13 Soda Punks

Some people disdain re-visiting familiar ground but I consider it an essential part of a well-balanced breakfast. Hell,this site fired it's first shot in defense of pop-punk in general (and the Queer's album, Munki Brain in specific). So, these years later, MRML's still giving it up for pop-punk but where have all the comments gone? C'mon folks, I'm about to hork up a goodie here, a vintage pop-punk compilation not littered with filler, so don't be shy speak up!

13 Soda Punx was on Top Drawer, Sicko's (see here) short-lived record label. As a sort of backlash to the mid-nineties music glut where various artists compilation usually featured twenty to thirty bands, this succinct comp covers just thirteen bands in thirty-three minutes.

1) Kim Warnick (of The Fastbacks) and Vancouver's pop-punk masters Bum (see here) doing a cover of a Buck Cherry (the guy who wrote the seventies power-pop classic "Barabara" not the crappy hard rock band) song, "Strictly Confidential". Cool.

2) Yesterday, I tried to place Berkley pop-punk pioneer Dr. Frank in the history of what's often dismissed as novelty music, laying out his claim to be a successor to Roger Miller. Then today, listening to The Mr T Experience's "Hello Kitty Menendez" and catching all those curiously dated satirical references (Hello Kitty, The Menendez brothers, Wessoanality) and those fearlessly slithery rhymes ("They'll be non compis mentises/For all those Menendezes/and Menendezes' apprentices /and doctors and dentists") I realized Dr. Frank might be the rock n' roll Tom Lehrer. (If you didn't have parents who were professors or listen to Dr. Demento's radio show or watch the Electric Company, Tom Lehrer was a Harvard math professor who, back in the fifties and early sixties, self-released a series of viciously satirical records (all very D.I.Y.) featuring his "acceptable" piano-playing and his "so-called" voice.

3 "Pain in the Ass" from Seattle's Sicko, is choppy pop-punk whose melody sounds like something from the pen of the sadly departed Lance Hahn of J Church and Cringer.

4. Glengarry, Ontario's pride, The Stand GT show off their clanging brand of pop à la the Nils or Husker Du in "Corner Store".

5. Seattles' the Fastbacks followed the screwiest career trajectory in punk rock history but the quality of the tunes never dipped, as the soaring "I'm Cold" proves.

6. Canada's The Stupes garagabilly version of that old Jeston's tune "Eep Opp Ork" shows more spunk than the Dickies cover of the song.

7. Old Man's "History"is a tasty, raw slab of garage-punk from points unknown.

8. "Huevos Rancheros were like a Mexican version of the Ventures...but from Calgary." CallPastorBob.

9. Vancouver's Smugglers had a poppier, nerdier take on garage-rock that worked well for them.

10. Seattle's justly legendary The Young Fresh Fellows change gears a half dozen times in the 4:11 epic, "Bookstore".

11. Vancouver's Cub had their critical stock rise and then crash in the nineties but Lisa Marr was a gifted song-writer which she proved in many ways in the aughts, not the least of which was her unpredictable alliance with Joe Queer. (This campfire version of the slick "My Best Friend's Girl" is fun too.)

12. The Model Rockets were another example of the garagey-punk side of Seattle.

13. The Primate Five = Spagehtti surf.


13 Soda Punk CD