old punks web zine
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Punk Music Reviews, Part II
C - G

Cock Sparrer - Bloody Minded: The Best Of (CD review) (Dr. Strange): Wow, I heard of Cock Sparrer but knew nothing about them till now. This is great oi. Maybe even the best. At first I didn't believe Sean, the local expert on such things, when he said Cock Sparrer was the first oi band. I figured it had to be Sham 69, but, the history of it sides with him in both timing, content and context. Most of this 1997 hits collection is from the mid to late ‘90s, with a sound similar to America's Sloppy Seconds. It’s heavy on Chuck Berry riffs and Jerry Lee Lewis propulsion. Not knowing Cock Sparrer you might think they were just as comedic as Sloppy Seconds. The use of wedding bells and the wedding march in "Bird Trouble" could make Weird Al blush.

Members of Cock Sparrer grew up together and formed a garage band in 1972, learning to play via Small Faces covers. Cock Sparrer itself came together early in 1976, favoring pub rock and The Rolling Stones. They were courted by Malcolm McLaren but rejected the haberdasher for the asshole he was. Cock Sparrer made a point of noting they were a skinhead band, not a punk band. They were working class all the way, but also responsible adults. They refused to play England for years because they didn’t want violence at their shows. Through a family connection they signed with Decca and released their first single in May, 1977. Another single followed, but as a bunch who could not be tamed by anything but catatonic amounts of booze, they were soon on their own and broke up in 1978. They reformed in 1982 to release the iconic "England Belongs To Me" (a great live version is on this disc). They broke up again only to reform in 1992. They've put out a few albums and toured the US in 2000. They're just about to tour the UK for the first time since 1992.

The songs on Bloody Minded cover a twenty year period from ‘77-‘97. The new tracks are as good as the old. Showing a surprising amount of introspection, they recorded "Because You're Young" in 1994. I usually pass on lyrics, but these I've come to memorize. You can detect the slightest amount of melancholy in the buzz of the guitar:

"Because you're young / sharp as a knife / you need that buzz / to come alive // out on the edge / out on the town / you ain't got time / to settle down // you're always sure / you're always right / you've seen it all in black and white // you never listen / to anyone / because you're young // Because you're young / you're torn between / a world of hate / and a world of dreams / so much to lose / so much to gain / so much to fight for / so much to change // you don't look back / you don't look down / you're gonna turn everything round / you live your life / like a loaded gun / because you're young // stop talking back / get off the phone / you're late again / you missed the last bus home / this ain't the way / you ought to live / I know something's got to give // you're always sure...."

Sonically I can compare this album to Sloppy Seconds' 1993 release Knock Yer Block Off. As a matter of fact, Cock Sparrer's "Where Are They Now" has the exact same guitar riff as Sloppy Second's "The Kids Are All Drunk" from the year before. 1982's "Argy Bargy" sounds a lot like Bob Segar's "Old Time Rock & Roll". "A.U." is obviously a steal of The Rezillos "Somebody's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonight", but Cock Sparrer are the real deal from before the Rezillos, and they appropriate with humor, respect, and resoundingly great results.

Each track on this hits collection is great. I flipped out the first time I heard it and it's been on heavy rotation ever since. If you want to hear real oi from real skins who are real old, buy this. Oi doesn't and can't get any better than this.

Cock Sparrer - Live: Runnin' Riot Across The USA (CD review): This live album, one of at least five from the band, was recorded on their 2000 tour of the states. I'm not reviewing it except to note the sound quality is better than 2003's Back Home. It's the McGuffin, as Hitchcock used to say. My only point in writing is to say Cock Sparrer is the first and best damn oi band of all time, and if you think otherwise all I'll do is smile like I'm holding back a stinky.

Info on the band is here and here.

If oi is working class punk for the lads in the pub and the football stands, Cock Sparrer is THE band. If you think it's mindless violence and Road Warrior meets Taxi Driver fetishes, stick with cartoon bands with cartoon logos. On The Simpsons the animal chain of command goes mouse, cat, then dog. In oi the order of excellence is Cock Sparrer, Sham 69, then The Business.

Friends since the age of eleven, they formed their first band in1972. Their fast, hard and melodic pub rock came into fashion when the Sex Pistols broke. The single "Runnin' Riot" was released in 1977. Read the band's history. They opted out of the record industry money-go-round (Kink's reference!) and mostly sat it out until 1982. They were going to headline the Wasted Festival this October in San Bernardino but the show was cancelled just today.

Their recent catalog is unmatched for consistently delivering the goods. They are the most melodic, flexible and creative oi band. Their studio work is more pub oriented while their live shows are straight ahead rockers. They stand proud when it's right and warn against extremism and destructive nonsense when they see it. Sham 69 flirted with the National Front but couldn't control the monsters they stirred up. Cock Sparrer also has asense of humor. On Back Home vocalist Colin McFaull opens a tune with "This is a song we've never played before live. In three minutes you'll know why". "A.U." is funny even if the printed lyrics say otherwise.

Here's Cock Sparrer lyrics. Start your collection with Bloody Minded and work from there. My favorite track at the moment is "Bats Out", which is what you'd get if Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry were in the same band. Berry taped himself urinating on a hooker and Lewis married his thirteen year old cousin. Cock Sparrer's just fat and old as far as I know.

What's a cock sparrer? It's a long story....

The Connie Dungs - I Hate This Town (7" review) (Mutant Pop): Hailing from downtown Ashland, Kentucky, the Connie Dungs are a cross between Screeching Weasel, The Vindictives and the Beatnick Termites. I mention the Termites because both vocalists sing in a voice I can only relate to Alvin (of Chipmunks fame). When I put on the first song at 33 1/3 I thought it should really be 45 rpm, but the guitar was too fast and the vocals too Alvin. At 33 1/3 the vocals sounded like Alvin on ludes. I wonder how this guy talks. The lyrics are introspective and snotty in a hapless kind of way. It’s low self-esteem presented as-is. Like in "Wimp Boy" - "No, I won't fight you 'cause I'll just get beat up...I'll fall to the ground in a puddle of blood...Does that make me a fag 'cause I'm not so tough? Does that make you a man 'cause you fight so goddam rough???" The lyrics of these five songs remind me of Sloppy Seconds in that you have to look under the surface to see the meanings are double-edged. Musically the Connie Dungs are no better than a lot of the bands on Mutant Pop and pop punk in general, but their lyrics are excellent and I'll be buying their other releases as soon as I can. You have to wonder how five punk guys grew up in the same town in Kentucky. Sounds like an X-File to me. I'm sure the locals are freaked out about it.

The Connie Dungs - Missy and Johnny (7" review) (Harmless): More of the same from the punks from Ashland, Kentucky. I once compared the singer to Alvin (of the Chipmunks), but now I'm thinking more of Squiggy (Laverne and Shirley). He seems to also have Squig's low self-esteem. With the Connie Dungs, not only does Brandon claim to be "a geek with zits on my forehead and cheeks", he sings about getting punched all the time and all he does is bleed! Like he can't even make a fist if he tried. So the angle is: rejected, beaten, abused, but won't you be mine and be nice to me? I like the change of lyrical pace, but after two EPs of low self-esteem anthems you have to wonder if he really does have a problem. The Dungs play sloppy pop-punk in line with Screeching Weasel, but the guitar is more fuzzy and the drums are mixed louder. A very curious band here. I like them a lot.

Count Dante and the Black Dragon Fighting Society - The Deadliest Man Alive (CD review): Teddy Roosevelt's Borscht Belt cousin Shecky lived by this edict: "Speak softly and carry a big shtick." Count Dante does bellow a lot but his shtick is huge. No, not like that. This Count Dante wrestles in the California-based punk rocker side project known as "Incredibly Strange Wrestling". He's also a student of the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu school, the toughest fighters in the world. Something about the guy leads me to believe he's a 6'5", 300 pound softie with a great sense of humor who can also kick your ass in the time it takes to sneeze.

The real Count Dante ran ads for his martial arts training programs in comic books and cheap magazines back in the '60s . Total cheese. Here's some quotes from a biography I found at the site of the real Black Dragon Fighting Society, who are probably teaching "Ninja" to every loon psycho with eight bucks in this pocket: "He was able to study these arts while serving as the Director of a wig and hair-piece firm based in India... Count Dante was a strikingly handsome man who looked more like a movie star than a Karate Master... Aside from his fascination and exceptional skill in the Fighting Arts, Count Dante was a devotee of Classical Singing and a Famous Hair Stylist, who created the natural seductive hair style of many top Chicago models and Playboy Bunnies." Wow.

The real Count Dante sounds worthy of his own series of B-movie parodies, and the new Count Dante is riding this esoteric gravy train all the way to Schlock Heaven. He adds to it the cherry of ego-centric, money-lusting, new age spirituality of motivational speaking. I haven't seen him live but the reviews on his web site (www.count-dante.com) make it sound like a great piece of performance art.

If you think you've seen this all before, it's because you may have heard of Kill Allen Wrench, led by Riverside, CA's favorite Drew Carey look-alike and Ultimate Fighter. Allen's the guy some say took the hit money for Kurt Cobain's death. While Allen's band plays pseudo-satanic heavy metal punk, Count Dante performs speedy "Hot Rockin' Tonight" top-40 cock-rock and Pulp Fiction meets Dead Kennedys Surf/Secret Agent Man. Dante's singing is from the Elvis Presley school.

I'm not into corny cock rock like most punks secretly are, so I bow out of final judgment on The Deadliest Man Alive. I e-mailed Count Dante and he wrote back "Some people are left in a lurch by our way of somehow blending '70s cock rock with the Dead Kennedys." After reading through their web site, I understand it's part of a bigger whole of performance and fun, and I give Dante credit for conceiving and executing a well planned attack on all media fronts. You and I just sit on our asses while Dante's out there making it happen with his own money. This CD is self-published, just like Kill Allen Wrench. You don't need a record label to put out your own anything, so what I find lacking in Dante's musical output is more than compensated for by my awe for his commitment. If he ever plays the Los Angeles area, I'll see Count Dante's show just for the "Secret and forbidden ballistic street attacks and defenses that you can utilize to gain success in the Ring, the Rocktagon, Romance, Real Estate, the Stock Market, and the Job Market!"

