I saw this band a few times and they kinda sorta reminded me of Teengenerate in the same way that Bum covering Teengenerate kinda sorta reminded me of Teengenerate, if Bum were a three-piece from Stevens Point, WI and the singer played a hollow-bodied guitar and wore glasses and stuff. I always thought they were pretty cool, but not necessarily “have an album on Gearhead” kinda good, since, in my eternal small-town hick-dom, Gearhead still seems kinda upscale to me. Whatever. In any event, i started listening to this CD at work, and, as expected, i didn’t really have any outright complaints with it, but i often found my mind wandering ((“wandering” in this case meaning “concentrating on my work”)), which i mistakenly thought was a sign that the album was failing to hold my attention ((above and beyond it registering that “Rip it up” exhibited the same general sonic heft of some of the less weighty numbers off of the first Saints album, maybe, and “Thunderbird” was pure Leg Hounds emulation, which i guess i have mixed feelings about)). As fate would have it, however, the course of my job duties required me to check the sound effects levels of the video game we are developing relative to a “custom soundtrack”—that is to say, today’s newfangled video game consoles allow the user to substitute their own music for the existing background music of the game, leaving the THUDs and WHACKs and AAAAAAAHHHHs intact, and i had to make sure that the sound levels of the THUDs and WHACKs and AAAAAAAHHHHs weren’t katywampus when the user substituted their own music for our music. Simply because it was the nearest CD to me, i ripped a few Bob Burns & The Breakups songs to my test kit and spent an entire afternoon serenading the office with “I Hate the City” and “Don’t Follow Me” ((along with miscellaneous THUDs and WHACKs and AAAAAAAHHHHs)), and, as the day wore on, i realized that these songs were a shit-ton better than i had originally given them credit for. “I Hate the City” evokes memories of the Kids at their best, maybe, and pretty much everyone who passed within earshot asked who the band was and remarked that they liked it, and, it should be pointed out, these are not people who would be inherently disposed to liking moderately trashed-out punk rock/roll. In any event, i can say without question that i have thrown more dynamite to this record than any other recording extant. Amen. BEST SONG: “I Hate the City” or “Don’t Follow Me” BEST SONG TITLE: “Rip it up” if you’re Little Richard. FANTASTIC AMAZING TRIVIA FACT: The band press bio states that they’ve “played with everyone from The Riverboat Gamblers to The Leg Hounds.” Who’s left?
–norb (Gearhead)