Wrecked Kids

A Mixtape: An Act of Penitence

2009-06-15T20:26:00.006+10:00

I know I haven't updated this blog in going on nine months, but I've resolved to post more often from henceforth, I swear. And yer yer yer, I know I've said the same thing in the past, but I'm determined this time.

Anyway, as a means of making it up to you, I put together a mixtape which I've titled: The Very Best of Sweet Baby Jesus and the Orphans.

You can download it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?ntmjnzfzzzm

The songs don't have a whole lot in common other than that they've stayed with me since I first heard them and remain to this very day some of my favourites.

Track Listing:

1. The Sonics - Keep A Knockin'

They say The Sonics were a punk band before the term "punk" was ever applied to music. They were active in the early to mid '60s - before reforming in 2008 to mixed reviews - and their influence on bands such as the Ramones, the Buzzcocks, the Pointed Sticks, Screeching Weasel and the Hives is plainly obvious. This is in my top five songs of all time. It's as primal and urgent as rock n roll comes and just plain one of the most kick ass tunes ever. Sure it's a Little Richard cover, but the Sonics fuckin' perfected it.

2. The Exploding Hearts - Making Teenage Faces

I just about well up in tears every time I hear 'Shattered', the B-Sides compilation from which this songs comes. The record was released after three members of the band died in a car accident. The reason I get misty eyed? Well because it's that damn fucking good, these guys had their whole lives in front of them and surely would have continued to churn out power pop gems such as this.

3. The Fast Cars - The Kids Just Wanna Dance

A clued in buddy of mine put me onto this one and I instantly shit my pants over it. I remember playing it 20 times over the first time I heard it on the band's MySpace. Taking their name from the Buzzcocks song, this British power pop band were never widely known. They remain active to this day, occasionally touring Japan and the like. While this is as good a sing-along as the punk rock genre produced in the 70s, it's by far and away the Fast Cars' best song, so don't really bother tracking down their other shit.

4. The Fatal Charm - Spend The Night Alone

This is about as esoteric as you can get. I first heard this song when Head released a cover of it on 7". I immediately tracked down the original after falling in love with it and, despite my reserverations that Head's version couldn't be bested, I found the original to be very much superior. To this day I don't know much about The Fatal Charm other than that they were a female-fronted pop/punk/new wave band around the late '70s and early '80s. The rest of their catalogue, from what I've heard, is pretty much dross, so save yourself the leg work and don't both with anything else they did.

5. The Wipers - Tragedy

Straight up one of the catchiest songs ever. If you don't know the Wipers, school yourself and pick up their first album 'Is This Real?' from which this song comes.

6. Lazy Cowgirls - Never Got The Chance

I've loved this song for what feels like an age. Great fodder when you find yourself pissed off with the world.

7. Jay Reatard - You Mean Nothing To Me

Jay Reatard is hands down my favourite artist to emerge over the last couple of year. Yer yer, I know he's been active with other bands for about a decade, but he's managed to shit out one A1 LP and a couple of B-Sides and Singles albums as a solo artist in the space of three years. Mother fucker is prolific. I once heard him say he likes to write at least one song per day. I'd probably believe it. This comes from last year's Matador Singles Collection, which I found myself going back to repeatedly.

8. The Muffs - Saying Goodbye

Ok, I'm going to level with you, and this could have a negative influence on my reputation as a pop punk affecianado. I've only come to like the Muffs in the last few months. Yeah. I've always managed to dismiss them based on my, former, dislike for Kim Shattnuck's gravelly vocals. This track comes from their first, self-titled album which is one of the best slices of pop punk I've ever heard. At least I'm man enough to admit when I've gone wrong.

9. Crimpshrine - Tomorrow

I've had very animated debates with people over whether Crimpshrine are (as I see it) melodic, raw, homespun and enchanting punk rock and a vital cog in punk's evolution OR atonal crap. Anyway, I love both Jeff Ott and Aaron Cometbus just about everything they've done since.

10. Lemuria - Yesterday's Lunch

This comes from 'Get Better', my favourite album of last year and probably the best record to tread the fine line between emo and punk rock since Jawbreaker's Dear You. Yeah, I went there. No shit.

11. The Thermals - Born Dead

This comes from their first album, 'More Parts Per Million'. Part indie rock, part pop punk, all kick ass song writing. MPPM is a masterpiece of simplicity, recorded on an 8-track and I reckon one of my favourite albums of the new century.

12. The Clean - Slug Song

If you live outside of New Zealand - the band's home country - or Australia, you probably haven't heard of this band. My jaw hit the flaw when I first heard them. They're legends in their own right, single handedly kick starting the New Zealand indie rock scene. Importantly, they were the first band to release an album on the seminal Flying Nun record label. I don't know what you'd call them. Post-punk? Fucks me. While their arrangements are sparse and dreamy, their songs are at the same time catchy and to-the-point.

Anyway, please enjoy the mixtape and I sure hope I put you onto a band you've never heard. I dig that, and that's very much my itentions here. I've also included cover art - as seen above - so you can upload it on your Ipod.

Thumbs up,
Steve

Interview: Ben Weasel

2008-07-09T10:24:00.005+10:00

I make no secret of the fact I idolise Ben Weasel. While 'idol' is a heavy word, many of my formative teenage years were played out to Ben's music. While not just an amazing, prolific musician, he's also an astute mind and a fantastic writer (in fact I've slowly becoming cognisant of the fact my writing style is somewhat similar to his and have for sometime been unwittingly aping his prose). Having spent hours pouring over his music, lyrics, and devouring his two books Like Hell and Punk Is A Four Letter Word, I developed a fascination with his larger-than-life personality. While at times he seemed like a obstinate jerk, in a lot of ways I identified with his seige mentality in the face of the world he saw as a confederacy of dunces in union against him.

While Ben would probably care to disagree with some of my points about his life, I don't claim to know him personally and therefore wouldn't quibble with him. I'm simply stating that during my heady teenage years as I grappled with my hormones and hang-ups, I took a lot from his music, for which I'm very fond of him.

Oh yeah, he also knows how to write an A1, top-shelf pop song.

Which brings me to my next point, next month he'll be teaming up with his longtime offsider Danny Vapid for two shows at Reggie's Rock Club in Chicago, Illinois, in which they'll play Screeching Weasel's gem of an album My Brain Hurts in its entirety. While I'm stuck here some 15,000kms away, I thought the next best thing was to hit Ben up for an e-mail interview. I was pleasantly surprised when he promptly replied, agreeing to let me pick his brain, even insisting that I e-mail him with any follow up questions. The results are below.

Wrecked Kids: In August you're playing two shows in which you're playing My Brain Hurts in its entirety with Danny Vapid, is this the first step in reforming Screeching Weasel? Surely given the overwhelming popularity of the shows it's crossed your mind.

BW: No, and it hasn't remotely crossed my mind. I have way more fun and make way more money playing as Ben Weasel. Vapid suggested the MBH thing a while back and I thought it sounded like it could be fun. But I'm not going to be doing a band again. Screeching Weasel wasn't very much fun for me for most of the time I was doing it. I don't see any reason to drag that name out again. What I'm doing now is the closest thing you're going to see to Screeching Weasel again. And it's probably a lot closer than if I re-formed a band I don't want to be in with people I don't want to work with anymore.

WK: You mentioned on your radio show that you've re-worked some old Riverdales demos and re-recorded them for the the re-release of Phase Three. Has that stoked the fires to reform that band?

BW: No. We have talked about maybe doing a show this winter but I kind of doubt it'll happen, because it would entail a lot of work for me to get back up to speed on guitar and I have a lot of other stuff on my plate. The Riverdales was a fun band and I enjoy playing but I am way out of practice. I hope we can do it eventually but it's probably not going to happen real soon.

WK: In the past you've expressed your reticence to play live shows and tour, has that attitude changed? Can we expect something more than a sporadic show or two from you in the future?

BW: Probably not. I like playing Reggie's in Chicago. It's a good sized club for me and they treat me well down there. They've got great food too. I'm 2 1/2 hours away so it's quick and easy to get down there and back from Madison. I hate touring. I don't see myself starting again. I've looked into one-offs out of town but it's really not very easy to do. I either have to fly a bunch of guys in with me, ensuring I won't make any money, or try to find a kick ass band in whatever town I'm playing. Everybody thinks their band can do it but most bands aren't very good. Even if I could find somebody I'd have to arrive a few days early to rehearse. It's a big, expensive pain in the ass, which is why people tour instead. So I'm better off just going down to Reggie's a few times a year until people decide they don't want to see me play anymore. Then I can start looking into careers in the dishwashing or fast food service industries.

WK: Do you even consider yourself a professional musician anymore? Do you work outside of music to help pay your bills?

BW: Yeah I'm still a musician. I support myself by making music. I make a little money from the radio thing too, and when the books are in print I make a little from writing, but mostly it's royalties, merch, publishing, licensing, and now gigs. The money's not as good as it used to be but I can pay the bills. Sometimes I think about getting a job but I can't really do anything and I'm too busy with creative stuff and, mostly, with all the administrative and bookkeeping crap it entails. Not having a manager means there's a ton of stupid, annoying, time-consuming work I have to do. If I had a job I don't see how I could keep up with the everything else. I can barely keep on top of it working 6-8 hour days as is. I can't really save any money, which kind of sucks at my age, but then I don't have to answer to anybody and when I go to work it's mostly people telling me how much they like my work and what it means to them. It's pretty incredible to be able to do this for a living. Going into work and having people shake your hand and pat you on the back is pretty nice. Then you go get up on a stage and sing some of your songs and people give you money for it. It's insane and wonderful.

WK: Would it be safe to say you were driven out of the punk rock "scene" in the late 90s? That was the impression i got from your semi-autobiographical novel, 'Like Hell'.

BW: No, not at all. It was a self-imposed exile. I hated the punk scene and I'd had my fill. I still do hate it, as I learned the hard way last year. I mean the musicians. They are almost exclusively a bunch of whiny, petty, insecure crybabies who act like jagoffs because they're scared they won't become famous, or people won't think they're cool, or whatever it is they're worried about. Life's too short. The pop punk scene would be terrific if it weren't for all the musicians.

WK: Has your attitude to punk rock audiences changed since witnessing the "scene" that's emerged around the Insubordination Records pop punk festival and the Knock Knock Records pop punk message board.?

