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CITIZINE REVIEWS By
Mark Prindle Various
Artists Former New Bomb Turks singer Eric Davidson is no stranger to rock and roll. Not only did he lead one of the finest punk/garage rock bands in the world for a full ten years, but he’s also a highly paid record critic for America’s finest weeklies and things. So when Gearhead asked him to put together a compilation of great music by little-known modern garage rockers, he was just the man to say, “Is there any money in it?” But he DIDN’T. He asked no questions and got the rock and roll a-cracklin’. And here’s your result: strange, passionate guitar-driven rest ’n’ relaxation bands with names like The Goddamn Gentlemen, Exxon Valdez, Scat Rag Boosters and Mystery Girls. And it’s a good thing Eric chose to include that last band, because otherwise we’d all be sitting around going, “Hey! Where are the Mystery Girls?” Heh heh yeah. Let’s all sit back and bask in the glow of that uproarious observation. Yeah, I’m not basking much either, to be honest. But this song by The Hunches kicks ass! To be honest, none of these songs holds a candle to Eric’s New Bomb Turks, but I suppose we can’t all be number one. After all, if we were all number one, who would be number two? Billy Joel would be number three. Subhumans The Subhumans are back? What happened to Citizen Fish, the ska band featuring 3/4ths of the Subhumans? What happened to all of their great reggae and ska songs that I've never heard? I'll always miss not having heard them. Or to be more exact, I used to own a couple of their CDs but most of the songs were so nondescript that the only one I remember at all is "Charity," with its awesome descending bass line and hilarious Kate Bush part. But the Subhumans were GREAT! Their nearly ska-free catalog was made up largely of (1) speedy simple British punk blasts of catchy anger and (b) dark psychotic ruminations of midtempo fear and discomfort. And they sound just as great now as they did when I was 16 (400 years ago). This is a NEW live recording, recorded in 2003 but consisting almost entirely of classic material (one track each from Time Flies, But Aeroplanes Crash, Evolution, Reason For Existence, 29:29 Split Vision and Rats, two from Religious Wars, four each from Demolition War, From The Cradle To The Grave and Worlds Apart and a goodly SIX from The Day The Country Died). The sole new track, "This Year's War," takes Bush and Major to task over a fast, muted descending hook of untrust-worthiness. And I don't mean the band Bush and some guy's College Major!!! Heh hehe heh. I mean a short green leafy tree and a happy-sounding musical chord. The song selection is perfect (no reggae or ska!),
the sound quality is excellent for a live recording and the guitar
tone is as shiny and thick as it was in the mid-80s. Plus it's a
treat to hear a middle-aged, lower-voiced Dick give a go at stuff
like "Parasites" that was originally recorded when his
voice was younger than a fruitfly and higher than a penis that's
been Oh I forgot -- here's my "punk guy": SELLOUTS!!! Fuckin' putting out a record on Fat Wreck Chords just to make a million dollars! I'm keepin' the tradition of the PINS alive! Fight war not wars! Spare some change?
