CITIZINE REVIEWS
Adolescents discography

by Mark Prindle
www.markprindle.com

The 1981 self-titled Adolescents debut is an absolute Orange County punk rock classic: the stuffed-nose childish vocals, teen angst lyrics, speedy drumbeats, melodic chord sequences and smart, emotional lead guitar parts give it an instantly exciting and memorable feel that you (I) just want to listen to over and over again. I didn't discover it until I'd heard about 5 billion other punk albums, and the songs STILL stood out enough for it to become one of my favorites.

Unfortunately, the band couldn't stick together. Lead guitar rock hero Rikk Agnew left first, leaving the band a bit impotent for the sluggish Welcome To Reality EP. Then the whole shebang fell apart, with drummer Casey Royer forming D.I. (with Rikk Agnew!).

Four years later, Rikk decided to reform the Adolescents -- or at least as much of it as he could. He convinced singer Tony and bassist Steve Soto to join him for Brats In Battalions, and then they fell apart AGAIN!!! By the time of 1988's Balboa Fun Zone, Tony was gone, rhythm guitarist Frank Agnew was back, and Rikk himself was singing lead! After that, your guess is as good as mine. Rikk made a few solo albums, Steve joined 22 Jacks and eventually somebody-or-other joined Tony in ADZ. Then they left and Tony continued making albums under the name ADZ. Thus, one of the best punk rock bands in the world left behind a legacy of ONE great album. But now they're BACK! Or at least they were back for about five minutes in 2005; I'm told that Rikk has once again left the band.

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Adolescents
(Frontier, 1981)

Sometimes in life you run across an album that just nails it, from beginning to end. Even though I inexplicably failed to hear Adolescents during my Descendents / D.I. / T.S.O.L. / Bad Religion High School Punk Years, my first encounter with the album (in my mid-20s) instantly reminded me why I fell in love (AS A FRIEND) with punk rock in the first place.

This group of children from Orange County, California, may have lacked the discipline to maintain a stable line-up for more than 10 minutes, but for one wonderful album, they displayed a jaw-dropping talent for capturing the emotional turmoil of adolescence in musical form. Whether this was their intention or not, I've no idea, but the combination of cracking puberty vocals, buzzsaw guitar riffs merging angry desperate punk with anthemic hard rock, and direct lyrics about genuine teenager concerns (boredom, alienation, girls, drugs, hopelessness, fights, school, the threat of war, wackin' the bean) resulted in one of the most honest, emotional and hook-tastic-derful-icious-y records of the punk rock era (1955-2008).

The 27-minute LP includes 13 uptempo and midtempo songs, chiefly of the punk rock subgenre but also incorporating elements of stadium rock and metal. The vocals are mostly spoken and shouted by the 16-year-old 'singer,' and a soft-toned bass doubles the root notes of the distorted guitar riffs. It's not produced in such a way as to kick huge ass with aggressive in-your-face violence, but boy are the songs catchy! Some feature great melodic backing vocals too. As for the band members, bassist Steve Soto came from Agent Orange, guitarist brothers Rikk and Frank Agnew would do lots of quitting, drummer Casey Royer later became the leader of D.I., and singer Tony changed his last name with every record (Cadena/Montana/Reflex/etc.), constantly disappointing fans who believed they were listening to Dez Cadena's brother or, alternately, cocaine great Tony Montana. Strangely, Tony actually was the 1983 Duran Duran single "The Reflex."

Every song is a standout -- the snotty opener "I Hate Children," brooding "Who Is Who," death rock "Wrecking Crew," angry metallic "L.A. Girl," desperate punk "Self-Destruct," anthemic homelessness epic "Kids Of The Black Hole," upset hard rock/punk "No Way," rebellious first single "Amoeba," hardcore "Word Attack," strange-chorded "Rip It Up," paranoid circular "Democracy," bubbly pop bass-driven "No Friends" and headbanging cry for help "Creatures" -- and even gross lyrics like "I gotta go home and jack off instead" and "They say 'no' so I jerk white tears" (both from the pen of Rikk) sound less perverse than depressed amid this context of teenage alienation and hopelessness.

See, the thing about being a teenager -- if I recall correctly -- is that your brain finally develops into something that can ponder itself. I remember as a child writing songs about "going insane," but I had no concept of what it actually felt like. Likewise, all the diaries I kept in elementary and middle school were simply dull recall of my daily activities. I'm not trying to force my brain onto anybody else's experience here, but I'm pretty sure that this is an accurate description of the normal brain of youth.