The Crabs- Brainwashed (CD review) (K): Here's my thoughts on K Records: I've liked everything I've heard from this Olympia, Washington label, but I can't relate to the bands. To me the typical K band is like Beat Happening - quirky, melodic, lo-fi coffee-house fodder for skinny college kids who sit for hours sipping expensive caffeine blasts while reading endless dissertations on Pablo Picasso or 17th century Pre-Existentialist epic poetry. You know, the kind of people who look at you but in no way acknowledge you exist. People for whom irony is tattooed onto their brains. If I went to a K band concert I would be the only guy who could bench his weight and not have funny facial hairs.

That said, I love Beat Happening and I like The Crabs. A two-piece with Lisa on drums and Jonn on guitar, The Crabs crank out great lo-fi folk-punk inspired by other K bands and The Velvet Underground (the VU had two sounds: endless droning art-rock and playful rock n roll). The opening track's guitar track is an inversion of Lou Reed's "Sweet Jane". Both Lisa and Jonn sing and the CD is fleshed out with saxophone, organ and bells. Every song is minimal yet inventive and engrossing. If there are any bands like this playing coffee houses in the Washington, DC area, please let me know. I'll grow some Dobie Gillis facial hair and blend in as best I can.

Crass - Christ: The Bootleg (CD review) (Allied) A recent re-issue of a booted show from 1984, and only $4.98 for sixteen songs. I was never a Crass fan, and this didn't change my mind. The music is hypnotic and intense, but the lyrics are blunt assaults of protest, dogma and screaming. It’s political lectures yelled with Cockney accents. I'm a little too old and set in my ways to be screamed at about what to believe and think. The songs taken separately are decent, but together they vary little, and the relentlessness of the preaching and screaming is numbing. It’s not dull but more like overkill. Anarchy, in the classical sense, is a nice yet insane utopian theory, but it never works in practice. People are greedy, violent and lazy. Too many punks see anarchy as an excuse to riot and destroy property. Anarchy will never escape the violence and stupidity punks have attached to it. It’s a vicious cycle of stupidity.

The Cretins – We’re Gonna Get So Laid (CD review) (Melted): How’s this for goofy. The three band members listed on the CD are no longer in the band, at least according to their web site. On the CD, the current main members are listed as “additional musicians” on various tracks. I’ve never heard of a wholesale coup like this. The new head cheese is Metal Murf, who, along with half the California phone book, at one time toured with The Queers. B-Face plays bass on two tracks. I’ll give The Cretins, whoever they are, the benefit of the doubt that they’ve tightened up their act, because the CD is very inconsistent. They’re copying the styles of too many other bands and a lot of it sounds barely rehearsed. Focus and practice, that’s the ticket.

The Cretins play power-pop punk that owes a great debt to the snotty allure of The Queers. They call their music “’Tardcore”, as in retard. The use of “retard” is a universal sign of ingrained stupidity, not the good kind either, and the immaturity of the lyrics don’t offer any reason to believe it’s smart-playing-dumb. I’m a fan of The Angry Samoans and The Meatmen, so nobody can accuse me of not getting it. The album title We’re Gonna Get So Laid is hysterical because I can picture the brand of losers who talk like that, but something tells me it’s here without the irony. The 5th grade level cartoon cover art doesn’t help either.

At times they sound like The Queers, The Parasites or any of a number of Blink 182 clone bands whose juvenile silliness recently forced Green Day to announce their next record will be more adult-oriented. It neither works nor makes sense to have songs about boners and chicks flashing their boobs on the highway mixed with emo-sincere thrash ballads. The Queers do it seamlessly, but The Cretins consciously mimic The Parasites, who like The Fiendz and The Vacant Lot would never write a lyric like “they can all just suck my d—k”.

It doesn’t help when the musicianship is sloppy and the vocals don’t work. I’m a sucker for power pop punk and it takes a lot for me to not get into something like this. Certain songs are ok but 23 tracks in one sitting is too much of a not so good thing. Until they get their act together, they’re better off contributing to compilations. And who do you think your fan base might be if you record a song called “Got Caught Cheating On My S.A.T.’s”?

Crimson Sweet - self-titled and published EP (review): I sent the band an e-mail because I had questions about this NYC three-piece. Such as, is the lead singer a woman, man, or one of Donald Duck's nephews grown into a psychopath. And, is the person on the record sleeve a beautiful woman or a deathly skinny guy in drag? (Just found out she's a she). Either way this four-song frisbee is one of the coolest things I've heard in a long time. It's trashy, thrashy and art damaged like No Trend. The tunings and rhythms are so fuggin' interesting that what came off on first listen as amateur hour is now one of the best-executed noise concepts. The b-side is great, so listen to that first. I suggest the band donate "Z Rainbow" to a punk compilation so as many people can hear this great tune as possible. A+ from the city so nice they made a movie about escaping from it. Write to Crimson Sweet at PO Box 20506, Tompkins Square Station, NY, NY 10009. Well-concealed cash only -- $3 US/$4 Int.

Crimson Sweet - Robot Bus Driver (EP review) (self-released): Another amazingly weird yet wonderful release from these crazed New Yorkers, who took their name from a variety of watermelon. The only thing I can equate this to is No Trend meets the Dog Faced Hermans. Rooster Booster is a sensual, disaffected female singer who switches between her normal voice to a death rock/death metal/voodoo doll from Trilogy Of Terror-thing that confuses the hell out of me. It's annoying but it does add an extra touch of personality to the proceedings. It doesn't work for me but Crimson Sweet probably defends it as the best thing they have going.

The songcraft of this unknown band is amazing - full of originality and shifts of mood and tempo that can only come from either the truly gifted or the poop-hurling insane. "Robot Bus Driver" is a great new wave song with a keyboard-fast guitar lead from Booster that will make Devo fans smile. I like this song very, very much.

I highly recommend this to anyone with intelligence, a full range of punk knowledge and traces of a personality disorder. I wish Booster would drop the devil doll thing. The band's music is distinctive enough to separate it from the pile of indie releases they may fear being thrown into. Some people like this kind of singing - which I associate with the male castratos who shriek for death metal bands. Not me, because I don't know how to rock. I wish I knew how to rock, because my big regret in life is never having learned air guitar.

Crimson Sweet - Foil Beach (CD review) (Slow Gold Zebra): If I've said this once, I've said it at least one time -- you can always judge a band by the links they provide to other band sites on their web site. Case in point: at www.crimsonsweet.com they link to X, The Pagans, Dead Moon, Husker Du, Michael Monroe, The Church, The Elevator Drops and Rudimentary Peni. Yeah, that's all well and good, but like Ralph Kramden said on The Honeymooners, "Can it core a apple?" Ralph lived in Brooklyn. Archie Bunker lived in Queens, hence he and his lodge brothers called themselves "The Kings Of Queens". Crimson Sweet are from NYC, which means they must live in a slum of lower Manhattan. The five boroughs of New York are so nice they made a movie about escaping from it.

The point is: Crimson Sweet have been nice enough to send me their releases as they come out, and this new one is another treasure from a band I think is trying to widen their sound and options in the musical marketplace. Not a sell-out in any way, Foil Beach is a rough draft of what they're doing and should continue to do. I hear a definite move to the lo-fi garage of Holly Golightly. There's a mountain of talent at work here, and I love how they throw in an edge of informed weirdness (not so much here but it lingers in my mind). Guitarist and vocalist Rooster Booster, based on what little I have to go on, seems like a PR agent's dream. Besides her singing and guitar talents, she's easy to look at in a Winona Ryder meets Kate Moss kind of way.

The five song CD EP opens fast and strong with "Queen City, V.A.", which except for a quiet refrain or two, rips like Texas Teri and The Stiff Ones as they channel Iggy and the Heartbreakers. "Foil Beach" is slow, atmospheric and fuzzy, better to deliver obscurities such as "Under the hot blue sky / split and dripping lye / looks hot shocks so cold / the glistening foil beach...". Here's where I get to name-drop the Dog Faced Hermans without explaining why. My favorite track and best played l.o.u.d., "The Law" is another thrasher that pounds and rips. Rooster uses her devil doll voice at one point and the glue under my wallpaper melts with the same slurping noise in Barton Fink. "You'll Sleep When I'm Dead" reminds me directly of Holly Golightly. I loves that woman. "Lost Planet" is a Stooges wig-out with Rooster inhaling the microphone. The monotone guitar solo is reason enough to buy this. ($6 in well hidden cash to Slow Gold Zebra Records, PO Box 20506, NY NY 10009. Hey, Robbie on bass looks like a cross between Nick Cave and Mick Jagger… heh heh Huh?

The world is filled with talented bands like Crimson Sweet, struggling for gigs and a few bucks. I wish them luck. Gawd knows they have the talent, drive and songs to make it. My advice -- build on the strengths of the atmospherics and passion of track two and the great dance music you create in the middle of track five. I lost myself completely in both. Crimson Sweet is well informed and endearingly quirky. Follow the example of Billy Childish, but record in stereo. You're on the right track. Create art that's weird and wonderful. Make the fast songs interesting enough to be played at low volume, and the slow songs so intense in their wails and walls of noise they demand to be played loud. Angels sing along when Rooster holds a note for any length of time. The devil doll screech is an abrasive gimmick that appeals to a demographic that normally has little interest in the music you make, especially the newer material. In every review I harp about that scream, and I may be the only one.  Still, it doesn't fit the material. That is all.

Crucial Youth - Straight and Loud (7" review) (Faith): I can't tell you how needed this record was when it came out in 1987. Straight-Edge bands like Minor Threat and 7 Seconds were preaching the good gospel to the kids, but MAN were they didactic and humorless. Then hard stance bands like Boston's Slapshot came along and advocated violent responses to non straight-edge behavior . Their obsession with hockey sticks was both funny and stupid on a grand scale. It was enough to drive you to drink, but then along came New Jersey's Crucial Youth to put it all in perspective by taking the rhetoric to its extremes with good-natured humor and excellent musicianship. When Joe Crucial called The Crew to arms by screaming the "Four Rules" - "Be straight/Don't be late/Bench your weight/Don't masturbate!", you knew from that point on you'd shave clean, put litter in its place, have a positive dental outlook, rewind your rental videos and be just like me and Mr. T. (drug free!). And, if you cursed, you were the worst.

