The Priests GaragePop Records www.garagepoprecords.com This is what rock'n'roll is all about - noisy, angry guitars, fast + loud short songs, great titles like "The Tingler," The Living Dead" and "Crackin' Up." Great CD cover, too - these guys have a real classic rock and roll look. Can't wait for their next release. -John Holmstrom Surf punk that largely means bizness. It's not hardcore. You can tell they like whiskey, wimmen + strange murders. When you're hanging out w/chicks in fishnet stockings in a graveyard you'll want this on the mausoleum jukebox. -Jolly Prochnik Return to top | next

The Warlocks Bomp Records www.bomp.com Man oh man, what was Bomp thinking sending THIS to me? Druggy hippy dirge music. It's not badly executed considering what it is...And I like Nico and The Velvets who indulged in druggy dirge sometimes, but this lacks that kind of energy and originality. -John Sixties rock: Soggy ragas, faggy vocals, togas, veggies 'n' drugs in Foggy Soggy Fagged-out London town. These guys are not Warlocks in any sense of the term, although they obviously enjoy listening to records. So do I. But not this one. -Jolly Return to top | previous | next

Jana Peri Hot Jupiter Records This reminds me of those commercials for Josie and the Pussycats I've been seeing on TV lately. Jana's professional & polished, she sings well + enunciates her lyrics so you can hear them, the music is crisp and clear...Which is basically what's wrong here...I think maybe Jana should have gotten drunk + fucked up before she went in the studio to record this. That or maybe she should get out of rock 'n' roll and into cabaret or something. (Although I have to admit her lyrics to "Dating Sucks" are very, very funny.) -John She's real sincere, that's all I care about. -Jolly Return to top | previous | next

Hunns Ticket to Heaven Disaster Records www.alive-totalenergy.com/Disaster.html The lead singer sounds a lot like Sid Vicious! Sid always sounded like a Sex Pistols parody to me, which you have to like, but...This guy enters Tenpole Tudor territory sometimes - parody of a parody of a parody. And it's weird - it looks like this band is from California, but the singer tries real hard to sound like he's British...Well, I guess it could be worse...He could sing like Sophie Tucker! Or Jimmy Durante! Actually, that might be more interesting than this... But the band plays good, solid punk rock, so I guess it's all right. The problem here is I think he's trying to be earnest. Real earnest. They try a bit too hard. But after all that work, it's still just your basic punk rock record. I bet they're great live! -John This band is sincere too. They play well. Very cool - for California. -Jolly Return to top | previous | next

Benjamins The Art of Disappointment Drive-Thru Records www.DriveThruRecords.com When I saw the CD cover I almost didn't bother to play this - looked too lame. But I kind of like it. But not enough to tell you to rush out and buy it. They sound a lot like Weezer. But I guess that's popular nowadays. Nerd rock. Power pop. Slick. Good, not great. And a little bit irritating. 'Coz it's so derivative and cute. -John You punched guys like this back in the days. And yet, they got the chicks. Maybe it's because they were very chick-like themselves. Yup. And it was their house. And you weren't invited anyway. Remember? "Hey, who invited you?" "My friends think you should leave." "Ouch, you punched me in the face." Sample lyrics: "I just want someone to be there on my birthday" "You like me more than toast" "I'm goin' home to cry again/You still have those letters I wrote you" "I am an angel/and quite the rockstar." Punchout. Fadeout. -Jolly Return to top | previous | next

John decides to take a break from the promotional CDs and plays an old favorite:

