The Remains Of The Toxic Narcotic, Pt. 4: Complaints

The final part of the inventory clearout for what was to be my online punkzine, The Toxic Narcotic: A review of Bay Area New Punk behemoths, Complaints.

I've got no complaints about the complaints*

wherein tim demonstrates he really knows how to milk a bad joke....

 To use a cheesy, obvious opening: I've got no complaints about the Complaints*. (Aside from, "Why the asterisk in the name? And isn't there a capitalized definitive article in the name?" The mark of quality in any rock 'n' roll band name is a plural name with a capitalized definitive article: The Yardbirds, The Clash, etc. Unless you're Buzzcocks or the Sex Pistols. But I digress....)

*ahem!* As I was saying, "I'VE GOT NO COMPLAINTS ABOUT THE COMPLAINTS*!" These San Franciscans, featuring refugees from the Swingin' Utters and several other punk rock all-stars I can't remember off the top of my noggin and am too lazy to open up a web browser to look up, just issued (from what I can see) is a digital-only collection of four vinyl EPs' worth of smashchord punk goodness from across their history. It's as instantly classic and cohesive as Singles Going Steady or High Energy Plan or any other long-playing summary of previous shorter-playing highlights.

But yes, I've got no complaints about The Complaints! (Whom I've just decided to strip of their asterisk and grant them an honorary definitive article, as their name's the only complaint I have with them, as cool as it is, as it is!) I mean, they play punk rock the way I like it: Taut, lean, stripped-down, as energetic as jumping beans on a Jolt Cola-and-PixieStix bender, brimming with post-Thunders lead work and imaginitive two-guitar arrangements. And like the best vintage punk bands, they write high-wired, tough pop songs that are perfect otherworld hit records without any mush or wimp-factor. (A clue to their influences: The record closes with an aggressive take on Slaughter And The Dogs' “Cranked Up Really High,” minus the la-la-la's over the coda.) This could be 1977 or 2013 in The Complaints' world - it doesn't matter! This is young and fresh and wired and electric, and sends you into bedroom pogo hysterics that'll have the plaster fearing for its life! Isn't this what all great punk rock's about, aside from sweaty live energy?

Nah, I've got no complaints about Complaints*. (Alright! It's their name, I'll use it! Jeeze....) Bad Decisions And Cheap Rewards: The First Four E.P.s is as perfect a punk rock record as you'll find out now. Even the sleeve art, reproducing the EPs' fronts in a grid, looks perfect! If this were the old days and this on vinyl and I still owned a turntable, I'd be spinning this smooth, same as I did Never Mind The Bollocks and Singles Going Steady and Generation X. Dig the new breed, dad....

(http://complaints.bandcamp.com/music to download the individual singles and contact the band; digital LP available at http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Decisions-Cheap-Rewards-First/dp/B006W5HNGG/ref=sr_shvl_album_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1361756689&sr=301-5; http://modernactionrecords.com/)

The Remains Of The Toxic Narcotic, Pt. 3: School Jerks

As noted earlier today, I've decided to go ahead and post the inventory I'd compiled for what was to be my online punkzine, The Toxic Narcotic. The cover and the opening editorial were posted earlier. Now I give you a review of the band whose record inspired me to start the mag to begin with, and who also inspired me to seek out The New Punk Rock Generation and revive "RADIO NAPALM." Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Toronto's School Jerks:

It turns out the sound of pissed-off modern youth is the sound of pissed-off 1981 youth!

Tim Discovers school jerks....

And what of the heroes of The Toxic Narcotic's debut issue? School Jerks are the very reason I'm doing this 'zine and relaunching “RADIO NAPALM.” They are energy and excitement incarnate. I know next-to-nothing about these guys, aside from their being a Toronto export and that they couldn't be older than we-just-hit-drinking-age. But a more potent burst of raw power hasn't been felt in these parts in many a year. It hit hard enough to make me quest to find a swingin' new punk rock generation. I found 'em. School Jerks are the tip of a hulking goddamned iceberg of punk rock goodness.

13 songs in 13 minutes, 12 inches revolving at 45 RPM. I don't have physical vinyl - I managed to score a digital copy. I have literally no information, even their names! I know they released three 7-inch EPs prior to this. Judging by the one I heard, Decline, those were stepping stones to this explosion.

Just sloppy enough to be fun, just produced enough for the guitar tones to be sharp and all instruments to be distinct, School Jerks is an ASSAULT. I couldn't begin to tell you whatever the hell the singer is singing, so unintelligible is his bratty bark. But he's ENRAGED about something! Nothing's overly distorted here - if anything, it borders on modern garage punk, except delivered at the speed of “Pay To Cum.” If nothing else, this may be what a Billy Childish record would sound like if he'd been raised on a steady diet of The Germs!

(GI) certainly sounds like a touchstone for these guys; you could easily file School Jerks alongside that, Damaged, Back From Samoa, Group Sex, and Hollywest Crisis. Yet this ain't Sha Na Na with a mohawk and combat boots! It turns out the sound of pissed-off modern youth is the sound of pissed-off 1981 youth! Brutal shit, and an instant classic! I really want to see these guys live, now....