I have no idea if these five guys drank, smoked or had sex, but they sure nailed the silliness that was and is part of straight-edge. Their follow-up album, The Posi-Machine, on milk-white vinyl, came with a twenty page cartoon booklet filled with advice on slam pit safety, scene violence, rules of common courtesy, and a helpful glossary of H/C terminology: ("Mosh" - A counterclockwise circle dance, done when the band slows down). Most Punk-related humor is lame. This is funny stuff. And the songs! "Keep Off The Grass", "Cross At The Green", "Scarlet M" (about masturbation), "4 Food Groups" ("MEAT - Gives you protein, makes you big and strong/GRAIN - instant energy, keeps you going all day long/VEGETABLES - full of vitamins, clean them off your plate/DAIRY - builds strong teeth and bones, drink it and you'll feel great!"), "Big Mouth" ("Can't shut my mouth/No matter how hard I try/Can't shut my mouth/With a trap two feet wide/Stand in my way/And I'll blow you aside/When I talk/You'll want to hide"), and my favorite, "Caffeine" ("Stay away from me when you are drinking your coffee/Stay away from me when you are drinking your tea/Stay away from me, now don't you harm me/When you are under the influence of caffeine/Caffeine - you don't need it/ - it's an excuse to get high/ - it keeps you up/ - it doesn't get you by/ - you say your dad uses it/ - you say it can't hurt me/ - but it has killed many/ - it's not gonna kill me")

They followed this up with the "Crucial Yule" 7", which contains a decent cover of Jonathan Richman's "I'm Straight" and a great oi rendition of Iron Cross' "X-Mastime For The Skins". The straight-edge humor was toned down and I can't say what became of Crucial Youth (at one point they did a punk radio show out of Jersey). From what I can tell they had the support of Minor Threat and was accepted by the SXE scene. Ten years ago Crucial Youth preached "Cross On The Green - For A Positive Scene". I've lived that philosophy, I shave clean, and I'm in The Crew for life. With the help of Crucial Youth I can honestly say that I'm (as I slam my forearms into the shape of an "X" in front of my face with fists tightly clenched) Hard... To The Core!!"

Crucial Youth - Singles Going Straight 1986-1991 (CD review) (New Red): The review above says most of the things I wanted to say here. New Red Archives, who quite often are just that, have re-issued their full-length LP The Posi Machine on both CD and vinyl, and have collected their singles (Straight and Loud, the best EP of '87), demos and live tracks onto this killer thirty-song mini-frisbee. There's no law that says you must own this, but to do so would be a personal favor to Mr. T and Woodsy Owl.

Crucial Youth were a loving yet laser sharp parody of the parody that called itself the 1980s straight edge scene. With their "Total Edge" philosophy that took stands against caffeine, littering, bad dental hygiene, cursing, facial hair, porn, not rewinding video tapes and not benching your weight, Joe Crucial, Gentlemen Jim and The Crew took their battle to the streets, or at least clubs within a reasonable distance from their homes in Holmdel, NJ. Their songs are funny and insightful on a few levels, and each time I put this on I laugh in different places because they mock the central cartoonish truths of the genre so well.

My epiphany about Crucial Youth is that a number of their songs are variations on a piece of old MTV theme music. The Crucial Yule EP was "learned, practiced and recorded" in one day, and it not only has a re-written Iron Cross ("Crucified For Your Sins") song you can play for your friends every year, Jonathan Richman's "I'm Straight" is also covered to surreal effect. The live tracks are great and the demos an answer to my personal dream of hearing my favorite CY tracks with even more hyperventilated vocals.

Hey, they've recently reformed to play shows in the northeast. I wonder how they've updated their show for the 21st century. Here's a link to some of the Crucial Youth comics that made every release a treasure trove of fun. http://www.newredarchives.com/bands/crucialyouth/

"These are 4 rules I find most important, you can find them important too, they are: Be Straight, Don't Be Late, Bench Your Weight, and please, for god's sake, don't masturbate!"

Crumbox- Resident Double U (CD review) (Timebomb): On the heels of tripping over their great single in the 49 cents bin at Lou's, I found this for 99 cents someplace else. It’s the buy of the year as far as I’m concerned. It’s excellent alterna-punk from these North Carolina/California musicians. The single reminded me of the Volcano Suns but the full-length recalls the first Soul Asylum album, Say What You Will…, produced by Bob Mould. It makes sense this is on Social Distortion's label since they swim in the same pond. A lot of this genre owes a debt to Neil Young, who took from folk, country and rock to create a personal signature that influenced a lot of bands right up to the great grunge debacle of a few years back. What I like most about Crumbox is their ability to take four chords and make them emotional and powerful. It's not often you find sincere melancholy in loud fast music. If you bath, own a few brain cells and aren't afraid to be a real person, you should like this. The rest of you can beg for cig & beer money on the street. A new album is coming out at the end of October. The promo says it'll be slower than the last one. That's a shame. The last thing the world needs is another emo band afraid of breaking a string.

Crumbox - "Resuscitation/Novacaine"(7" review) (Time Bomb): See, not all alternative music sucks! Lots of it does, but not this. The promo material makes a big deal about them being originally from North Carolina. What movement came out of there? Last time I looked, Athens GA was the next big thing. That tells you how old I am. That this came out on Time Bomb, essentially a punk label, may or may not mean something. Does Crumbox have a larger potential audience in the few open-mined punks out there than they would in your standard alterna-market? Maybe this isn't commercial in a top-40 sense, but these are two amazing songs with some of the best intricate guitar playing I've heard in years. I'm sure there's a number of bands who play in this genre, but the only band I can think of is the Volcano Suns. Crumbox has a subtle wall-of-noise guitar fuzz that lays a solid foundation for strong mid-paced drumming, and like I said before some of the best and emotive guitar work you'll find.

The roots of this isn't related to today's punk but the pre-punk guitar semantics of Television (improved upon here. Punks should buy this and listen to it alone, away from the idiocy of their punk priends. This 7" is great and it reflects qualities of punk that have been pushed aside by sarcasm, stupidity, aggression, childishness,and posing - the typical lowest common denominators that define most modern punk. Punk till death! Well, are you dead yet?

Crumbox - Map Of The Sky (CD review) (Time Bomb): The second release from these transplanted North Carolina alterna-rockers, while not as consistently forceful as Resident Double U, it’s still miles ahead of anything coming out in college-rock alternative. The roots of alternative were nurtured in the soil of new wave and planted with seeds from Neil Young, The Feelies and REM. You had your post-punk, which leaned toward pre-goth and alterna-funk, and alternative, which is based a lot more on southern rock than anyone might care to acknowledge.

Recent generations of alternative bands have either descended from the Husker Du-flavored grunge of emo (Jawbreaker taking the lead) or more jangly guitar psychedelic bands like Fountains of Wayne. I only mention this group because I saw them on TV the other night and they're as creative as the 1000 other bands signed before and after them.

Crumbox and the latest incarnation of Samiam have chosen a lonely yet intriguing path, combining alternative, emo and punk in ways that can only appeal to a small yet informed demographic. People are sheep and they like their entertainment in extremes - examples being the hyper-stupidity of crusty punk or the 120 beats per second crush of sex and death found in techo and industrial. It's probably best to call Crumbox an emo band because at least that audience has a measurable attention span and intellectual curiosity.

Map Of The Sky is a pretty good record. They have no chance of selling a lot of records because they're too good at what they do. Like I said, people like cartoon presentations of whatever trend Corporate America puts in front of their unblinking eyes.

The Crumbs - Alien Girl (7" review) (Recess): From (surprise) Fort Lauderdale, Florida comes The Crumbs, the best thing to happen to power pop since The Queers. Four songs here of great poppy pogo gogo music. It’s silly, Chuck Berry power chord that’s punk as hell, snotty yet sincere vocals and enough sing-alongs to give you major league laryngitis if you catch them live. An easy top 10 pick. Their full length just came out on Lookout Records. Muy bien!

The Crumbs - (CD review) (Lookout): The Crumbs have evolved into a hard rocking power punk band. Gone is the humor of the "Alien Girl" 7", replaced by a Stiff Little Fingers - Dead Boys sound that should kick the ass of those band’s fans. I like the funny Crumbs better. The lyrics on the cd are generic punk, and musically each tune blends into the next for most of the discs' 37:10 minutes. "Shakespeare" is or should be the single. The sustained level of power in each song is impressive, but seeing The Crumbs taking themselves so seriously is, to me, not a good sign.

Cub - Mauler (CD review) (Augogo): Cub is no more, and now me sad. They were together for five years and called it quits at the top of their game. Not that I get out much, but to know Cub is to love Cub. When I lived in Las Vegas I saw Cub play at a record store, and man did they own that town. And why not? They threw out prizes, laughed, sang, talked, and played excellent cuddle core. Sure, they made up that one themselves, but it fits. Lisa G. on drums, Lisa M. on bass and Robynn on guitar. Seemingly just enough talent to play their instruments, but there's real power and control too. Cub recorded sweet-natured bubblegum pop often delivered with bite and wit. Lisa Marr's vocals are sweet and inviting… most of the time, yet even her bitter songs are delivered without the posings of grrrl groups who try too hard to mirror the straight-edge bands in intensity.

This collection of single, compilation and unreleased tracks comes from Australia's Augogo label, and it's a gift. It's impossible not to dance like a teenybopper when "My Chinchilla" hits the jukebox. No song can go wrong with lyrics like "Satan sucks/but you're the best/Holy smokes/You passed the test/When I'm with you/I feel blessed/My Chinchilla". As their two contributions to the More Bounce To The Ounce compilation and the hidden tracks on the last two CDs prove, Cub were more than capable of hardcore.

Cub never ran Mint Records. Lisa M. answered letters for them and worked as their goodwill ambassador, but that's about it. She married a Muff, too. All in all, Cub are already legends. I super highly recommend this.

Cub - Box Of Hair (CD review) (Lookout/Mint Records): A seemingly non-punk band with a large punk following, on their third CD the Canadian cuddle-core wimmins stop playing Ms. Nice Guy and kick some punk rock booty. At times sounding like the Muffs vs. the Go-Go’s (when pushed they can even be the Anti-Scrunti Faction), here Cub explores the dark side of sweetness and melody hinted at on earlier releases. Cub is an amazing band. Everyone from Beat Happening to grrrl group fans have reason to love Cub. See them live if you can and bop till you drop, and if you're nice they'll toss out bubble gum and stickers.