BW: I think for a while now audiences have been way better than they were in the 80s and 90s. By and large anyway. There seem to be fewer fights and less boneheads. In the early 90s there wasn't really any pop punk scene so if a pop punk band played a show, the punks showed up, and too many of them were drunken, violent halfwits. Now there is more of a cohesive pop punk scene, and I think the kind of people who tend to want to bring stupidity to shows just aren't interested in pop punk bands for the most part. Which is really nice. The pop punkers can be obnoxious in their own way but they tend to be self-effacing wimps who aren't as interested in projecting a dumb image so there aren't a lot of dick-swinging tough guy antics. And they tend to stick to beer and pot so there's not too much in the way of heroin or cocaine drama either.

WK: Concerning this new generation of pop punk bands, it's certainly a scene constituted of people who grew up idolizing bands like Screeching Weasel, the Queers and the Mr T Experience. How do you handle that idolatry?

BW: Quite happily for the most part. It's really cool to find out that your stuff is still relevant to younger musicians. The only problems I ever have are with people who are so obsessed that they feel they have to alienate you and be a prick to you. It's almost as though they're embarrassed about being so into the music you make. It's a very strange phenomenon but it's happened to me a couple of times recently with a couple of the better known pop punk bands. It's really disappointing, but most people are totally cool. The fans anyway. Again, the biggest dicks tend to be the people in bands. Though plenty of them are good people too.
WK: Your last record, These Ones Are Bitter, was a lot more mellow musically and lyrically than than some of your past records. Are you a more settled and stable person? Have you achieved domestic bliss?

BW: I disagree with that characterization of the record but yeah, I achieved domestic bliss five years ago when I got married. I've been settled and stable for a long time. I've always been an old man in a young man's body. It's nice that my chronological age is starting to catch up with my mental age.

WK: The sound of your last record, what influenced you? It seems like less of a punk rock record and more of a hard rock record. A lot was made of members of Alkaline Trio and the All-American Rejects playing on the album, did those bands influence the sound?

BW: Except to the extent that some of the members of those bands played on the record, I don't think so. My influence was primarily old bubblegum pop songs - stuff like the Ohio Express and 1910 Fruitgum Co., That was some of the first rock and roll I ever listened to fanatically. I think a lot of the reason I sing the way I do comes from listening to Joey Levine on those old records over and over. When I was working on tightening up the songs and finishing lyrics I thought a lot about the music I grew up on and I threw a couple of lines into two of the songs referring to that. One was a Ted Nugent reference and there's a reference to In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida too. The lead in Got My Number is essentially the first half of what I remember as a recurring keyboard part in Do Ya Think I'm Sexy by Rod Stewart. Which I didn't realize until I'd written the song, but I think I was letting a lot of the stuff I grew up listening to or hearing on the radio show up in little ways in the songs, because the album is really about two characters and they're meant to be around my age.

Originally I started writing the stuff for a band I did called Sweet Black and Blue. I had been working on songs for an album for a while but I decided to put it to the side. It was good but I felt like it was kind of depressing. It was depressing me. It worked fine but it wasn't much fun. So I decided to try to write a song without trying to do anything but write a great song the way I naturally write. That was Let Freedom Ring, and the songs just started coming after that. The instrumental section is obviously heavily indebted to the style of the Fastbacks but the tune itself is 100% me. Nobody else would've written that song like that. A couple of them were older - In A Few Days and a different version of In A Bad Place - but I really started writing with the intent to get back to doing what I do best in the fall of 2004. Then after that band split up I wrote a bunch more. I was trying to stick to my strengths instead of consciously avoiding some of the more common things I do in writing because I think for a few years prior to that, that is what I'd been doing - trying to write stuff that didn't sound quite as much like me. That was a dumb idea. People want to hear me doing what I do best, and it's more fun for me. But it's also a lot of work. I get very aggravated with musicians and songwriters who don't understand that writing a great, simple pop song is a hell of a lot harder than writing the kind of pretentious, arty crap that makes snobs take notice, like it's something important and artistic. Anyway, the funny thing is that in trying to write more like me I think I ended up doing a lot more things I normally wouldn't have. Plenty of that is due to the contributions of my producer as well.

WK: Your bands were quite popular in the mid-90s. With the benefit of hindsight, do you ever regret not signing to a major record label?

BW: Nobody ever asked. Epic Records called once asking about the Riverdales but I'd just gotten off a long tour and I was very annoyed that they called my home number instead of my business line so I called back and told them to fuck off and not to bother me again. Neither band would've done well on a major. I didn't have the temperament. And I don't think the average person listening to the radio would like my music. Plus I had gotten sick of touring by 1993. I toured a lot with the Riverdales in 1995 but I was totally burned out by the time that ended. I wouldn't have been willing to do all the work necessary to promote a release. But there was no way we were ever going to have Green Day type success no matter what. I think we did as well as we could've given the situation. We made good money and didn't find ourselves having to make a lot of the difficult choices that a more popular band has to make. If I thought we ever could've really hit it big I'd be very regretful because I would love the money! But I really don't think that was in the cards for us. At the time I loved being in the situation I was in and I had no desire to trade it in for a shot at bigger success. These days I'd be more likely to try for something bigger, but it's all theoretical at this point.

WK: Have you been working on new songs since These Ones Are Bitter? You've said in the recent past you've been working on a follow up. Have you got a rough timeline of when it might be made and available?

BW: I don't know what's going to happen or when. I have 40-50 songs written, and over a hundred that are partially written. I'm waiting to see if it's going to be feasible to work with Mike and Chris again anytime soon. It took longer than expected to make the new Rejects album so I don't know if they're going to have any time before hitting the road for God only knows how many years to promote their new record. I may do some stuff with Justin Perkins as well at some point. But right now I am concentrating on shows.

WK: What about songs you wrote and never used? Have you got stores of old songs that never made it onto record you might wish to use somewhere down the line?

BW: Like I said, I have tons of songs, both written and partially written. The partially written stuff dates back to 93, though most of the older stuff isn't too hot. The problem is there's no real money in records anymore since everybody's stealing music online. I can't afford to record like I used to. Releasing a record a year used to be easy because they were making good money. These days it's a lot harder. Even taking into consideration that I'm not spending anywhere near as much on studio time because of digital recording, you still have to pay the engineer and even if you don't record in a studio you have to rent good mics. And since I don't have a manager or anything I have to coordinate everything myself and it ends up being a tremendous amount of work for relatively little money. I think it would be a radically different situation if people weren't stealing my music online but as it is, it's pretty demoralizing to bust your ass on something and pour money into it only to have people rip it off. It's hard to work up a lot of enthusiasm for rushing back to do it again real soon.

WK: These Ones Are Bitter was an mp3-only album. In the nine months or so since its release, has it been as lucrative for you as your past albums?

BW: Yeah, although you have to remember that it's my own label so I'm paying myself a higher royalty rate than I'd normally receive. I've made way more than I made, for instance, on the prior record I did - Phase 3 by the Riverdales. But that was poorly distributed and in fact the distributor never paid up on the last $5,000 he owed us. But yeah, TOAB exceeded my expectations. I had goals I wanted to reach at 6, 9 and 12 months and I reached all of them. But it's nowhere near what I was doing before the mp3 thing hit.

WK: Is there anything outside the world of music you'd like to try your hand at? You've already penned a novel and host a radio show. What about a reality tv series? Own a bar? Your own brand of barbeque sauce?

BW: I would never own a bar. I hate drunks and loud music. Not a chance. Me and Vapid talked about making and branding/marketing hot sauce at one point, just like a fun boutique thing, but I can't take on the work. I'd love to do a reality TV series. Unfortunately nobody's knocking on my door with an offer. WK: What format would your reality tv show be? Have you given it any thought. Maybe you could take a bunch of fey, sensitive pop punk nerds out into the wilderness and teach them survival skills, self-assuredness and how to be real men?

BW: I think Ted Nugent already did that! I have no idea what the show would be about - that's what the producers are for!

These Ones Are Bitter can be purchased here. Or you can listen to his radio show, Weasel Radio, here. I suggest you do both.

Thanks to Ben for being such a good sport, maybe he isn't such an asshole after all.

Record Review: Ben Weasel and His Iron String Quartet - These Ones Are Bitter

2008-07-01T16:27:00.002+10:00

Once the churlish tsar of pop punk, the years have tempered the once notoriously prickly demeanour of Ben Weasel. What started with Screeching Weasel's 'Emo' back in 1998, Weasel has slowly eased up on the vitriol, years of shit-stirring and idiot-baiting in the pages of MRR and on record left him segregated from most of the punk rock public and ended with him detached from and disdainful of his fanbase.

Weasel was largely unheard of in the intervening years between his last solo album - 2002's Fidatevi - and 2007 (save for the briefly resurrected Riverdales' 2003 album Phase Three), occasionally popping up on his blog to set the cat amongst the piegons, but nothing was heard from him musically. During that same period pop punk experienced something of a resurgence in popularity. In the midwest the likes of the Copyrights and Teenage Bottlerocket were still chewin' out a rhythm while in New York and New Jersey, bands like the Steinways, the Unlovablesa and For Science crept out of the genre's cradle. This point was exemplified by the explosion of the annual Insubordination Records pop punk festival.

As these bands enjoyed a boom in popularity, so did their precursors, namely Screeching Weasel. This was despite the band playing nary a live show since 1996, and so the band built up somewhat of a mythical reputation. Curiously, many of the band's fans had never even seem them play live.

In the American summer of 2007 however Weasel announced he would collaborate with longtime admirer and All-American Rejects guitarist Mike Kennerty to produce his latest solo record, 'These Ones Are Bitter'. When it was announced AAR drummer Chris Gaylor and the Alkaline Trio's Dan Amdriano would round out the 'Iron String Quartet', many pop punk purists turned up their noses at the suggestion members of the much maligned A3 and AAR would play on a Ben Weasel record. While some would consider those bands middle-of-the-road rock, their influence is inescapable.

Anyone expecting another 'My Brain Hurts' or 'Anthem For A New Tomorrow' would be sadly mistaken. And I'll admit I was one of them. Screeching Weasel's brand of economic, past-paced, hook-filled Ramones-core pop punk is my bread and butter. 'These Ones...' is a taught, slickly-produced, punk-influenced, melodic rock record, something in between 'Fidatevi' and 'Anthem For A New Tomorrow'. While Screeching Weasel were famed for their no-frills song writing, 'These Ones...' represents a musical shift for Weasel, reflecting more dense arrangements, layers of additional instruments and a diversion from straight up and down 1-4-5 chord progressions.

It took me a while to realise the strength of some of the song arrangements. On first listen of 'Happy Saturday', I dismissed it as mostly forgettable. After my second I found myself humming the line "In the Garden of Eden baby, don't you know that I'm changing all the locks," from the song's bridge. While having drinks with a friend that night, I was sprung singing the line under my breath and tapping along to the tune on the bar top, branded a hypocrite having five minutes prior expressed indifference to the record. And it all unfolded like a pack of cards.