Granted, if you are abused or raised in an unnatural situation, you will likely either mature much earlier or develop neuroses and psychoses as your brain develops, but my point is that a normal, healthy child isn't exactly a deep thinker until his brain suddenly develops that capacity during the teenage years. And then suddenly you're ALL FUCKED UP! Fear of failure and insanity, anxiety about the future, constantly shifting morals and allegiances, awkwardness with the ladies, the feeling that nobody understands you, loneliness, alienation, depression, confusion, and the suicidal misconception that it will always be this way. Minor successes followed by humiliating defeats. Everybody changing all the time, trying on new personalities like pairs of shoes. It's no wonder that there are so many school shootings -- being a teenager sucks dickbutt! I wouldn't do it again for all the tea in China, because I hate tea.

And this is the world presented in the Adolescents' songs. When they wrote these songs, this was their brain on life: "The walls are closing in on me/I don't know what to do/Tell me who is who?"; "There's nothing to do, excitement level zero/I can't find a girl cuz they're all out chasing heroes"; "I'm not accepted by my peers -- so what/I could care less about the queers -- they suck!"; "Got me running into walls/Say good things, say bad things/Because you're unpredictable!"; "I'm bored of the sleazy make-up; you'd fuck any guy in town/Your life's a total mess-up/Why the hell do you hang around?"

This must-own punk record is available on a compact disc that also features the band's (terrible) next EP and Rikk Agnew's (surprisingly strong!) first solo album. It has a blue cover that reads:

ADOLE-
SCENTS

so good work on that formatting, guys.

Welcome To Reality EP
(Frontier, 1982)

One time when I was a little boy of 15, my friend Christian Smith and I decided to record a terrible song I'd written called "Batman Shit." It was a vicious scream of unrepentant rage at our pop-obsessed society, bolstered by such biting retorts as "Batman T-shirts? How nice and clean!" and "Commercialization pisses me off!" However, one item we forgot to discuss before tearing our way through this one-take hardcore milestone was the ending (or 'coda'). As I wound things down with an unannounced (and awful) rendition of the Batman TV theme, nobody in this world or any other could have predicted what would happen next. "Batman," I began wearily. "Batman... 1! 2! 3! 4! --"

Here I should point out that I was internally thinking to myself "Batman sucks!" But how could Christian Smith have known what was going on in the mind of an artistic revolutionary whose gigantic ideas just won't slow down? All he knew was that the song was called "Batman Shit"! As such, the song ends with what sounds like an anger-drenched dual scream of "SHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIUUUUUCCCCKKKKKK!"

My point is this: "Shiuck" isn't actually a word. And that's why I'm finding it so difficult to describe the Welcome To Reality EP.

To paraphrase The Minutemen, "What Makes A Band Start Sucking?" There is absolutely no reason for The Adolescents to have deteriorated from brilliant punk band to slow shit-metal crapxtravacrapza in the space of FIVE MONTHS. Yes, they lost Rikk Agnew in the interim, but this is still the same Steve, Tony and Frank that wrote "Who Is Who"; where did they leave their musical taste the night they wrote "Welcome To Reality" and "Losing Battle"!? These songs are BAD CORNY METAL with "mean" chord changes, powerless production, and no melodic intelligence at all. "Losing Battle" is particularly embarrassing because it's uptempo -- how hard is it to write a good FAST song? Even Linkin Park pulled it off once, and they're the stupidest people in the world! (Guinness Book 2008)

Say! Remember how the first album's lyrics were driven by familiar feelings of real-life alienation, rage and loneliness? Here's the first verse of "Welcome To Reality":

"Blood so deep the horse must hold his head up high
In the valley of decision where 1/3 of the world will die
Beat your hoes & plows into axes and spears
As the armies meet in a battle they've predicted for years."

Dude, I TOTALLY remember feeling that way back in high school! Remember that time the warrior armies rode into the bathroom when I was dropping a load? And I had to real quick twist the toilet paper holder into a dagger? That so totally sucked a nut!

Say! Remember how the first album's lyrics didn't include stupid psychedelic imagery and pro-LSD sentiment? Here's the last verse of "Things Start Moving":

"Things start disappearing & to rearrange
Mickey Mouse with his wizard's wand & another change
Trolley car makes a turn & now we're lost
Foot by foot another great trip never want to stop."

Dude, that's TOTALLY why I started listening to punk rock -- for the mystical hippy spiritualism!

