Amazingly, my old band wound up playing in Rosswein, East Germany once…and, although we played with a bunch of bands that night, The Shoemakers were not among them (unless i got drunk and forgot something). I mean…what are the odds that you travel halfway around the world, play in some not-exactly-on-the-map burg like Rosswein, and NOT manage to hook up with the local punk kingpins? The mind boggles. In any event, The Shoemakers can be perhaps semi-adequately described as a broke-ass East German street punk version of 999, which perhaps i don’t mean in the nicest way, but i do mean in the, oh, i dunno, second nicest way or something. This record is completely adequate for many applications! BEST SONG: “No Money” BEST SONG TITLE: “F.U.C.K.” FANTASTIC AMAZING TRIVIA FACT: Neither “No Money” nor “I Don’t Care” are the songs of identical nomenclature from the first Boys album; 2. I gave the girlfriend of one of The Shoemakers my cool light-up watch from Wal-Mart™, because she was taking money at the door and adored it greatly.
–norb (Wanda)