The Garden of Eden line - also one of the best Ben Weasel lines ever - represents the numerous hooks that litter the album once it's allowed to sink in, seen in songs like the ass-kicking 'In A Few Days', 'The First Day of Spring' and the album's excellent penultimate tune 'In A Bad Place', the closest thing Weasel will ever come to writing a funeral dirge.

A lot has also been made of the fact the record was released in digital format only except for a small run of vinyl. As Weasel explained on his blog, increasing music piracy and the hefty overheads of physical records led to his decision to release an mp3 exclusive album. I'm not sure I can add anything to the debate except that in the nine months since its release I'm yet to purchase this record, and it remains the only Ben Weasel album I don't own.

Record Review: Off With Their Heads - All Things Move Towards Their End

2008-07-01T11:23:00.006+10:00

Reviewing 'All Things Move Towards Their End' is a slippery slope, while I don't want to be seen to be romanticizing or endorsing drug addication, it's hard to not make it a focal point of my critique seeing as it one of the foremost themes of the album - along with vocalist and guitarist Ryan Young's battle with depression, apathy, alcoholism and social anxieties.

But what sets Off With Their Heads apart from the hordes of suburban safety punk bands big-noting their list of inane daddy issues, is the compassionate and articulate nature of their song writing. It's gritty, honest and comes from a very real and sometimes scary place. The gravity of songs like 'Bar Close and West Bridge Bank' and 'Don't Laugh I'm Totally Serious' is sometimes gut-wrenching. There's a very real pathos to Off With Their Heads that's both endearing and absorbing. And fuck it, I'm totally obsessed.

You may have discerned from their song titles that OFTH liberally approriate Dillinger Four's sound. This isn't to say they're some second class Midwestern punk band apeing D4, every song is top-shelf, especially considering 'All Things...' is a collection of b-sides and 7" tracks. Fuck, save for 'Midwestern Songs of The Americas' (my personal 2nd favourite album of all time), 'All Things...' is better than any D4 record. Young is a songsmith and poet who deserves to be spoken of in the same breath as Jawbreaker's Blake Schwarzenbach, the Weakerthan's John Samson or Crimpshrine's Aaron Cometbus.

Like D4, OFTH play a hook-filled variety of gritty pop punk. And they don't shy away from their pop sensibilities either. Note the handclaps on 'Five Across The Eyes', keyboard on 'Call The Cops', 'Bar Close and the West Bridge'. Then there's 'Horse Pills and the Apartment Lobby', a slice of jangle indie pop that's barely recognisable as an OFTH song. All are used in all the right places that add an extra dimension to the song.

I know I'm a little late hitching my cart to the OWTH wagon (this record came out late last year and they'll be releasing a new LP,'From The Bottom', next month), but this record hit me like a sledge hammer to the dick. Like Ben Weasel, Young is a 'character' musician. A deeply flawed human being struggling with his vices and hang ups through his music. Like Weasel, Young is a prolific song writer and an incredibly talented pop-punk song writer and I find myself waiting with baited breath for his next album.

Make up your own mind
Janie

I don't understand a thing he's saying, but I don't care

2008-07-01T11:16:00.002+10:00

This ammused me to no end. While most would be content with playing bass in Screeching Weasel, Common Rider and Squitgun, my old pal Mass Giorgini has decided to add co-anchor of a Spanish language news program to his already impressive CV of accomplishments.

Long time, no blog

2008-07-01T10:40:00.005+10:00

After all but neglecting this blog over the past year and a half I've decided to resurrect it. My absence from the blogosphere can be attributed to the daily grind of working full time leaving my creativity all but drained. Over the last 18 months I just couldn't muster the energy after a hard day at the office.

Oddly, I think because of the creative nature of my work - I'm currently kicking shit on a small daily newspaper in regional Queensland, Australia - I find my brain dead come 5pm.

I'd contemplated reviving WK a few times but never found the energy to put finger to key. This was frustrating because it was an exercise I'd found most rewarding in the past.

However lately I've found myself yearning for a creative outlet. Coupled with my discovery of Google Adsense (making money from blogging, outrageous) I've discovered a new zeal.

Anyway, I'm hoping to peel off 10 or so reviews in the next week. There's some really amazing music being made at the moment and I can't wait to tell you about it.

In other news, I was hoping to attend this year's No Idea Records festival in Florida in late October/early November. A good friend recently told me she's attending and has been spurring me on ever since. However yesterday my car decided to shit itself and I'm looking at a $2000 repair bill, throwing a spanner in those plans.

I found myself racking my brain for ideas on how to earn some quick cash. Then in a blinding flash of inspiration, I thought to myself: "put the Mass Giorigini picture on a t-shirt and sell it on the internet".

Rest assured, I don't harbour delusions that I'm some sort of internet celebrity, I thought it'd be fun for shits and giggle anyway. Here's a design I cobbled together with photoshop last night.

Anyway, please give me your feedback. Whatever, if you've got records you suggest I listen to or review, please swing a comment my way. Off With Their Heads, Copyrights, Ergs, Bomb The Music Industry!, Measure (SA), Loved Ones, Unlovabales and Ben Weasel have all released great records in the last twelve months and I'm intching to rant about them.

Thumbs up,

Steve

Mess Me Up: Teengenerate Reunion Shows

2006-11-16T21:47:00.000+10:00

Seminal Japanese garage rock band Teengenerate are playing two reunion shows in Melbourne, Australia in December. The band have played three reunions shows since breaking up in 1995 and this is the first featuring the original line up. You can read the press release here and check out the official Teengenerate Australia MySpace here. The rigtheous dudes at Bop! Records deserve a million kudos and beers for making this happen.

While i'm an admittedly huge fan of Teengenerate, I can say with all honesty that I don't think there's been a rock n roll show on this earth this year that i'd rather see. I feel incredibly priviledged that i'm going to get to see this rock n roll spectacular.

The shows will be accompanied by the release of a limited edition live album, 'Live At The Shelter'.

Fun With Google

2006-08-27T14:37:00.000+10:00

Apparently an overwhelming majority of my referrals from Goggle comes from the term "asshole thumbs".

In that case: thumbs up assholes rim job big dick anus sphincter big cock deep bareback eating ass dirty fingers fisting dirty blowhole big cocks in tight assholes ass to mouth anilingus dildo shit on my chest

Record Review: Hard Ons - Most People Are A Waste of Time

2006-08-01T20:36:00.000+10:00

It pains me to say this, but ‘Most People Are A Waste of Time’ is a tightly coiled, fly-ridden stool. The Hard Ons are the patriarchs of Australian punk rock. Where their seminal early LPs were rich with amateurish melody, rudimentary musicianship and vulgar humour, ‘Most People Are A Waste of Time’ is plagued by out of tune vocals and weighed down by bloated attempts at atmospheric prog rock bludgeoning.

When the Hard Ons hung up their boots after 1993’s ‘Too Far Gone’, they should have remained in retirement, basking in their past glories, revelling in the cult fan base they’d amassed on the back of classic pop punk records like ‘Yummy’ and ‘Dickcheese’. Sure ‘Too Far Gone’ prognosticated a prog rock inclination that would characterize their post-comeback output, but it was still predominantly idiot-savant pop punk.

Quite frankly, guitarist and vocalist, Blackie, can’t hold a tune. Sure he possesses an intimidating bellow, can shred with the best of them and does one of the best hair windmills in rock. But his attempts at mimicking the nasally intonation of ex-singer Keish, is like fingernails meeting a chalk board. His vocals may be suited to swirling hard rock tracks (‘What Would Stiv Bators Do?’, ‘I’ll Get Thrush or Something’ and ‘Poorest Kid On The Block’) but his vocals on saccharine pop punk tracks like ‘I’m Hurt, I’m In Pain’, ‘Knowing My Luck’ and ‘The Ballad of Katrin Cartlidge’ are completely void of melody and distinctly painful.

Most People Are A Waist of Time’s only tolerable tracks – ‘There Goes One of The Creeps That Hassled My Girlfriend’ and ‘Stop Crying’ – are the two that ex-drummer and vocalist, Keish, provides vocals for. Keish’s nasally inflection was the archetype for many a pop punk band to come. Wanna know where Italian pop punk darlings The Manges plagiarised their schtick, listen to stellar tracks like ‘Raining’, ‘Where Did She Come From’ or ‘Surf On My Face’. In fact, don’t bother tracking down ‘Most People Are A Waste of Time’, track down the aforementioned tracks and the LPs they come from.

Record Review: Modern Machines - Take It, Somebody!

2006-08-01T20:08:00.000+10:00

There’s a certain manner in which you have to approach a Modern Machines album. You have to give it some time to become ingrained in your brain. Let it ferment in your cranium. After a month or two of repeat listens, the veiled melodies will reveal themselves, attach themselves to subconscious. Before long, listening to one of their LPs, and ‘Take It, Somebody’ is no exception, the songs will feel inherent. Like something you listened to as a child, long repressed in your memory. You’ll find yourself reflexively mouthing the chorus to ‘Why I Be Leavin’’, air strumming the opening chords to ‘Flash Infatuation’. It’s a special feat, almost intangible, impossible to premeditate.

The Modern Machines’ riffy take on Midwestern punk is instilled with crude backing vocals and laden with melody. Equally inspired by Toys That Kill and traditional country music, ‘Take It, Somebody!’ is equal parts buzzsaw energy and harmonized shitkicker twang.

Opening with an ominous harmonica bellow, ‘Take It, Somebody’ is earthier than their previous LPs. It still exhibits the same levels of lively melody and coarse production, but ‘Get It Right’, ‘You’re Getting Married’ and ‘Cause I Do’ ratchet the tempo down a notch.

But the record goes through a series of peaks and troughs. Where the aforementioned tracks expose a contemplative, melancholy underbelly, ‘Flash Infatuation’, ‘Elegy For Love’ and ‘(Can’t Let You) Slip Through My Hands’ will have you running up walls in a cacophonous frenzy.

While not a faultless record, or even of the same calibre of their outstanding debut ‘Thwap!’, it does bode well for the future. This sentiment is substantiated by their move to the more fertile pastures of Dirtnap Records.

Make Up Your Own Mind
Flash Infatuation

Interview: Greg Attonio of The Bouncing Souls

2006-06-22T18:23:00.000+10:00

This is a bit of an act of contrition. I've been fairly slack with my updates of late. So in an attempt to appease you the good reader, I present an interview I conducted with Greg from The Bouncing Souls for Time Off magazine a few weeks ago. If you kids are nice, I'll even re-post the interview I'm conducting with Pennywise tomorrow morning. Or not. So without further ado.