The New York Dolls Live in 1975 - Red Patent Leather Restless Records I was at the Little Hippodrome for these shows-I went to two of them (at one of them I saw Television with Richard Hell), even though I barely had enough money to eat in 1975, because the Dolls were that good. Legs McNeil is always putting me down because I almost called PUNK "Teenage News" - inspired by the song of the same name, which appears on this CD. (Also, Legs always forgets to mention that we didn't use it because Ged didn't like it. Not because Legs didn't like it, since Ged was the guy with the money.) But I still think it's a cool name for a 'zine (it's already been used a few times I bet. Besides, maybe, just maybe, if I had called it "Teenage News" instead of PUNK we wouldn't have gone out of business! It's not like I became a millionaire because PUNK was such a commercial name for a magazine.) Anyhow, back to the CD - Sylvain Sylvain produced it. Nice guy, by the way. The Dolls were always very friendly. (Most of them anyhow.) Arthur Kane was the first "rock star" I ever met. I recognized him in the street and said hello and he offered to put me on the guest list for that night's show at Club 82. We talked for a while and David Johansen stopped by and talked with Arthur for a little while but gave me kind of a weird look. I guess I didn't look like the typical Dolls fan since I never went in for the glitter look. I was a heavy metal kid - blue jeans, long hair, sneakers - and looked more like someone who went to see Deep Purple or Black Oak Arkansas. Well, back to the CD - the Dolls were such a great band. No wonder they inspired both the punk rock thing AND the 1980s poodlehead/hair band thing. They probably inspired more imitators than any band in rock and roll history. And considering what a commercial failure they were, that's quite an accomplishment. Anyhow, I remember when I saw the shows back in 1975 the buzz at the club was that their 3rd LP would be the one that FINALLY put them over the top commercially. They would FINALLY be recognized as a great rock and roll band 'cause they were ditching the drag act + glitter. That was the theory of the fans, like me, who thought they had brought out the best rock and roll records of the 1970s. Problem was that the new and improved "red patent leather" look seemed kind of silly and desperate, and the commie flag in back of them didn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. Well, this is a CD, not a video, so all you can hear is a badly recorded version of what probably would have been a great record. Supposedly six of the songs (I am guessing "Red Patent Leather," "On Fire," "Girls Girls Girls," "Down, Down, Downtown," "Pirate Love" and "Teenage News") were going to be on the new LP, so you can hear what the last Dolls record would have been like. Hearing this tinny, bootleg-quality CD is no indication at all of how amazing this music was. Especially back in 1975, when no one at all was making kickass rock music. But it's one of the great "what ifs" of rock and roll, like the Lost Velvets Record or the Lost Issue of PUNK magazine (#9)... This was a record I really, really wanted to buy, especially after hearing them live, and when they broke up it left a weird void in my life. I lived for rock 'n' roll back then and since there were no other bands around in 1975, it was like THE END for me when the Dolls called it quits. But a weird thing happened to me at the last Dolls show: I got picked up by this really cute girl who took me to the after party. On the way over all she could talk about was this weird club, CBGs or something, and how it had dog shit on the floor, and all these GREAT bands I'd never heard of were playing there and I had to go there to check it out. I never saw her again. The after party was weird, I saw the Dolls there but was too intimidated to say anything to anyone. But I did check out CBGBs a few months later and got to see The Ramones play for twenty people. So it was a night to remember: A Titanic Evening. -John Makes you want to join the Shining Path, the Khmer Rouge and other well-known blues combos for fashion reasons if nothing else. This is the real cultural revolution. Oops not "is" - was! Dammit America, you blew it again by choosing Aerosmith over these geniuses and between that and a few dozen miscalculations I'm defecting, pronto. No, don't try to stop me, for it is far too late. Make mine Mao! Mao lives! Mao, Shemp + Curly! Gimme Mao - a lot mao. -Jolly Return to top | previous | next

Mz. PakMan Oh Shit It's Mz Pac Man! Slutfish Records www.geocities.com/mzpakman/index.html Boy, this is really bad. I mean, REAL bad. But it's so bad it's kind of interesting. It's like they're trying hard to be bad. REAL bad. What's kind of weird is that in their press kit they claim to be trying to sound like 1970s punk rock. But who are they trying to sound like? Wayne County? The Fast? Manster? Beats me! But they sure don't sound like the Sex Pistols! -John Like it or not there aren't that many girl bands that talk about being horny and liking sex. This band though - they are not shy! They have vaginas + they are proud of the fact! "We're number one!" They sing + I'm in no position to argue. They make me want to masturbate. -Jolly Return to top | previous | next

