Reviews from Blank Generation January 2001
Note: Images added to certain reviews for cosmetic purposes in 2013
I am Shawn Abnoxious. I am part of the Blank Generation. I’m going to get on the level with you all on this one. I’m still basically new around these parts. I’m a flake. NOT a fake, a FLAKE. I’m weird. I’m strange. I admit and forewarn. Here I sit, doing this review when The Blank Generation web site is "on vacation"... I mean what the fuck? Mr. Domino nearly breaks his fucking wrist bowling BUT he can still find time to venture abroad and drink martinis on the French Rivera? "Vacation" Yeah, right...
Anyway, like I said, I’m going to level with you all about this release. It’s a bootleg. Well, not even really a bootleg. It’s a pirated piece of music. A 'Pirate Disc' if you will. A friend of a friend told a friend that a friend had this CD they bought from a LEGITIMATE record store so this friend went to another friends house and burnt me a copy of this on his COMPACT DISC BURNER; and even went the extra mile and scanned the cover to put in a CD case AS IF I was getting a LEGITIMATE compact disc. Fuck yeah! Year 2K1 and I’m having some fun! FUCK THE NEW MILLENIUM. Fuck you Metallica. Fuck your lil' Napster battle. Fuck your band too. "Speed Metal!" Who gives a fuck anyway? "One" was your coolest attempt at making something worthwhile and that’s just because of the video... Target spotted [music industry] FIRE TORPEDOS! BLAM!!!! "Sir, we hit the vessel on the port side and did about $15 dollars worth of damage" "Excellent Ensign, bring the sub around to a heading of 45 degrees and dive! Dive!! DIVE!!!!"
I don’t know much about the Raincoats. I Guess will have to pick up my copy of Jon SavagesEngland’s Dreaming and see what he has to say about this band. Nah, knowledge is for winners and if a loser likes me gets a PIRATED Compact disc like this dropped into their lap, then I WANNA BE A LOSER! The Raincoats. Minimal. Savage. Art-punk. Damage. Slits-ish. Punk scenes ROUND THE GLOBE need more bands like this one. Out-there. Experimental. You like ESG? The Raincoats aren’t proto-disco-art-rock like that but just as worthwhile. They cover "Lola" by the Rolling Stones and kick some ass. I know Rolling Stones didn’t originally do "Lola" but who cares? I mean whose review is this YOURS or mine. If you had any balls you would be going to www.Sputnik.com reading the latest info on the First USSR Satellite in outer space. If you get a copy of this disc and aren’t punching plaster walls when you hear "Black and White" then dammit YOU FUCKING SUCK. What the fuck? Did THE BEAT HAPPENING get a hold of this and PAY ATTENTION? Is that some Eno-ish guitar I hear in there? Didn’t Polyrock rip Enos guitar sound off for their stuff? Yes to both. YES 2 BOTH! Electric Violin! Sounds like someone’s killing a refrigerator. Why cant Michelle Shock’s stuff be this fucking cool? You figure with a cool name like Michelle Shock she would be DARING. Nope. Anchored down in Anchorage? FUCKING WHAT??? I don’t get it. Patti Smith was in the Raincoats. Nope, she wasn’t. I know that last sentence got all you MUSIC BUFFS out there all amped up.
FUCK!!!! AGH! While writing this review the powers that be... indeed, terrorists once again discovered a new weakness and sent a Spider on the attack from within the desk drawer that sits in the desk, that sits on a run, that sits in the kitchen. Don’t ask yourself why? It’s a spider! Vegetables. Spiders. Two (2) on my ever growing list of Arch-nemesis’s! I couldn’t even find a rolled up magazine to smash it with before its retreat. It’s toying with me. Letting me know it’s here and stalking. Letting me know with its MANY legs, and fangs, and evil spider eyes... AGH! There it is again. Chills of fright run through my body. I break out in chills. I find a notebook and kept near the phone on the desk I mentioned before AND SMASHED THE FUCKER. "Your a Million" is playing this very same instant the spiders life ceases. One down, and an unknown amount more to go. The point of this review? Let me sum it up. Raincoats good. music industry good. PIRATING music, BETTER. Killing Spiders? THE BEST! (SAB)
(No Address, Obviously)
Testors (featuring: Sonny Vincent) "Original Punk Recordings New York City 1976-1977" 10"EP
(No Address, Obviously)
This is yet ONE MORE of my missives. Get comfortable. Get that bottle of gin and sit down with me awhile.... There’s this thing called THE BIG MESS. It’s a lifestyle; it’s a mentality. It HUNTS you and CLAIMS you. You don’t claim it. It seems no matter what; the things you do, say and ATTEMPT to pull off go wildly astray. Things get broke. People get mad. You aren’t even trying!!!! Live in the dirt and appreciate the failure of what surrounds you. Losing is winning. Survival of the fittest? Nah. That’s bullshit. Its only when you learn to live with the chaos, when you learn to deal with THE BIG MESS when you finally grasp the MEANING, the definition of Life.... Jimmy Pervert, who has been called Jim the Amish lately because he has taken to sporting a beard (and its manicured too), Jim was told a while back when he first started growing his beard that he looked like Jim Morisson from The Doors. For about a month when he walked into a room people would bust out singing "LA Woman" or "The End". Well anyway, Jim shit in this bathtub the other night at a party. Why? The Big Mess. That’s why....
