Lost in time yet always in season, here’s a blast of that ol’ perennial, the punk rock, representative of the swiftly changing times around Bailey’s Crossroads, just outside Washington, D.C., in the early 80s. Skam recorded this stuff in ’82–’83, then broke up, leaving these songs to be released . . . maybe never? Or more preferably, now, to race into the bloodstream of jaded, faded today with all the vigor and rigor of Skam’s eternal youth.

Though they didn’t release any records during their three years of existence, it’d be wrong to call Skam “never- was” — in addition to these recordings, there’s a trail of flyers for shows with Scream, No Trend, United Mutation and Media Disease, as well as the memories of the student alumni from Bishop O’Connell High, class of ’83 or so.

The first cut from No Name is "Open Your Eyes", a grinding call to chaos from the hitherto-unheard brothers-in-arms of DC punks like Government Issue, S.O.A. and Rites of Spring. Between ‘80 and ‘83, Skam aspired to speak truth to power like all the others. Death had politicians in their eyes; Minor Threat saw things differently with theirs – Skam want you just to open yours to the games that are holding us all back, with all the wide-eyed fervor of true believers.

The Skam recordings from ’83 have an undeniably Clash-like countenance that sets them definitively apart from the “First Four” of Dischord — in some ways, prefiguring the pop-punk sound of Green Day at the dawn of the ’90s instead — but subsequent recordings found them quickly evolving —or devolving — into a personal mastery of savage riffs and tempos, as well as post-punk conceptions. These rediscovered Skam tapes make for an incredible addendum to the more well-known music of that incredible time and place. No Name is the name, grab it by 9/29!