Welcome To Reality is 6 1/2 minutes of disappointment -- a once-phenomenal punk clique reducing itself to failed Ronnie James Dio's. But if nothing else, it at least (in retrospect) explains why Frank Agnew wound up joining HVY-DRT afterwards. He actually LIKED this Tuff-Boy Pussy Metal!

Brats In Battalions
(Triple X, 1986)

Rikk is Bakk!!

But now Frankk is gone! And Casey!? What happened to Casey!? My childhood dog was named Casey. He was a good boy. And he lived till the ripe old age of 17, long after I'd grown up and left home. Remember that time his blindness prevented him from sensing a low-hanging branch, so he stabbed himself in the eye and spent the entire night crying in pain, fear and isolation (being also deaf by that point) before being euthanized the next day? My father does! Often!

Frank has been replaced by yet ANOTHER Agnew (Spiro) and the new drummer is Sandy Hanson. Ha ha! No no, I'm kidding! Spiro Agnew served as the United States' Vice-President under Richard Nixon from 1969 through 1973! Then he joined the Adolescents in 1986.

Things first things: this aren't your Father's Adolescents. Although gallons better than the Maladolescenza of Welcome To Reality, Brats In Battalions doesn't sound a bit like the young gang of whippersnappers that recorded Adolescents half a decade earlier. In fact, some might argue that this midtempo metal/pop/punk band should have renamed itself "Young Men"! Ha ha! Do you get me? I'm a fascinating riddle! Also, singer Tony blew his voice out in The Abandoned and has returned with a scratchy-throat rasp/growl that sadly often comes across as a Metal Dude who can't sing. His hair's too long too, HIPPY!

The main problem is that the band didn't write enough new material before entering the studio. As such, they were forced to fill space with (a) re-recordings of all three Welcome To Reality tracks, (b) two cover tunes, and (c) a shitty two-chord song dating back to their earliest demo. This leaves only seven new compositions -- five of which are honestly fantastic songs! It starts strong, with a diverse quadruple-shot of great material (killer '70s rock riff at punk speed "Brats In Battalions," Government Issue-y emotional rock song "I Love You," growly anti-Reagan punk-metal "The Liar" and a VASTLY improved re-recording of trudgey metalloid "Things Start Moving") and ends with a turbo-speed Stooges cover and the brilliant goth/punk/metal/Spanish/jazz construction "She Wolf." Unfortunately, of the seven 'middle' tracks, only ONE is any good at all.

Yes, "Peasant Song" is a lake of shiny harmonic bliss hidden deeply within an overflowing landfill of dopey pop-punk and awful metallic shit. And there has never, in the history of the verbalized noise, been a worse cover version of ANYTHING by ANYBODY than this version of "House Of The Rising Sun." Gross raspy voice, post-lame harmonica, lead "blooze" riffs -- it stinks!!! Even after they switch to Ramones speed, it still stinks!!! And this is "House Of The Rising Sun" we're talking about! What would Eric Burdon say!? I tell you one thing -- it'd probably be incoherent. He's an alcoholic.

If you have and love the first Adolescents album, I hate to say it, but there are enough good songs on here to warrant a purchase too, if you can find it cheap enough. You may want to gouge out the middle half of the album and stomp on it, but the intro and conclusion are pure musical ore!

Balboa Fun Zone
(Triple X, 1988)

When hardcore punk supposedly hit a glass ceiling in 1986 (try telling that to the Dwarves, Bad Religion, The Vandals or any of the other great speedy bands that reached creative peaks post-'86), many practitioners of this fine art attempted to remain commercially viable by converting their music into one of the following sub-genres: (A) accessible jangly college rock (ex. 7 Seconds, Youth Brigade/The Brigade), (B) high-speed 'crossover' thrash (ex. DRI, Suicidal Tendencies), (C) midtempo punk-metal (ex. AOD, TSOL, GBH). Choice A resulted in some of the dullest REM/U2 imitations ever conceived, Choice B ruled and was the correct one, and Choice C was absolutely humiliating, with former punkers suddenly growing long sexy hair, wearing Slash-esque hats and playing weak hard rock/metal in an attempt to cash in on the success of Guns 'N' Roses. Sadly for everybody involved in the musical industry, The Adolescents chose number C.

But don't blame Tony for this mess! He had already quit the band and moved on to life with AIDS.

No, my bad -- ADZ. But, like the great David Gilmour before them, Rikk Agnew and Steve Soto had no desire to lose their possibly profitable band name, and instead vowed to introduce it to a whole new audience of L.A. hair metallers. The result is as bad as it is awful.