D.O.A. - War On 45 (12" EP review) (Alternative Tentacles): "March Into The 80's" with Vancouver's punk veterans, still puttering around after twenty years. Joey S--thead must be like a 102 years old by now. He's busier than ever with his own label that's signing up bands faster than Leonardo DiCaprio puts on weight.

D.O.A. recorded more bad metal-punk than I'd like to admit, but their early material is classic. Early D.O.A. is like Blitz and the Anti-Nowhere League, with a hightened sense of humor and irony. What makes this eight-song EP stand out is the diversity of covering the funk classic "War" as a punk song without losing the feel of the original, and the dub "War In The East" recorded with ‘70s Reggae artist Ranking Trevor that's as good as anything Joe Strummer wrote for The Clash. Along with the fun is the usual dose of politics as seen in "America The Beautiful" and a cover of the Dil's "Class War". There’s nice diversity in a genre not known for it. On the back cover appears the slogan "Talk minus Action = 0". Upon first seeing this I remember leaving my house and smashing the state, baby!! I might have littered or something. That’ll teach ‘em!

The cartoon concept cover of War On 45 makes this a highly sought collectible. The art by Shawn Kerri is a cross between Bill Griffith's "Zippy" and Will Eisner's "The Spirit". Too bad they don't make cheap frames any more for record covers. Like, dude, I'd put this up in my foyer!

Dag Nasty - Can I Say (LP review) (Dischord): Forming in 1985, Washington DC's Dag Nasty was Dischord's first foray into slickly produced post-hardcore punk. Can I Say combined the didactic preachiness of the local straight edge scene with the pop and studio mastery of their counterparts in Southern California. Dag Nasty was Minor Threat meets D.I. and the Adolescents. It’s aged well, but it’s obvious the album's technical and lyrical precision hit all known punk clichés, making it the work of a billion dollar supercomputer or space alien intervention. Or, that it was the result of the most comprehensive survey in DC punk history. This is almost too good if you know what I'm saying. Face To Face pulled the same trick years later but I caught on quick they were well researched and into it for the money.

Can I Say is a rare Dischord release from that time where you can understand every word singer Dave Smalley yelps. This is a spoken word album in comparison. Each song is a sermon on friendship and moral assuredness that hits a happy medium between violent SXE hysteria and obtuse emo self-pity. From "Under Your Influence" -"I get so mixed up/by the things you say/and the way you act/Too many times this has happened before/I always thought the wrong thing/I never gave you a second chance/Now it's happening all over again." There’s more tears than a twelve year old girl watching Titanic.

This album is totally original and totally contrived at the same time. How this can be is a tribute to my own schizophrenia and the nature of Can I Say.

The Damned - Grave Disorder (CD review) (Nitro): The latest Damned CD is very good. It's damned good! Heh heh heh... huh? I didn't expect it to be, or more like I had no idea what to expect from a band with so many career highs and lows. "New Rose" was the first punk single and the best UK punk song of all time, and while "Neat Neat Neat" and "Duchess" will always be personal favorites, I was turned off by Brian James' guitar wanking, especially live. The double layering of vocals also proved to be a distraction. I've seen a few early concert videos and man are they sloppy, and man does everyone endlessly wank while Dave Vanian looks around desperately for a mirror to check himself out. Captain Sensible gets naked, acid reflux burns my throat, and nobody wins. Then the Captain recorded "Wot" and a freaking song from South Pacific while Vanian had a puffy pirate shirt surgically attached to his body, all the while fuming over not getting royalties from the goth and new romance communities. Believe it or not, all this added up to an open mind as I put this on the player. Anything was possible.

Grave Disorder is eclectic, catchy, fun, and subtly funny. I don't think Dave Vanian is taking himself seriously here, and it works in his favor because if he did the joke would be on him. There's an inherent campiness to crooning that he's playing up, and only high school kids could take seriously lyrics like: "Come taste this lunacy / Be blinded by the green faerie / Creeping out of your glass / Into your mind / Then you can really see / I can take all of your fears / Transform the way you feel / Welcome to the spirit world / Where all your dreams are real". Listen to "Absinthe" as a campy off-Broadway stage number and you'll see how comfortable puffy shirt boy has become with the silliness of a genre he helped create.

Captain Sensible wrote most of Grave Disorder, and his "Democracy" opens the CD. It's a mature addition to the Nitro Records catalog. In other words, it's what fans of your average Nitro bands should and will most likely age into. Nitro caters to kids but also tries to slip them clues on what should come next once you've mastered being fifteen. The sing alongs are especially strong. "Song.com" is lyrically not what you'd expect from The Damned, being a simple commentary on internet geekdom, but the surf motif is brilliant. The Beach Boys vocal nods are channeled through XTC via the backup singing, and the guitar tunings are on the mark. "Thrill Kill" is slightly funky, slightly psychedelic, and brutally driving enough to still be great even though it's slightly funky and psychedelic. The drumming is nicely tinny and the lead guitar abrasively sharp. Dave's crooning in the Iggy Pop style. There's a bunch of uncredited movie audio samples mixed into the songs, and the one here is very effective.

"She" is slightly rockabilly and features some of Vanian's best crooning, especially at the close, where he manages to channel the ghost of Jim Morrison. "Lookin For Action" is revved up neo-New York Dolls thrash, and the most straight ahead song on what is a complex album. I don't know who the Captain is writing about in "Would You Be So Hot (If You Weren't Dead)", so make what you will of "Famously, you spoke of love philosophy / You're a hypocrite, your cruel lack of empathy is long forgot / Would you be so hot if you weren't dead?" Monty Oxy Moron providess a great Jools Holland riff on the piano. The ringing tower bells on "Amen" are an extra kick in what is an amazing display all around. The ghoulish choir is great and the audio samples work well. This is Vanian singing at his best.

"Neverland" starts off a little like the Ramones and then becomes a Byrds thing. What's the deal with the $20 Casio keyboard drum rhythm on "Till The End Of Time"? It’s a song for charming snakes. On "Obscene" The Damned open like the Moody Blues. Then on "W" all I can do is think of The Animal's "We've Got To Get Of This Place" as performed by The Dukes Of Stratosphere. "Beauty And The Beast" closes the CD and it's an encore piece where Oxy Moron plays a grand piano in the dark while a single spotlight shines on Vanian, melodramatic and David Bowie's worst Anthony Newly nightmare.

If The Phantom Of The Paradise ever gets remade, The Damned should record the soundtrack. Grave Disorder is an all around great record. There's nothing about it that's overdone or underdeveloped. Dumping Rat Scabies to get back The Captain (long story short) was the best career move Vanian ever made. Damned if you do, damned if you don't! . I kill me.... no, seriously, I'm suicidal. Help....!!!!!!

Dancing French Liberals of '48 - "Spags"/"Scream Clown Scream" (7" review) (Broken Rekids/Revenge): Two songs I picked up for 49 cents and I can safely file this under "Bad Religion". A good set of tunes done with more maturity than most BR devotees. What an odd band name. Was "Steampipe Fitters Union Local 47" already taken? It’ pretty good all the same. I'm told these are the remaining members of a band called The Gits. I'm told a lot of things though.

Daredevils - Hate You/Rules, Hearts (7" review) (Sympathy): This is a very good yet very odd release. The sticker says, "With Brett Gurewitz Formerly Of Bad Religion". Mr. Brett is of course the man with punk's heaviest thesaurus, and he’s not afraid to hit you over the head with it. The cover art is a weird combo of trashy pulp fiction cartooning and standard tattoo parlor voodoo imagery. This pretentiousness is big now and also the bad seed cousin of Cocktail Nation, lounge muzak, cigar smoking trendiness. I was expecting another slab of pseudo- rockabilly like Joykiller, but instead these two songs are inspired by '70s pop bands like Cheap Trick, The Shoes and The Plimsouls. A few years back Rhino put out compilations of bands like these in their D.I.Y. series. "Hate You" sounds a lot like Bad Religion's "Atomic Garden" with a Cheap Trick feel. The lyrics are also lighter and less wordy than Bad Religion.  They also leave out the political pedophilia. The B-side is pure pop - not power pop punk but straight-up pop music. I liked it a lot and wished I knew how to dance The Pony. The songs are great, but points off for a cover that has nothing to do with the music.

Darlington - Girltroversy (CD review) (Last Breath): If this sounded any more like Screeching Weasel Ben Foster would be forced to sue to protect his intellectual property. "Jodie Foster" is a ripoff of "Cindy's On Methadone". "Love" is a rip of "I'm Not In Love", and "Judy Jetson" rehashes "Compact Disc". I could go on. Check out these lines from "Bitch", "there's a girl named alison who sometimes goes to shows/ i know about 3 other guys in local bands she's blown/ she thinks I'm a creep and i think she's a creep/ and she thinks you're a creep/ and she'll never ever creepy crawl with me/ cause alison hates my guts..." You can't throw this into the Queers category because the lyrics and vocals are undiluted Screeching Weasel.

That being said, if you weep for the days of My Brain Hurts you should pick this up. Girltroversy might as well be recordings from an imaginary lost Screeching Weasel album from 1991. If you're not a loon for that sound you'll spit on Darlington for a lack of originality. There's no killer single material but these thirteen tracks are nice examples of Weasel album tracks. I only paid $1 for it used, so for the money it was well worth it. Still, if I wasn't such a fan of My Brain Hurts I'd be laughing at Darlington, not with them.

I sampled their next CD and it didn't sound as derivative as this. The CD cover has the three members dressed in black designer clothing and black hair greased in that disheveled look only a stylist can get right. The Hollywood alterna-rock star persona doesn't fit their sound, but maybe that's the hook, baby!

Dashboard Confessional - The Swiss Army Romance (CD review) (MCA): Based on the first listen, in the wrong place under the wrong circumstances, I sat down just now to rip this disc a third asshole. The only problem is, on my home stereo with good headphones, the strength and charm of the songs come through loud and clear. Chris Carraba is one talented kid.

Carraba sang with two emo bands I've never heard of, so good for him. He's now opening for major draws like Face To Face and Snapcase as a solo acoustic act, which is either intuitive counter-programming or a sad admission that deep inside all emo fans are sad-puppy folk rockers.

