Results tagged “B records”

Randoms: ABCD/Let's Get Rid of New York

By Sobriquet Magazine on November 28, 2009 4:17 PM

Randoms

ABCD/Let's Get Rid of
New York
Dangerhouse, 1977

Something of an early L.A. punk supergroup, Randoms consisted of X's John Doe on bass, the Screamers' K.K. Barret on drums, and Pat Garrett (Black Randy & the Metrosquad) on guitar and vocals. And you can tell: despite the relatively lo-fi recording, the band sounds remarkably tight. In fact, the gritty nature of the production probably enhances the disk, adding a layer of sonic filth to the decidedly New York flavor of the A-side and just enough distortion to the buzzing B-side to endow it with the sort of rough-edged sound that I associate with some of the best producers of the 1980s D.I.Y. scene.

Between the song's comparatively spare instrumentation and Garrett's slightly drawled vocals, "ABCD" certainly recalls the decadent spirit of post-New York Dolls Johnny Thunders, but the track is actually much closer to the playfully affected innocence and girl-chasing spirit of pop-punk than to the nihilistic drug-laden gloom of glamish Heartbreakers copycats. The B-side, on the other hand, is straight-up angry punk rock (the contemptuousness with which Garrett enunciates "all the money left on Wall Street" and "the whores left on 42nd Street," for instance, is pure bile) with an intense bassline, buzzsawing guitars, and crashing drums. Indeed, while Randoms do sound like a different band on each side of the disk, they sound like two really good outfits, and the record marks a solid -- if not great -- debut release for the seminal Dangerhouse label.

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Forgotten Rebels: Nobodys Hero's

By Sobriquet Magazine on July 31, 2009 11:59 AM

Forgotten Rebels

Nobodys Hero's
Other People's Music / EMI, 2000

A dozen or so years ago, when the Internet was still a fairly novel concept and relatively few people knew even the most rudimentary bits of web design, I interviewed Vic Gedris, the Canadian web designer who had assembled the first major directory of punk pages online, World Wide Punk. Vic's efforts were important because he was really one of the first people to show punks that, while the Web still had a reputation for being somewhat prohibitive to non-techies, the same DIY ethic that had defined the 1980s indie underground could be applied to this new medium. The result of Vic's hard work was a sleek, easily navigable directory of bands, zines, labels, and other punk stuff that was, while it lasted, the best punk site online. Still, while I did ask Vic about web design and the Web's place in the punk community, the thing I remember most from the interview (if you're interested, it appears in Sobriquet #8 and Maximum Rocknroll #172) had nothing to do with the Internet. What I still recall was Vic's enthusiasm for the Forgotten Rebels, a Hamilton-based band I hadn't heard of previously. His passion for the Rebels made an impression on me and put the band on the list of bands I kept an eye out for when record shopping. Strangely, despite their popularity, it took me more than a decade (two years of which I spent in a Canadian metropolis) for me to find any of their recordings. Nobodys Hero's, the band's 2000 offering was my formal introduction to this playfully trashy, undeniably catchy outfit and, while I like some of their earlier recordings (In Love With the System or This Ain't Hollywood, for instance) better, I will always have a soft spot in my heart for this sleazy slab of glam-punk, even if the grammar on the cover is painfully inept.* In addition to the band's standard fare of sleaze -- songs about pedophilia ("Hockeynite"), teenage prostitution ("Highschool Hookers"), and, well, let's just say other sexual indiscretions ("Dickwart") -- the Rebels deliver solid covers of the Avengers' "The American in Me" and the Vibrators' "Baby, Baby." While only a handful of songs would qualify as stand-out, radio-friendly tracks, the entire album, as a single work, is remarkably consistent and there really isn't a dud on it.

Highlights:

Track 1. "Hockeynite." A double entendre-laden ("he shoots, he scores!" and "he likes high sticking and body checks") song about a pedophile ("Dirty Daddy") preying on a very young boy ("he likes you 'cause you're nine!"), "Hockeynite" is the most immediately catchy song on the album. There's something so decadently punk about a song that makes you want to sing along and take a shower. Then again, the best black humor should make you feel guilty for laughing . . .

Track 3. "No Place to Hide." The sense of nostalgic urgency this song conjures up is fantastic.

Track 11. "Wasted." A paean to drinking oneself into a stupor, "Wasted" is basically a sped-up roots rock song with simple, precise drums, chugging guitars and lyrics charged with notes of regret and pained resignation. Not surprisingly, it has a vaguely Social Distortion-esque quality to it, which is always a good thing.

Track 12. "Baby, Baby." Some songs are just so good that they'd be the highlights of any band's album. "Baby, Baby," like "Teenage Kicks" or "Another Girl, Another Planet," is one of those rare tracks and the Forgotten Rebels do the Vibrators' classic justice, playing it a bit harder than the original, but preserving the sublimity of the tune.

*Note: The grammarian in me cringes at the title; I can't help it. One could almost forgive the omission of the apostrophe in the first word, but the fact that the second presents the singular possessive instead of the simple plural of "hero" is kinda hard to take.

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The Frantics: Downtown Delirium

By Sobriquet Magazine on July 30, 2009 4:09 PM

The Frantics

Downtown Delirium
Mutant Pop, 1997

I don't know what happened to the Frantics between 1996's Playing Dumb and this EP, but whatever it was, wow. Whether another year together helped the band cohere into a tighter unit or if it's simply a matter of a finding a label stable enough to finance a higher-quality recording, Downtown Delirium marks a significant refinement in the band's sound. Speeding up the tempo, tightening the rhythm section, and adding a modicum of grit to the snot-drenched vocals would have made the decent songs on Playing Dumb sound better, but when these qualities are combined with the vastly improved songwriting on Downtown Delirium, you end up with one hell of a pop-punk disk.

Track Listing:

Track 1. "Stuck With Being the One to Hate." Although the twenty-plus seconds of audio clips with which the band introduces the song are on the gratuitous side, "Stuck With Being the One to Hate" is a solid, if unexceptional, opener.

Track 2. "Downtown Delirium." The title track is great. Fast, loud, and snotty enough to make you want to grab a few extra handkerchiefs before heading out the door.

Track 3. "Trina's on a Postcard." Backed by a hard staccato beat and punctuated by precisely-timed eh, eh ehs, Kevin Mac delivers one of the best vocal performances of his career: both gritty and adenoidal, his singing will make you want to belt out the words along with him - and take him to an ear, nose, and throat specialist.

Track 4. "Slightly Modified Stick People." A bit on the heavier side, the disk's closing track is also its punkest. Play this loud.

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Broken Toys: Prozac Baby/Pocketbook

By Sobriquet Magazine on July 25, 2009 2:48 AM

Broken Toys

Prozac Baby /
Pocketbook
Pogo Stick, 1994

Methuen, Massachusetts's Broken Toys have been releasing records for twenty years now and still, for no discernible (or, at the very least, justifiable) reason, hardly anyone other than the most voracious of record collectors seem aware of their existence. It's unforgivable, really.

