissued on Bellingham, WA, Garage Punk label Estrus Records in 1997 with two bonus tracks to trump the bootleggers. After a handful of singles the band was back recording their second and final long player Goes Way Out, this time given a wide release on Estrus in 1993. Standing as their masterwork, Goes Way Out was also their swan song as it was their last release and basically came out as the band was folding. The band imploded after a 1993 tour of Europe with the fabulous Mummies where both bands took their budget rock manifesto to places like Holland and Belgium. After the death of the band, the individual members continued to D.I.Y. themselves into punk rock history. Singletary and Raeffelli formed the short-lived Brentwoods and than Raeffelli went on to do a Kim Fowley trip with teenage all-girl band the Donnas. Lowery played in the Rip Offs (with Jon Von who had recently departed the Mr. T Experience), the Infections, and currently the Zodiac Killers. He also started and runs the punk rock label Rip Off Records, which continues to champion the visual, musical, and attitudinal style employed by Supercharger.