Unless he's spinning plates or something to keep my interest, I can't imagine the material coming across well live. Carraba plays two guitars on the CD, and the stereo separation is stunning. The backup singing is also pristine. Some of the tracks beg for a full band to fill out the sound, and there is some cheating to that end. Still, the songwriting and sound quality are both excellent. The energy lags towards the end, but so does my interest in the one man band format.

Dead Boys - Young Loud and Snotty (CD review) (Sire/Warner): I have mixed feelings about the Dead Boys. On one hand they were the best of the CBGB's Keith Richard's-worshipping rockers, and they recorded "Sonic Reducer", somewhere below The Damned's "New Rose" as best old punk song of all time. On the other hand they were junkie cretins who loved nazi regalia and brought blockhead violence to CB's, changing if not destroying the original scene.

A cult of personality exists around Stiv Bators, who later fronted the Lords Of The New Church and died in 1990 in an auto accident. It's probably the same crowd who worship GG Allin, Darby Crash and Sid Vicious for their self-destructive nihilism. It's a mindset that goes "He's a loser, I'm a loser, the world is full of losers, let's destroy because it's all a joke". It's what passes for deeper understanding in the idiot crowd.

Hailing from Cleveland, the Dead Boys relocated to New York and took over the scene with their strong songs and personal assholeishness. Young Loud and Snotty came out in 1977, followed by We Have Come From Your Children in 1978 and Night Of The Living Dead Boys in 1981 (live from a ‘79 show). There's also bootlegs. The Dead Boys were a punk band, not a hardcore band, so don't expect much locomotion beyond "Sonic Reducer". "Caught With The Meat In Your Mouth" is notorious for its blatant sexual content, and by the story of the night when a CBGB's waitress gave Stiv lip service on stage. I bet that was attractive!

Dead Kennedys (review)- Here's all you need to know about The Dead Kennedys: 1) They were punk hippies, 2) Jello Biafra is the Jerry Garcia of America's punk hippies, 3) Now he's the Lenny Bruce of spoken-word comic self-indulgence, 4) The DKs are America's answer to England's Crass, 5) Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables is the single best hardcore album, 6) With each subsequent release their music became more generic and boring until the DKs just stopped being ........ oh, like I need to explain all this? Did you miss the entire ‘80s?

1) Punk Hippies. What's a punk hippie? A pissed off anarchist who doesn’t bathe (which goes without saying). The Dead Kennedys were the first big American punk band to care, to fight The System, to expose advertising/ politics/religion as evil empires bent on complete control, blah blah blah, man. Just like hippies in the ‘60s. The DKs and hippies both come from San Francisco. Not that hippies are any more annoying than punks, skins, straight edgers, mods, or anybody else. The DK's exploitation of natural youthful rebellion and use of mixed media to attack the establishment came from hippie culture. For punk this was a good thing. 70’s American punk bands were mainly drunk and drugged rock bands. They didn't ask you to question authority or yourself (the way UK punk did), until hardcore came along. Minor Threat and 7 Seconds gave the kids straight edge as an alternative to high school peer pressures while the Dead Kennedys made the kids think about politics and corporate America. England's political and class systems were easy targets. When the Sex Pistols sang "God Save The Queen" every blockhead got the message loud and clear. America is a harder concept to grasp. There's more insidious conspiracy theory involved (refer to the Kennedy assassination), and nobody was more obsessed with conspiracy than Jello Biafra.

2&3) Jello=Jerry & Lenny. Jello Biafra is like Jerry Garcia. Both led their own hippie movements and were put on pedestals by their followers. Now that Jello releases spoken-word CDs he's a lot like Lenny Bruce, who at the end of his career ranted endlessly about his obscenity trial instead of telling jokes. Jello rants on stage about his obscenity trial instead of singing.

4) U.S. DKs=U.K. Crass. Both Crass and Jello's Alternative Tentacles label promoted other punk hippie bands and printed forests of political propaganda. Both were obsessed with right wing politics and their figurehead leaders - Ron Reagan and Margie Thatcher. Both also faded away along with their respective enemies.

5) Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables=Best Hardcore Punk LP. When this came out in 1980 it was the tightest, funniest and most political album ever to hit punk. In one package you had the speed and power of the Bad Brains, the either you get it or you don't sense of humor of The Meatmen, and the distorted four-chord lead guitar that defined early hardcore. East Bay Ray seamlessly alternated between walls of distorted surf chords and leads that often mimicked Jello's vocals. This ghost vocal is most evident on "Ill In The Head" and "Forward To Death". Songs like "Kill The Poor" and "Stealing People's Mail" are satirical and fully intended to piss off anyone who doesn't take the time to read past the lyrics. "I Kill Children" is simply cold and heartless, and while it may be no more than a character study, I bet it came back to haunt them years later during their costly obscenity trial. Jello's post-nasal drip lisp-singing was America's answer to Johnny Rotten's bitter and snide braying. The American anarchy/ hippie/ peace/ political punk thing started with the DKs and this record. Without bands and movements inspired by Fresh Fruit..., Maximum RocknRoll would be a quarterly pamphlet.

6) Quick Slide To Boredom and Oblivion. In a sense the Dead Kennedys shot their load on their first LP and ran mainly on fumes until their last in 1986. Their follow-up 12" was the eight-song In God We Trust, Inc. "Nazi Punks F--k Off" addressed, for the first time, violent blockheads within American punk who worked to physically destroy both the scene and any respectability it might achieve in the larger culture. "Religious Vomit" and "Moral Majority" have the requisite shock value, but musically the DKs became fast, generic and convoluted. Long gone is the originality of the first album, which still might have worked if the lyrics were simple and clear. Long gone too are clever lyrics, now replaced with political slogans and the esoteric crimes of capitalism (sample lyric: "It's the Kepone poisoning-Minamata"). Here's the lyrics to "Dog Bite" - "Dog bite/On my leg/Not right/Supposed to beg/Daily to the filling station/Underwater navigation/ Oh/Oh/Oh.." Huh?!? All you need to know about most DKs songs can be found in titles - "MTV Get Off The Air", "Stars and Stripes of Corruption", "Winnebago Warrior". Face it, "Too Drunk To F--k" was popular because of the song title. If you think it’s the best thing the DKs ever recorded, you're a dumb jock and should leave the room immediately.

Plastic Surgery Disasters is dull. Frankenchrist is more of the same and led to their costly obscenity trial regarding the H.R. Giger poster packed with each album. They eventually won that battle (I believe this opened the door for parental warning labeling), but what did they really win? The right to put pornographic art into music albums? I'm a man, and I have more than nothing against porn, but really, show some class. This was a battle they should have seen coming. The poster is called "Penis Landscape" for good reason. If you see censorship as a holy war between total repression and total freedom, only a zealot would side with repression, but there was no need to put this poster in the album except to start the trouble they got in spades. If someone showed this poster to my three year old niece I'd not only destroy the poster, I’d beat the living crap out of him. You see, freedom of expression is one thing. The right to "enlighten" my niece is another. With freedom comes responsibility, and when you stick your head in a lion’s mouth you might expect to have it ripped off.

Anyway, Bedtime For Democracy was the last Dead Kennedy's LP and it was a decent album in that they tried writing actual songs again. "Chickens--t Conformist" is a sequel to "Nazi Punks.." and nicely sums up the apathy and trendiness of the punk scene. This is Jello's admission that punk is a form of music and not a popular revolution. For the sake of closure Alternative Tentacles released Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death, a seventeen song collection of 7"s, lost tracks, and live material. "Pull My Strings" is a great live mockery of the Knack's "My Sharona" played in front of record industry executives. This one act of guerrilla theater probably accomplished more in 5:53 minutes than anything else they ever did. The enclosed lyric book is a history lesson on how early punk bands utilized collages of news photos, ads and media scraps as so-called terrorist attacks on culture and politics.

In the mid ‘80s a semi-official bootleg LP came out of a live 1982 show in Germany. The quality is great and the song selection comes mostly from the first two records. I've seen three videos of DK shows and I'm always struck by how, more than any other punk band live, most DKs songs sound alike. And how Jello babbles endlessly about who knows what while most of the crowd ignores him until the next song starts.

Jello Biafra was beaten up pretty badly a short while back by a Gilman Street numbnut who thought Jello was a rich rock star. Jello’s functionally insane but otherwise generally harmless. His injuries may be permanent, and I hope he's recovered as best he can. Punk has always been used as an excuse for idiot violence, and assaholics manage time and time again to ruin punk scenes wherever they may be.

D Generation - self-titled (LP review) (self-released?): I find guitar-wanking glam rock n' roll that calls itself punk to be ten times more annoying than hair metal. Heavy Metal has nothing to do with what I listen to, and it exists on the level of a bad joke with no punchline. I've heard of this band in passing for years, and if I had a dime for every time I've been told Jesse Malin sang with Heart Attack, I'd have 60 cents to burn. Maybe they were all in punk bands and all their friends are punk. To call this punk would be stretching the definition way past my liking, but nobody cares what I think. I realize many of you have a KISS fetish and at gunpoint will admit to owning Van Halen albums. D Generation is so close to what most punks claim they laugh at that I'll use it as a poser test. Right up there with The Knack, Save Ferris and Joykiller.

At every turn there's integrated guitar wanking, as opposed to metal's penchant for earth-shattering solos that cry for a spotlight and enough time for all other band members to take a dump and read the funnies. I also haven't read lyrics so inane since Loverboy. "Stay out of sight/ I don't wanna fight/ Threw out the years/ Shut out the light/ Pawned all my dreams/ Heroes and schemes/ Sweet as it seems/ I'm gonna sit in this Hollywood hotel/ I watch TV and I'm still alive and well/ I don't care". It takes skill to write lyrics that say something and absolutely nothing at the same time.

D Generation covers Reagan Youth's "Degenerated" because they probably took their name from what may be the best NYC hardcore song. It's hard to ruin a classic but the wanking is once again annoying. I prefer the version from the movie Airheads. Ouch! If you like Hollywood glam rock you might think this is a great album. It may be. All I know is that I'm not nearly as impressed by their greatness as they are. Is this punk? If it is, then so is the sound of one hand clapping. Their last release was the labels' worst seller of all time. Ouch again!