The A-side of this disk sounds like it could have been on the Dead Boys' Young Loud and Snotty. Scratch that. The A-side of this disk sounds like it should have been on the Dead Boys' Young Loud and Snotty. I don't even care if this sounds bombastic or that it's a blatant anachronism (after all, Fluoxetine wasn't approved by the FDA until a decade after the Dead Boys imploded); "Prozac Baby" should be right up there with "Sonic Reducer" and "Ain't it Fun?" on Dead Boys greatest hits compilations. That's all I'm going to say.

The B-side, "Pocketbook" retains a few vestigial traces of the Stiv Bators-Cheetah Chrome desperation, but is much closer in spirit and sound to the playful brand of pop-punk soaking up the American midwest during the mid-nineties (it was, however, recorded in 1992). Whereas "Prozac Baby" is a bit on the slower, brooding side, "Pocketbook" speeds things up, swaps the Richard Hellish vocals for something closer to what one might expect out of, say, Walker, and churn out a bouncy, danceable tune.

Lyrically, the Broken Toys fit squarely in with the irreverently apolitical sort of stuff I associate with other pop-leaning punk bands from the nineties. I mean, "Prozac Baby" is about an emotionally and/or psychologically troubled girl "who ain't crazy" and takes "a little pill" to elevate her mood and the boy who loves her while "Pocketbook" deals with the aftermath of petty theft. You know, nothing too deep or overtly proselytory. Just fun.

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Flirt: Don't Push Me! / Degenerator

By Sobriquet Magazine on July 19, 2009 2:14 AM

Flirt

Don't Push Me! /
Degenerator
Real Records, 1978

Forming in 1976, Detroit's Flirt was one of the first punk bands to emerge out of the Motor City and, like the Stooges and MC5 before them, the band developed an intense and often raw garage rock sound. Led by the husband-and-wife duo of Skid and Rockee Marx, Flirt sounds like what would happen if Janis Joplin lived past age 27, grew bored with psychedelia, and joined the Stooges after Iggy Pop went solo. Indeed, Rockee DeMarx's inimitable vocals elevate what would otherwise be a merely good, baldly derivative slab of hard-edged garage punk into a whole different beast.

Track Listing:

Track 1. "Don't Push Me!" With its relentless swirl of proto-metal guitar solos, thoroughly un-saccharine backing vocals, and handclaps divested of any last vestiges of bubblegum, "Don't Push Me!" injects a healthy dose of punk vitriol into music that could appeal equally to acid rockers and hair metal headbangers without an ounce of the self-indulgence or wimpiness one associates with either late sixties hard rock or mid-eighties balladry.

Track 2. "Degenerator." Like the howl of a wolf lost in the streets of the Motor City, DeMarx's prolonged vocals on the B-side cut through the of the wail of guitars with a ferocity as primal as they are furious.

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Various Artists: Short Music For Short People

By Sobriquet Magazine on June 18, 2009 2:07 AM

Various Artists

Short Music for Short People
Fat Wreck Chords, 1999

Compilations are rarely easy to review. More often than not, some bands or songs are markedly better than others, so there's almost always a sense of inconsistency or disjuncture and the more bands, the more pronounced the discrepancies in style and quality. Bearing this in mind, it is fairly remarkable that Fat Wreck Chords managed to cobble together a collection of 101 songs by 101 different artists that rarely misses a step, yet this is precisely the case with Short Music For Short People. Given Fat Wreck Chords' reputation for promoting poppier punk and hardcore bands, it is perhaps no surprise that this compilation, released at the dusk of the 1990s pop-punk boom, has a decidedly pop-punk flavor. Sure, there's a smattering of straight-up hardcore, horn-heavy ska, and other punkish sounds, but there's an astonishingly cohesive sound on this disk. The only instances where this consistency breaks down can be found in the handful of old songs resurrected seemingly for the sole purpose of meeting Fat Mike's quota of 101 different bands. Where the vast majority of bands recorded songs specifically for the compilation, a few anachronistic (though frequently stellar) luminaries do appear a decade or more after breaking up. Of course, this is also a gimmick record, and, accordingly, there's a fair amount of self-effacing, self-reflexive humor (directed at the restrictive brevity of the songs) in the lyrics as well as a few gags in the track listing (songs by Black Flag, White Flag, and Anti-Flag appear sequentially, for instance). The short song gimmick does wear a bit thin, however, and, regardless of how solid the songs often are, the disk lacks the replayability of less crowded record. One really pleasant aspect of the disk, though, is its ability to showcase a huge array of bands, most of which successfully convey their signature sound in the allotted time. You know, just what a good comp is supposed to do.

Track Listing:
(Given the unique nature of this record, I'll list the track lengths, too, for fun).

Track 1. "Short Attention Span" (Fizzy Bangers) - 0:08. The perfect introduction to a compilation of super-short songs, "Short Attention Span" is so short, it'll be over before you realize how catchy it is.

Track 2. "Anchor" (Less Than Jake) - 0:30. A toast to the punk scene the band loves delivered over chunky guitars and skankable horns.

Track 3. "Ketchup Soup" (Teen Idols) - 0:30. A Ramonesy love song about living in poverty featuring the band's trademark male-female harmonization.

Track 4. "All Comic Heroes Are Fascist Pigs" (Terrorgruppe) - 0:24. After presenting a catalog of classic comic heroes ranging from Mickey Mouse to Dick Tracy, the song descends into a chorus of what sounds suspiciously like "all cops are bastards!"

Track 5. "Overcoming Learned Behavior" (Good Riddance) - 0:27. A brief blast of Good Riddance's standard headbang-worthy melodic hardcore.

Track 6. "Quit Your Job" (Chixdiggit) - 0:24. For a song pleading with the audience to avoid starting a band, "Quit Your Job" is just catchy enough to make you go out, quite your job and start a band. Oh, the irony!

Track 7. "Ready" (The Living End) - 0:34. Distorted vocals and sped-up hillbilly strings make "Ready" worth a play or two.

Track 8. "Out of Hand" (Bad Religion) - 0:40. From the very first second of this track, the moment you hear the angry three-part harmonization, there's no mistaking that you're listening to Bad Religion. In other words, this rules.

Track 9. "Asian Pride" (Hi-Standard) - 0:30. If I didn't know Akihio Nanba, Ken Yokohama, and Akira Tsuneoka were from Japan, I'd've assumed they were a bunch of SoCal skaters attempting to fashion a pop-punk hoedown based on this song. You'll be dancing and looking for a partner to swing around, trust me.

Track 10. "Steamroller Blues" (Aerobitch) - 0:26. From Spain with vitriol, Laura Bitch makes Brody Dalle sound like a Spice Girl.

