Crime was one of the very first acts to emerge from the US West Coast punk scene, and certainly the first to record. But given California’s reputation as the holy land of all that was mellow, it would take a few years for the West Coast underground to gain credibility, and record companies were ignoring the new California bands in favor of what was happening in New York City at the time. Crime only released three singles before calling it quits in 1982, and this collection of two sloppily recorded demo sessions, released by a small British label in 1992, is as close as anyone will ever get to a proper Crime album. But ‘San Francisco’s Doomed’ does manage to capture what a wild, powerful, and thoroughly unique band Crime was.

The songs are manic bursts of pure energy that sound a shade more sophisticated than what the Ramones were doing at th