The Descendents – Cool To Be You (CD review): 2004’s Cool To Be You came out 8-ish years after Everything Sucks, which arrived 9-esque years after the one before it. Fronted by Milo Auckerman, The Descendents defined nerdy punk desperation from ‘81-‘86, setting the stage for modern pop-punk long before Green Day. Everything Sucks was a nice all around surprise as music and nostalgia. Cool To Be You is product. It’s nice to hear the classic sound, but as it’s not a strong record, and it makes them a bit like the house guest who didn’t know when to leave.

Milo is in his 40s, and has he graduated from college yet, for Christ’s sake? In “Mass Nerder” he channels Timbuk 3’s 1986 embarrassment “The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades” with the lyrics “Gonna kick their asses in class/Gonna get good grades!" Cool To Be You starts off strong on the first two tracks but veers into maudlin middle age introspection and failed gimmicks old and new. “Blast Off” is a poopie joke with the punchline “Blast off at Cape Canaveral/All systems go!/Blast off at Cape Canaveral/4, 3, 2, 1, Blast off!” Another good coffee anthem would have fit the bill.

Then there’s “'Merican”, the Descendents’ stab at political commentary. It’s a Bad Religion song that sounds nothing like the Descendents but a whole lot like Bad Religion. Here’s the lyrics. Yeah, everything sucks so ape a far left political pedophile band. My take on Bad Religion is that a hardcore heroin addict should not tell anyone how they should lead their lives beyond cautionary tales of junk shooting. Milo’s life seems to be one dismal personal failure after another, so his world geopolitical views might also suck today.

I love the Descendents when they're the Descendents, but it's a limited menu. It's also nice to not wanna grow up, but the old days are loooooooooooong gone.

Descendents - Everything Sucks (CD review) (Epitaph): I meant to pick up the latest Descendents record, and damn it’s been five years already. At the time reviews obsessed over why Milo decided to sing again. Who cares? If some guys from All blackmailed Milo into coming back, and they're using the Descendents name to wring some extra bucks out of nostalgic wallets, whose business is that? How dare anyone tell a band they can't make money. Your typical fan lives off parental welfare and has no talent to exploit in the first place. Milo left in 1987 to pursue a professional career and the rest formed All. Reforming The Descendents isn't hypocrisy. Milo's singing and All + Milo = Descendents. There's nothing else to see here, move along now.

The only question in a case like this is if the songs any good. The answer here is yes, oh god yes. It recalls and updates everything that made The Descendents special. It's not a Descendents album without a homage to coffee consumption, and as I listen to "Coffee Mug" I look over to my shelf with the antique Descendents "Official Bonus Cup". Now I'm smiling smugly in your general direction. "Caught" has a slight Bad Religion feel to it. "I'm The One", "Rotting Out" and "I Won't Let Me" are stand-out tracks, filled with melody and heartfelt feeling.

There's no weak track to be had, an accomplishment indeed. Milo grew up, whether he wanted to or not, and Everything Sucks is exactly the record he and the band should have and did record.

The Dickies - Still Got Live, Even If You Don't Want It (CD review) (ROIR): I've never called a band "seminal", probably because my dictionary's only definition is as follows, "adj. Of, relating to, or containing semen." In the case of the Dickies I'll make an exception. Lead singer Leonard Graves Phillips and his faithful penis Stewart would have you believe The Dickies are a one-note band, that note being in the key of jizz. The real meat of The Dickies is the junk culture of TV cartoons and giddy cover versions of songs from Simon & Garfunkel to Black Sabbath. Punk's first cover band, The Dickies took the three-chord attack of the Ramones and turned it into a Vaudeville review, complete with prosthetics, costumes and props. They also wrote a fair share of originals, my favorites being "Manny, Moe & Jack", a tribute to an auto parts stores, "Fan Mail" and "Attack Of The Mole Men". You could say they were a one-joke band, but The Dickies built on it long and well enough to accumulate a greatest hits album worthy of any punk time capsule. As a live act they never fail to entertain. Who could resist Leonard attaching a three-foot prosthetic penis to his arm and yelling, in response to the lyric "If Stewart could talk, what would he say?", "AAAAhhhhh, I only have one eye!!!!!!"

ROIR, the twenty year old label that until recently only released cassettes, is now pressing its top sellers on CD for a new generation that sees cassettes as the next 8-Track tape. This is as good a time as any since old-is-new-again is still the latest fad. This collection of Dickies rarities, both live and in demo form, first appeared in 1986 as We Aren't The World. It's archival in that the sound quality is what you'd expect from cassettes, a medium that earned its reputation for muddy sound quality. In the ‘80s, and it may still be true now, you could take any pre-recorded cassette, re-record over it, and the sound quality would be twice as good. Label founder Neil Cooper signed sperminal bands of the day for material that generally lacked the sound quality expected from vinyl. ROIR's catalog includes the first Bad Brains release, MC5 rarities, no wave bands, The Dictators, Christian Death, G.G. Allin, and the Skatalites. ROIR is a great indie label with a great story to tell. Visit their web site at www.roir-usa.com

The liner notes for Still Got Live... were written in a funny mock-antagonistic style by Lisa Fancher. She writes, "I have it on good authority that The Dickies were a Jazz-Blues Rock Fusion band known as 'Jerry's Kids' playing a residency at the Baked Potato in Encino. They only shaved to cash in on punk in '77 after seeing the wad The Damned took home after playing the Starwood. 'The Dickies' got signed six months later and were cranking out silly colored 45's in no time." So The Dickies played something besides punk before punk broke. Who didn't? Joey Ramone was in a glam band before the Ramones. The Stranglers were pub rockers before they hopped the punk bandwagon to fame and fortune. The Dickies were a part of L.A.'s original scene, playing the Masque and other tiny dives. Every modern snotty punk band with a purported sense of humor owes their lunch money to The Dickies. Yeah.

On the CD you get their initial four-song demo from Nov. '77, six tracks from Nov. '78, three from '80, eight live ones from '82, three '85 tracks recorded at CBGB's, and a lone '82 live recording of the "Banana Splits" theme. This is a great collection for Dickies fans. If you've never heard The Dickies, first pick up Great Dictations, then run around from there. The definitive live set is Locked 'n' Loaded on Taang! Still Got Live, Even If You Don't Want It, closes the books on the greatest band to ever sing a love song about Los Angeles TV reporter Tricia Toyota.

The Dickies - All This And Puppet Stew (CD review) (Fat): What a great record this is, their first collection of originals since 1995's Idjit Savant. In the meantime it seems Leonard Graves Phillips, Stan Lee and Co. have been taking notes from the power pop punk community, because this new one is focused like a laser on creating and maintaining energy, and it's everything you know, love and expect from The Dickies of legend. Missing are the campy side trips into non-punk covers (The theme from Hair played slow and cute? No thank you).

Formed in 1977, The Dickies are the California funhouse mirror image of The Ramones. While always a great originals band, they made their mark with a series of picture sleeve single cover songs, the Moody Blues to Black Sabbath all given a run through the Banana Splits ringer-o-fun. The quintessential punk novelty act, they were always reliable for great live shows and a catalog of winners to choose from. The ‘80s and ‘90s were average years for the Dicksters, with albums containing a few good songs surrounded by album tracks.

2001 found The Dickies on Fat Wreck Chords, fantastic because they heavily market their bands to the kids with allowance money and nothing better to do with it. "See My Way" opens with and relapses into a mono guitar bit sung in a voice like John Lennon. In between it blasts into something akin to hard-edged emo channeling the ghost of 1978 Dickies. What an amazing tune- melodic yet also pummeling. On "Keep Watchin' The Sky" it hits me the guitars are playing into each other like Leatherface, or a band like Four Letter Words produced by Frankie Stubbs. There's a renewed energy and purpose at work here with the Dickies, and it's great for them, you and me. No matter what, The Dickies' signatures stand tall, from Leonard's patented voice to the high backup singing and funhouse tinges. "Free Willy" was released as a single earlier in the year. "Donut Man" has a Sloppy Seconds feel, but the melody and harmonies are heavenly. "Mary Ann" just rules. It's one of their best ever. "My Pop The Cop" was on a Fat compilation. A Dickies fan stuck in the ‘70s might consider this the best song on the album, but while it fits in nicely with their old catalog, it's not the best on All This And Puppet Stew.

All This And Puppet Stew is a great step forward without compromising anything The Dickies are known and loved for. I really, really like this one, and on a number of levels it’s an amazing accomplishment. This is a much better record than anyone could have expected.

The Dictators – Go Girl Crazy (LP review) (Epic): The mighty Dictators were in the right place at the wrong time – New York City after the MC5 and The Stooges, but a little bit before the CBGBs scene that defined the mid-to-late 70’s NY punk scene. They were around during the CBs scene but an incident where Wayne/Jayne Country smashed Handsome Dick Manitoba over the head with a mike stand didn’t do anything for their reputation with the established Bowery aristocracy. Formed in 1974 by Richard Meltzer, Andy (Adny) Shernoff (who wrote most of their material) and uncoordinated roadie-turned singer Handsome Dick Manitoba, the Dictators had idiot fun with garage and psychedelic hard rock. Their love of junk culture inspired Legs McNeil to start one of the earliest punk zines (oddly enough called Punk), directly inspired the Ramones, and was the Angry Samoans reason for being. They never made it big because it wasn’t their time. Within the last few years the Dictators reformed for new studio work and a tour.

Between ‘75 and ’78, when they broke up, The Dictators released three studio albums, Go Girl Crazy acknowledged as their best. Although Shernoff claims The Who was their major influence, it’s easy to pick out MC5 and Kinks influences. Humor and intelligence is there in spades if you’re in on the joke. They cover both "California Sun" and Sonny and Cher’s "I Got You Babe". "Teengenerate" was adopted as a band name by, uh, Teengenerate. Go Girl Crazy is better than anything the MC5 recorded, I’ll tell you that much, and you have to love any band that sings "I think Lou Reed is a creep", which he was.

Keep in mind, this is proto-punk. It’s the fun and funny garage hard rock that came before punk. What do you get when you combine Richard Nixon with a potato? A Dick-tater!!! Hey, is this internet on?