Track 11. "Doin' Laundry" (Nerf Herder) - 0:30. If you didn't speak English, you'd think this was a sweet song, but it's really a boy's confession of thinking about the object of his affection while masturbating.

Track 12. "Freegan" (Big Wig) - 0:32. A slightly heavier-than-average bit of activist-baiting, presumably directed at the more sanctimonious anarcho-punks.

Track 13. "Not Again" (Undeclinable Ambuscade) - 0:31. Mellow Dutch punk bordering on alt-rock.

Track 14. "Waste Away" (Fury 66) - 0:29. Furious, slightly metallic punk with sandpapered vocals.

Track 15. "The Radio Still Sucks" (The Ataris) - 0:28. Two decades after the Ramones lamented the death of sixties' pop radio, the Ataris remind us that things haven't changed.

Track 16. "Armageddon Singalong" (Unwritten Law) - 0:36. Bass-driven and bouncy, "Armageddon Singalong" is more singalong than eschatological, which is good, really.

Track 17. "Hearts Frozen Soil Sod Once More By The Spring of Rage, Despair, and Hopelessness" (A.F.I.) - 0:32. Remember when A.F.I. wasn't a trendy emo band? If not, play this. Sad, eh?

Track 18. "Farts are Jazz to Assholes" (Dillinger 4) - 0:32. This puerile, hand-clappingly, foot-stompingly catchy Minnesota punk track makes me miss my former home. It's D4 to a T.

Track 19. "Surf City" (Spread) - 0:28. Hard, fast, and loud with plenty of of chant-worthy bursts of "Go for it," "Surf City" would do well on a long distance runner's soundtrack.

Track 20. "Back To You" (Swingin' Utters) - 0:33. Solid cowpunk with just enough twang.

Track 21. "Outhouse of Doom" (Bar Feeders) - 0:34. Silly drunk punks, there's no such thing as an "outhouse of doom." At least that's what it sounds like you're saying through Scared of Chaka's distortion box.

Track 22. "Alienation" (Citizen Fish) - 0:33. Hook-heavy Brit punk gloriously devoid of the band's ska element.

Track 23. "Family Reunion (Blink-182) - 0:36. While not as painfully polished as some of the band's recordings, "Family Reunion" is fairly consistent with Blink-182's commercialized punk sound. Recipe for a Blink-182 song: sing "Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits, fart, turd, and twat" four times, followed by "I fucked your mom" and a faux-outtake in which one sings "And I want to suck my dad, and my mom, too! Oh, is thing this on?" And make it catchy. Really catchy. This is the perfect song to play for someone who thinks all punk rock is, is a bunch of swearing for the sake of swearing.

Track 24. "Mirror, Signal, Wheelspin" (Goober Patrol) - 0:28. Somehow, this song sounds both desperate and totally danceable.

Track 25. "Saturday Night" (Kill Switch) - 0:32. Much more urgent a "Saturday Night" than that of the Bay City Rollers.

Track 26. "Bedroom Windows" (Enemy You) - 0:24. Snotty skatepunk with some sweet ahhs in the background.

Track 27. "Sara Fisher" (No Use For A Name) - 0:30. "Sara Fisher" is one of the better bits of melodic hardcore on the disk.

Track 28. "The Ballad of Wilhelm Fink" (Green Day) - 0:32. Probably the least punk song on Short Music, "The Ballad of Wilhelm Fink" is basically a folk-drenched Billie Joe Armstrong playing solo. Not bad.

Track 29. "Delraiser Part III, Del on Earth" (Consumed) - 0:27. Thoroughly satisfying Britpunk about slackerdom.

Track 30. "Told You Once" (Mr. T Experience) - 0:11. MTX might fit more bubblegum and "fucks" in these eleven seconds than Blink-182 does in their 36.

Track 31. "Randal Gets Drunk" (Lagwagon) - 0:28. Some solid ska-tinged punk courtesy of one of my favorite bands.

Track 32. "Fishfuck" (Gwar) - 0:32. For some reason I'm surprised by Gwar's musical competence here. I'm not surprised by the ichthyologically-oriented paraphilia they sing about.

Track 33. "Howdy Doody in the Woodshed" (The Dickies) - 0:33. Only the Dickies could take a cherished, if occasionally creepy, childhood icon, place him in perverse circumstances, warble about it, and make you want to sing along. Fucking brilliant.

Track 34. "Long Enough to Forget You" (Samiam) - 0:30. A metafictional bit of melodic hardcore.

Track 35. "Erik Sandin's Stand-In" (Dogpiss) - 0:33. Not only is this one of the more eminently singalongable songs on the Short Music comp, it has a bluegrass banjo that somehow makes the song even punker.

Track 36. "We Want The Kids" (59 Times the Pain) - 0:21. I love Swedish punk, always have.

Track 37. "Warren's Song Part 8" (Bracket) - 0:31. Not quite emo, but getting there.

Track 38. "No Fgcnuik" (Nomeansno) - 0:31. A finger-snapping lounge lizard opening erupts into a furious explosion of snotty, lightspeed punk.

Track 39. "I Like Food" (Descendents) - 0:17. Milo's impassioned celebration of alimentary joy never gets old.

Track 40. "Triple" (Dance Hall Crashers) - 0:33. A thirty second ska punk song about writing a thirty second song for Fat Mike.

Track 41. "Don Camero Lost His Mind" (Guttermouth) - 0:29. This is what would happen if punk bands wrote radio ads for shitty retail stores.

Track 42. "X-99" (Limp) - 0:38. Uh-oh, nah-nah-nahs, finger snapping, and hey-heys; that's a recipe for getting something stuck in your head. And, boy, this will.

Track 43. "Faust" (Jughead's Revenge) - 0:31. A chant-ridden song about being oneself rather than, say, signing a pact with the Devil ala the tragic figure sharing the track's name.

Track 44. "Deny Everything" (Circle Jerks) - 0:25. Another classic that never grows old.

Track 45. "Hand Grenades" (The Offspring) - 36. This is what might happen if Ted Kaczynski wrote hardcore punk rock.

Track 46. "Mike Booted Our First Song, So We Recorded This One Instead" (Mad Caddies) - 0:28. More metafictional, self-reflexive ska punk.

Track 47. "Union Yes" (The Criminals) - 0:34. Adenoidal doesn't even begin to describe the vocals on "Union Yes."

Track 48. "Dirty Needles" (Screeching Weasel) - 0:28. Well, this is Screeching Weasel for you: references to hard drug abuse, a dig at hippies, and thoroughly catchy poppiness.

Track 49. "300 Miles" (One Man Army) - 0:29. Imagine the Swingin' Utters swallowed Tom Waits.

Track 50. "Klawsterfobia" (Strung Out) - 0:30. Some pretty solid melodic hardcore from a pretty solid melodic hardcore outfit.