Balboa Fun Zone is comprised of shitty punk-metal, rotten pop-metal and asinine tuff-metal, all topped by the worst vocals in the history of the world besides Tori Amos. Rikk and Steve have tag-teamed to replace Tony, but they both have the exact same godawful amateurish off-key pseudo-tough gravelly weak-metal voice! I'm sure this seemed 'the thing to do' in 1989 (as did the enclosed photo of Rikk trying to be Izzy Stradlin, with bare chest, tattoo, motorcycle jacket, gold chain and marching band hat), but I have to imagine that this was considered a major bomb even at the time. Old-timey Adolescentsy fans must have been instantly turned off by the stylistic change, and surely the whore-dressing young girls that made the glam metal scene worthwhile would have avoided a band with such ugly lead vocals (most of them sung by a fat guy!).

Many people believe that the subconscious is the entryway to the subconscience, so here are a few notes that I subconsciously wrote on a loose-leaf piece of piano wire while listening to Balboa Fun Zone. Hopefully these brief descriptions will prove helpful to you in your quest to not have to listen to this album:

RIOT ON THE BEACH -- "Catchy! Rebellious! No wait - dumb."

JUST LIKE BEFORE -- "Corny Styx-style synth over corny 2-chord pop-metal crap. Raspy Rikk sounds like Joe Strummer singing an exceedingly bad Clash song."

ALLEN HOTEL -- "AC/DC! Danzig! Killer hard rock riffage! Terrible cornball chorus kills it though."

GENIUS IN PAIN -- "Uptempo punk beat! Not terribly interesting music."

TIL' (sic) SHE COMES DOWN -- "Shitty Cock Rock Shit Hair Metal Shittiness."

MODERN DAY NAPOLEON -- "Trying to play THRASH! Hilarious!!! High-pitched Slayer "Aaaaaaaaaah!" scream at the beginning! Laugh-out-loud Metallica failure. I bet they didn't get laid for 3 years!"

I'M A VICTIM -- "More awful growl-shouted punk-metal. Until it inexplicably turns into a slow ballad with Hammond Organ solo."

IT'S IN YOUR TOUCH -- "Pretty, Byrdsy clean arpeggios, then four sad pop chords and shitty heartfelt vocals. Could've been a great song, if recorded by a different band."

There are four other songs, but come on! Am I here to bore you with the details? No! I'm a succinct man with skillful generalizing abilities! I'll just add that a few songs have fleeting bits of asskickness or melodicianship, but the only track that feels actually 'clever' (as well as being sonically enjoyable) is the 6/4-time punker "Frustrated," which finds the soundalike Rikk and Steve exchanging speedy call-response rhymes about the hassles of being a young rocker ("Radio has shut us out!/Record biz so full of doubt!/Chicks that want in on the list!/Guys who live to use their fists!/etc!"). The rest of the album belongs in the sewer with the goats.

Incidentally, Frank Agnew is pictured and listed as a band member on this release, but apparently the album was almost complete by the time he rejoined the band, so take that with a wave of grain. Don't blame Frank! He voted Mondale!

Most of the lyrics involve figures and tragedies of the L.A. hair metal scene -- runaways, ignored bands, druggie girlfriends, and (THANK GOD) tattoos. TATTOOS! It's TATTOO TIME! "Still in some places it's against the law/What's wrong with such a beautiful art?/Damn, I can't wait 'til the next convention/Show and be shown crucial tatt collections!/Oh yeah!" By any other band, this would be a brilliant piece of satire. Unfortunately, it's pretty clear that Rikk "Check out the tattoo of a heart on my... well, heart" Agnew is dead serious. Whereas his career is just DEAD! I'm SERIOUS! YAHOO SERIOUS! GOOGLE ME! See, it's important to think of words that relate to each other in different ways, and then post them on the Internet.

This album sucks so bad, it's like a vacuum cleaner with a dog stuck in it.

OC Confidential
(Finger, 2005)

Here's something hilarious you can do the next time you're out purchasing a handkerchief. When the salesperson comes by to show you the store collection, excitedly proclaim, "I'm flabbergasteried by your haberdashery!"

The best thing about being an old bag is that shit just doesn't matter anymore. What do the Adolescents have to prove? In 1986, they had to prove that they could make a worthy successor to the classic Adolescents LP (they couldn't). In 1989, they had to prove that they were as cool as Guns N' Roses (they weren't). But by 2005, they were all 50 years old with careers and families and other bands, so who GIVES a shit if anybody likes their new album or not?

