(-review by Anguish Young)
Yes, yes, I am well aware that Amerikkka’s uptight, think-tank engineered, consensus manufacturing, safe space college culture abhors the use of even deliberately offensive sarcasm-even if it’s the feminist magazine “B Word”, and even the most righteous black radical hip hop artists use of the taboo n word, in the context of self empowerment, and not everybody’s gonna “get”, or like, the name of this crazy Sydney Australia gang of gutter punk mischief makers. Lilly white college people who’ve embraced the Comics Code Authority, and PMRC Temperance League finger waggers, and scolding committees who always show up hoping to make a bust, every time some punks or everyday people wanna express some blue collar rage that ain’t P.C., and properly photo shopped and white washed. That’s why most of us walked away from the hipster hell-holes where everyone is rich and fake and holier than thou with their Mimosas and bullshit poses. We’re all incessantly hassled and reprimanded and sent to the back of the bus if we ain’t had the Sensitivity Studies crunchy granola makeovers, and I kinda get why we are discouraged from ever using the hurtful lingo of our mean-spirited rightwing hate speech oppressors, even if we earnestly believe we are just doing our job, by turning the tables on our rightwing rulers and mocking them, mocking us, but I also get how these radical leftist boot boy provocateurs are wearing the rightwing putdown proudly, and triumphantly, like a badge of honor. They also hate the Dickies and the Three Stooges in the cloistered faux liberal Hillarybot Rachel Redscare college towns. The tone police in the ivory towers have no desire to confront real power, like the evil sons a bitches overthrowing Venezuela and kidnapping indigenous children at the border, so they just wanna wring their hands some more about how they frown upon you liking taboo and forbidden free speech whipping dogs like Richard Pryor, or the Dead Kennedys, or Wasp, or El Duce, or whatever. I avoid the people from the ivory towers. They were never gonna like me, anyway. They are all just like, prudish, modern-day Tipper Gores.
The anniversary of Sid Vicious’s death seems like the perfect day to crank up this defiantly rebellious, punk as fuck, 45 that spins at 33, from the Dark Clouds now legendary Dee Dee Ramone figure, turned furious truth telling front man, Ronnie Wreckless, and company. Man, how I wish Tim Yo from Maximum Rocknroll was still around to dig this shit. Loud, fast rules, forty ounce in a brown bag on the filthy street corner, abrasive rocknroll street dog madness from the endlessly enchanting land of the Powder Monkeys, Hard Ons, Beasts Of Bourbon, and Rose Tattoo! This stuff will take you back to your own golden moments, before society divided up your friends by class and “identity”, when the kids were still united and could never be divided. When BEING was still every bit as important as HAVING. When motherfuckers still REBELLED and READ BOOKS and THOUGHT FOR THEMSELVES! “Privileged White Guy Blues” reminds me of Billy Bragg or some other righteous testifiers from the real punk rock days when we could all sit as equals on milk crates in the wet basement and come to consensus, before all this bull shit about whoever has the money has the credibility and final say in all matters, forever and ever, Amen. Before the capitalist, corporate con-job of “Alternative” duped everyone with goateed grunge moaning, baby dresses, and rich kid ukuleles, and all those loathsome, buzzkillin’ floods of college wankers came in and stole the scene with their parents fucking money and high school sports team competition social hierarchies, and delivered us collectively into two decades of unlistenably twee and detached hipster rich kid mediocrity and manufactured dance muzak that has reigned over our corporate owned airwaves since ’96. “Useless Generation” reminds me of the last wave of underground punk I felt any connection to-the heyday of Libertine, Moral Crux, Dimestore Haloes, and U.S. Bombs. After that final hour, of Hit-List magazine punk rock, I fell between the cracks, went broke, and never again had spare money to buy records. Their proletariat everyman ideology and smartass sense of humor will immediately appeal to fans of the Spent Idols or Humpers. “Don’t Call ‘ Em Hipster” made me smile, right away-my kinda parody, I’m not a big fan of gentrification brunchers, myself. “Subculture” is bratty, juvie gang, punk right out of the eighties Indiana punk scene, where I grew up. Makes me think of combat boots and brainy goth girls galore. “50 Plus Degrees” and “Cock N Balls” remind me of hard years spent living in shitty vans “that smell like balls, dog, and broken dreams”, in the immortal words of my former travelling companion, shivering in cold rehearsal spaces, drinking malt liquor, and drunken all night sing-alongs, before the rich people stripped us of our joy and freedom, and strong-armed us out of the old neighborhood, before the con-job of “Alternative” where you had to be a kissass Counting Crows, furrowed brow and trust funded, rich person from a fancy college, to even participate in music, in any meaningful way. The Leftards are a welcome clarion call from deepest Garage Land, urging all the sincere punks to get back to where you once belonged! Right the fuck on!
Veglam 