You’d expect a band like the Bouncing Souls - one with a near 20 year history and who’ve just completed their 7th full length record - to utter clichés about keeping things fresh. But as vocalist Greg Attonio explains, the old adage, that familiarity breeds contempt, is merely a well worn truth.

Like all great punk rock, the Bouncing Souls were born out of boredom, alienation and angst. The band first jammed while the members were still in high school, playing out of necessity more than want.

But after eking out a comfortable existence and a fan base that spans the width of the globe, the Bouncing Souls found their angers tempered and their passions waning. Attonio explains the process the Bouncing Souls undertook to keep things novel for ‘The Gold Record’.

“I think you have to hit it from a different angle every time and be fresh about it,” he says from his father’s house in New Jersey. “We got together and wrote all the songs together which we hadn’t done on our previous records.

“We also had Ted Hutt, who’s a producer, involved in the song writing process. It’s like a relationship. One you’ve had for a long time. You tend to do the same things. You have to mix it up. And it’s not always easy to do that on your own. It was good to have his perspective. To look at it objectively.”

Because the Souls congealed while the members were in their formative teenage years, one could imagine the function of their music shifting from the therapeutic one it once took on. Attonio explained the process of reconciling his artistic ambitions with the realities of the road.

“When I was a kid, music was my release, we’d go into a jam room or a basement and it was my release from life. Now we’re musicians and we’re going and getting paid for it. It really was a dream come true.

“You find yourself in a job that’s fucking hard. You play for one hour every night. But what people don’t see if that you’re in a van travelling 10 hours a day. And it’s like torture. You’re almost better off having a normal job.”

While few would doubt the Bouncing Souls’ zeal for life and romanticism, their music has never been marked by political commentary. Instead their catalogue is littered with boisterous drinking anthems and tales of comradery.

But on ‘The Gold Record’ the song ‘Letter From Iraq’ strays from the Bouncing Souls’ usually a-political tone.

“You know love songs are great but sometimes you feel you want to say a little bit more.” Attonio says of the origin of the song. “We had a friend, Garrett, who was just about to leave for Iraq. We met him when we were in Germany. We became friends and (Bouncing Souls’ bass guitarist) Brian decided to make a letters from Iraq spot on out website, where we could put up his letters.

“When we started writing the record we were looking for ways to express ourselves and it didn’t make sense because we didn’t have that true experience. Jarrod e-mailed us the next day. And we thought ‘yes, we can just put this to music’”.

Record Review: Bouncings Souls - The Gold Record

2006-06-22T18:12:00.000+10:00

The Gold Record is another serving of the Bouncing Souls’ variety of anthemic pop punk and it’s very much by the numbers. Stylistically, The Gold Record is the standard Bouncing Souls fare: the falsetto harmonies, the gang vocals, the grandiose ‘woah-oh’s, the octave change between the second chorus and the third verse.

But there never has been much variation amongst their music, with the appeal of each Bouncing Souls record depending upon just how catchy the songs are. Unfortunately there is nothing of the calibre of ‘Hopeless Romantic’ or ‘True Believers’ offered up here. The only songs that go close are ‘Sarah Saturday’ and ‘Lean On Sheena’. But you have to wade through pap like ‘The Pizza Song’ and ‘Letter From Iraq’ to get to them.

Two Thumbs Up

Make Up Your Own Mind
The Gold Song

Record Review: Marked Men - Fix My Brain

2006-06-22T18:02:00.000+10:00

The Marked Men’s third long player ‘Fix My Brain’ is by and away their most memorable and best to date. Because their music never was marked with much variation, by mere virtue of the fact that most of the songs are instantly memorable makes ‘Fix My Brain’ stand above their previous efforts.

The first two Marked Men records earnt them gushing reviews and a fervent fan base. Deservedly so, their brand of power pop via Rip Off Records was both novel and fun. And they don’t disappoint on ‘Fix My Brain’. ‘A Little Time’, ‘Wait Here, Wait For You’, ‘Fix My Brain’ and ‘Sophisticate’ are the kind of jangly garage punk anthems that earned them their legions.

‘Fix My Brain’ also features more variety than on ‘Marked Men’ and ‘On The Outside’. ‘Sully My Name’ is as close the Marked Men will ever come to writing a ballad. Jeff Burke nasally croons like a gruff Lou Reed or Chris Bailey over a rattling guitar tone. ‘Sophisticate’ is uncannily reminiscent of the bass-heavy, hyped-up Kinks punk sound Green Day captured on ‘Warning’. ‘Someday’, ‘You Said Enough’ and ‘Don’t Look At Me’ are jittery garage punk that exude anxiety and provide a brief respite before they launch into one of the numerous ball-tearers that litter the album.

Four Thumbs Up

Record Review: Toys That Kill: Shanked!

2006-06-22T17:50:00.000+10:00

Toys That Kill are the reason I want to write about music. Where the punk rock landscape is littered with generic, fashion-conscious pap, Toys That Kill are everything that’s good about punk rock: distinctive, aggressive, energetic, melodic, fun and smart. While ‘Shanked!’ isn’t decidedly different from their past efforts, it’s ripe enough with hooks and novel song writing to render it interesting.

Formed in the wake of the demise and comprising several members of F.Y.P., Toys That Kill picked up where F.Y.P. left off. While Toys The Kill don’t exhibit the snotty hardcore flair F.Y.P. did in their early days. Instead they’re more similar to the noisy-pop punk on their latter records, specifically and appropriately, F.Y.P.’s swan song ‘Toys That Kill’. Comparisons to the Replacements and Dillinger Four are just.

Considering the breadth of F.Y.P. and Toy’s That Kill’s sizeable body of timeless works, it’s difficult to make statements about the relative value of ‘Shanked!’. It’d be naïve to call it their best work to date, but there is some value to this claim. ‘Bomb Sniffing Dogs’, ‘They Tied Up All Our Lace’ and ‘Katzenscheibe Uber Alles’ are some of their most accessible and memorable songs.

This emphasis on melody is not at the expense energy, which F.Y.P. possessed in abundance. There is a jangly, staccato element to Toys That Kill, maybe similar to Midwestern punk bands like the Modern Machines and Grabass Charlestons.

Four Thumbs Up

Record Review: Copyrights - Mutiny Pop

2006-06-22T17:37:00.000+10:00

The Copyrights’ second LP, ‘Mutiny Pop’, is 10 songs too long. While their brand of pop punk is infectious, by the third song it seems as if they’ve tapped the wells of inspiration dry. They rely on the same group harmonies and chord progression on each song. This renders each song decidedly monotonous by the third odd listen. While their debut LP, ‘We Didn’t Come Here To Die’, exhibited enormous potential, they fail to fulfil any promise, instead resting on their laurels.

The Copyrights take queues from the likes of Screeching Weasel and the Lillingtons. Their music smacks of Ramones-core. Mutiny Pop opens with ‘Cashiers,’ a buzzsaw pop punk ball-tearer that rips the listener from their complacency and hauls them in. But after that, every song runs together. The Copyrights fail where they try to go for the jugular on each song. Because every tune is so uniform, you can’t help but tire of their aural assaults. It’s not that their jabs lack potency, it’s just they don’t have the repertoire to work the entire body. Where their progenitors knew the value of varying their songs, the Copyrights fail.

There’s no doubt the Copyrights possess enormous potential, they just have to expand their palette. While they’ve proven their ascendency of the genre, it just happens to be a narrow one. And unless they can expand on it, it’s unlikely they’ll appeal to anyone besides the small, fringe dwelling core of Ramones-core fanatics.

Two Thumbs Up

Make Up Your Own Mind
Cashiers

Record Review: Lillingtons - Death By Television (Reissue)

2006-06-22T17:24:00.000+10:00

The Lillingtons’ ‘Death By Television’ is one of the most underrated punk albums of the past 10 years. ‘Death By Television’ was a revelation. The Lillingtons earned a cult following with the blitzkrieg, balls-to-the-wall pop punk and the smart science fiction theme that pervaded the album. Problems at Lookout! Records precipitated the album being pulled from print and fans scrambling for copies on E-Bay, laying out exorbitant sums of money. Now Red Scare have taken the appropriate action and re-issued it for the greater good.

Pop punk. If you find yourself turning up your nose and images of wind-swept asymmetrical hair cuts and shitty emo-metal hybrids running through your head, find someone to bitch slap you back into place. The Lillingtons come from the stream of pop punk where bands like the Ramones, Buzzcocks, Undertones, Descendents, The Queers, The Dickies, Sloppy Seconds and Screeching Weasel are revered. If you’re looking for a reference point, the Lillingtons were reared on Lookout! Records pop punk. And it shows. The 1-4-5 chord progressions are reminiscent of Screeching Weasel and the Groovie Ghoulies. The clumsy lead breaks are lifted directly from the Screeching Weasel song book. But the Lillingtons put their own slant on the genre. Their slick, yet fierce pop punk wall of sound was unlike the amateur punk rock stylings of the Screeching Weasels and the Queers of the world. So unique, that the Lillingtons themselves have their own imitators in the likes of the Copyrights and a slew of other lesser bands.

Over the course of the album, the Lillingtons blaze through 14 pop punk gems. And that’s no bullshit journalistic hyperbole. ‘Death By Television’ is swollen at the seams with hits. ‘Don’t Trust The Humanoids’, ‘I Saw The Apeman’, ‘X-Ray Specs’, ‘You’re The Only One’, ‘I Need Some Brain Damage’, ‘Codename Peabrain’ and ‘Phantom Maggot’ are all certified classics.

But there is diversity on Death By Television. They knew the value of mixing slower songs with the faster ones, the harder with the softer. While there isn’t a great disparity in the songs, a saccharine ballad like ‘You’re The Only One’ seamlessly runs into a certified fist-pumper like ‘I Need Some Brain Damage’. When you’re finished ploughing through ‘Black Hole In My Mind’, you launch head first into the anthemic ‘I Saw The Apeman (On The Moon)’. This all lends a sense of purpose and anticipation to each song.

The combination of the success of Kody’s new band, Teenage Bottlerocket, the re-issue of ‘Death By Television’ and ‘Backchannel Broadcast’ (due later this year) and a new Lillingtons LP (tentatively titled ‘The Too Late Show’) also due later this year will hopefully result in renewed interest in the band they so richly deserve.

