Before his rare, over-30 indie triumph, LCD Soundsystem and DFA agitator James Murphy was the drummer for a brief thing known as Speedking, a one release wonder gone defunct soon after The Fist and the Laurels dropped in 1995. I have this on vinyl, bought from a dunderhead for nothing, and it’s otherwise somewhat rare; now Emusic has it for download, possibly changing the snogosphere for the next week or so. Definitely changes the price of something I should have launched onto ebay a while ago.

Speedking lived in Brooklyn before it was cool. Isn’t it fun to say that? But really. I was there on and off 95-97, and there was only one restaurant/coffee place on Bedford and N 6th back then, and indie kids like me were only beginning to get robbed (but that’s over now, too).

Not much of Speedking predicts the dance-indie-rock madness of LCD; it’s fairly interesting agit-pop with a too-strong debt to Fugazi and a nice inclusion of weird moog synths. It’s the latter than might prefigure LCD. Check this out:

Speedking – Wabnezi

Dr. Who Dr. Who, right?

Yet most of The Fist and the Laurels goes like this:

Speedking – Spider Veloce
Speedking – Millionth Monkey

But here’s where it really works, on a couple tracks, and Murphy’s all over it:

Speedking – Hearts and Flowers