old punks web zine

1/97 - 4/02. 5/04 - 4/05. Blog 4/05 - 4/06. 1/07 - present

Old Punks IndexAnalog CyberPunk

  Pappy Punk's Geriatric Dance Frenzy

e-mail: oldpunkswebzine at yahoo.com

Early Edition Due To Weekend Travel

Entry 261: 1/28/2012: CD Reviews & Video Review

"That's What Fatty Arbuckle Said"

Noise By Numbers - Over Leavitt (cd review):

Noise By Numbers: "Satellite Number Eight" (download now)
Noise By Numbers: "I Don't Think So" (download now)
Sludgeworth: "Someday" (download now)
 

Considered a super group of sorts in Chicago, Noise By Numbers is one of Dan Schafer's bands. He also goes by Dan Vapid and has played in Screeching Weasel, The Riverdales, The Methadones, and specifically in regards to Noise By Numbers the great Sludgeworth, who around 1990 were the kings of melodic punk pop emo, taking many of their cues from Naked Raygun. Also in the band are Jeff Dean, Rick Uncapher and Jimmy Lucido.

On their site the band's stated influences are Husker Du, Naked Raygun, Sugar, and The Replacements. Normally I find such lists slightly bullcrappy but here it actually applies - not within the same song per say but as a general approach to individual tracks. The eleven tunes nicely toe the line between underground and commercial sensibilities, satisfying whatever's floating your boat. You'll recognize their emotionally soaring and big sound/big choruses as something you've heard often, but keep in mind Sludgeworth helped create this from the post-hardcore end waaaay back in the day, taking 7 Seconds' "Whoas" and making them both elongated and angelic.

Listening to the cd I find all the songs of nearly equal value and don't have anything to note except Over Leavitt is pretty masterful all the way around. It takes a few listens to fully appreciate its accomplishments if only because it's a bit more about nuance than a full frontal attack. I award it 36 chef hats.

Oingo Boingo - Only A Lad (cd review):

Oingo Boingo: "Little Girls" (download now)
Oingo Boingo: "Only A Lad" (download now)
 

Danny Elfman is related to Jenna Elfman by marriage and is also the masterful composer of film soundtracks who helped create The Forbidden Zone, one of the craziest midnight movies of all time. For the most part I can't listen to what he recorded as Oingo Boingo, whose followers I thought were the new wave version of Jimmy Buffet's parrot heads. The glaring exception is the self-titled 1980 IRS EP and the 1981 A&M LP Only A Lad, a pure new wave concoction of fun and jumpy music only an octet of musicians (horn section, baby!) equal parts Cab Calloway and The Cardiacs could provide.

The single "Little Girls" jumped the pedophilic bandwagon nailed together by The Knack but is redeemed by the lack of Doug Fieger's creepiness and a whimsical 50/50 approach to the subject's merits and pitfalls. My favorite track is "Only A Lad", nicely dismissive of apologetic behaviorism a slightly and a more polished version of what's found on the EP. I doubt many remember what the IRS Records sound was. This be it.

The Kink's cover of "You Really Got Me" underperforms and the rest doesn't particularly stand out beyond containing an endless assortment of quirky start/stops and expertly executed about faces. On a purely mechanical level it's genius. Back then we were happy with a great song or two to dance to and a few other mild diversions. Only A Lad didn't overachieve but it surely didn't disappoint either.

Iggy & The Stooges – Escaped Maniacs (dvd review): A teen-packed 2006 show from Belgium finds Iggy Pop still doing his best Iggy Pop imitation while the Ashton brothers play drums & guitar and The Minutemen’s Mike Watt pounds the bass (guitar, not the fish) . Sometimes Steve MacKay plays sax and Maracas. The venue has a long model’s runway attachment extending from center stage, but otherwise the crowd and the band seem far removed from each other. The energy of the set is great and Iggy’s voice as sharp as ever.

Ron Ashton on guitar is Comic Book Guy fat while Scott Ashton is cigarette and hard alcohol thin. Both come across as a bit nuts in the interviews.

I like The Stooges generically but I run when they lapse into hard psychedelic wig-outs, which happens on this DVD as often as it did on their records. The kids in the large crowd seemed to dig it all, man, so Iggy et al. provided a great return on investment for the promoters. Unless there was embezzlement, or ticket counterfeiting, or maybe even payoffs to corrupt local officials. Or a green social justice tax.