(Get it from http://www.gravemistakerecords.com/catalog/ or http://gravemistakerecords.bandcamp.com/album/school-jerks-2)

The Remains Of "The Toxic Narcotic," Pt. 2: The Editorial

As noted yesterday, I've realized my plans to do an online punkzine may be too ambitious, given my current life activity. All that I would have done, in terms of the prose, now just becomes blog postings here. After all, the blog is the modern fanzine. The cover was posted earlier. Here is what would have been the first editorial:

THIS IS HOW IT'S DONE

I sit here, not wondering if a matchbox would hold my clothes ala Carl Perkins, but writing. Blasting from my hi-fi is a disc issued last year: The self-titled debut LP by a Toronto band, School Jerks. 13 songs in 13 minutes, on a 12-inch 45 RPM record, it sounds just like the sort of old school hardcore records that Really Red singer Ronnie Bonds (AKA U-Ron Bondage) used to play on his Sunday night punk rock show over KPFT in Houston, "Funhouse." We're talking a furious screech that wouldn't sound out of place stacked up on a turntable with The Germs' (GI), Black Flag's Jealous Again, or The Cheifs or Angry Samoans. More impressive yet, it was made by a bunch of guys who look like they're far from leaving their teens, never mind shaving.

I'm a professional freelance rock journalist, have been for years. I want to write about School Jerks. I won't be able to. None of the publications I write for will let me. My editors, if I dared approach them, would tell me none of their readers would be interested. That pisses me off.

I am, besides being a professional freelance rock journalist, also a lifelong musician and punk rocker. I've always done these things. I began in punk rock fanzine culture, doing one of my own in the '80s (Noise Noise Noise) for two issues, before moving on to contribute to fLiPSiDe and Your Flesh, among many others, then going professional in the '90s as punk invaded the mainstream in the form of alternative rock, becoming well-known as a writer for Alternative Press and The Austin Chronicle, plus other publications. The underlying whatsis driving me, though, was my love of raw punk rock and my punk roots, and my desire to expose bands I discovered and loved to a broader audience.

I quit journalism in 1997 to concentrate on making music with my band The Hormones. I was burned out, after a protracted period of strained relations with the Chronicle and AP and honestly thought I was retired. I also was tired of the lack of respect my musical side garnered because I was also a well-known rock journalist. These people obviously did not understand that, as fellow scribbler-and-rocker Lenny Kaye and I once discussed, my musical activities and my journalism were two sides of the very same coin: A desire to give back to a culture and way-of-life that had given me so much. I can now see that these people will never get it, and it's best for me to get on with it.

BUT...I have returned to the game just recently, after spending fifteen years only writing the occasional piece, usually if someone wanted an Iggy Pop interview, or if Guitar World wanted an oral history of the New York Dolls. And now I'm back with The Austin Chronicle, as well as doing interviews for the Rock 'n' Roll Dating website, making my living as a journalist. Which is fine and well: For the most part, I get to pick and choose my subject matter...

...for the most part.

Like I said, there's great new young punk bands I'm discovering, seemingly all at once. I want to write about them, but I wouldn't be allowed. And I want to write about them with raw enthusiasm, the thrill of the moment, in unrestrained language. I wouldn't be able to do that in my outlets, either.

So, it's time to truly return to my roots.

I'd love to cut-n-paste-n-Xerox a proper old school punkzine. However, I neither have the cash to do it nor the cash to lose on such a proposition. Still, I've been saying for years that blogs are the new fanzines: Technology allows instant publication and exposure to a potential audience of literally the span of the world wide web, something said proper old school punkzine distribution could not offer. This really is the original DIY/seize-the-moment/instant-access punk rock ideal finding its most full realization.

"When your culture abandons you, create your own." Trouser Press publisher Ira Robbins wrote that at the dawn of punk in 1977, and those have been the words I've lived by. Hence, Toxic Narcotic, an online punkzine, written and published by me, using and abusing the new technology. Toxic Narcotic: Written and published out of love, in raw language coming directly from the heart and the gut. This is how its done. This is punk rock.

-TIM "NAPALM" STEGALL

Publisher

Austin, TX

Feb. 4, 2013

5:59 PM

Now's as good a chance as any to announce some new projects

The Mark Of Quality, Since 2008

Second cup of coffee already, which means I'd better type fast....

First off, now that I'm back in the rock journalism game full-time, I've resumed my duties as American correspondent for John Robb's great UK-based punk culture site, Louder Than War. I resumed my Letter From America column musing about Black Flag's reanimation, and giving props to my fave new band, School Jerks. You can catch all the buzz, cock, right here: Just click all this blue underlined shit. 

Second, the reappearance of the Mark Of Quality above might be telling you of another reanimation. Yep, I'm reviving "RADIO NAPALM!" It'll now be a bi-monthly, one hour, streaming podcast via the Mixcloud site. I had The Garage rebuilt (at great expense), and Ed The Engineer and my hydro-cephalic assistant Scooter and are furiously toiling in my off hours to produce a quality Boss Punk Radio experience for you, which you can now stream whenever you get the urge. No, no more live broadcasts, which I cannot do any longer. Nor is there a chatroom, unless I set one up and all you old Irregulars want to meet whenever a new episode is first uploaded and available. Be sure to add the "RADIO NAPALM" Facebook group, right here, and bookmark the new "RN" Mixcloud site. 

Finally, my return to the ink-stained world led to my discovering, almost overnight, a whole rash of exciting new punk groups the world over. I'd dare say there's enough there to suggest a new wave of punk rock rising! It's all very exciting and proper. I want to write about it, but things have changed. None of the mainstream outlets I currently enjoy have time for truly underground music, which is odd to me, considering  I was the guy who brought groups like The Gories and Mono Men into Alternative Press when every issue seemed to have another Wax Trax act on the cover.

Hence, I've decided to start a new punk fanzine, done totally online. It's called The Toxic Narcotic. It'll be a few pages of quick, dirty, raw extended record reviews and graphics, basically me unloading about the new sounds I'm digging at that moment, published instantly. It'll be available as a PDF you can download from this blog periodically. Watch this space for the first issue, as soon as it's done.