Kenny "Rock-Action", you know him, he’s a fellow Blank Generationer, just recently, during the Detox Police, blew the crotch of his white jeans out. He did this and didn’t care. Why? He knew it was all part of the big, messy picture. We (meaning him AND me) sang "Eyes of Satan" while Radar Secret Service belted out the music. Kenny said he would always remember it.... Kent, Ohio. Snowed the whole way up. You could call it bare knuckle driving except it’s being called red knuckle driving because Jerry skinned the fuck out of his hand while loading up. Tension....
Matt the Junglecat sits in a chair and it breaks. He goes spilling into the floor while a band called Ditchweed is playing. Everyone laughs and instead of getting embarrassed, he goes with it. He rolls around on the ground and acts out the whole bit. He doesn’t spill one drop of his Burger Beer either. Why did the chair break? The Big Mess....
The Dynamite On play in Dayton at some fucking country bar that has animal heads hanging on the wall. Its a pretty odd place that I never been in but I know all about it. Anyway, they end up getting banned from ever playing there again because the bar tender thought Sam "Miami Vice" (AKA "Human#8") was '; getting it on' with some girl when all they were doing was swapping spit. "You’re a cunt!" Sam told the tender. "What'd you say to me? What'd you call me?" she responded. "I called you a cunt!" Sam said. Then as a unit Dynamite On exited the place and was told never to come back, I didn’t see this all go down but Andy (the On's drummer) told me all about it today, Andy told me that they [Dynamite On] ended up winning out of the whole deal because they got $20 in cold/hard cash and their bar tab, which was supposed to come out of their pay at the end of the night) was overlooked in the chaos of the ousting. Apparently, and I have seen the Ons drink before so I believe this, Andy said they drank way more than $20 in beer and slow gin fizzes' Why? The Big Mess!!!
I sit in Kill the Hippies Mantua Ave keep. Matt (KTH Guitar) brings me a bottle of Gin. He had been taking the bottle on tour from person to person throughout the after-show party. I force him to sit down and drink it with me. He does so. I soon get up. Go to the bathroom. Puke in the sink. Clean it up and as everyone, including my adoptive sister, Melissa from KTH, ask me if I’m all right I tell her and them. "Yeah, there's just some Sci-fi shit in there." Then I passed out only to wake up in a dark room with members of the Socials, and Detox Police sprawled out on the ground everywhere. Kenny is listening to Jurassic 5 and other old rap bands like UTFO, Curtis Blow, Slick Rick and rappin' to his sweetheart as they hug and lay on hardwood floors with one pillow and one blanket between them. THE BIG MESS! Luke Skywalker has his FORCE. Even the Darth Vader has the FORCE. We, the humble minority sitting amongst the garbage and broken things, have THE BIG MESS!
Now, you sat through all of that because this BIG MESS thing isn’t anything new. The Testors had it. This 10" proves it; it’s the best taste from this band yet by far. The other Incognito 10" was great. The Rave Up LP was up to par with the first 1, but this tops them both. This 10" has five unreleased studio tracks and one live track of one of the best punk-rock songs EVER; "Awmaw"! You see, apparently, as the liner notes read, Sonny Vincent would play this song to clear the room of the non-believers. The song begins with about a minute and a half of guitar noise. I suppose rooms cleared. Some soundmen wouldn’t even work with the Testors because their sound was DANGEROUS. This 10" proves it! In my eyes, The Testors still make The Dead Boys sound like they never took their Youngstown bell-bottoms off. The Testors make the Dead Boys look like fucking butterflies! Lil' sweet, caring, peace loving, peaceful butterflies! The Testors are the dirty rats. They ARE the cracks on the sidewalk. They are the stale vomit smell you get when you go into an unfamiliar venue. Rooster Booster and Rich Lathers from Crimson Sweet hit the nail on the head: There's a certain level of filth you expect in any viable venue you’re about to play in. If the filth don’t exist, then stay uncomfortable! In some cases I know that the Testors were the type of band to welcome the filth when they walked into a suspecting venue. Other times I would say that the Testors were perhaps the element of Filth to a place they walked into. Either way I bet they were ready, willing, and able! This 10" is right up my alley. If it wasn’t I wouldn’t have given it the time of day. The Testors. Pioneers! St. Vincent! (SAB)
(Incognito Records)
(Incognito Records)