Five Thumbs Up

Record Review: Methadones - 21st Century Power Pop Riot

2006-06-22T17:13:00.000+10:00

‘21st Power Pop Riot’ was always going to be a gamble for the Methadones. For all intents and purposes, it is a concept album. A record consisting entirely of power pop covers. Its success depends on whether they can do justice to the songs and not offend fans of their influences in the process. Conversely, it also depends on whether they can lend a new hue to the songs and not discourage the casual listener. But ‘21st Century Power Pop Riot’ is a success in both these senses. It is a resounding triumph of everything that is right about pop music, a record pregnant with hooks and diverse enough to warrant repeat listens.

Power pop is today one of the most neglected genres. In the late 1970s and early 80s, a fertile mod scene emerged. Bands like the Raspberries and Cheap Trick mined British Invasion pop for inspiration. Meanwhile bands like the Pointed Sticks, Paul Collins’ Beat, the Plimsouls combined this with the primitiveness of punk rock. The common thread was always the emphasis on harmony and a three-minute song format. But all most of these bands seem to have been relegated to the dust bin of musical history.

It’s not surprising that it’s taken Dan Schaefer (or Danny Vapid as I and every other Screeching Weasel fanatic prefer to refer to him as) to try and inject new interest into the genre. The man knows his way around a harmony. And that’s the biggest understatement I’ve ever committed to words. Through his work with Screeching Weasel, Sludgeworth, the Riverdales, Mopes and the Methadones he’s proven himself to be one of the most prolific pop-punk song writers of all time. Consider ‘Riverdale Stomp’, ‘High School Psychopath’, ‘Teenage Freakshow’. His pedigree speaks volumes.

But the Methadones were always an anomaly in his output. The emphasis wasn’t always on Ramones chord progressions and simple hooks. They were more driving and had a pointed social conscience. The three previous Methadones albums were a departure from the snide-pop ethos that pervaded his other work.

‘21st Century Power Pop Riot’ is in a sense a return to his roots for Vapid. Vapid and The Methadones go about Ramones-ifying a slew of timeless power pop classics. They take Brownsville Station’s ‘I’m The Leader of The Gang’, Paul Collins’ Beat’s ‘Walking Out On Love’, the Jags’ ‘Back Of My Hand’, Scandal’s ‘Goodbye To You’, Cheap Trick’s ‘He’s A Whore’, grasp them by the man-berries, distil them into their most primitive form and breathe new life into them.

The guitars blaze in a wall of sound. Vapid’s voice bellows with his trademark intonation. Their cover of the Pointed Stick’s ‘Out of Luck’ is the zenith of pop punk. I always thought the Pointed Sticks were a punk rock band masquerading as a power pop band. The Methadones version is how I imagine they originally conceived it, or at least played it live.

And this is exactly why ‘21st Century Power Pop Riot’ is an unqualified success. Every song is a buzzsaw pop gem. Vapid and the Methadones inject each song with enough personality that you can’t dismiss it as a mere novelty record.

Five Thumbs Up

Record Review: Defiance, Ohio - The Great Depression

2006-05-16T22:22:00.000+10:00

‘The Great Depression,’ the second album from folk punks Defiance, Ohio is a progression, both in terms of musicianship, song writing aptitude, song composition and recording techniques for the band. While they might not have the refined grasp of the genre the likes of This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb, Against Me! or the (Young) Pioneers possess, ‘The Great Depression’ is most certainly a commendable effort.

What differentiates ‘The Great Depression’ from their debut LP, ‘Share What Ya Got’ is the fact that it bears a greater resemblance to folk music than it does to punk rock. On ‘The Great Depression,’ Defiance, Ohio seem more willing to employ traditional instrumentation such as Violin, Cello, Harmonica and Banjo and place it more prominently in the mix. Perhaps this impression is amplified by the fact that ‘The Great Depression’ is afforded a far slicker production than their debut.

But there is no arguing that the song writing is more rounded here. With the nucleus of each song no longer being a guitar and voice, the songs are far more fleshed out. Each song ebbs and flows and each instrument is allowed a moment or two of prominence.

Like former label mates and fellow folks-punks, Ghost Mice, their music suffers from a certain degree of monotony. The few truly memorable moments on the record come when Sherri takes the vocal reins. Her voice is at times uncannily reminiscent of Kathleen from Discount. Her charming and tuneful intonation adds a subtlety and character to the music, especially compared to the coarse vocal chords of her band mates. Her lone chorus on ‘Oh, Susquehanna!’ not only has a superb harmony, but makes the song seem purposeful, as if it’s reaching a great crescendo.

Like all good punks, their lyrics are politically charged, as they rally against the evils of capitalism and all the other usual gripes. However, like all good folk music, their lyrics are often marked by a punch line. On ‘New World Order’ the lyrics “Well the plan is written in god’s hand so only Bush can read it / It calls for a battle in God’s name and it calls for Bush to lead it / The blue print calls to drill for oil and exterminate the land / And if you can’t hear God’s calling you’re probably from France” bring a wry smile to your face.

Three Thumbs Up

Make Up Your Own Mind
Oh, Susquehanna!

Thumbs Up, Asshole

2006-04-21T13:32:00.000+10:00

It seems that Mr Ben Weasel himself has mentioned yours truly on his blog. He posted a picture of himself and the All American Rejects parodying the infamous 'Thumbs Up' photo.

You can view the blog entry here.

For those of you who arrived here because you got linked from Weasel Manor, here's the original photo.

Now, some of you may be wondering how Ben Weasel happened upon the photo and thought enough of it to take the micky. Fair cop. Well both Ben and I post on the Knock Knock Records Pop Punk Bored. It's pretty infamous around those parts and gets bandied around a fair bit. I'd never seen Ben mention or reference it before, but it appears he's a fan.

While I find it questionable who he's associating with these days, I'm pretty stoked right now. You see, during my adolescence, I wanted to BE Ben Weasel. He was everything I wasn't; confident, assertive, confrontational, argumentative, belligerent, antagonistic. In fact, I was fairly meek and timid as a teenager. I took strength from Ben Weasel’s music. Listen, I know it’s hackneyed to say ‘music saved me’ or whatever, and I’ll refrain from romanticizing it all, but I certainly took strength from his music. He taught me that sometimes you have to stand up for yourself, step on a few toes, and that those who do take offence usually aren’t worth your time. While I certainly didn’t model myself on him, as to do so would be self-destructive, I certainly did learn to steel myself against the shitheels of the world. After all, as Aristotle pointed out, virtue lies between two polar extremes.

This isn’t to mention that the man knew how to write a melody or two.

But that's enough introspection and sycophancy for today.

Thumbs Up,
Steve

Record Review: Armalite - Armalite

2006-04-20T18:16:00.000+10:00

Melodic post-punk. Sounds like an oxymoron. At least if you were reared on the current spate of no-wave, disco-punk bands whom the point rockets overhead, blowing their asymmetrical haircuts askew. Armalite play angular post-punk similar to Rites of Spring, yet retain the melody and eccentricity of singer and Guitarist Atom’s former band – Atom and His Package.

Armalite are hardly the train wreck you’re probably envisaging. On ‘Armalite,’ Atom shares vocal duties with Dan Yemin (formerly of Kid Dynamite and Lifetime and currently of Paint It Black). While Dan’s past and present bands have relied on crunchy riffage and energy, the appeal of Atom and His Package was surely Atom’s penchant for writing quirky, electronic-driven pop punk ditties. Armalite manage to reconcile the two, never descending into a circus of gimmickry.

Structurally, ‘Unfinished Business’, ‘Husker Dave’ and ‘Other Entertainers’ are angular post-punk songs, and strong ones at that, yet Atom’s vocals instil all the melody and wit he is revered for. Conversely, ‘No Wave’, ‘Entitled’ and ‘Grace (Or The Importance of Being Impermanent)’ are ball-tearing, angular post-hardcore and hardcore punk.

Armalite strike a happy medium between the two genres without sacrificing melody or energy. The guitar tones are thick and discordant and don’t sound flaccid. A problem that has plagued bands like the Explosion, the Bronx and other bands that have taken East Coast hardcore and tried to take it in a more accessible direction.

Four Thumbs Up

Make Up Your Own Mind
Entitled
I Am a Pancreas (I Seek to Understand Me)

Interview: Brendan Kelly of the Lawrence Arms/Falcon

2006-03-20T14:58:00.000+10:00

The Lawrence Arms are a punk rock paradox. While their music exudes the pop smarts of Jawbreaker and other bands that have defined the Emo genre, their music also possess the gruff harmonies and energy of bands like Leatherface and Naked Raygun. They have a predilection for referencing pop culture as well as classical literature. They belong to a scene that has a long and rich punk rock lineage. Yet, they’ve yet to garner the popular acclaim they so rightly deserve. On the back of the release of their 5th studio album, ‘Oh! Calcutta!’, I conducted this interview with the Lawrence Arms’ bassist and vocalist Brendan Kelly.

The Midwest of America is perhaps punk rock’s best kept secret. Over the years, it’s spawned some of the most critically acclaimed, significant and largely ignored music. The likes of Husker Du, Naked Raygun, Screeching Weasel, Smoking Popes and Dillinger Four have all called the Midwest home.

Where it took the likes of the Dead Kennedys, Green Day, Operation Ivy and Rancid to bring the East Bay to the attention of the masses, the Midwest has yet to spawn a band that has captured the attention of the punk rock going public and crystallize the scene.

The Lawrence Arms exist in this void. Not fitting snuggly amongst any genre that boasts a commercial following -- perhaps because they’re not easily pigeon-holed -- and not belonging to any vibrant scene that boasts a regular patronage. The Lawrence Arms’ Brendan Kelly explains the tyranny of distance.

“The US gives no love to the Midwest. People are so ignorant geographically, that most Americans don’t even know that Chicago is in the Midwest, much less what else is there. It’s too vast of an area for it to be the subject of any hype. That said, I agree. There are lots of great Midwestern bands out there,” he said.

The Lawrence Arms have never been easy to categorize, predominantly because on their past records they have traversed genres from song to song. A rough punk rock number may be followed up with a sickly sweet mid tempo pop punk number. ‘Oh! Calcutta!’ throws this formula out the window and leaves it lying unconscious, curled up in the fetal position in a ditch beside the road.

“We just conceptualized it differently before we started writing,” he said.

“I think that our last record was us at our most polarized, and in a very real way, this record is a response to that. We really don’t want to ever repeat ourselves and we’d kind of mined the ideas of Chris and I doing really different, disparate songs.

“This record is something else. It’s about brotherhood and friendship and steeling yourself against the shit that the world throws at you with your friends and your beers or whatever, and the only way that we could convey that sonically was for us to sing together. We’re best friends, you know? And we are the people that we’re singing about and to. So it made sense to do it all together.”