Track 51. "You Don't Know Shit" (Youth Brigade) - 0:35. Take Minor Threat's "Straight Edge" and play it backwards.

Track 52. "Doin' Fine" (Groovie Ghoulies) - 0:27. The Groovie Ghoulies are one of those bands that take the Ramones' formula, barely alter it, and totally kick ass. Indeed, "Doin' Fine" will get you off your ass and onto the dancefloor as fast as anything off of Leave Home.

Track 53. "John For The Working Man" (Tilt) - 0:31. Cinder Block has always been one of my favorite vocalists; play this once and you'll see why.

Track 54. "A Prayer For The Complete & Utter Eradication of All" (Spazz) - 0:26. This upliftingly-titled ditty is about as jarring a transition from the Ghoulies and Tilt to the Damned as anything I can imagine. Power violence as a bridge between pop-punk and goth-punk? Weird choice, Fat Mike.

Track 55. "It's A Real Time Thing" (The Damned) - 0:31. I fucking love the Damned, so it's no surprise that Dave Vanian's creepy musings on temporality and the band's eerie gothic ambiance pleases me a good deal.

Track 56. "All My Friends Are In Popular Bands" (88 Fingers Louie) - 0:31. This is pretty much exactly what you'd expect to hear on a late nineties pop-punk compilation. Archetypal stuff, this is.

Track 57. "I Hate Puck Rock" (D.O.A.) - 0:31. Joey Shithead has one of the greatest voices in all punk and this song showcases it perfectly.

Track 58. "Fun" (Pulley) - 0:31. The fact that Scott Radinsky sang lead vocals for a punk band while simultaneously pitching in Major League Baseball will always amuse the living shit out of me. Oh, and "Fun" is a pretty damn good song, by the way.

Track 59. "To All The Kids" (The Vandals) - 0:29. The Vandals channel spirit of sixties pop radio on this doo-wop-tinged ode to outcasts and freaks of all varieties. Delightful.

Track 60. "Thirty Seconds to the End of the World" (Pennywise) - 0:32. One of my favorite tracks on the disk, "Thirty Seconds to the End of the World" is an apocalyptic sing-along for the ages.

Track 61. "Get A Grip" (No Fun At All) - 0:27. Ah, even more melodic hardcore from Sweden! (Jag älskar Sverige).

Track 62. "Blatty (Human Egg) - 0:32. I want to hate this song, but I totally dig it.

Track 63. "I Got None" (All) - 0:29. A bit jazzy, a bit hardcore, a hundred percent All.

Track 64. "See Her Pee" (NOFX) - 0:32. I can't help but find Fat Mike singing about urolagnia over a backbeat that sounds as if it was lifted from Phil Collins's "In The Air Tonight" to be underwhelming.

Track 65. "F.O.F.O.D." (7 Seconds) - 0:31. 7 Seconds' contribution to the whole self-refelxive metafictional thing. You know, writing a song about writing a song for the CD.

Track 66. "Blacklisted" (Rancid) - 0:27. "Blacklisted" is reminiscent of Rancid's Let's Go-era sound. Good stuff.

Track 67. "Chandeliers And Souvenirs" (Dieselboy) - 0:29. Hard-edged punk with quasi-emo lyrics dripping with nostalgia.

Track 68. "Your Kung-Fu is Old . . . And Now You Must Die!!" (Adrenalin O.D.) - 0:31. The track's concluding gong makes what would be a merely good song great.

Track 69. "My Pants Keep Falling Down" (Frenzal Rhomb) - 0:32. Silly Australian punk.

Track 70. "I Hate Your Fucking Guts" (The Queers) - 0:30. Happy-sounding misanthropy from America's happiest misanthropes.

Track 71. "Comin' To Your Town" (D.I.) - 0:26. The opening riff to "Comin' To Your Town" is eerily similar to the Ramones' "Judy is a Punk."

Track 72. "Spray Paint" (Black Flag) - 0:33. Another classic from punk's vaults.

Track 73. "Rage Against the Machine Are Capitalist Phonies" (White Flag) - 0:28. Well, they are. The quivering vocals here are pretty kickass, too.

Track 74. "Bring it to An End" (Anti-Flag) - 0:28. Facile call-and-response sloganeering never sounds bad coming from these Pittsburgh boys.

Track 75. "Not A Happy Man" (Avail) - 0:35. An acoustic guitar and handclaps provide the backdrop for the speaker's tale of sitting in a cherry orchard without having access to the coveted fruit.

Track 76. "Old Mrs. Cuddy" (The Real McKenzies) - 0:31. Bagpipe-driven Celtic punk that would put the Dropkick Murphys to shame.

Track 77. "Traitor" (Agnostic Front) - 0:31. Note to self: do not piss off Agnostic Front.

Track 78. "Life Rules 101" (Down By Law) - 0:31 Dave Smalley sounds rather wimpy here.

Track 79. "Wake Up" (Radio Days) - 0:32. The xylophone on this track reminds me of the sort of music my younger sister used to play during her Little Mermaid Soundtrack-playing days. It's like "Under the Sea" goes punk.

Track 80. "Too Bad You Don't Get It" (Useless I.D.) - 0:34. They had me at the cowbell solo.

Track 81. "Humanity" (Poison Idea) - 0:35. Today's hardcore has nothing on these guys, nothing.

Track 82. "In Your Head" (Men O'Steel) - 0:25. Montreal punk with some really interesting (in a good way) vocals.

Track 83. "Supermarket Forces" (Subhumans - U.K.) - 0:32. An anarcho-punk attack on the local effects of large-scale chain stores.

Track 84. "Tribute to the Mammal" (Buck Wild) - 0:23. Chugging guitars and snotty vocals = punk.

Track 85. "Pretty Houses" (Lunachicks) - 0:28. Theo Cogan's lyrics on "Pretty Houses" may be the best out of all 101 performances on the disk.

Track 86. "The Band That Wouldn't Die" (Dwarves) - 0:38. Self-aggrandizing sleaze punk. What else would you expect?

Track 87. "Like a Fish in Water" (Bouncing Souls) - 0:34. A bizarrely polka-ish song that sounds like a Gogo Bordello outtake.

Track 88. "Turn it Up" (Happy Trigger) - 0:30. A half-minute's worth of metallic hardcore with irritatingly hair metal-ish background vocals.

Track 89. "Madam's Apple" (One Hit Wonder) - 0:32. In case you couldn't make the leap upon reading the song's title, "Madam's Apple" is One Hit Wonder's "Lola" or "Dude, Looks Like A Lady."

Track 90. "Staggering" (Hot Box) - 0:28. How, exactly does one growl mellowly?

Track 91. "DMV" (2.0) - 0:29. More middle-of-the-road melodic hardcore.

Track 92. "Big Fat Skinhead" (Snuff) - 0:34. Solid Britpunk.

