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CITIZINE REVIEWS ---
If any rockers deserve to get laid tonight, let it be the Ladykillers. There are three guys in this band, and they are set upon swilling Jäger, meeting chicks, and creating "traditionalist rock 'n' roll." There's "Right On" Shawn is on drums, Geoff Davis on guitar and vocals, and frontman / bassman Adam Levine. Levine is all burns-and pomped out, and wears Army regulation corrective lenses, but only to see more clearly the beautiful ladies swooning to the Ladykillers' sound. Half the songs have obvious purpose, to convince a girl to fall in love and get funky tonight. Other songs deal with the regrets of rock 'n' roll one-night stands, and drinking shots with the boys. The lyrics are catchy and kind of funny, but the music is all 1-4-5 power chords with a little flourish.
This record may in fact be the result of some serious thinking and musical organization. About half of the songs on Aim Low, Get High are unbeatable slabs of rock rhythm and noise. The Low Budgets have many ready hooks to reel in the audience: “FNI” is wonderful; the chorus to “Lawsuit” is exciting and unexpected; “Burn Your Money” and “New & Improved” talk finances and T.V. addiction; and near the end, the Low Budgets’ theme song slows things to a steady, conscious trudge as singer Chris Peelout sums up what it takes to live a “Low Budget Life.” The album also starts off with one of the worst rock songs ever written, “Oh Yeah.” Will you get the joke? This song is not even the beginning -- there is the “Intro,” a frightening vision of a future: minds controlled by techno music, waiting for their saviors of rock. There are four or five instrumental songs on here, and to me, these sound like punk songs where the singer didn’t bother to think up some vocals. The singing is great on the other songs, so think of how awesome these singer-less tunes toward the end of the record would be, with the addition of some vocal Peelout!
What are the advantages of predictable music? Well, the listener can enter a world that is familiar and comforting, and continue experiencing the pleasurable sonic sensations of previously successful groups who invented a style, a genre, when a type of music was unexpected, undefined, and unpredictable. The prime disadvantage of predictability is that I’ve heard it all before. The New York Rel-X’s moniker calls attention to this band’s enduring affection for the newest dinosaur rock, punk music (next in line: electronica). New York Rel-X start the album with three strong songs with hooks, and a “killer” guitar riff on the chorus of “The One She Adores.” On the cover appears the comic art of Dave Glass: a scantily-clad, devilocked victim stripper girl shedding tears of blood. But to promote truth in advertising, let it be known that none of the members of New York Rel-X actually look like this femme fantastique. This “hot chicks covered in blood” theme seems to be the “latest thing” for rock album covers (check out the Civet record on Disaster).
Billy Idol was lead singer of Generation X in 1978, and after leaving the band, he went on to become a TV star. Derwood and Laff, guitarist and drummer for Generation X, went on to form Empire, but were destined to labor in Billy’s shadow. Empire put out a proper LP in 1981 but remained obscure in the States because of a series of line-up changes, and a limited number of live appearances before drummer Mark Laff left the band. The LP was re-released in the U.S. in 1985-86, and the band’s flanging guitar became a big influence on the 1980s Washington D.C. “emocore” sound of Embrace and Dag Nasty, sensitive punks who played in a band just to show they cared. Though Derwood and friends do not recall making any money off of this previous re-issue of their music, it did help build the Empire legend that exists to this day.
I’ve got to be quick or the CD will be over before I finish this sentence. The Rage of Discipline can only last thirteen minutes before its energy is spent and the message is clear: “Both your faces have green eyes.” This is hardcore punk, the kind that is mostly slow ones with the drummer beating his floor toms to build up, then playing the same medium beat with crashing cymbals on the heavier parts. I always resented a lot of the East Coast hardcore that took away the hyperfast marching beat and replaced it with a crushing, slow, (boring) heaviness that defeated the purpose of hardcore punk, which (according to me) was only supposed to employ “the slow part” sparingly, and only as a passage leading back into the core of the sound: non-stop fastness from roaring guitars and drums. In this band, the lyricist is intelligible (I really like some of his chosen words) and the band roars with the best. There are actually a few fast-tempo ones, and a main superfast one, the final “Righteous Jams” theme song.
