The Outnumbered - Surveying the Damage

Artist: The Outnumbered Title: Surveying the Damage Catalog#: Parasol-CD-036 Price: $7.50	Tracks on this CD:
	I Feel So Sorry Now		Long Long Gone
	You Need a Babysitter		Passive Voice
	The Other Way Around		She's Gonna Take It Out On Me
	Inspiration		I Fooled You Too
	Don't You Feel It		Ruthless
	Sit With Me in the Dark		Tell Me What's Wrong
	One Desperate Moment		Wasted Time
	Cover Me With Flowers		Love Is the Reward
	Why Are All the Good People Going Crazy		Legend of the West
	Boy On a Roof		Betrayed By the Ending
	Away From Here		Leaving Town

Jon Ginoli-Vocals, Guitar--Paul Budin-Vocals, Bass--Tim McKeage-Guitar
W/ Ken Golub, Jonno Peltz-Drums

"Jon moved to San Francisco, where he helped found not only a band but an entire subgenre of music. His groundbreaking group Pansy Division, which combines Ramones-style thrash pop with explicitly gay lyrics, has led the charge in the nationwide homocore movement."

The first thing this band did right was pick a name. These guys really were outnumbered. They came from deep within the corn jungle of central Illinois, playing in a college town that record companies usually ignored. They were perhaps the world’s only all-male feminist band, performing anti-misogynist, anti-capitalist, anti-war rants at the height of the Reagan era. They were earnest when earnestness was way out of fashion. They had bad haircuts and—as their lyrics made clear—problems with self-esteem. In short, nobody would have voted for them as Boys Most Likely to Succeed.

But they defied the odds, just as a band called The Outnumbered should. Bolstered by the songwriting skills of Jon Ginoli and Paul Budin, the group landed a contract with Homestead Records, putting out two albums on that label, and the one more on local Edible Records. They toured the country several times, opening for bands such as the Replacements, the Violent Femmes, Soul Asylum and Yo La Tengo. Along the way they built a small but devoted national following.

They were also a critical success. In the May 12, 1985, edition of The Sunday Times of London, Simon Frith noted that "there is currently an excitement in local U.S. music that there’s not been on an independent British release from months." Of the new bands emerging from the American underground, Frith was "particularly fond of The Outnumbered’s combination of seventies punk thrash, sixties mod melodies and eighties solemn words."

Spin was no less impressed. In a November 1986 review of the band’s second album, Holding the Grenade Too Long, Wes Eichenwald praised the "classic melodies, innovative rolling thunder production, crisp guitar work, and intelligent lyrics you can understand without half trying." The article added that "The Outnumbered are idealists, and frequently flaunt their adversarial attitude as much as they do their sincerity, but as the album title indicates, they’ve got a saving sense of humor. So instead of throwing up, we’re laughing as we dance. Feels great."

After the band broke up in 1987, Paul and Tim teamed up in the Last Straw, a marvelous group that merged country twang with garage strum, but that unfortunately split up just as similar bands like Uncle Tupelo and the Jayhawks were making a big splash. Jon moved to San Francisco, where he helped found not only a band but an entire subgenre of music. His groundbreaking group Pansy Division, which combines Ramones-style thrash pop with explicitly gay lyrics, has led the charge in the nationwide homocore movement.

The Outnumbered were never trendy—a disadvantage then, an advantage now. These songs hold up amazingly well. Ten years after the release of their final album, it’s a delight to have them back-Miles Harvey excerpted from the liner notes of Surveying the Damage