It's 11:59

(Picture courtesy of KFTH)

The man referred to as the Curator here at MRML, an old friend now departed, lent me many an unforgettable punk records from his cache back in the early 80's. However, try as he might he never fully sold me on Emergency Broadcast System, the first album by the Detonators.

Led by Bruce Hartnell and Juan Camacho and a host of other members, the Detonators (who were from Eugene, Oregon by way of Redondo Beach, California) plied their gravelly, kinda catchy brand of political punk rock on and off right up until the early 21st century. Their sound combined the grit and force of the early Ruts with the triple-time beats and over-driven guitar of Bad Religion, all fueled by an abiding anger that would destroy the nervous systems of lesser men.

On sixth listen, lo these many years, some of Emergency Broadcast System's primitive power reveals itself. While little of the pop influence so characteristic of SoCal punk exists here, the band does wield this relentless hostility to effective use, especially on tracks like, "Crime and Punishment" and the album's brightest point, the shout-along, "Guitars or Guns".




Download Emergency Broadcast System


By 1985, with straight-up hardcore all but extinct, the Detonators returned, if anything faster, louder, angrier. The album, Just Another Reason, gives no quarter to the trends of 1985, in fact it sounds like 1981 frozen in aspic. (The album still awaits its' promised re-issue from N.F.N. Records.) For proof of the Detonators single-mindedness, circa 1985, check out the ferocious,"Yer Child's War".



Incredibly, the band remained unbowed on 1988's Balls to You, a re-issue of which remains available here.

Then, strangely, the Detonators One Great Moment finally arrived 1991, when they released the cogent, blitzing single, Billion Dollar Nazis. The very Ruts/Clash-like, "11:59" marries rage to reggae to create one bastard of a sound.

As for the other tracks, the Alice Cooper mangling is charming, while "Cloak and Dagger" is a repeat from Emergency Broadcast System and "I Hate the Rich" is not the Dills song but a less distinctive thrasher.


Download Billion Dollar Nazis

The Detonators seem to be in limbo but as they are unkillable, do not turn your back on them.

Dueling Singles

Sloppy Seconds were neighbours to Screeching Weasel geographically (Illinois and Indiana), musically (R-A-M-O-N-E-S), and chronologically (both issued more marginal releases in 1987 followed by a pivotal back-to-basics pop-punk L.P'.s in 1989).

I suspect Screeching Weasel’s “I Wanna be a Homosexual”, written in response to Sloppy Seconds’ “I Don’t Wanna be a Homosexual” at the behest of queer film maker Bruce La Bruce, is now more famous than the song that inspired it. I hate choosing betwixt two smart n' catchy rockers but the edge goes to Sloppy Seconds for the self-mocking subtext ("Why did I write this song?") and another of their sticky choruses that you don’t want to sing out loud, depending on your social circle.


Ben Weasel, however, gets the best line out of either song (“It’s the straight in straight edge, that make me want to drink a beer”) so no disrespect is intended and, depending on who's close by, Screeching Weasel's hook may win in the choruses-to-sing-under-your-breath department anyway.


While Sloppy Second's 1989 album, Destroyed, has surely been re-issued with yet more bonus tracks, posting this long-out-of-print single shouldn’t step on anyone’s toes. The B-side is an otherwise unavailable acoustic version of “Human Waste”. The electric version is fine but as parody of a rock ballad, with a wistfulness beneath the sneering("I Left my heart in San Francisco and my brain in Los Angeles/My heart just made me bitter and my brain just made me dangerous"), it’s in its full glory in stripped-down form. Just about every other track by the band remains in print - so buy some friggin' music!



Download I Don’t Wanna be a Homosexual

Just to keep things balanced, here's the full Pervo-Devo single from 1991, which, as well as "I Wanna Be a Homosexual", has one standard issue Weasel Rant plus a cover of Harlan Howard's, "I Fall to Pieces" (made famous by Patsy Cline), which the boys do their level best to play...er...straight. These tracks are available on the entertaining hodge-podge entitled Kill the Musicians, which is available here.