Track 93. "Pimmel" (The Muffs) - 0:34. You've always wanted to hear Kim Shadduck sing in German? Now you can!

Track 94. "Mr. Brett, Please Put Down Your Gun" (H2) - 0:30. A silly hardcore tableau in which the Bad Religion/Epitaph founder goes on a shooting spree.

Track 95. "Wake Up" (Bodyjar) - 0:33. About as complete a song as you'll find on the disk.

Track 96. "Eyez" (Nicotine) - 0:26. Ska-punk with some killer vocals I promise you won't soon forget.

Track 97. "Another Stale Cartoon" (Satanic Surfers) - 0:31. Have I mentioned how much I like Swedish punk?

Track 98. "I Don't Mind" (Ten Foot Pole) - 0:32. A poppy celebration of wanderlust and traveling for the sheer joy of being on the road.

Track 99. "Welcome to Dumpsville, Population You" (Caustic Soda) - 0:24. Frantic and fun, Caustic Soda's entry is worth waiting through the first 98 songs on the disk.

Track 100. "NY Ranger" (The Misfits) 0:28. I'm guessing "I Want to Be A New York Islander" had too many syllables? And, by the way, this does not sound like the Misfits at all. Besides, they're from Lodi, NJ. That's Devils territory, man.

Track 101. "The Count" (Wizo) - 0:31. A nerdy song that counts the thirty seconds of recording the band promised to deliver to Fat Mike. Somehow, despite it's stupidity, it's really catchy.

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Shock Nagasaki: Year of the Spy

By Sobriquet Magazine on January 10, 2009 5:35 PM

Shock Nagasaki

Year of the Spy
Rebellion Records, 2006
TKO Records, 2006

Originally from the, uh, "legendary" punk rock incubator of Syracuse, NY, Shock Nagasaki wisely relocated to the friendlier (musically- speaking, at least) confines of Brooklyn and promptly made a name for themselves as one of the more overtly British street punk-inspired American bands. Indeed, Shock Nagasaki sound perfectly at home on the TKO Records roster, resembling as they do such labelmates as Slaughter and the Dogs and the Angelic Upstarts. Likewise, you hear echoes of Chelsea, the Business, and several dozen other second-wave British legends on this disk. The Clash? The Buzzcocks? You name 'em; someone will probably say that Shock Nagasaki sounds similar.

And they'll probably be right. Shock Nagasaki is an exceptionally polished outfit, capable of appropriating the anthemic singalongs of your favorite oi! band and the punkified glam-rock guitar riffs of the '77 sound to compose what amounts to a record that feels like it was released a solid quarter-century ago. In England.

Ultimately, if one is to find fault with the band, it can only be in the form of accusations of derivativeness. Still, even if Year of the Spy does sound like a collaboration between the Business and 999, it's still a damn good record.

Highlights:

Track 3. "Palisades and Renegades." Easily one of the album's most sing-alongable tracks, "Palisades and Renegades" ends with what may be one of the best bits of anthemic rock 'n' roll I've heard in years.

Track 5. "Classified Information." Another song, another immediately catchy chorus with just about as many hooks as a guitar lover could ever want.

Track 10. "Hit the Beach." This was my introduction to the band. Possibly the record's most radio-friendly track, "Hit the Beach" is a searingly sarcastic take on military recruitment. It's one hell of a rocker, too, complete with a killer lead guitar and seriously catchy choruses.

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Captain Not Responsible: Self-Titled EP

By Sobriquet Magazine on January 7, 2009 5:28 PM

I'm pretty certain I picked up Captain Not Responsible's self-titled EP in one of the two CD stores I used to frequent when I attended high school in Sogndal, but I'm not sure which one. What I do remember, though, was immediately liking what I heard when I "test-listened" to the CD up at the counter.

Despite the band's rather irritating choice of cover art, Captain Not Responsible is not the sort of unintelligent hard rock record you might expect from a band choosing to place an image of disgraced Pennsylvania State Treasurer R. Budd Dwyer committing suicide on a record sleeve. (For those people unfamiliar with R. Budd Dwyer, the 47-year-old politician killed himself during a televised press conference in 1987 after being accused of having accepted a three hundred thousand dollar kickback and facing more than a half-century in prison. Images of the man placing a revolver in his mouth and subsequent footage of his brains splattering on the wall behind him have long been staples of shock rock bands attempting to find outrageous material to screen during performances). Rather than the garden-variety lyrics about violence and assorted bits of tough-guy posturing, the boys in Captain Not Responsible sing about the idiocy of fascism (I know, not the freshest of thematic ground, but give them credit for trying), the pathetic tendency of some people to wallow in self-pity and for others to use alcohol abuse as an excuse for inaction. Truthfully, the lyrical content really makes the record stand out from the pack of decent-to-good hardcore bands playing in the mid-nineties. Still, it's all backed up by all the chugging guitars and gruff vocals could ever ask for. Crank the volume up on this one.

Track Listing:

Track 1. "Self Pity." A staple on my radio program in the nineties, this song is so anti-emo that you just have to love it. A tale of a guy who is "so in love with his misery," "so in love with his tragedy," "so in love with the tears in his eyes" that he's too blinded to appreciate what good life has to offer. Of course, "nothing really matters to an asshole, anyway," so he just wallows and wallows. Seriously, isn't there someone we'd just love to shout this to? And aren't they exactly the person who, although he or she "could be someone," won't ever do a thing about it because they're "just in love with [their] selfish fucking self"? The singer, who has presumably suffered from an equally solipsistic bout of depression, tries to shake some sense into the auditor, though we sense the effort is futile. Fortunately, "Self Pity" is a skull-thumping slab of punk fury, so some good has come of it all. Catharsis rarely sounds this exhilarating.

Track 2. "The Latest New Order." Though I suspect some cynical listeners will roll their eyes when "The Latest New Order" comes on the stereo, claiming that the track is simply the obligatory bit of anti-Nazi sentiment many hardcore bands (in a scene polarized by political tensions between a minority fascist element and a larger anti-fascist demographic) penned to clarify their positions on certain sociopolitical issues, Captain Not Responsible does attempt to take a slightly more unique angle to this well-trod thematic territory. Sung in the first-person, "The Latest New Order" recounts the story of a "warrior" of the "master race" as he initially welcomes the Nazi doctrine before ultimately discovering, at the hands of a brutalizing element of self-purging "purifiers" among his former peers, that anyone can be dehumanized by inhuman doctrine. While images of alcohol-fueled brutality and violence-inspired priapism are certainly unoriginal, the band's attempt to depict how "rules changed overnight" and the political climate one embraces can suddenly turn on the formerly enthusiastic acolyte is less tired an approach to the topic. In the end, "The Latest New Order" is an admirably impassioned screed attacking fundamentalism in such a way as to be both specific in focus and applicable to a much broader range of modes of thought. The chugging hard rock beat and gruff vocals, of course, make for a good song, too.

