skip to main |
skip to sidebar
"Next year things won't be so bad / I know you're sick of being sad / I'm skipping my own funeral."
Dear Virgins, thank you for a kick ass record! Thank you for restoring my faith in punk rock, which definitely is not the simplest of things to do in 2009. I don't know you as people, but if the ten songs on Miscarriage say anything about you, then I'd like to shake your hands and share a drink. Or seven.
But anyway, this is supposed to be a record review, and not a letter of fandom - even though I pretty much became a fan boy the moment I popped in this CD. The roaring guitars in the first 15 seconds of "Another's Gun" were enough to get me hooked and keep my glued to the stereo, in all their as-if-Frankie-Stubbs-was-playing-Rites-Of-Spring- songs glory. (Note to self: Should I ever finish my magnum opus, the Comprehensive Guide to Punk Rock for Complete Dummies, I will make sure to include a lengthy chapter about what will referred to as the "fuck yeah factor" by future generations.)
So yes, the Virgins rule. Their band name in connection with the album title is probably more punk than your entire lame record collection. And it's so fucking easy to see why: these dudes are angry. Like, super pissed off for a reason. And this, dear message board hero, is because they have a reason for all that rage. This world is a shit hole, and once mom and dad stop putting money in your pocket, this shit will really hit the fan like fucking napalm. There is a giant difference between their anger and your anger. Let me explain.
It's cool if you're 20 and feel alienated. Everybody does. But what the fuck are you angry about? What do you rebel against? The price of soy milk if you're vegan? Your parents? The bombardment of Gaza (pro or con), if you're book smart enough because of your political science college classes? Yeah, right. But this is exactly why your crappy band sucks so much... you have nothing to scream about, apart from being stabbed in the back by another PC punk douchebag maybe. But this is just the cartoon version of being angry, pretty much like Donald Duck squeaking his head off. In other words: it gets boring pretty soon when you're older than three.
The Virgins, on the other hand, boy... they do what every great punk band does: they are mad at the world, they write songs about it, but - and this is the main difference - they do something about it, even if it's just writing songs to make their own miserable lives a little bit better. These songs have substance, they breathe, they are alive with emotion. They are about what the thousands of songs that saved thousands of lives are about: the human experience. And if punk is not about that, it's about nothing at all.
Dear Virgins, thank you!
www.kissofdeathrecords.com
Owww, I gotta be careful here. These dudes might not even sport pubic hair, but they seem kinda mean.
"You little rat stabbed us in the back / You're walking around talking shit / Did you think you'd get away with it? / You can never come back here you scum / So stay the fuck out!"
I double checked the insert more than once, but it really seems as if this record came out in 2009. That's 24 years after Ray Cappo first complained about his lack of sleep or something on the record Can't Close My Eyes. Twenty-fucking-four years! (Looking at the photos of the band members, their parents were probably having intercourse around that time.)
So, well... I guess this is supposed to be hardcore. It just leaves me wondering whether this version of "hardcore" refers to the subgenre of punk, or some kind of pornography. I see very little (if any) punk content here, and considering the graphic nature of the artwork and the record title, well... your guess is good as mine.
"Say it to my fucking face instead of talking shit about me and my friends / Say it to my fucking face instead if you dare."
I'm absolutely amazed by these lyrical gems, especially how beautiful the words "face" and "fuck" go together. Let's have a closer look at the cover: the gorilla on the left side is pounding his chest while getting a tittie man hug by the gentleman behind him. The singer (on the right side) is handing him some archaic phallic symbol (almost shaped like a banana, so even the gorilla can get the point) and teaches him how to open his mouth for fellatio. To make an already wonderful picture even more perfect, the back of the gorilla's t-shirt says Mouthpiece. One can only wonder what this refers to. Maybe it's got something to do with the words "face" and "fuck", I'm not sure.
"Say it to my fucking face if you dare / I'll be waiting for you right here."