Download Pervo Devo


And just in case you wanted to hear what Metallica sounded like interpreted by some self-professed mid-western junk rockers, here's Sloppy Second's version of "Hit the Lights".

Tradtion IV

So the Doughboys career picked up just as it was winding down. Signed to A & M, the band got a big push for 1993's Crush. It's still the college-rockish sound of Happy Accidents and like that album it also starts with another Kastner classic, "Shine" (co-written with Wiz of Mega City Four).


(A charming fan video mash-up with the George Lucas movie, Willow.)

However after that, things get dodgy. The filler here is particularly egregious with "Fall" sounding like a passing attempt at grunge and "Shitty Song" far surpassing its titular promise. On the plus side, the mid-period Soul Asylum-ish "Fix Me" was another good single and "Tearin' Away" still rocks. The version of Crush below features bonus material, including songs like "Good Cop, Bad Cop", that really should've made the album.




"Turn Me On" is the end of the road. There are still good rockers here, like "My Favorite Martian" and the power-pop songs like "Everything and After" still work. None of that changes the irrefutable fact that by 1996 the Doughboys were done, they'd surrendered their underground followers long ago and the fans they'd gained for "Shine" were ephemeral. Next up Kastner formed All Systems Go with members of Big Drill Car and Cummins formed Bionic.



These two albums remind me of Winnipeg musical fixture Mike Koop (subject of an upcoming Dylan-related post), who has for years harboured an unfinished song titled, "Whatever Happened to Brock Pytel?" It's a pointed question that neither Kastner on these later Doughboys albums or Pytel himself on his one solo album, ever answered.

Traditon III

I bought the Doughboys 1990 album, Happy Accidents, on purple vinyl from SK8, a skate shop which racked a bit of music alongside the decks and wheels.

Days later, I sold it.

With Brock Pytel gone meditating, no follow up to Home Again was even possible. Instead, after starting out with Kastner's finest song yet, "Countdown", this album (and the 1991 follow-up e.p., When Up Turns to Down) headed straight down the college rock boulevard, like R.E.M. with the guitars metaled-up a bit. Gimmicky song titles like, "The Apprenticeship of Lenny Kravitz"and "Intravenus de Milo" cheapen the affair though not as much as the e.p.'s witless and grating cover of the 52's, "Private Idaho".

All slander aside, "What's Going On'" is a bouncy sing-along, "Sorry Wrong Number" is a catchy tune, and, in the cold light of the present, "Sunflower Honey" is not wretched, it's just a happy, jangly pop song - like an old sixties Rascals' single. So, surviving internal division and passing fashions, the Doughboys moved on and the results, while a mixed bag, are better than they first sounded.

Doughboys - Countdown

Download Happy Accidents


Download When Up Turns to Down

Traditon II

I lost my Doughboys T-shirt (bottom left corner of the catalogue), the one I'd bought from the band on their Home Again Tour. It later showed up draped, like a spoil of victory, over the wiry frame of my ex's new fiance.

1989's Home Again is one of those "the road will never end" albums, a musical tour diary that confesses, "I can't wait to get back home again, then leave". For an album likely cobbled together on buses and in basements; it's completely cohesive. It's cohesion is all the more impressive for it also being a true group album, with Kastner and Pytel each contributing four songs while Bondhead and new guitarist Jon Cummins each pitch in a tune. While the sonic blueprint of the Doughboys, the melding of stun-volume guitars to folk-rock melodies, is Kastner's, it is Pytel's developing prowess as a songwriter that dominates the record.

Listen to those mesmerizing vocal arrangements on Pytel's (admittedly lyrically muddled) "White Sister" or the big whoa-oh chorus on "I Won't Write You a Letter (Home Again)", likely the best, most dynamic song the band ever recorded.


A career peak, alas, though John Kastner continued wearing the Doughboys name long after Brock Pytel quit and went to India.

Still want my damn shirt back.


Download Home Again