Track 3. "Amnesia." The EP's third number is an anti-nihilist rant, cynically accusing humanity of complacently refusing to learn from its past mistakes and, thus, doomed to the tragic repetition of foibles great and small.

Track 4. "No Colombo Tonight." Another accusatory tune, "No Colombo Tonight" attacks the well-documented tendency for mass media to transform horrific news into infotainment that will keep viewers enjoying what, for others, is a life-shattering ordeal. Furthermore, it laments the ways in which "a cheering crowd" can allow someone to make "himself a name / with bigger gun than brain."

Track 5. "This Might Be My Second to Last Beer." Another first-person account, "This Might Be My Second Last Beer" expresses the speaker's sense of existential futility and attempts to justify his or her alcoholic surfeit as a legitimate response to his inability to overcome life's insurmountable challenges or to effect any perceptible change in the world. Sensing that he can never really get what he wants, the singer reveals that, like many a stereotypical activist, he is more prone to talking about the changes he'd like to make than he is to actually take action. Thus, s/he takes a "second last beer," thereby prolonging the period of bitching and moaning while delaying the moment he or she must walk the walk.

Track 6. "Another Day." In many ways the bleakest song on the record, "Another Day" picks up where "This Might Be My Second to Last Beer" leaves off. The musings of someone who keeps waiting for some vague future time during which action will be possible only to realize that every day that passes is, in effect, the "trad[ing of] a handful of something / For a whole lot of nothing at all," "Another Day" is yet another critique of the band's favorite target: the apathetic, self-pitying individual who, despite the potential for real action, squanders his or her life waiting.

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The Abs: Turbosphinct

By Sobriquet Magazine on December 30, 2008 11:22 AM

The Abs, as I have written elsewhere, are easily one of the most entertaining bands I've got in my collection. With lyrics ranging from astoundingly zany to downright facile to strikingly intelligent and undeniably melodic, hook-heavy guitar work, the Abs rarely miss the mark with their brand of quirky pop-punk. On the band's 1988 EP, TurboSphinct, the Abs pretty much follow their formula to a T. Take "Same Mistake Twice," the disk's opening track, for instance: with Fatty Ashtray's bouncing bassline as the song's groundwork, Baz sings of feeling like he's been "sent here on a mission / to eradicate complacency among the young men in this town" (peculiar word selection for a pop song, no?) in such a way as to make the listener feel like he or she is a bad person for not singing along. The second track, the awkwardly-titled "Hand Me Down (My Silver Boulder Knives)," for better or worse, reminds me of William Carlos Williams's "The Dance," a poem whose rhythm mimetically captures the festive (well, drunken, actually) whirling, twirling, rollicking pirouettes of the dancers in Pieter Brueghel, the Elder's painting, "The Kermess":



I mean, I realize this sounds ridiculous but, in all seriousness, that's the image that comes to mind every time I play the song. Opening with playfully militaristic drumroll and a bassline that could have been lifted out of some sort of folk festival dance number, "Hand Me Down (My Silver Boulder Knives)" is one of the most immediately danceable tracks I've heard in a long time. And, I should note, that by "danceable," I mean wild hopping from foot-to-foot with the punch-counterpunch swing of the song's beat.

The EP's B-side is not quite as strong as the romping A-side. While both "Legal Aid" and "Jackhammer" are consistent with the band's poppier sound, both add subtle elements of mid-eighties hard rock and hair metal to the mix. Though barely noticeable, the shift in sound is perceptible and neither song is especially memorable. Fortunately, the Abs did not fall into the trap as did so many of their contemporaries and, with their next album, took a decidedly non-metallic approach to songsmithing. To delightful effect, I might add.

Sobriquet Grade: 85 (B).

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The Gaslight Anthem: Sink or Swim

By Sobriquet Magazine on December 29, 2008 11:06 AM

While Sink or Swim, the Gaslight Anthem's 2007 debut, is undeniably, one of the better records to emerge out of the punk scene over the past few years, it may be the band's weakest release. Of course, this is saying a whole lot. After all, both their follow-up EP, Señor and the Queen, and their sophomore album, The '59 Sound, are phenomenal (and, especially in the case of the latter, genre-expanding) releases. So, really, listening to Sink or Swim after having heard the band's most recent output may not be the best approach to reviewing the disk. I mean, you can't help but be a bit biased.


At any rate, Sink or Swim is certainly not your run-of-the-mill debut effort. The Gaslight Anthem are one of the tightest outfits on the circuit today, consistently polished and capable of the sort of unified sound most good bands require several albums to achieve. And you can hear it on this first record. There really isn't a lousy track on the disk.

All the hallmarks of the Gaslight Anthem's sound are present on Sink or Swim, though perhaps not in as breathtakingly mature a manner as on The '59 Sound: Brian Fallon's soulful Bruce Springsteen-meets-Tom Waits rasp, punk-infused roots rock riffs, and immensely catchy sing-along choruses. Unlike The '59 Sound, however, Sink or Swim does not offer quite as many stand-out singles, which makes for a strikingly balanced listening experience. The band's performance, with the significant exception of "I'da Called You Woody, Joe," is consistently very good on the record, but most tracks fall just shy of great. In other words, Sink or Swim is an excellent album that really needs to be played start-to-finish in order to be properly appreciated because there's not as many mix tape-ready tracks to pull from the disk.

Highlights:

Track 1. "Boomboxes and Dictionaries." A driving rhythm serves up one of the album's catchier choruses like a Jersey Shore wave breaking just in time to deliver a surfer to his or her perfect crest.

Track 2. " I Coul'da Been A Contender." Despite the dubious placement of the apostrophe in the song's title, this track is close to flawless.

Track 5. "1930." One of the most representative of the album's tracks, "1930" is the perfect introduction to the Gaslight Anthem's nascent soul punk sound.

Track 8. "I'da Called You Woody, Joe." The band's heartfelt dirge for Joe Strummer captures the shock Fallon felt upon learning of of the Clash frontman's untimely heart attack and transforms it into a sublime punk rock threnody.

Track 9. "Angry Johnny and the Radio." Try not to sing along with this one. Seriously. It's like eating one potato chip. You just can't resist.

Track 12. "Red At Night." A clear nod to Billy Bragg's "Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key," "Red At Night" is a beautiful acoustic performance as electrifying as the most intense of plugged-in sets.

Sobriquet Grade: 86 (B).