The set list was: “Loose”, “Down On The Street”, “1969”, “I Wanna Be Your Dog”, “T.V. Eyes”, “Dirt”, “Real Cool Time”, “No Fun”, “1970”, “Fun House”, “Skull Ring”, “Dead Rock Star”, “Little Doll”.

Entry 260: 1/21/2012: Pappy Punk's Geriatric Dance Frenzy Vol. 26 and Video Review

The Playoffs (And Naked Raygun) Rule The Wasteland

"In its energy and complexity, football captures the spirit of America better than any other cultural creation on this continent, and I don't mean because it features long breaks in which advertisers get to sell beer and treatments for erectile dysfunction. It sits at the intersection of pioneering aggression and impossibly complex strategic planning. It is a collision of Hobbes and Locke; violent, primal force tempered by the most complex set of rules, regulations, procedures and systems ever conceived in an athletic framework.

Soccer is called the beautiful game. But football is chess, played with real pieces that try to knock each other's brains out. It doesn't get any more beautiful than that."

 "Sex Pistols' Drawings as Important as Paleolithic Art?" Wuh?! Pappy knew Johnny Rotten was old but this is ridiculous! He don't look a day over a million. Paleolithic? Don't that mean pale and thick? Sounds like Johnny all right. Couldn't they have just said Really Really F--king Old? My social worker tried explaining it to me but I fight learning like hippies repel soap. Good for Johnny being taken seriously during his present profession of butter salesman.

Cave, Man!

Here's Pappy Punk's Geriatric Dance Frenzy Vol. 26
(download zip file at Rapidshare)

And You Will Know Us... - "Days Of Being Wild"
Kill Sybil - "Broken Back"
AKA - 645 Dog"
Half Japanese - "US Teens Are Spoiled Bums"
The Pagans - "Six And Change"
Pop Will Eat Itself - "Orgone Accumulator"
Los Reactors - "Dead in The Suburbs"
Atom And His Package - "Going To Georgia"
Wire Train - "Chamber Of Hellos"
The New Pornographers - "Mass Romantic"
The Raincoats - "Lola"
Toots & The Maytals - "Sweet And Dandy"
Ren & Stimpy - "Happy Happy Joy Joy"

Eater Live: Outside View (dvd review): The (literal) kids punk rock band Eater formed in 1976 and broke up three years later. This show from 1997 is one of singer Andy Blade’s periodic band name resurrections. It doesn’t have much to say for itself and an air of desperate self-promotion is whiffable when Andy (real name Ashruf Radwan) reads from his autobiography. The guy’s making the effort, so I’m not going to sit back in my sweat and Doritos-covered chair, scratch myself inappropriately and call Andy a loser for trying, but still, Eater was a gimmicky footnote of the first wave UK scene, famous for their ages and abusing a dead pig’s head on stage one glorious evening thirty-plus years ago (and fading fast). I don’t see an Eater constituency existing to rile up for a march to the book store. The image I get is a farmer trying to milk the oldest cow alive.

The show is shot single camera on VHS-quality tape. Andy and Brian Chevette are the remaining original members. I like their sound generally and enjoy a few of their songs (“Thinking Of The USA”, “Outside View”, their cover of Bowie’s “Queen Bitch” and Lou Reed’s “Sweet Jane” and “Waiting For The Man”) but much of this show bleeds into itself forming a shapeless, loud rock mess. Pick random places on the disc and the sound will most likely be the same, and not much of note is happening except for playing and singing. I hope I’m not the only one who hears a band and marvels how the musicians themselves can remember the subtle differences that make up most of the songs.

Legendary producer Don Letts opens the show with a drive-by recommendation of Eater, the band plays, then there’s a twelve minute, soft-spoken interview and a short piece of Andy reading from his book. Andy and the other guitarists are wearing thin-lapelled sport coats and Andy’s sporting a bow-tie, so visually that’s not very ’76. I thought maybe some waiters had wandered on stage during a band break and were giving it a go.

I’m giving Eater Live: Outside View a hard time but it’s not bad as much as it is grossly after the fact. They had their day and through appearances on various compilations they’re grouped together with bands of greater consequence. Eater’s greatest accomplishment was being Old Skull waaaay before Old Skull was Old Skull.

Set list: “You”, “Annie”, Lock It Up”, Space Dreaming”, “(No More) Bedroom Fits”, “Point Of View”, “Get Raped”, “I Don’t Need It”, “Outside view”, “My Business”, “Queen Bitch”, No Brains”, “Thinkin’ Of The USA”.

older entries start here

 MP3 info here