Their failure to pique the interest of the mainstream punk rock crowd is peculiar in that they aren’t too dissimilar to the Alkaline Trio. Both bands share similar musical parentage and are long time touring buddies. Brendan has even played alongside the Alkaline Trio’s current bass player, Dan Andriano, in Slapstick and the Falcon.

Part of Alkaline Trio’s mass appeal is undoubtedly the morbid themes that are laced throughout their music. The Lawrence Arms however have yet to tap the mines of youth angst, perhaps because they don’t have a shtick per se. But Kelly doesn’t seem bitter or see any point in deriding Alkaline Trio’s success.

“The (Alkaline) Trio and us have one big difference in this regard. Namely, they’re really big and we’re not,” he said.

“That being said, if someone has taken the trouble to seek out our band, they tend to have already figured out that we’re the type of band that we are.”

The Lawrence Arms’ music is brimming with social and political commentary. They also have a deep affection for shitty pop culture. Their refreshing amalgamation of the inspired with the accessible compensates for whatever intellectual pre-preparation may be required to fully grasp their message. It also makes for some of the best song names in the history of punk rock.

“I think that music can be as intellectual or as mindless as it wants to be, as long as it’s good,” he said

“Our message is lost on lots of our own fans. I mean, how many times have you been at an underground show and looked around and thought to yourself “what a bunch of assholes!”.

“There’s nothing that makes you smarter once you buy a cool band’s CD. As much as it pains me to say it, there’s not a lot of people who really give too much of a shit about anything, regardless of if their favorite band is Yellowcard or if it’s Propaghandi.”

This is probably best exemplified by the title of their new long player, ‘Oh! Calcutta!’. Kelly explains the origins of its title.

“There are several reasons that we named the record what we did, but mostly because we liked the exclamatory toughness of the words and the fact that it actually was the name of a nude mostly male broadway musical in the seventies,” he said.

“That’s kind of our thing, you know? It sounds tough, but it’s really the name of some show where a bunch of naked dudes dance around and do the splits and stuff naked on a dusty stage. Good times. It also has to do with Chicago and Mother Theresa, but that’s a whole other story.”

As for the future, Kelly can be found moonlighting in his side project, the Falcon, alongside Dan Andriano (Alkaline Trio), Tod Mohney (ex-Rise Against) and Neil Hennessy (Lawrence Arms).

“We don’t spend a lot of time on the Falcon. It’s been designed the way it is to accommodate all our schedules.”

“The full length is really odd. It’s probably not what anyone expects. There are currently no plans to tour, but that could change at any time.”

Record Review: NOFX - Never Trust A Hippy

2006-03-16T18:00:00.000+10:00

You know what to expect from this review before you even read it. NOFX are certified punk rock legends. One of the most influential and popular punk rock bands of the last 20 years, NOFX’s sound is defined and renowned, and on Never Trust A Hippy – a preview of their forthcoming long player – they make no attempts to err from the established formula.

The EP is predominantly slick pop punk numbers. On Golden Boys, Everything In Moderation (Especially With Moderation) and I’m Going To Hell From This One, the guitars are as buzzsaw as ever, the guitar solos are just as ubiquitous and Fat Mike is still stickin’ it to the man with all the leftist slogans he can muster. They even throw in an obligatory dub number – Marxist Brothers.

Even the themes seam familiar. While NOFX were always political and controversial, sacred cows seem to be nonexistent on ‘Never Trust A Hippy’. On the lone acoustic number, You’re Wrong, Fat Mike gets up on his soap box and proselytizes like a particularly dogmatic and arrogant prick. Even by his standards. But I get the feeling antagonism is their goal here.

Three thumbs up.

Make up your own mind:

Seeing Double At The Triple Rock

Record Review: Buzzcocks - Flat-Pack Philosophy

2006-03-16T17:33:00.000+10:00

The Buzzcocks will forever live in the shadow of their salad days. Their fans will always compare their work to the power pop/pop punk perfection they achieved on Singles Going Steady. And why shouldn’t they? They defined a genre and influenced innumerable bands. But Flat Pack Philosophy boasts enough hooks to stand on its own.

The Buzzcocks excel above other punk rock fixtures vying to remain relevant amongst a genre that has long since moved on. Predominantly because the Buzzcocks too have moved on. Pete Shelley and Steve Diggle are no longer grappling with their adolescent chemical imbalances and bubbling hormones. Rather their lyrical palette is coloured by the quickly modernising Britain they live in. ‘Credit’ opens with a sample that is supposed to parody the absurdity of modern self-serve check outs.

The mix on Flat Pack Philosophy is vast and foreboding. It’s sonically similar to their 2003 self-titled record. The vocals are shrill and sharp. On tracks like ‘Flat Pack Philosophy’ and ‘Wish I Never Loved You’, Shelley croons and slurs the melody menacingly like you wouldn’t expect if you were nurtured on a diet of the ‘cocks’ punk rock standards. The guitars reverberate and punch with a mongrel not seen on their output circa ‘77. On ‘God What Have I Done’ and ‘Sound of a Gun’ the guitars resonate and punch in a tone and melody that is vaguely no wave-ish fashion.

While the Buzzcocks have moved on the realm of bubblegum and forlorn youth, they retain the wit that made them great and direct it elsewhere. While Flat Pack Philosophy doesn’t boast hits like ‘Ever Fallen In Love’ or ‘Orgasm’ addict, it is accessible for those willing to give it a listen or three

Four thumbs up.

Record Review: Lawrence Arms - Oh! Calcutta

2006-03-16T17:14:00.000+10:00

The Lawrence Arm never did have a definitive sound. Their music always traversed between gritty Midwestern punk -- inspired by the likes of Fifteen, Pegboy and Leatherface -- and slick, melodic pop punk -- informed by bands like Jawbreaker, Jets To Brazil and the Alkaline Trio. That was until Oh! Calcutta!.

Where their former LPs were disparate, Oh! Calcutta! boasts a cohesive sound across the entire record. No longer do Chris McCaughan and Brendan Kelly rotate on vocals on each song. Rather the record is littered with tag-team vocals and irresistibly infectious gang melodies. On Are You There Margaret? It’s Me God McCaughan and Kelly simultaneously bellow “Aeroplane, aeroplane / Don’t leave without me / Cause I’m out here all by myself / and I got no place to sleep” and in the process craft one of catchiest punk rock songs of the last 10 years.

Oh! Calcutta! also exhibits an aggression that has only existed sporadically on past Arms records. The bass is far more prominent in the mix and Brendan Kelly takes the vocals reins for the majority of the record. His scratchy, unpolished vocals give the record a hostile and antagonistic element, something that complements the biting sarcasm and incisive vitriol contained in their lyrics.

This is probably something that is largely overlooked in the Lawrence Arm’s music. Their predilection for ‘boorish’ music belies their wit and literary inclinations. Naysayers would probably pay no heed to the Arms because their brand of pop punk and emo is deemed a musical faux pas. But witticisms like "I say fuck the man / no matter who that man may be" abound on the record.

‘Oh! Calcutta!’ is one of the most distinctive and catchiest records of the last decade. It represents a band finally fulfilling its potential of constructing a flawlessly catchy punk rock record.

Five thumbs up.

Make Up Your Own Mind:
The Devil's Takin' Names
Beyond The Embarassing Style

The Sound of the Internet Rumour Mill Churning

2006-02-25T13:45:00.000+10:00

A series of recent photos of all four members of Operation Ivy were posted on the Operation Ivy Website.

Whle the photos are posted along with a disclaimer stating that no Operation Ivy reunion is planned in he near future, i have no doubt most will see it was a watershed moment in the inevitable Operation Ivy reunion. But can you blame kids for indulging in such folly? Really? Everyone else is doing it.

Thumbs Up,
Steve

Jeff Ott Says: Jeff On Hygeine

2006-02-22T21:57:00.000+10:00

From My World: The Ramblings of an Aging Gutter Punk, p65.

If you engage in any sexual activity that includes mouth to anus contact, please use a dental dam or saran wrap.

Various Thoughts From Beneath My Screeching Weasel Cap: 22/02/06

2006-02-22T19:37:00.000+10:00

So the Buzzcocks have two songs from their forthcoming LP, Flat-Pack Philosophy, streaming on their Myspace page. If you’re inclined to dismiss the Buzzcocks as over the hill and irrelevant, wait up a second. I probably would have done the same thing if I hadn’t seem the live in 2003. Now, I went into the show with very low expectations, so there wasn’t much of a chance of being underwhelmed. I left with my balls sitting somewhere in my abdomen. That night the Buzzcocks kicked me square in the testes. Or they tore them off and force-fed them to me... d'know... whichever analogy suits you is best fine. Before that show, the Buzzcocks’ recorded work never set my world a blaze. I always thought the guitar tones were a little foppish. Mind you, I never questioned their song writing acumen, it was the production values that failed them. You know that old piece of music journalese that gets bandied around… ‘buzzsaw’... 'buzzsaw guitars'. I’m sure you’ve happened up on it. It’s about as hackneyed -- and usually inappropriate -- as adjectives get. But I couldn’t think of a more appropriate descriptor for the guitar tones that night.

Now, I’ve gone and trailed off on a tangent. Just check out their last self titled LP. If you’re expecting to hear melodic, sunny power pop punk that you'd expect from the ‘cocks, don’t. Buzzcocks was a jagged, pithy piece of punk rock. It wasn’t without the hooks of their standards. It was however sans the teenage angst. Not quite angular like the post-punk and no-wave bands that congealed in punk’s wake, yet in no way resembling their definitive works. It’s an album that’s hard to provide reference points for, yet accessible. I know it’d be easier for me to say ‘oh the last Buzzcocks album sounded like X and Y’. Well eat my shit. The point is, these new songs seem to be in the same spirit. Check ‘em… stat!

Speaking of punk rock’s forefathers, I finally saw Don Lett’s Punk Attitude last night. A few things dawned on me. The thought that stuck at the fore of my mind for most of the documentary was ‘fuck I want to buy a shitload of records’. The documentary does a fantastic job of explaining punk rock’s lineage. From proto punk bands like the Stooges and the MC5 and the Sonics, up to where it splintered off into several different sub-genres like hardcore, post-punk, no wave, grunge, pop punk/neo-punk/mall punk. I dug that. You see, I suffer from a neurotic compulsion to put music in context. To be able to able to identify who informs band X and conversely which bands band X inspire. To be able to articulate an ancestry. I don’t know why. I think it’s why I surround myself with music junkies, nerds and pseudo-historians. It’s like some pseudo-science self-medication that I’ve prescribed myself for my insecurities and hang-ups. I don’t know. I should know better than to be so candid about my mental afflictions on the internet. Go fuck yourself.