Imagine yourself enjoying a fine evening of punk rockery at the Troubadour of West Hollywood. A young new band from Washington State, D.E.K., begins to play. This band has two main things going for them: cool tunes and cool threads. Bass player / singer Nick Myette attires himself in only the finest David Lee Roth-style pink polyester leopard skin pants, while guitarist Mark Vraney appears to be a kaleidoscope of colors and wears one of those crazy mushroom-shaped hats from that Tom Petty video. Press literature states that members of this band are as young as 12, but that is either a lie or outdated information. With the exception of lead guitarist rock star Bret Chernoff, the rest of the band have graduated from high school, and D.E.K.’s manager, Mike Vraney, is now carrying out a full marketing initiative and charm offensive to make these boys into rock stars. Vraney is guitarist Mark’s father, and has punk rock industry experience as a former manager for the Dead Kennedys and T.S.O.L. during the 1980s. The promising songwriting of D.E.K. is a main advantage. Their punk style employs less generic 1-4-5 crap, and more early ‘80s American hardcore style, with minor-sounding aharmonic chord changes, and on-point, hi-speed (not pop-speed) drumming by Thani Suchoknand. Rock madness from Mr. Bret and Nick’s sloppy antics sometimes threaten to throw the band off course, but Thani’s drumming is steady and keeps everyone in time.
The Frankenburies have been around since 1998 and features a high-speed horror movie punk sound. They have toured Japan and this CD includes some live tracks from over there on the other side of the Pacific pond. With song titles like “Halloween,” “Teenage Monster,” and “Mama Turned into a Zombie,” there’s definitely a Misfits thematic influence. The music itself doesn’t remind me of Danzig & Co., and relies on the singer’s sore throat inducing rawness and a little “psychobilly” guitar. It’s unclear how much the Frankenburies are going to play live to support this record, but look for their live act soon.
Singer / guitarist Elvis Cortez makes punk rock happen. He owns Smelvis Records, which puts out split CDs and full-lengths by punk bands who live near Smelvis headquarters in Wilmington. Elvis designs the artwork for these CDs, and makes the merch (T-shirts, stickers, etc.) for all the bands. And when I say, he “makes punk rock happen,” I mean that without Elvis, punks would starve. On more than one Warped Tour, Elvis has been in charge of cooking up the daily grub (burgers and veggie burgers, wieners and veggie wieners) for the bands and the entire Warped crew. Lonely Starts & Broken Hearts starts out fast, but there are some mid-tempo ones and ska beats thrown in. A lot of the songs on here deal with girl problems, ex-girlfriends mainly. There’s the title track, then “Broke My Heart,” which could be a KROQ summertime classic (I swear), and then there’s “Heart of Mine” too. Anyway, it’s true, Elvis has a heart, and now that he’s teamed up with Tim Armstrong (owner of Hellcat Records) to release this album nationwide, things are looking up for Left Alone.
The album has a cowboy theme in the liner notes, but the music is all “street punk” I think. The opening guitar sequence in “War with You” is almost worth the price of admission to the Duane Peters Gunfight, before Duane erupts with “Turn on the end of the world, open the door, it’s the end of the world; bodies on the plasma screen, close your eyes and look!” Duane gets political on some songs, focusing on smoker persecution on “Smoke’ em,” the emerging prison planet (I’m talking about Earth) on “My DNA,” and the awesome first track dealing with the American TV addict glued to his seductive screen, and blinded to the destruction of war waged in his name far away from his isolated air-conditioned compartment.
After self-releasing three EPs and making their way up the ranks of the Red River rock scene, this is the first full-length with label backing for Austin’s This Microwave World. TMW’s vocalist / guitarist Sean O’Neal’s complete musical resumé remains a bit murky but it’s clear he’s been involved in rock music creation for many years. As an English major at the U of T down in Austin, O’Neal learned to put words together well, but I hesitate to call what he’s doing “singing” -- it is much more about one man’s vocal power than about melody. There are ten songs on the record, and I mainly listen to this CD straight through, but my favorite two are “She’s Insecure” and “Cardinal Sin.” There are also re-recorded versions of “Death of a Taxpayer” and “The Hours” from their 2003 EP Total Information Awareness. The walking rhythm of Brandon Loe’s bass guides the music and combines with sharp shards of electrified minor chord madness from O’Neal’s guitar. Synthisist Erin Mikulenka and organist Evan Lawrence make the sound full, while human being Kevin Bybee really livens up the band on drums. ---- Reader Comments No Comments. |
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