Now hold on second... "right here" is not a very exact geographical description, and to be honest, I'm not really into that kind of smut. I like to have a beer or seven every now and then, which is something you don't seem to like, and your music is very fucking awful. No, thanks.
www.njwrecords.com
Hey kid, I know it's hard to believe, but there actually was a time when pop punk meant something entirely different than today. If you have no clue what I am talking about, please leave this blog immediately, because you really need to do your homework. I don't expect you to even move your white middle class ass to a record store (which is a shame it itself!), but please at least check out gems like Chrimpshrine, Pegboy, Screeching Weasel, Sleeper (later known as Serpico), Fifteen, and The Queers on the internet - and this list if far from being complete. They were all punk bands, but they played what they thought were pop songs; not the other way around.
(Now let me get one thing out of the way: I noticed that this blog seems to be full of references to old music. "Old" in a punk rock sense; because a record that was released 15 years ago is "old" in the context of a music genre that's only roughly as old as I am. I don't mean to brag and boast about being "old school", because I know I'm not. In fact, I was probably toilet trained when the first Clash album came out. So there.)
Monikers is a pop punk band in the truest sense of the word. They're punks. Their music is poppy. And this record seems to be a leftover from a time long gone. Maybe this is why it's so much fun to listen to.
Wake Up is the kind of record that could have come out in 1992, which was a good year for music: Jawbreaker released Bivouac, Samiam released Billy, Leatherface released Mush - can it get any better? And hey, I didn't even mention A Blaze In The Northern Sky! All these records were sloppy and catchy at the same time, which is something I really miss in 2008. Most music these days is just too perfect, too polished, and too predictable - which reminds of the fact that I am supposed to be DJing in a good week from now, and they were asking for "indie rock". What the fuck do I know about indie rock?! And why should I care? Maybe I am hopelessly stuck in the past, who knows. But my idea of indie rock is all about the bands I mentioned, and I don't mind dissing radio rock I haven't even heard of yet. But what was I trying to say again? And what was the name of that one SNFU song? Oh yeah, "Grunt, groan, rant and rave". There we go.
To make it short, the Monikers remind me a lot of Jawbreaker in the pre-major label phase. They remind me of the Lemonheads circa Hate Your Friends. And I am very much aware that this will probably only appeal to a very small group of people, but the musical taste of the majority can be filed under "shit" anyway.
(Oh, one dude from Discount plays in Monikers. I am still looking for a vinyl copy of their Crash Diagnostic album... anyone? The world was definitely a better place before Alison Mosshart became "VV".
www.kissofdeathrecords.com
It's only the second day of the new year, my --th birthday is still weeks away, and I feel like a jaded old man. I spent the better part of this morning cleaning up my office space, throwing out a ton of shit, and flipping through stacks of old yellowed fanzines. Oh, the memories. HeartattaCk actually meant something at some point, there were still kick ass compilation albums with unreleased songs and lengthy booklets, kids made mixtapes and not online MP3-blogs, and everything seemed much more honest and simple. All the time, the Serious Geniuses were blasting in the background over and over again, and I couldn't help but think how awesome they are.
Stolen riffs, yes. Talent, yes. New all time favorite record, probably no. But this is the nature of this disc: it doesn't get you all pumped up to go out and skate, it doesn't depress you, and it sure as hell doesn't scream in your face - it's just there. You Can Steal The Riffs is like your best friends: you don't have to call them once a week to know they'll always be there for you. Sure, it's sometimes boring having them around, sometimes they even annoy you, sometime you don't want to see them for months, but you always find yourself coming back to the half forgotten inside jokes and the nostalgia.
If You Can Steal The Riffs had been released 15 years ago on let's say Crank! or Jade Tree, (a) reviewers would have compared it to Jawbreaker, Braid, or even Lifetime (when they were still boring and out of tune), (b) it'd be out of print by now and being sold on Ebay for half a fortune, (c) a song or two would have ended up on the soundtrack for TV shows like My So-Called Life, and (d) you would still shake your fist of the younger kids for not remembering the classics.
But hey, it's 2009 already, and I can only recommend getting your wrinkled hands on this record, playing it to death for a week, and then coming back half a year later. Fuck nostalgia. The good old times are right here and right now.
www.seriousgeniuses.com
www.kissofdeathrecords.com
"Next year things won't be so bad / I know you're sick of being sad / I'm skipping my own funeral."