Thumbs up,
Steve

Maximum Rock N Roll Vs. Alternative Press: Letters To The Editor (February/March 2006)

2006-02-22T17:25:00.000+10:00

First of all, a few words. Some people didn’t get the purpose of my last MRR vs AP feature. Well, it has long been my assertion that the Maximum Rocknroll letters to the editor, typically, are less logical and more obnoxious than those that appear in Alternative Press. Sure they’re a different breed. But I justify it in terms that I find the arrogantly stupid a greater affront to my intelligence than I do the obliviously stupid. We all did stupid shit when we were young. When I was 15, I wanted to get my lip pierced like Tom Delonge. At least I no longer believer anarchy is a viable socio-economic system and dumpster dive. In that spirit…

‘Justus’ has a few slivers of wisdom on personal responsibility in Maximum Rocknroll #274, p11.

Dear MRR –
Has anyone noticed that Sparks is destroying the punk scene? For fuks (sic) sake! sometimes, after drinking 14 hours straight, passing out is something that needs to occur. Don’t get me wrong. I believe a 24-hour plus binge is good for the soul. However, if you do it on Sparks you didn’t earn it!

I recently narrowly avoided prison and found myself on probation here in Michigan for the next year. (I got a sympathetic lawyer to take a payment plan). If it wasn’t for Sparks, I would have been passed out a while before my “unlawful incident.” I beat up a Nazi who had come looking for me. I wasn’t around so he punched my girlfriend. She can hold her own (and did), but when I found out it I went to his house-home invasion, first degree. If not for Sparks, I would have beat his rat ass later. Maybe no home invasion. (Obviously the cops didn’t arrest the Nazi.)

Since all this bullshit, I hear Bretton (the Nazi) raped and beat his girlfriend, I hope somebody gets a hold of this fuck soon!
(Bretton became a Nazi in prison. He has a “Smash Judaism” tat on his chest and a swastika on his arm. He told me he wasn’t like that anymore, I offered to help pay to get them covered, but it seems he was still into them – obviously we parted ways.)

So Sparks may have started off a chain of events that led to a girl’s rape. It’s a stretch, I know, but try to keep an open mind.

Hey! To you annoying drunks who quote Sid and Nancy endlessly while inebriated. Stay away from Sparks! It make you more annoying than thought possible. I was way into Sparks for a minute. It is possible to kick! Even if you have to go to AA, just tell yourself “No Sparks today mate, pass the Wild Turkey.” Sparks is our new heroin (unless you’re Gouka from Japan-those guys can keep up with the Sparks). We need to stop the Sparks before the Sparks stops the punks!

- Justus

Hmmm… just goes to show real punx are more wary of hyper-caffeinated alcoholic beverages than they are of defaming others.

Meanwhile I’m wondering how Jim from Windsor managed to find the time to pen this letter to the editor -- which appeared in AP #211, p14 -- in between finishing his Masters Degree in Theology.

I would like to sincerely thank you for your nearly 20-page special on the oxymoron of “Christian punk.” It’s nice to have a detailed list of hypocritical shit bands to avoid.

Jim Meloche
Windsor, ONT, Canada

I’m grateful too, Jim. I hate those closed-minded zealots. Punx… UNITY!

Record Review: Loved Ones - Keep Your Heart

2006-02-20T20:24:00.000+10:00

Kid Dynamite are one of those bands that send certain members of the punk rock fraternity into a tizzy. The mere mention of their name causes their voice to spike to eunuch-like pitches, their eyes to bug out and for them to giggle like a school boy cupping his first tit. I don’t get it personally. But hey, I can appreciate that level of idolatry. I only mention this because the Loved Ones’ bass player Michael Cotterman is a Kid Dynamite alumnus. If this isn’t a prestigious enough pedigree to persuade you to acquire a copy of Keep Your Heart, stat, vocalist and guitarist Dave Hause earned his melodic hardcore stripes in Curse and Paint It Black and drummer Mike Sneeringer is a former Trial By Fire player.

But for those of you East Coast hardcore tragics now shaking like a dog with a tick up its arse, I’m afraid these pedigrees don’t mean shit. Considering their lineage, the Loved Ones don’t bear any resemblance to the band you’re probably envisaging. The Loved Ones play high-energy melodic pop-punk with the nucleus being Green Day-like melodies and chord progressions. This isn’t to say that the Loved Ones are one-trick Green Day mimickers. Certainly, structurally, they take queues from Billie Joe and Co. The undulating harmonies, the punchy guitar tones, even the bass lines plod along at a tone you’d expect Mike Dirnt to generate. But the Loved Ones possess enough pop smarts for their music to stand on its own merits. The harmonies are memorable, the riffs are stimulating and the musicianship is top notch.

However there are the odd exceptions. ‘Over 50 Club’ and ‘Benson and Hedges’ are crunchy punk rock numbers that aim to satiate the Kid Dynamite enthusiasts I mentioned earlier. This isn’t the limit of the Loved Ones’ hardcore proclivities. From the maudlin wrenching and cursing of ‘Sickening’ and ‘The Odds’ to the fist-pumping jingoism of ‘Living Well (And Get Dead)’ and ‘Jane’, thematically, their certainly is a hardcore aesthetic abounding on Keep Your Heart.

Four thumbs up.

Make Up Your Own Mind:
Jane
Suture Self

Various Thoughts From Beneath My Screeching Weasel Cap: 20/02/06

2006-02-20T16:24:00.000+10:00

There are a couple of videos up on You Tube from a Screeching Weasel concert circa 1993.

The sound and video quality are pretty poor and the setlist seems to be similar to the live set featured on Thank You Very Little. But the highlight of the videos is an impromptu interview with Ben Weasel. For most of the interview, the interviewer rattles off a list of banal questions, to which Mr Weasel replies with terse, usually one word, responses. That is until the interview is hijacked by a pair of greasy weasel fan boys who seem to be milling close by.

A transcript of my favourite exchange reads like this:

Greasy Weasel Fan #1: I mean, you got some songs that are like the boy-girl thing… then you got some deeper stuff like Science of Myth, I mean what are you trying to accomplish man?

Ben Weasel: To get everyone in the world to think like me.

It's witticisms like these that remind me why I love Ben Weasel so much.

Meanwhile Ben Weasel's former colllaborator, Danny Vapid is gearing up for his next outing. Red Scare records, announced via their Myspace page that they’ll be releasing the forthcoming Methadones’ LP. The working title is purportedly 21st Century Power Pop Riot. Now, I grew up on Danny Vapid’s music. Hell, Screeching Weasel were THE BAND for me. They were the soundtrack to my adolescence. I have a Riverdales tattoo. But there’s something about the Methadones that just doesn’t agree with me. Musical gripes aside, I grew up on tunes like ‘High School Psychopath’ and ‘Riverdale Stomp’. Danny’s penchant for social commentary on the Methadones just grates me. Maybe it’s a credential issue. Maybe I’m so used to the cartoony, cyncical, barbed-tongue, dejected adolescent caricature he and Ben Weasel carved out for themselves in Screeching Weasel and the Riverdales. I just find it difficult to take him seriously when I’m used to songs he penned about girls and some drug addict he used to know.

It’s been reported that the Falcon have finished recording their new LP. If you haven’t checked out the Falcon already, I suggest you do so. Their EP God Don’t Make No Trash on Red Scare was one of the wittiest and catchiest pieces of punk rock I’ve heard in a while. Anyway, in case you don’t know, the Falcon consist of two members from the Lawrence Arms, one from Alkaline Trio and a former member of Rise Against. Just by looking at their pedigree, you should be able to estimate what they sound like. They come highly recommended.

Speaking of the Lawrence Arms, they've been streaming songs off their new LP 'Oh! Calcutta!' on their MySpace page. If you’re partial to bands like Pegboy, Alkaline Trio, Leatherface, Hot Water Music and Dillinger Four, I suggest you check them out. If these songs are anything to go by, 'Oh! Calcutta!' could be an early contender for album of the year.

Speaking of possible albums of the year, the Queers have updated details about their forthcoming album via their MySpace page blog. Joe also mused about the impending release of their live album, a planned Queers tribute record and a tentative tour with one of Australia’s most seminal, prolific and underated punk bands, the Hard-Ons. Feck! Talk about your wet-dream inducing bills. If you aren't familliar with the Hard Ons' catalogue, I compel you to become so, right now. Most of the later prog-metal shit isn’t useful for much other than preventing your glass from leaving unsightly stains on your coffee table. But their earlier LPs like Yummy are about as tuneful and raw as punk gets.

Thumbs up,
Steve

Record Review: Randy - Randy The Band

2006-02-19T17:39:00.000+10:00

Randy’s music is rooted in 70’s punk rock, without ever lapsing into irrelevant revivalism or aping their progenitors. Their tongue-in-cheek, fists-in-the-air bravado is fun and infectious and is never in danger of turning off those in the audience without the predilection for smashing the fucking state.

Some purists might charge Randy with being gentrified punk rock. A focus on anthemic gang vocals, simple power chords and thumbing noses at authority are all hallmarks of early punk bands that also exist in Randy’s music. Much like NOFX, the Briefs, Bouncing Souls and Snuff, their polished production and emphasis on melody differentiates them from their precursors.

While I don’t think Randy mean to belittle or parody their forefathers, it’s equally difficult to take their hat tips seriously or find them disagreeable. Lyrics like ‘we’re doin’ all that we can, stickin’ it to the man’ capture the essence of punk and perform it with enough skill and gusto to make you forget they don’t belong to the first wave.

To describe Randy as neo-70s punk is a pretty broad pigeon hole to place them in. This is because it’s difficult to pin down a concise set of references. On ‘Evil’, Stefan Granberg croons in with a distinctively Danzig-like intonation. ‘Promise’ and ‘Bahnhof Zoo’ are sharp power-pop numbers that evoke comparisons to Stiff Little Fingers, Undertones and the Buzzcocks. ‘Teenage Tiger’ is a balls-to-the-wall rockabilly number. On ‘Losing My Mind’ Granberg’s vocals waver like that of the Dead Kennedy’s Jello Biafra.

Three thumbs up.

Make Up Your Own Mind:
Razorblade
I Raise My Fist

Record Review: Ghost Mice - Europe

2006-02-19T13:50:00.000+10:00

Ghost Mice’s Europe is a concept album that centres around the band’s holiday in Europe. While tuneful and imaginative, the album suffers because of the monotonousness of both the lyrics and the music.

Ghost Mice play folk rock similar to the Mountain Goats. That may sound like lazy journalism, but it’s hard not to contrast Chris’ nasally intonation with that of the Mountain Goat’s John Darnielle. But the comparison is more than apt when you also consider Ghost Mice’s penchant for chimey acoustic guitars, the literary nature of their lyrics and their boisterous melodies.

