(Who's) The Hillside Strangler

Punk has some of the most voracious and obsessive fans in any genre. One of the best examples of their rabid clattering to find and acquire original artifacts from the initial punk explosion comes in the guise of “Hillside Strangler.”

The Hollywood Squares were made up of a few locals to the LA scene who had a rather well defined musical background. The band’s guitarist, Eddie, and drummer, Tad, at some point during 1977 found themselves accompanying Bernard Constantin at performances across Europe and other more exotic locales. In each other, they found musical camaraderie and once back at home sought to solidify the line up of the Hollywood Squares.

There’s a lengthy recording story about how the band’s first single was recorded – replete with two engineers, one being the band’s friend and the other being an employee of the studio. But upon the release of the Hillside Strangler single, amidst a string of unsolved killings in the area, the band figured that visiting Rodney Bingenheimer might be a good start in terms of getting their music out there. After delivering the single to Bingenheimer, the dee jay played the disc on air while Kickboy Face, editor of Slash, was a guest. And luckily enough for the band, Kickboy Face gave the disc a rating of ten – he liked dancing to it.

The copies of the single that made it to the Bomp! store in Hollywood sold out rather quickly based partially on that recommendation as well as the tracks blustery punk stylings. But since the band pressed the disc themselves, the scant five hundred copies soon disappeared.

The Killed By Death compilations though sought to resurrect some lost, dusty gems and saw fit to include the band’s track on the first volume of the series.

But since L.A. is nothing less than a bizarre place, the song – or at least songs of that title have remained a constant topic for nerdy punk collectors since the ‘70s. Much in the same way multiple bands recorded a track called “We Are the Neutron Bomb,” a few others put “Hillside Strangler” to wax. Of course, the latter song didn’t include rival claims regarding author ship of the track.

F-Word, which featured future Electric Frankenstein vocalist Rik L. Rik, as well as the Child Molesters recorded individual renditions of “Hillside Strangler.” And while F-Word is less well known than much of its L.A. brethren, the Child Molestor’s have gone on to certain notoriety largely based upon this lone song.

As with other original pressings of singles from ‘70s punk bands, there’s a huge market to make a few bucks. And some time towards the end of the ‘90s some one saw fit to bootleg the single. The art work was remarkably similar – as punky as it was. Covers featured faux bloodstains next to a small image of a newspaper alongside the title of the track and the band name. Eventually, the bootlegger was figured out and all copies that could be located were stamped with a “20^th Anniversary” image to adorn the cover. Mystery solved.