As such, rather than worrying about living up to any listener expectations, they felt free to write and record a set of melodic midtempo punk songs (or uptempo rock songs, depending on how you categorize these things) that THEY enjoyed. It's the same deal as that Page/Plant album everybody hates but me -- they didn't bother trying to give their fans Led Zeppelin Part II: The Sequel To Led Zeppelin; they just recorded songs that felt honest and right to them.

Because I was sent a disc-only promo and the Internet is no help at all, I'm not sure whether or not Rikk Agnew plays on this thing. I know that Frank, Steve and Tony do, along with former Social Distortion drummer Derek O'Brien, but I also know that Frank's son (cleverly entitled "Frank Jr.") also played with the band for a while, and he is credited as co-writing the title track. So if anybody has the CD booklet and could clear this up, that would RIP! That would RIP my JUNK!

On the downer side, the songs are neither super-innovative (being mostly basic chord sequences) nor mega-aggressive (being mostly all the same speed -- 'fast' for normal rock but 'midtempo' for punk/hardcore). However, they are ultra-melodic. Tony's voice has aged like a fine cheese and he can even hit proper notes now when he tries to. More importantly, the background harmony vocals are gorgeous on this release; obviously realizing the strength of this asset, the band even has the harmonies sing LEAD on one song! (the very pretty "Guns Of September")! Furthermore, the guitar tones are neither crunchy metally nor raw punky, but pristinely high-tech chorus-distorted for potential punk radio airplay. For comparison, think of the Circle Jerks' Oddities Abnormalities And Curiosities, but with the added bonus of songs that don't suck dick out loud in the middle of a driving range.

Actually, a better comparison might be those three Bad Religion albums they recorded after Mr. Brett left the band to smoke cocaine. Remember how they were slower-tempoed than the band's earlier (or later) releases, but still delightfully melodic and easy-on-the-ears with that smooth radio-ready distortion tone? That's the kind of approach you'll find here. The chord sequences run the gamut from happy and anthemic to dark and emotional, with only a couple of unfortunate lapses into dumb tuff-metal ("Within These Walls") and over-cheery corniness ("Where The Children Play"). Most importantly, the songs feel mature, sincere and appropriate for men this age. Much like "Rough Justice," a song about fucking that Mick Jagger wrote when he was 9,000 years old.

Adults-only topics addressed by Mr. Reflex in his excellent, intelligent lyrics include:

Spiritual need -- "I asked a priest about the mystery/Why this heart of darkness consumes me/Merciful mother, the misery/What have I done that he'd forsake me?"

The economic costs of war -- "Work a 60 hour week/Still can't pay the rent/Tax away my wages/To bomb another tent"

The emotional costs of war -- "Ten years have passed/Since the guns of September/Ten years have passed/Don't cry, don't cry /Don't cry, it's thunder"

The death penalty -- "Lock him in a cell/Strip him of his rights/One latch a time/March him up a hill/Strip him of his soul/One latch at a time"

Genetically modified crops -- "You'll seed your fields/How we tell you to/You'll feed your cows/What we sell to you/Inject growth hormone/Into the seed you sow/You'll eat and feed and seed/But never know/How far the tentacles reach/From the greed that feeds inside/How far the invasion sweeps/Monsanto"

Terrorism -- "Fanatics on a mission, it's impossible to tell/Where the last batch of FDA poison fell/To justify their vision is a pretty tough sell/Twin towers blew all our dreams to hell"

The Old Guard of Punk Rock -- "A pointless teenage anthem/Is what they expect from me/To hold on to the youth they lost/In 1983/A pointless teenage anthem/To keep the old school young/So they can slam around and round/Lament what they've become/A pointless teenage anthem/Really shouldn't be too tough/I've written fifty other ones/More than enough!"

Tattoos!!! -- "I really take pride in my skin illustrations! Unite and be proud, for we're the tattooed generation!/ /Well come on everybody, let's get a tattoo!/It's TATTOO TIME!!!!"

Oh heck, wrong ablum. Where is Rikk "Buffoon Of Flab" Agnew when you need his insightful non-wit?

By the way, The Adolescents (Tony, Frank, Steve, Derek and "Matty Beldt" -- pseudonym for Paul McCartney??!!) are supposedly working on a new album due out in Spring 2008. So keep an eye out for that, especially since "Matty Beldt" (Paul McCartney!!!) is their new guitar player. Keep up the good work, Adolescents (and 1/4 Beatles, in the form of Paul McCartney!!!)

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Read Mark Prindle's reviews of ALL the Adolescents' records (live shows, demos, etc.). Read the CITIZINE exclusive interview with Tony Reflex of the Adolescents here.