Boris the Sprinkler: (She Digs My) New Wave Records

Rev. Norb is a caffeinated Kerouac, a rambling, blabbering logorrhoeic motherfucker. Just the kinda lunatic who might've found a home on Stiff Records if he'd been from Akron rather than Green Bay and had been plying his trade in '78 rather than '98. Rev. Norb may not be the greatest song-writer of his generation or even his genre but his verbal acuity (he wrote the tiny-printed zine Sick Teen in the eighties before becoming one of MaximumRocknRoll's few great columnists) translates pretty well into music; like the hate-child of Patti Smith and Ian Dury fronting the Ramones.


(Run off groove is "A Dorky Prime Cut" in homage to all those Stiff singles with "A Porky Prime Cut" in their run-off groove.)



Rev. Norb, in a column I can still recall lo these many years, wrote a rant about how punk is re-made by every generation and hence its longevity (it was better written than that, trust me). The point remains the same, punk rock (and all its good, simple, propulsive precedents and antecedents) is unkillable, regardless of the trend du jour. It's always been my hope that this tiny, two-bit forum can scream out this thesis, punk rock is not the light in the refrigerator that goes out when you shut the door, rather it's grubby bulb shines on and on.



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(Rev. Norb with his signature antler helmet plus his M + M costume)

Ramones Clones II

Rev. Norb unleashed one of his hyper-caffeinated rants to begin this 1998 cover of what he calls, "one of the worst Ramones albums known to man". He then goes on to claim that they asked for End of the Century because everyone knows it sucks and thus reducing the pressure on Green Bay’s Boris the son-of-a-bitchin’ Sprinkler. So while most songs, like “I’m Affected” and “This Ain’t Havana”, are done straight, Rev. Norb does get to do the wigged-out version of “Baby, I Love You” we all wished the Ramones had done.


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