The Spazzys: I Met Her at the 7-11

In interviews Hellcat Records punk-metal band Civet {hey check out my review here} imply that there's been a dearth of tough all-girl rock n' roll bands since the Runaways. The Spazzys lay waste to such a self-serving claim. It's not that the Spazzys (who are from Melbourne, Australia) feign a macho-girl stance, as some of their competitors might, they just know how to dig all the best trash from the ruins of rock n' roll. At first appearance, it looks like the went through the Ramones garbage as obsessively as A.J. Weberman dug through Dylan's. To whit, check out out their T-shirts (two out of three), identical surnames (twins Kat and Lucy plus Ally all go by the name Spazzy) and song titles ("I Wanna Cut My Hair Like Marky Ramone").


The current fate of the Spazzys, meshed in some godforsaken legal limo, is so dire that their Wikipedia sounds as it was translated from Swahili, their MySpace remains static and their website in on Angelfire (no, really). So, here at MRML we're left to take a scattered look at their discography, starting with the I Met Her at the 7-11 e.p. It's five Ramones meets Go-Go's songs in ten minutes and there's not a clunker among them. From the first strains of "Surf'n Bird" (an original) the Ramones chug is ever-present but the melodies, the vocal arrangement and the lyrics prove them to be a band unto themselves. Just listen to the Beatles-quoting tale of unrequited love in the international pop underground, "Paco Doesn't Love Me", and you'll know that great rock n' roll doesn't give a shit about gender.


I Met Her at the 7-11 e.p.

Supporting the band is currently next to impossible. If that changes (or if someone credible informs me that these posts would in any way harm the band) then I will update this.

Sicko: My Tribute to the Misfits

(Image courtesy of Crimson Werewolf over at Deviant Art - Sorry!)

For my Halloween trick on you, I'll pause the international punk series, to offer you the first in my intermittent series of Imaginary Singles. Imaginary Singles are album tracks and obscurities, shoulda-been singles, mucked up with badly butchered cover art by yours incompetently. This i-single is a spot-on perfect satire called "My Tribute to the Misfits (Your Sister is a Werewolf Tonight)" by Seattle indie-punks, Sicko. The imaginary B-side is their cover of the Misfits' "Astro Zombies", from a British CD only bonus track from the same album as the A-side, You Are Not the Boss of Me from 1997.




My Tribute to the Misfits i-single


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Die Toten Hosen: Carnival in Rio (Punk Was)

"(Ronnie) Biggs is a fool, a buffoon....if you're going to worship a train robber, why not the one who got the money?"
Johnny Rotten

For decades Die Toten Hosen have ruled the charts of their native Germany by mixing the swagger of glam rock, the aggro of '77 punk and and the sing-along choruses of schlager (a central and Northern European easy listening genre whose name sounds like a portmanteau of schmaltz and lager for good reason). Outside Deutschland, the band, whose name means "The Dead Pants", are best known for the 1991 album Learning English: Lesson 1, in which they covered punk classics by the likes of the Ramones, the Vibrators and MRML favourite Wreckless Eric, each with a guest from the original version. It's an impressive achievement, though no more musically memorable than their albums of schlager songs and Christmas carols done under the pseudonym Die Roten Rosen.


The key to this seemingly backward-looking exercise is in the sole original,"Carnival in Rio". The special guest on this track (and on the two B-sides: the Sex Pistols' '"Everybody is Innocent" and Eddy Grant via the Clash's "Police on My Back") is notorious lowlife and Great Train Robber, Ronnie Biggs. To say Biggs comes off as like your disheveled, creepy old uncle, is sort of an insult to the disheveled, creepy old uncles of the world.


Fortunately, Biggs is used here as a punk prop (watch singer Campino give up on trying to get Biggs to sing at the 34 second mark) just as he was with the very late period Sex Pistols. While Malcolm McLaren used him to hide the fact that the Sex Pistols were dead, Die Toten Hosen use him, and a shit-load of curses, to disguise their song's surprisingly sweet sentiment. "Carnival in Rio (Punk Was)"is where the band lays their guts on the line. The song is both a tribute to their forefathers and a paean to punk's indomitable spirit of defiant optimism, exemplified by those shouts of, "It'll all be coming back!" at the end. Amen. Punk never dies, fuckers.




Carnival in Rio (Punk Was) CD single

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Shonen Knife: Get the Wow

The deliriously happy, "Get the Wow" was Shone Knife's second single from their best-ever album, the now out-of-print Let's Knife.


(Shonen Knife faithfully kicking the shit out of a Carpenters easy-listening classic, not on this e.p., alas)

Get the Wow CD single


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Shonen Knife: Riding the Rocket

Let's just settle this right up front: yes, Shonen Knife were cute and yes, there was a massive novelty appeal to these Japanese women playing ultra-simple guitar-pop.
Done?
'Kay.
Now as for what's sharpest Knife? It's the 1992 album Let's Knife. Yup, the Major Label Debut with 'translated' English lyrics and hi-fi production. To many of their earliest fans that album is seen as watered down but actually it shows off their Shangri-La's-Ramones hybrid to maximum effect. Not unlike the Blue Hearts, Shonen Knife used the Ramones as a basis for their own twisted vision of pop culture, matching outfits and all!. "Riding the Rocket", was the first single from Let's Knife and it's full of vintage sci-fi sounds, Cheap Trick echoes and that unforgettable chorus:

Uka boo, uka boo everybody uka boo
Uka boo, uka boo, space walk, uka boo
Uka boo, uka boo, let’s do the uka boo

The CD single, has a few charming bonuses, including a different version of "Burning Farm" as well as a space-surf instro called "Milky Way".


Riding the Rocket CD single



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