Album Notes

The songs on Every Time I Come Around took a decade to make it to CD.

In 1997 Connecticut's most hated and possibly most talented band, The Chinks, went on a dirty little field trip to Boston and attempted to make a record under the patient care of producer David Minehan. The tracks recorded that day, despite the condition of a band that was arguably not at its peak, were a primer in how to write and play a searing brand of primitive, swampy, jacked-up music -- the bastard offspring of thrash and country.

The Chinks had emerged from the wreckage of the legendary early 90's Connecticut thrash band C.F.I. After having enough of shredding and complex song structures, the band that was becoming The Chinks simplified new songs to one or two country-rooted chord progressions, song lengths under two minutes, and lyrics that sometimes didn't exceed a dozen words. Without intending to, they had stumbled upon something that resembled punk rock closely enough that it would wind up wearing the tag.

The songs first recorded in '97 were odd meditations on drugs and heartbreaks, violence and alienation, pleaded and screamed against slashing guitar riffs and unorthodox time signatures. They were memorable, but unheard. For various reasons, the project never got past the unmixed tracks that went to tape that day. It's safe to say that those tracks from Woolly Mammoth have probably not been heard by more than 20 people. The band didn't so much break up as fade into silence.

In the absence of The Chinks, founding member Steve Theriault plunged into a long darkness marked by addiction and incarceration, and haunted by unfinished business.

Immediately after release from a State of Connecticut Corrections Facility, and six years after the Boston field trip, Steve Theriault decided to try again. The band he assembled in 2003 held a couple quick rehearsals and immediately went into Patrick Leonard's Hybrid Studios in Boston and recorded seven songs under the name "Bad Lieutenants". On the strength of this seven-song demo, and after more lineup changes, Pat Leonard (Moving Targets, Lemonheads, Bullet Lavolta) and Javier Canales (who had followed Steve around in Connecticut in the CFI days) joined in for the next eight songs. This final lineup that included Steve played three live shows in 2004. Steve passed away in 2005.

These fifteen punk-n-roll anthems are the final recorded legacy of an unusual talent.