Dillinger Four - This S--t Is Genius: A Collection Of Assorted Songs From 1994-1997 (CD review) (THD Records): While waiting outside a local record store's annual 50% off sale, I met someone wearing a Dillinger Four t-shirt. His eyes rolled in his head like a slot machine as he gushed about the greatness of D4. He told me of the sub-genre Screamo, a word that to this day still tickles my tummy. D4 aren't screamo (giggle), but they are an interesting mixture of things I like and don't like.

D4 formed in 1984 and released the excellent Higher Aspirations: Tempered and Dismantled EP. Until ‘98 they appeared on various compilations before hooking up with Hopeless Records, a professional label if there ever was one and the best choice all around for D4's chances of success and happiness. This S--t Is Genius is a compilation of their non-album work. The songs are varied, intricate, well played, mature and insightful (when not deliberately childish). Dillinger Four remind me a lot of The Bollweevils, even if just by approach. Their debut contains songs with titles like "Supermodels Don't Drink Colt .45" and "Mosh For Jesus". Did D4 grow younger and more stupid over time? I don't own that record.

Within any given D4 song I find things I like and don't like. I'm not a fan of the NOFX chugga-chugga guitar style, and it’s here on and off. That's the modern sound you hear in many bands, and the world's passed me by in that regard. Besides that, I hear a healthy amount of inspired emo phase-shifting. If these songs are in chronological order, it shows their early work as mature, moving towards immaturity. It's not every day I come across a band that combines elements of The Parasites, The Dropkick Murphys, screamo (woopie snort!) and 4,000 similar sounding kiddie punk bands. There's a cute acoustic guitar recording at the end of track 10 of a band member singing to a small child, who chatters away and then seemingly sings in perfect non-sequitur harmony "let's go outside, let's go outside". I ran straight for my old lo-fi Meatjoy album, filled with such treasures.

If not for the chugga chugga guitar work, which hits me as negatively as a disco whistle, I'd have to say Dillinger Four would be one of my favorite bands. I do heartily recommend it as a next step up the evolutionary ladder for every mall-hanging numbnut with a Fat Wreck Chords sticker on their skateboard and blue crap burned into their hair. It’s definitely better than what most kids are freaking out over these days. Here's a blurb from the band's bio. There's a fine line between stupid and genius:

"We formed in 1994 as the Ted Kennedys, the only reason we changed the name is because we eat s--t. Chris Farley was a genius, and we miss him more than we miss Elvis Presley because Fat Elvis didn't make us laugh. At least not on purpose. Dellinger Four usually goes on tour a couple of times a year so we can lose tons of money in the name of D.I.Y. ethics while earning "street cred" we can eventually cash in on with the inevitable major label release, done in the name of artistic freedom, and the accompanying video aired on 120 MINUTES while we casually chat with Matt Pinfield about who played the skinflute on Journey's second album or some s--t".

The Dils - Class War (CD review) (Bacchus): The legendary Dils only recorded eight studio tracks from '77-'80, but they tore up the California scene and earned a great reputation as a live band. Three singles and a few live tapes remain. Class War contains the first single from 1977, "I Hate The Rich"/"You're Not Blank", and ten live tracks from 1980. The live songs sound like crapola, but they do diagram how the Dils evolved from neo-socialist thrashers to Everly Brothers/Carl Perkins fetishists. Brothers Chip and Tony Kinman employed a series of drummers, most notably ex-Nun Alejandro Escovedo. Their last stickman went by the name of Zippy Pinhead.

Lost Records compiled all the studio tracks on one disc in 1990. I wish I had that one. The live "Mr. Big" here doesn't cut it. "I Hate The Rich" was a rare political track from the famously uninvolved early LA scene. The Dils are called a socialist band, but who can say. The Kinmans could have been taking stands to make a punky musical point. Maybe the words sounded cool. They ditched the propaganda like a leaky diaper to become country and western new wavers Rank and File.

The New York Rocker magazine noted upon their demise in 1980 that "The Dils were the best rock n' roll band ever to emerge from the West Coast new wave, and probably one of the best rock n' roll bands America produced in the 1970s. In their flat, twangy vocals, I heard echoes of Hank Williams, Carl Perkins, and George Jones; in their slashing, slightly ragged instrumental sound, traces of every great American garage band since Elvis, Scotty and Bill."

"I Hate The Rich" came out in ‘77, at the very beginning of a SoCal scene celebrated for their dedication and derided for their sloppiness. The Dils were tight, fast and furious in a fashion that made them more mature and respected than their peers. I'd give the recently released Class War a pass in favor of seeking out the studio compilation. Great band though.

Dimestore Haloes - Hate My Generation (7" review) (Junk): From Cambridge, MA, the Haloes play bass driven old UK Subs & CBGBs brand punk. The guitars alternate between fuzz and short, interesting note progressions. The guitars are definitely down in the mix, though. The seemingly uncredited drummer ("Still seek a permanent drummer!") and bass player pull most of the load. They look '77 but sound too rockin' for Boot Boys. "Hate My Generation" is fast, sloppy and makes me want to run and dance at the same time. "Slow Suicide" is a fast, heartfelt crooner for all you sentimental rooster heads. The cover art doesn't match the music. It says Crass while the music fun. A special note to Lou Carus of Junk Records: why did this EP make me reach for my old Jetsons 7" ?

Ding - it is "97% genuine," your feeling of being watched (LP review) (Chumpire): At first I thought this record was recorded at normal speed and then sped up artificially to make it seem like my turntable was off-kilter. Then I thought it was a shame some really nice melodies were intentionally being lost in random exercises in abrasive noise. Now it's grown on me and I can see a lot of inspired weirdness in what Ding was doing. At various times they evoke Beefeater, The Hated, The Minutemen and other bands who possessed a deep understanding of music structure, which they then stretched and mutilated with caustically pleasing results. The thirteen songs fly by, especially at 45 rpms, and this could have been either a 10" (a cumbersome oddity) or a densely populated 7". It’s creative stuff and not for the weak of ear. Some of the songs qualify as thrash emo, a genre I like as long as it doesn't devolve into metal. I wish the singer sang a little more instead of just screaming. I also want the people in the next apartment to stop being so loud when they do their naked pushups. I know what they look like and this soundtrack makes for disturbing mental images. A pog fell out of this record when I opened it. I done killed it good.

The Dips--ts - Holiday Drunk Fest (7" review) (Junk): I think it's now safe to say there's an entire sub-genre you can call Degenerate Drunk Punk, Drunk Punk, or CBGBs Junkie Revival. And Junk's signed most of 'em! The antecedents are The NY Dolls, The Heartbreakers, The Dictators, The Dead Boys and Iggy & The Stooges. The Dips--ts 7" was a one-off weekend project involving members of Cincinnati's The Slobs and Larry May of The Candy Snatchers. Recorded in a basement (the quality is quite good), these songs were recorded under the influence of al-kee-haul. The two originals were written and recorded in two hours. "Wimp" is a Zeros cover and "Kill Yourself" from The Lewd, a legendary band only seven people have ever actually listened to. Engineered by "Pissen Drunk" and produced by "I.M. Neebriated” That said and done, this is muy bien and you get four songs for your bucks. I hate 7"s with just two songs. It's not worth the effort of getting up every three minutes. I'm not running a teenage dance party here!

The Disasters - self-titled CD (review) (SMC Recordings): This collection is great and a nice change of pace from all the self-important records that come out under the banner of retro-NYC bar punk. There's an almost unrehearsed quality I later found out is due to it being recorded live in the studio on the first take. This should have been noted on the CD somewhere - it puts the CD's raw quality into context and it just takes guts to commit to doing it once and going with it no matter what. Another thing I like about these fourteen songs is that they're tough and fun. None of this "punker than your mother" crap. All the band members add background vocals and the effect is like being at a drunken party where the guests join in and laugh their asses off. Very cool.

The Disasters list amongst their influences The Vibrators, 999, The Buzzcocks, Stiff Little Fingers, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Godfathers and The Pogues. The more I listen to this the more I can see the influences are correct. I also detected a chunky Who riff ("Are There Any Real Punks Left?"), early Wipers (in "Rock And Roll Life"), The Speedies and a slight British inflection that's somehow not pretentious. The best quality of the CD though is still that they have fun with the material without being pompous and silly.

Not a major motion picture by any means but a great addition to the collection of anyone who knows their punk rock history.

Discount - All Too Often (7" review) (Mighty Idy): It’s another in a series of rocking pop punk bands fronted by a strong female singer that I've encountered recently. The world needs more bands like this to add class to what's for the most part a boy's club of pissed off rich kids. Out of Vero Beach, Florida, this four-song 7" contains good yet standard material fronted by strong singing that I fear might suffer from over-repetition of vocal phrasing. What the hell does that mean? It means she has a distinctive voice that repeats itself too often. It's a higher standard I set for better singers. Yeah?, well same to you buddy!

The Ditch Bank Okies - Honk If You're Elvis (CD review) (Road Apple): What I don't know about this band could fill an entire book (if not two), but just by the band name, CD title, and songs like "Daisy Duke", "Cowboy Dan", and "Idaho", I'd guess they're from California and and play funny punk. Hey, I was right! Think of The Supersuckers if they were on Fat Wreck Chords and that's what The Ditch Bank Okies sound like. I'm sure they're great live and a nice change of pace from your average lame-o HC- forever bands that infest every four-band slam-fest. Not bad, but for the real deal pick up Nine Pound Hammer's incredible Hayseed Timebomb.

Doggy Style - Work As One (7" review) (Mystic): Yo yo, Brad Daddy X from the Kottonmouth Kings wuz in tha' house with his Humble Gods homie cheese Lou Gaez in an OC punk band called Doggy Style. That was back in 1985, when (c)rap-metal never existed and there was still hope for the future.

Doggy Style were silly and fun, at least on this six-song EP and their Flipside album Side By Side. Their later records aren't that interesting. Mystic Records put out a lot of great product from Southern California, a weird situation because Doug Moody was infamous for ripping off bands and running a sloppy operation. Doggy Style only did this one 7" with Mystic because they hated the sound quality and were pissed that half the records were packaged without a lyrics sheet. Mine doesn't have one - that bastard Moody!