Blowtop Demo, self-produced www.blowtop.com I dunno what the names of the songs are or anything - but this is really well-produced for a demo. It's good. I like it. But the singer sounds so much like somebody I remember from some other band from the 1960s or '70s that it's distracting me from the music - I can't remember who it is! Anyhow, this is good stuff. I'll have to listen to it some more. -John Yo, buy me a drink. I think yer band is fuckin' great. -Jolly Return to top | previous | next

At this point, The General stopped by with beer and a pizza, and decided to give record reviewing a go. Since he stopped listening to music (except for his favorite song "Happy Birthday") in 1980, you must take his comments with a grain of salt.

The Jeff Tucker Extravaganza Avoiding Confrontation TRU-ONE Records www.truonerecords.com Cute little kids on the cover, nice sweet intro, then they kick into your standard heavy/hard rock stuff. This is kind of your generic punk rock - they even publish their kind of ordinary lyrics on the CD booklet. Nothing exceptional here. They follow all the rules in the "How to Be a Punk Rock Band" book. It's not bad, just so inoffensive it's boring. Hey, kids, take it from a Boring Old Fart: It's okay to take a chance once in a while. -John They're okay. They're like Green Day I suppose. They're yet another example of how you can have all the elements and still not be anything much, right? Like, it's fast, it's loud, um, it's sincere and yet it's totally anonymous. They seem like the usual boring teenagers. Since I'm one myself I got no interest in them. -Jolly What a ripoff record. You got a bunch of preteen girls on the cover and none of them are naked! This is something you would light a candle to and then hit the band over the head with a guitar. -The General Return to top | previous | next

Squirrels From Hell The Sound and The Furry Rodent Records www.hellsville.com I was all set to hate this band - stupid name, one joke gimmick - but the title is funny and then I kid of liked the second song ("Summer Boy") which seems to be about roadkill. But then we kept listening...and listening...and it's pretty bad. Lounge rock. Again, I ask myself: Are they trying to be bad? Is it an inside joke? Or are they just bad? Well, I'll put it this way, they live up to their name. -John Jesus Christ. Fanny Brice. What did they have in common? Well, according to Neil Diamond it was the fact that they were "done too soon." By contrast, this record can't be done soon enough. -Jolly More like the Worst Music I Ever Heard From Hell! They don't even have liner notes to use as toilet paper! -The General Return to top | previous | next

Suicide Half Alive ROIR www.roir-usa.com Suicide has to be the most important, most influential, least-appreciated, most forgotten band from the 1970s CBGB scene. They were probably the first punk rock band to play there but were far too radical to be appreciated. This has them at their best - in the studio and live from 1974 to 1979. If you never heard of them I'd chase this thing down. They were always one of my favorite bands, even though you have to be in kind of a weird mood to appreciate them. They were crazier than the Stooges, angrier than the Pistols, more minimal than The Ramones and more advanced than anyone. I've heard they've drifted into techno territory nowadays, which makes sense, since they were probably the first techno band in the world, but no techno I ever heard has the edge that early Suicide has. If it did, I might like it. But it doesn't so it really sucks that things have worked out like this. -John These guys remind you that there's always a way out. Also that anything, any experience has a music to it. Also that boredom is an illusion. Also that Elvis + Nico were the same. Also that any accident is the same as any other accident. Also that there is no God or any illusion. Also that, you know, life and death are the same. I'm not kidding. This is a real good record. -Jolly Lots of great screaming! Whatta record! Maybe the best record I ever heard! This would be a cool record to play full blast and annoy your neighbors with all night. -The General Return to top | previous