Incidentally, I caught the Gaslight Anthem's show in Asbury Park last night. The third of three "At Home for the Holidays" shows put on by the Bouncing Souls, the concert featured the legendary pogo punks as headliners and the Gaslight Anthem as one of three opening bands. The show was originally scheduled for the Stone Pony but a last minute venue change resulted in the rather unfortunate decision to hold the concert in the Grand Arcade, a glass-enclosed section of the Asbury Park boardwalk with less than ideal acoustic properties. In addition to the sound-absorbing Christmas tree to the right of the stage, the high, cathedral-esque ceilings and disproportionately wide proportions of the hall swallowed quite a bit of the music and what managed to escape often got trapped in the odd nooks and crannies of the beachside boutiques lining the concourse. With the exception of one Bad Religion concert in Montreal's Jarry Park, I have never attended a punk show held in such an overlarge space and, to be honest, the music suffered.


In addition to the Bouncing Souls and the Gaslight Anthem, with whose music I am rather well acquainted, the bill included two other Jersey bands, Let Me Run and Gimme Drugs, neither of which really struck me as especially good. Let Me Run has a rather melodic brand of hardcore-leaning punk and gave a pretty solid performance, though the lead singer seemed a bit nervous at times. Gimme Drugs, as their rather lame name suggests, are one of those bands that are not particularly inventive. Armed with lyrics occasionally delivered in an obnoxious spoken word style and jokes ("Hello, we're the Gaslight Anthem. Heh, heh, heh.") that fell flat, Gimme Drugs did not engage the audience much.

The Gaslight Anthem were great, though. You can tell the band is about to get huge. I mean, the crowd was swarming with Brian Fallon lookalikes. The original Fallon, of course, is a natural performer, regularly engaging the audience in banter and sing-alongs. Clearly very comfortable on stage, the Gaslight Anthem displayed remarkable chemistry, exchanging playfully knowing glances and orchestrating deceptively casual musical improvisations that really electrified the audience.

Playing an extremely tight set, the Gaslight Anthem leaned heavily on The '59 Sound, though they played a fair amount of songs from both their previous records. Watching the band, I was pretty certain I was watching The Next Big Thing.

The Bouncing Souls, predictably, performed an energetic set of pogo-punk tracks that drove the circle pit into a frenzy. Initially dressed in matching red holiday jumpers, the band came across as extremely fan friendly, often holding the mike to the throbbing mass of kids dying to sing along with this most sing-alongable of bands. With such novelties as a tongue-in-cheek (though quite good) acoustic cover of the Misfits' "Hybrid Moments" thrown in to pace what would otherwise have been a blistering set of pop-punk tunes, the Souls were perfectly tuned to their audience. Mixing newer tracks (including debuting an unreleased song) with selections from the band's first two decades of recording, the Bouncing Souls gave a pleasantly balanced set, being certain to cater to both newer and older fans.

While I did experience a bit of disappointment with the venue and some chagrin at the programmer's strange tendency to play AC/DC CDs during set changes, the show was one of the better ones I've seen lately and, just maybe, I can say I witnessed the Gaslight Anthem as they were getting ready to rocket to the big time. The next time I see the band, I doubt very much the tickets will be so cheap or the venue so small. They're that good.

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Boris the Sprinkler: 8 Testicled Pogo Machine

By Sobriquet Magazine on December 22, 2008 11:03 AM

Boris the Sprinkler were one of the most deliberately zany punk bands of the 1990s and early 2000s. Fronted by the notoriously bizarre Rev. Nørb (who, when I asked him, assured me that his name was pronounced "Norb" but that he had stylized the font, intending the "ø" to be read as as a "null" rather than the Norwegian letter it actually represents), Boris the Sprinkler churned out a series of pop-punk albums that were, by turns, riotously funny, gratingly cacophonous, delightfully melodic, obnoxiously moronic, and thoroughly enjoyable. Hailing from Green Bay, Wisconsin, Boris the Sprinkler proudly flaunted their Cheeseheadedness, often referring to local hangouts in their lyrics and even penning a song about pining for a grilled cheese sandwich on Saucer to Saturn, their 1995 sophomore LP.


Opening with the unmistakeable and inimitable voice of the late Wesley Willis mimicking the famous introductory words to the MC5's Kick Out the Jams, 8 Testicled Pogo Machine immediately aligns itself with the brand of self-consciously absurdist Dickies-style campiness. After introducing each of the band's members in mock-MC fashion, Rev. Nørb, deeming himself "the voice of Geek America" (the man is perhaps best remembered for wearing his antler helmet, a football helmet with the words "PUNK" and "GEEK" plastered to its surface) proceeds to open the album with its geekiest, punkiest track, "Drugs and Masturbation."

Lyrically, "Drugs and Masturbation" sets the tone for much of the disk. Boris the Sprinkler, like many of the pre-emo boom pop punk bands of the nineties, were pretty much obsessed with the sex they could not get, the girls they could not get it from, and the hands they turned to in moments of frustration. The amplified self-depreciation, candid celebration of marginalized status, and the unabashedly onanistic tone of the song informs much of the album's remaining lyrical content. The record's second track, "Get Outta Here" is the tale of a single man living in his mother's house who refuses to succumb to a girl's unwelcome advances because he's "not that desperate yet." Like the Ramones' "I Don't Want To Walk Around With You," "Get Outta Here" is pure punk rock anti-love and a fitting introduction to a theme the band further distills in "(She's So) Disgusting." On "The Way It Is," however, the Reverend croons about a girl he believes is too good for him, wishing that he had actually mailed "a letter [he] never sent" in which he "told her how [he] felt." Furthermore, we eventually learn, the singer has never even spoken to the girl, placing "The Way It Is" alongside such nineties pop-punk versions of this eternal rock 'n' roll theme as Screeching Weasel's "Totally" and "Claire Monet." On the track "1-3," the speaker sings about his unfortunate discovery that a girl for whom he has developed a physical attraction is, in fact, a mere thirteen years old. Though she is half his age, the ephebophilic character struggles with his forbidden attraction to the unwitting Lolita. And, in case you haven't yet realized that a huge chunk of the album deals with the seemingly impossible act of forming a healthy relationship between a male and a female, "Girls Like U" makes the point abundantly clear.

Other than tales of unrequited love, 8 Testicled Pogo Machine makes frequent mention of fast food (Taco Bell, in particular), classic punk bands (the U.K. Subs), and comic book characters (Archie Comics' Professor Flutesnoot and Mr. Weatherbee and the Green Lantern make an appearance).

Musically, the album is quite a bit more diverse than most records classified as pop-punk. While you've got tons of Ramones-y stuff going on, there's a clear roots rock element to the record as well as bits and pieces of what might be considered Doo-Wop, rockabilly, Lemonheads-esque alt-pop, and (deliberately) horrible a cappella. What really unifies the album is the band's aforementioned zaniness. The concentrated weirdness and light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek lyrics about such pedestrian topics as drinking grape juice ties the album together at least as much as the rapidly-played, elementary power chords.

Highlights:

Track 1. "Drugs and Masturbation." Truly the voice of Geek America.

