Roach Motel – Roach & Roll (1982)


September 6:th 2013 – Early Florida bad boys

Roach Motel – Roach & Roll

Destroy Records ‎– 001– 1982- 7″

Self claimed to be first punk band of Florida, US. On Roach Motel’s web-page the band claimed their first gig was opening up for the Bazookas at a tiny, out-of-the-way dive for about six people and a toothless bartender. However at that time both Critical Mass (Miami) and Eat ? had already cut vinyl.

The band was from Gainesville (Northern Florida), a city which has the largest campus in Florida. The city has the same year been appointed the best city in USA and the 5th meanest city. I guess it depends on who you ask!

However – Roach Motel delivers a “no future” EP on which they seems to kick in all directions. It seems like they don’t like either gays or Mexican – but as usual in this punk area – possible a more misdirected anti-everything. They toured with bands like Black Flag and put out another EP in 1984 called What The Hell, It’s Roach Motel.

♬ Full EP: (MP3 320 kbps). Song titles I Hate The Sunshine State / Shut Up / Wetback / Now You’re Gonna Die / Crep / More Beer.

Click on the images to expand them to higher resolution. The rips and images are from my record. The insert is one pice of paper, printed on both sides.


Front and rear sleeve



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Insert

3 comments

  1. anonymous

    Great shitty production with tiny drums and nice guitar sound. Reminds me a bit of early Black Flag in a way.
    Gainesville is a weird place, or at least the parts I’ve seen. Druggy, shabby and an aura of violence, not to mention really hot and sweaty 24/7.

  2. anonymous

    Gainesville is neither “druggy” nor “shabby,” nor does it have “an aura of violence.” During the winter it is certainly not “hot and sweaty 24/7.” I’m sure it’s warmer than Sweden though.

    The tiny out of the way dive was called Catch-22, just west of town in an area called Jonesville.

  3. Martin

    Didn’t mean to offend anyone in, or from, Gainsville, but the small parts of Gainsville I saw when I was there for a quick 24 hours stop was not one fo the better parts I’ve seen of America. I was there and played a show and saw a guy flash a gun outside the venue and the guys we stayed with warned us to go outside during dark in their neighbourhood as there was a lots of robberies in that area, and at the party after the show lots of people snorted various substances. And during the few hours we were there it was insanely hot, so from my perspective my description was accurate. Guess I was unlucky though as some of my friends who stayed in a different part of town basically said the opposite and wanted to stay longer while I couldn’t wait to leave.

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