Fronted by punk entrepreneur Elvis Cortez, owner of Smelvis Records (label and store) Left Alone is a great British-style punk/ska band from the riot-torn streets of Wilmington, CA. Their punk songs are fast and catchy as Hell, and the ska ones are driven by cool double-sax attacks and Klaus Flouride-style bloompy-bloompy bass playing. I personally am not the biggest ska fan in the universe, so I was pretty surprised by the relatively high enjoyment level of dark tracks like “Marie.” But it’s the high-speed old-school-hardcore punk songs that push this one over the top, to my ears anyway. “Your The Reason” is killing the English major in me, but the DRI thrash attack riff is well worth the horrid grammatical error. And others? Oh, don’t get me STARTED on others! The mix is raw and real (not slicked-up radio punk), and the energy level is as high as that of a man who has accidentally eaten an entire jar of amphetamine tablets thinking they were Sprees. Fuck you, they were colorful. (*builds a car out of drool; runs the mile in 4.2 seconds*) 1208 Nobody has ever written me a postcard explaining
why, but the "minor chord" evokes feelings of sadness,
angst, confusion and pain. It's a very emotional style of playing
that has nothing in common with the happy, cheerful sound of big
corporation major chords. 1208 know all about minor chords, and
they're going to make sure that their guitars' emotions affect your
soul's emotions with an emotional form of punk rock that can only
be called "emot." This "emot" punk rock band
features Greg Ginn's nephew Alex Flynn on lead vocals, as he will
be reminded by every 1208 record review he reads for the next ten
years. They don't depart terribly from the general Epitaph slicked-up
punk rock sound, but then neither do Bad Religion and they sell
millions of albums so who's running this show? God? Hardly. Why
would he support a band called "Bad Religion"? Think these
things through before you read them. El
Centro You Orange County people sure have a lot of bands playing that "Orange County" punk rock music. The poppy punk stuff that sounds like Agent Orange and the Vandals. Not that El Centro sound like a "ripoff' of those bands. They just play melodic uptempo distorted guitar chord music with a socially distorted man singing over them. Some of the songs are instant sugartone pop punk classics you want to hear again and again; others are similar but lack that certain something (anything). But that's the risk you run when you play a form of music this simplistic in a market as oversaturated as O.C. Are El Centro as good as their peers? For the most part, yeah! There are some great songs on here! But will El Centro be able to break though the noise and increase mindshare among the all-important 18-25 male demographic? Only tomorrow will tell us that tale. I'll give you an update on our next shareholder's call. Error What a strange confluence of worlds we now find ourselves experiencing! Error is - GET THIS - two brothers merging loud guitars with techno music, topped by the Dillinger Escape Plan's Gregg Puciato singing lyrics written by Bad Religion's Brett Gurewitz. As great as those bands are, Error sounds nothing at all like either one, rather resembling the industrial-angst-metal amalgam Nine Inch Nails (not shocking since one of the brothers once worked with Trent Reznor). Some of the electronics sound pretty neat, and Gurewitz is enjoying his role as 'nihilistic' songwriter (one track is from the point of view of Jack The Ripper, another includes only two lines, one of which is "Let's just fuck our brains out my love"), so if you're "all about" S&M in the cyber age, Error is the band for you! And Error is the EP for you! And Error is the - do they have a song called "Error"? If they did, I could say, "And Error is the song for you!" I don't think they do though.
The
Spits Hey! It's Tommy Ramone's drum beat! There's also distorted fuzz chords, sci-fi themes, neat cheap keyboards and bubbly bass lines, but the driving force of it all is none other than Tommy Ramone's sped-up stripped-down "dit-dit-chit-da, did-dit-chit-da." Judging from the band photos (two men dressed like Arabs and a keyboardist who appears to be about 75 years old), these guys are as great live as they are on record, which is mighty great indeed if you like Ramones-style punk rock with a swirling 50's-futuristico Lost In Space feel. Take it from Steve - The Spits are saliva-tastic!
Descendents Many bands have tried to recreate the Descendents' mixture of cheery fun and impassioned pop punk, but too few realize that there's more to it than playing tonic-subdominant-dominant and singing about a girl. The Descendents LIVE this bubblegum punk stuff and have done so off and on since 1978. Their strength lies in truly INTERESTING (though at times really awfully quite offensive and sexist) lyrics and in realizing that a song has to have an actual "hook." If there's no hook in the music, it's there in the vocal melody. They're good at the whole "songwriting" thing, even though they only do it like every eight years or so. This EP is more of what you'd expect from the Descendents, and that's good! Though it's essentially a teaser for their upcoming Cool To Be You LP, it features two or three great songs that will not be available on the full-length - reason enough to pull out your wallet and download this EP from some file-sharing network somewhere. And then put your wallet back in your pants; you're not fooling anyone, BURGLAR OF MUSIC. Voodoo
Glow Skulls / Left Alone California's punk/ska gang Left Alone pair two of
their Brit-style tracks with two from the awesome Spanish ska/punk
legends Voodoo Glow Skulls. Only four tracks, but all four are good!
If you're into horns, this is the 4-song EP you need to purchase
post-haste (or post-humous, if you're dead but still like ska).
You'll totally be bouncing up and down and wearing stripes and a
hat! ---- Reader Comments No Comments. |
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