Track 9. "The Way It Is." I remember listening to this song over and over again in my freshman dorm. What I loved then - and what I still love today - is the perfect evocation of a self-critically melancholy mood. It's a frank admission to oneself that "I fucked up," a vain attempt at stoic acceptance of disappointment with some beautiful backing vocals and a guitars that'll hook you instantly.

Track 11. "Gimme Gimme Grape Juice." How punk is this? I mean, you take a Ramones title, replace "Shock Treatment" with a relatively under-appreciated beverage (at least in punk songs, where beer is more often than not the libation of choice), add a jailhouse-issue harmonica performance, and play over standard, chugging pogo punk. Oh, and then add an almost-Elvis "Gimmuh-Gimmuh, uh-huh" for good measure. And then burp to end the song.

Sobriquet Grade: 85 (B).

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The Swingin' Neckbreakers: Shake Break!

By Sobriquet Magazine on November 9, 2008 1:01 AM

Growing up in rural New Jersey, I didn't have very many ways to discover new music. The local mall's shoebox-sized Sam Goody was, for most of my youth, the only music store around and, while I was able to buy a few Ramones, Circle Jerks, Black Flag, and Dead Kennedys cassettes there, the amount of punk rock available to me was pitifully small. Nor was the Internet much of a help because, in my mid-teens, it was still restricted to academics and military intelligence. So, it was a small miracle when I picked up a copy of Maximumrocknroll on one of my infrequent excursions to a slightly more populous area. That issue blew open my musical menu and I read that damn fundamentalist punk rag cover-to-cover. Still, lacking a checking account and, even more devastatingly, a turntable, I couldn't order many of the bands I'd read about.


What MRR did give me, though, was a sense of what was out there, of what was possible. Within a month or two, I started my own fanzine, Sobriquet Magazine, the photocopied-and-stapled publication that has evolved into what you see before your eyes today. Of the twenty-two copies I sold of that first issue, four were sold by the owner of Hackettstown's wonderful little independent record store, Sound Effects. When I went to check in on the zine, the owner, Jerry Balderson, informed me that he'd sold all four copies of the zine and went to get the four dollars he'd collected for me. Once I realized that this man had generously sold a zine for some kid he'd never met before without taking a penny for himself, I decided to buy something from his store as a teenage attempt at showing gratitude. Looking around hastily and not really expecting to locate anything that I would have really wanted, I happened to see a small stack of Book Your Own Fuckin' Life, an annual MRR publication that the zine had been touting as the DIY Bible. When I reached for my wallet, Jerry insisted that we "trade" my four zines for the BYOFL, essentially giving it to me for free.

When I got home and started paging through the listings in BYOFL, I was delighted to find a listing for Princeton's WPRB Radio's punk show, "Hey You Kids, Get Off My Lawn!" and promptly nudged my radio's dial into position. Every Saturday night for the rest of the time I lived in New Jersey, I listened to Jen and Mike's program, discovering bands like Screeching Weasel, Tilt, Teengenerate, and New Jersey's own Swingin' Neckbreakers.

After I had taped every broadcast that I could, I made a compilation of my favorite songs, which I would bring with me on my next decade's travels through Norway, Minnesota, Quebec, and New York. By the time the cassette had worn out to the point where I didn't really want to risk playing the tape anymore, I'd systematically located most of songs on CD, but I could never find the Swingin' Neckbreakers. Luckily, Little Steven's fondness for the band meant that the Neckbreakers were featured regularly on his Sirius channel, the Underground Garage. Of course, he never played "I'm in Love With Me," the track I'd first heard more than ten years before. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I was able to locate the song on Shake Break! which I promptly set out to get my hands on. Of course, it wasn't available on iTunes or any other MP3 site I checked out, so I had to order the disk and I had to pay handsomely for the privilege.

And you know what? I don't regret it a bit. Shake Break! is a wonderfully fun garage punk-meets-Creedence Clearwater Revival record. Between originals like the aforementioned "I'm In Love With Me" and "Help Wanted" and covers of tracks like "Ice Water" (Glen Barber) and "Brown Eyed Girl," the Swingin' Neckbreakers are every bit as entertaining as the wrestling move from which they take their name (see the Honky Tonk Man's "Shake, Rattle, and Roll").

Highlights:

Track 1. "Wait." This fast, poppy tune channels the spirit of the Kingsman Trio and infuses it with a burst of pop-punk energy.

Track 2. "Mighty Mack." Here we have "a silly white boy" singing about a"mighty black" singer named Mighty Mack who, despite the fact that he "could have been the King," was forgotten by the music establishment that ripped him off. With a steady, pounding backbeat, "Mighty Mack" is one of the album's most immediately accessible tunes.

Track 8. "I Wanna Be Your Driver." A frenetically-paced, bluesy chunk of pure rock and roll.

Track 9. "I'm In Love With Me." The reason I bought this album. A sardonically-told tale of narcissism ("And there's no one that's gonna come between me"; "you're in love with me, but you're too late. I'm already taken by me," etc.) sung over a straight-forward punk background. Fucking brilliant.

Track 12. "A Thousand Times a Day." Fast, loud, and catchy: the sort of love song that a tough guy can play for the apple of his eye without having to worry about compromising his cool.

Track 14. "The Girl Can't Help It." A speedy, thoroughly energetic cover of the Little Richard classic.

Sobriquet Grade: 84 (B).

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Adhesive: Sideburner

By Sobriquet Magazine on April 12, 2008 12:28 AM

People tend to compare Adhesive to Bad Religion, and for good reason. Indeed, the band's first full-length album, 1996's Sideburner, features the sort of vocal harmonization (the Swedish quartet's oohs and aahs bear more than a passing resemblance to the sound Greg Graffin and Brett Gurewitz tend to work into their songwriting) and the polished melodic instrumentation one generally associates with Bad Religion. Furthermore, despite writing in a foreign tongue, Adhesive's richly allusive, metaphor-laden lyrics do not shy away from the use of sophisticated vocabulary to convey their meaning.


That said, Adhesive's sound on Sideburner is relatively one-dimensional, though the dimension is, admittedly, a highly-listenable one.

Highlights:

Track 4. "On a Pedestal." Quite possibly the best song on Sideburner, "On a Pedestal" is Adhesive's parable of Faustian ambition (complete with a suitably Mephistophelean shopkeeper) set to catchy melodic hardcore.

Track 5. "Scottie." Despite the song's overt reference to Trekkie culture, "Scottie" has nothing to do with kitschy American sci-fi. Rather, the song waxes metaphysical, expressing the pain of the speaker's solipsistic existence and questioning whether or not the palpable loneliness he (or she) experiences in "a domestic jail" is, in fact, a ubiquitous emotion spanning all humanity.

Track 7. "Scent of Life." While not wholly original, "Scent of Life" is a hook-heavy statement of an individual's existential self-actualization.

Sobriquet Grade: 85 (B).

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