Doggy Style was mostly a party band for the guys in the band and their friends at live shows. They dressed in costumes and a few times ended their shows nude. "Donut Shop Rock" involved the "donut hop" dance and a food fight with hundreds of stale Winchel's donuts. The donut hop was secondary to the mandatory conga-line "Do The Doggy Style" dry-hump marathon. They did write some serious OC hardcore like "Be Strong" and "Support & Belief", but the local numbnuts held it against Doggy Style that boys just want to have fun ("Nymphomaniac"). The style is similar to D.I. and The Adolescents, with only "Emotions" giving a hint towards the funkier sound they would later adopt.

Work As One is a good record and a nice nugget from the mid ‘80s California scene. It’s worth it along just for "Donut Shop Rock". If you look at the band member pictures on the back you can pretty much see where Crucial Youth derived their own humorous look.

The Donnas (CD review) (Lookout!): These gals are a record store geeks' #1 wet dream. Four geeky jailbait juvenile delinquent chicks in a garage band who pay homage to both The Runaways and The Ramones. I'm sure the fact that they sing like twelve year olds only adds that much force to their self-serve beef jerky daydreams. On the heels of the success of their last CD, American Teenage Rock N Roll Machine, comes this repackaging of their earlier recordings on the Super Teem label. These 23 tunes (clocking in at 41:15) are loyal to the Ramones aesthetic of three chords and a demented approach to dance pop. The tough-chick lyrics may remind you of The Runaways, but their explicitness points to an affectation of cheapie JD flicks from the ‘50s and ‘60s. Most of the song titles are tributes to the Brudders from Queens. "Do You Wanna", "Let's Go", and especially "I Don't Want To" are copyrighted. They substitute Taco Bell for Burger King, have a thing for Cheeba cigarettes, and do their own chant of "Gimme Gimme".

The music itself is raw but not as sloppy as it first seems. There's some of the old Ramones magic here of hiding originality within simple song structures. The Donnas were a young teenage rock band whose Svengali-like manager imposed on them the formula of their subsequent success. They've done a great job assimilating the Ramones' sound while keeping to their garage band roots. The Donnas is a nice change from the endless stream of professional pPunk bands who mine the same territory. It reminds me a lot of The Queers' A Day Late And A Dollar Short CD in that it shows that bands can move from the garage to the big time by evolving while not selling out. Gimme Gimme.

The Donnas - American Teenage Rock 'N' Roll Machine (CD review) (Lookout): Yeesh do these four young women have The Runaways look down to a science. They formed while in high school and if they've graduated by now they sure don't look it on the cover. If they're legal I must be 105 years old. The sound is Ramones meets The Runaways, a change from a cleaner Ramones sound of the past. The Ramones are still a big influence, but a 70's bad-girl pop rock feel makes this an obvious favorite for record store geeks and retro trendies alike. Donna A. can't sing but her D.I.Y. yells fit their image well. This took some getting used to but I think it's funny as hell and catchy too. I'm not into 70's dirtball rock so to me the lyrics are just dumb, but I do like the Ramones riffs and the occasional nod to Redd Kross. And in case "Checkin' It Out" sounds familiar, they're borrowing big-time from Elton John's "Saturday Night's All Right For Fighting".

The Dragons - Fade (7" review) (Outer Universe Research): This band comes highly recommended and whispers on the street say The Dragons are going to be the next big thing. This 7" is interesting, very good, and a breath of fresh air for punk, a genre that gets more stagnant with each sound-alike band. The Dragons sound a little like the Rolling Stones, a little like a mid ‘70s supergroup, a little southern rock, and a little Replacements. They're more like a rock group that plays punk power chords. The A-side, "Fade", starts with the great line "I'd rather trip than slow down" and the power-chord guitar work can only be described as melancholy. It’s beautiful. The B side is a Stone's song, "Star Star", which combines R&B with a slightly southern rock guitar feel that improves on the original. There's something very mid 70's about The Dragons, yet they have a quality that will appeal to the punk/hardcore crowd. To do this you must be great. I think The Dragons are the band to watch in 1997. I've only heard these two songs, but something says they have the formula down pat. Hey, where can I find their CD?

The Dragons - Cheers To Me (CD review) (Junk): The Dragons are a complex band, drawing from influences that include The Rolling Stones, The Heartbreakers,  The NY Dolls and Hanoi Rocks. San Diego's best local band, The Dragons' sound doesn't go for easy identification but works well on a few levels. Like Steve writes in the liner notes, "and a big middle finger to everyone who tried to put us down 'cause they just didn't get it." It's easy to cater to The Kids or exist only to be the loudest or fastest. The Dragons have a sound they work on with a passion, and a lot of drinking, and if you get it they're among the best working today. If you don't get it it's just not your thing. My only complaint is a tendency to throw in stadium-sized rock riffs when a power chord or two will do. I bring this up because The Dragons greatest strengths are Mario Escovedo's emotive singing and Ken Horne's equally expressive guitar-chord work. I'm not a fan of lead guitar heroics of any type, so take my slant with a grain of salt. Mario can sing ballads at punk speed. A gift from gosh.

The cover pic is a great shot of an old corner bar boozer. His thanks in the liner notes read: "To Perry Trout, whose drinking and dedication made this cover possible by showing up at the Ken Club for his morning cocktail". Word has it Mr. Trout was compensated with enough drinks to transport him into booze heaven until noon. Mario Escovedo's brother Pete played with Santana, Alejandro was in the Nuns, True Believers and Rank and File, while Javier was in the Zeros, Sacred Hearts and True Believers. They’re a punk Jackson family.

The Dragons - R.L.F. (CD review) (Junk): San Diego's finest finally hit the big time. R.L.F., code for "Rock Like F--k", is going to wind up on a lot of "Best Of" lists. With R.L.F. The Dragons have pushed aside slogan based lyrics in favor of a sonic attack that captures the emotion and power of past classics "Fade" and "Saturday Nights Ups 'N' Downs". Like the Lazy Cowgirls and Leatherface, The Dragons have refined their songs to the point where waves of power, emotion, anticipation, build-up and release continually blast out of the speakers. These songs don't just roar, they soar.

The title is a nod to Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreaker's first LP, L.A.M.F. If you want to know what that stands for, ask a grown-up. Like most bands on Junk Records, The Dragons evoke the 70's NYC sounds of the Dolls and Heartbreakers. Past Dragons releases also mixed in doses of Hanoi Rocks, a band too close to KISS in my book. The last tune on R.L.F., "Gimme Some Luv", is pure Hanoi Rocks and is out of place with the rest of the CD. The second to last song, "Killing Time", is guitarist/vocalist Mario Escovedo's tribute to his older brother's stint in country rock outfits like Rank and File. It doesn't demand you to get drunk and tear up the bar like songs 1-8, but it's still a damn great song. The Escovedo family also includes Carlos Santana and Sheila E. of Prince fame. Mario's in nobody's shadow, not any more.

R.L.F. will appeal to punks, drunks, R&B roots rockers, emo twigs and even all-ages kids with half an ounce of maturity "Roll The Dice" and "My Confession" are great. I didn't even expect to like this at first. That they moved the lyrics to the back and upped the instrumental wattage is the advice I've always wanted to give them. When they get all the attention, lyrics too often dilute the power of the song. R.L.F. is about the music, and when The Dragons focus on that they live up to their full potential. This is an amazing record. Don't buy it at your own risk.

The Dragons - Live At The Casbah (CD review) (Junk): San Diego's best unkept secret, The Dragons, put out a live CD because of their well-earned reputation as a killer live draw. I saw them one night at The Casbah (or, as I prefer, The Cash Bar) when they performed all Ramones covers. That was a lot of fun. I regretfully missed their night of all Rolling Stones. The Dragons take the Heartbreakers/Stones/Dolls/Stooges to the next level by injecting a Lazy Cowgirls-level of energy that never flags and constantly revs itself to new heights.

All my favorites are here from their more than excellent CD RLF, along with the single "Fade", whose greatness defies language. They cover the Ramones "Sniff Some Glue" and Redd Kross' "Puss N Boots". The hidden tracks take a while and they're the Stones' "Star Star" and that song whose name might as well be "Happy" (if it isn't already). There's only two tracks of the "hot rockin' tonight!" variety, which I could do without never having gone through a KISS stage. The rest is some of the most powerful punk you can buy without a prescription.

I don't think there's a better informed band than The Dragons. They’re the best band on Junk and one to seek out at your local store. Most live records are crap, but this one isn’t.

Ducky Boys - Live: From The Banks Of The River Charles (CD review) (Outsider): This is a strong release from a band you might think at first glance are trying to stomp in the same boots as the Dropkick Murphys. What you have are chugging Chuck Berry power chords and gruff vocals over well written songs guaranteed to make you move your feet. If The Ducky Boys are supposed to be street punks they don't show much of it here - they cover Dion's "The Wanderer" for Christ's sake.

This was recorded live in the studio at MIT's radio station, and the quality is amazing. They could have spent a million dollars and not done any better than this. Most live shows (be honest) stink so it's a real pleasure to hear a band that can play live with enthusiasm and authority without losing an ounce of sonic precision.

"Nothing At All" owes a tip of the warm beer to Rancid, but all-in-all there's enough to satisfy both Warped Tour lunakids and smelly drunks who don't bother polishing their Docs. On their web site the band says of their sound, "We grew up on AC/DC and Guns N' Roses and things seem to be coming full circle with us doing the rock n' roll thing twelve2 years later. Mix those styles with bands like Rancid, Social Distortion, Anti-Heros and the Swingin Utters and you get the Ducky Boys". I don't hear any cock rock in this recording except for the power chords that intro the uncredited Blitz cover at the end. I'd say they're more a straight cross between Rancid and the Utters.

Good stuff from Long Beach's great Outsider label, who seem to have all their Ducky Boys in a row on this one.

Eater - All Of Eater (CD review) (Cargo): In the late '80s there was an American punk band called Old Skull. Band members were about nine years old and railed against issues facing pre-teens. The novelty was to go one better than 1976-78 UK legends Eater, whose second drummer was thirteen and unable to play a number of pub gigs. The first drummer had to quit because the band got in the way of school. Not that the rest of Eater was much better off, since the oldest member was 17. Reports of their ages always varied because of troubles they had performing in bars.

In 1993, singer Andy Blade summed up the genesis of his band and that of hundreds of others then and now: "Like most kids of our age (15), Br