However, Ghost Mice don’t draw from as broad a musical palette as the Mountain Goats. Each song seems tedious, even before sitting through Europe once. Structurally, each song is similar to the last and the band’s refusal to include a chorus in each song precludes them from ever hooking the audience.

Lyrically, Europe is wearisome and often cloy. Each song on the album represents a country or sea they crossed during their journey, detailing the events of that part of the journey, making te album a musical slide show of sorts. While it’s hard to fault the band when they’re so earnest and genial, but it feels like they’re trying to romanticize their D.I.Y. ethos and the nature of man at times. The lyrics become a little too stream-of-consciousness, at one point they evoked recollections of that episode of the Family Guy where the Griffins met Randy Newman and he earned their wrath by improvising a song about Lois eating an apple in excessive detail.

Two thumbs up.

Record Review: Kidnappers - Neon Signs

2006-02-09T12:30:00.000+10:00

The first Kidnappers LP on Alien Snatch was like a kick to the balls. Like a mid-fi Teengenerate, Ransom Notes and Telephone Calls was about as tuneful and catchy as garage punk comes. Neon Signs is their Rip Off Records debut, and veers from garage punk territory into the realm of power pop.

Influences that were prevailing on their first LP like Teengenerate, Loli and the Chones, Zodiac Killers et al. have been eschewed for reference points like Paul Collins’ Beat, Pointed Sticks, Undertones and the Exploding Hearts. In fact, Goodbye Again liberally appropriates the intro to the Exploding Hearts’ Throwaway Style. I guess it just wouldn’t be a Kidnappers album without accusations of plagiarism.

This isn’t to say Neon Signs is a record that’s easy to pigeon hole. There’s still a garage punk panache about it all. Beat-It’s vocals still sound decidedly muffled and mid-fi. ‘Talk To You’ kicks in with an abrupt ‘yeah!’, the kind I could see Pelle Almqvist high kicking the air to, strobe light flashing in tandem.

For mind, there are no stand out songs like on Ransom Notes and Telephone Calls. There are no Chuck Berry-played-at-78-rpm pop gems like ‘Teenage Fever’, ‘Marky Nimrod’ or ‘Maximum Rock N Roll’.

Three Thumbs Up.

Make Up Your Own Mind:
Street Where I Live
How Long Will I Live

(Please note these aren't direct links to the songs. Open the page in a new window. Download the songs from there. Something about external linking to Lycos or some other shit.)

... He's An Asshole, He's A Jerk, You Just Hate Him Cause He Don't Have To Work

2006-02-07T23:25:00.000+10:00

My friend Adam sent me this picture a few days ago. I'm not sure how he came across it. I'm guessing he happened upon it during some covert snooping around the Nothing Nice To Say image cache or something similar.

Yeah, Mitch Clem didn't really give me permission to bring your attention to this drawing and i don't know if he'd condone it. But yeah... visit his site. I like a lot of his comics. He's also put me onto some great music. He also shares my disdain for Family Circus and my infatuation with Roxy Epoxy

Jeff Ott Says: Jeff On Currency

2006-02-07T17:08:00.000+10:00

From My World: The Ramblings of an Aging Gutter Punk, p84.

Jeff: cool, whose face do you think should be on the 1$ (sic) bill?

Vanessa: Billie Joe's

Jeff: right on

Maximum Rock N Roll Vs. Alternative Press: Letters To The Editor (January/February 2006)

2006-02-07T16:46:00.000+10:00

Alex lets Tom know just what he thinks of him and his corporate crony backers in Maximum Rock N Roll #273 February 2006, P9.

Hey MRR and readers –
Over the past few months a lot of punk, punk bands andpunk zines have joined the internet site known as myspace.com. I joined it myself until I realized how lame it was. Now it seems that more than 50% of the DIY punk scene has a page on this corporate site, how lame is that? Do I really need to explain why it is so lame? Every corporate asshole and his mom is on this site. It is financed by some shitty advertisements. The shittiest bands on earth have their page. It supports everything we’re against. It sucks, plain and simple. It’s like the whole DIY punk scene has turned into an internet version of the Warped Tour all of a sudden. Seeing all my favorite bands go on this site I feel really bad for what the punk scene has become. What happened to saying, “fuck you” to corporations?

I don’t blame anyone, this shit is addictive, and is a very good and quite genius marketing plan.

Now please read this. This part of the “Myspace.com Terms of Use and Agreement”. You can see it on their site, even before being a member.

“Proprietary Rights in Content on Myspac.com. Myspace.com owns and retains all proprietary rights in the Website and the Service.”
Do I need to write that bigger for you?? “MYSPACE.COM OWNS AND RETAINS ALL PROPRIETARY RIGHTS IN THE WEBSITE AND THE SERVICE.”
If you still don’t get it, it means that everything that is on the website legally belongs to MySpace, and to become a member, you’re giving them the right to do whatever the fuck they want with your bands (sic) songs and pictures.

I don’t know about but for me it feels really shitty to know some corporate website owns songs by some of my favorite DIY, so-called “political” punk bands.
Thanx for reading.
-Alex
Ratcharge fanzine
France

Hmmm thanks for the legal advice Alex.

On the other hand, Matthew via the internet lets it be known just how much the feature on Fall Out Boy affected him in Alternative Press #210 January 2006, p.21.

Oh, AP, thank you so much for allowing all of your readers to finally understand how difficult it can be, being part of such a groundbreaking band who are changing music forever. Uncovering the trauma behind Fall Out Boy is something we’ve been salivating over for years now. I don’t think these kids today know the pain of playing music for a living; the pain of having someone post a nasty blog about you on the web; the pain of selling millions of records. It hurt like a papercut in the armpit. Is FOB looking to add a violin player in the mix? I’ll play for Peter Wentz day and night, to let him know that one of us really cares. Oh, yeah, the exterminator costumes were so sexy; plus they really captured the experience of having your heart exterminated and sprayed with chemicals, as I know the FOB gang have felt all too often.
Matthew Ball
Via Internet

Sounds like Fall Out Boy lead a tragic existence. Also makes me feel guilty about making snide remarks on my blog. Really makes you think.

Punk’s Not Dead… You Just Need To Poke It With A Stick (A Caffeine-Fuelled Manifesto)

2006-02-06T21:00:00.000+10:00

Welcome to my blog.

I often hear people bemoaning the death of punk, or at least that it’s shit nowadays. They lament that what was once a progressive, innovative genre is now a gentrified, sugar-coated abomination. That what was once an exciting and urgent sub-culture is now a shadow of its former self. That the genre that was once a legitimate outlet for the bored, disgruntled youth and political dissenters has now become a catalogue for brands targeting affluent, insolent trust fund mall shits.

I say two things to these naysayers;

1) Yeah, but you listen to bloated prog-rock, pretentious jazz punk and homo-eccentric electro clash. I find these respective genres just as grating as mall punk.

2) Look harder.

When people speak of the glory days of punk, they invoke the NYC-CBGBs boom of the mid 70s, the emergence of British power pop-punk in the late 70s, the SST & Alternative Tentacles hardcore punk explosion of the early 80s, the evolution into Discord and Touch and Go records post-punk, the East Bay-Lookout Records-pop punk glory days of the mid 90s and then they trail off about the eventual descent into oblivion.

There are still records being made in this vein today. Good records too.

In the last ten years Dillinger Four have released three LPs of the most distinctive and witty punk rock ever to be committed to wax. Rip Off Records has built a stable of artists who play some of the most fun, trashy and god damn infectious garage punk you’re ever going to come across. Where Rip Off excel above other labels is they have crystallized a scene and all but acquired a monopoly of the genre. Down in Florida, No Idea records have done the same thing. Over the last decade there’s been a scene slowly materializing. Where current trends have been eschewed for influences like Crimpshrine, the Young Pioneers, Husker Du, Jawbreaker, the Replacements and Pegboy. Y’know? You remember when punk rock used to be honest? Not honest as in a business sense, honest as in you knew the band sang with conviction, openess and sincerity. I know that sort of thing is intangible and subjective, but that’s the impression I get when I listen to Fifteen, Black Flag, Jawbox, Leatherface, Descendents, Screeching Weasel and FYP. With no regard for style, distinctive, full of emotion, wit, and most importantly, humour. And there are bands still making music like this. The Soviettes last year released one of the best punk rock records ever. Rip Off records just signed the Kidnappers who play some of the fucking catchiest rock n roll that’s ever going to pass between your ears. The Modern Machines continue to release distinctive, original and hooky punk rock and are being largely ignored for it. Dirt Bike Annie recently capitulated, but up until a year ago were putting out punk rock that was impossible to categorize, yet bounced around inside your head for weeks after your heard it. The Weakerthans are still kicking around and producing some of the most beautiful and criminally-underrated Indie rock/Alt-country. Before a critical mass of the band was killed in a car accident, the Exploding Hearts released a power pop LP that deserves to be spoken of in the same breath as the Undertones, Buzzcocks, Barracudas and Pointed Sticks. And that isn’t me being romantic. I fucking mean it.It’s the kind of music I get giddy talking about. My eyes widen, voice rises an octave and my leg shakes as I enthuse over it. But then again, i'm weird.

Over the course of this rant, you’ve probably acquired a grasp of the staples of my musical diet and the shit I’m going to be talking about. I should make one thing clear here. I am by no measure an authority on punk rock. I’m not that conceited. Fuck, I’m sure there are thousands of bands I am oblivious to. And that energizes me. I am not doing this for the scene either. I’m not sure what that really means, or whether the genres I’m going to be focusing on are coherently intertwined. Besides, I’m too far removed from the production of this music to have a vested interest in its success. What I have noticed is that there are very few resources out there in internet land devoted to pop-punk, Midwestern punk, folk-punk and garage-punk.

My name is Steve, I live in Australia, I'm 23, I’m an aspiring music journalist, I have a coffee addiction and I own every Screeching Weasel record ever released. That’s my angle.

This blog is merely an avenue for honing my writing skills, building a portfolio and a way of rationalising spending hours on end listening to music.

In a few weeks I'm going to be drafting my dear friend Lucky Ben Seventeen into the fold here on Wreck Kids. He's in much the same position of me. Budding journalist who spends unhealthy amount of time and money on music. And i love him like Ben Weasel loves money. Not only does Ben have an incredible knack for writing, an unbridled enthusiasm for music, an encyclopaedic knowledge of punk rock, but he is also the best exponent of the word 'faggot' i've ever encountered.

So stay tuned, jerks.

Thumbs up,
Steve