razorcake issue #16

Lazy MickNO MORE WAVESThe first time I heardSmogtown was in 1999, sometimeafter the release of Beach CityButchers their 7-song CD splitwith the Teenage Knockouts.Retodd pushed them on me and,after a couple of listens, I washooked. Sludgy guitars, snappydrums, tense bass lines and asinger who used his voice as aninstrument. It was like listening toearly Dead Kennedys or TSOL.There was nothing slick aboutthem. The more I listened, themore I heard. Storylines emerged.Themes were repeated within thesongs and throughout the recording.The opening track, “BadVibrations,” is the antithesis of theBeach Boys vapid cheer thatbecame a sound-byte for southernCalifornia “culture” and propagandafor corporations likeDisneyland, the aerospace industryand real estate developers. But thepicture Smogtown paints isn’t sorosy:When you get homeyour wife declaresHave you seen your daughterand the clothes she wears?She’s living herCalifornia dreamExperimenting withmethamphetamine.I had just moved to the SouthBay. My apartment had a view ofthe ocean and was across the streetfrom my favorite bar. I was diggingthe whole beach scene. I wasabout a mile from the spot inHermosa Beach where Black Flagunleashed the second wave of LApunk. I skated on the strand whereKeith Morris was so heavy, man.The sounds of South Bay punkrock (Pennywise, 98 Mute) blastedout of pick-up trucks and surf wagonsalong Highland Avenue. Icould imagine RaymondPettibon’s punk rock propagandaposters defacing the telephonepoles buzzing in the marine layer.38 The Ralphs where ISMOGTOWN R.I.P.did my grocery shopping butted upagainst Hawthorne, the inlandtract-housing suburb that gavebirth to the fucking Beach Boyswhen I was just a twinkle in myfather’s eye. Suddenly SouthernCalifornia was starting to resonatein unexpected ways andSmogtown was the soundtrack.I can’t say for certain when orwhere I saw Smogtown for the firsttime, but I’m pretty sure it was ashow with the Stitches and ThePushers at Club Mesa in CostaMisery. Tweakers, punks, cons,alcoholics and people with funnyideas about race mixing stoodaround and bad-eyed each other.Skinheads worked the door. AMexican meth dealer rolled up tothe club on his BMX bike, tappedon the glass, and moved his merchandise.Slender girls with shittytattoos and dangerous smiles suckeredboys into buying them drinksso their newly paroled exboyfriendswould have an outletfor their bottled violence. It was agood old-fashioned punk rockhellhole.Their set was short, brutal,intense. Tim McVeigh rattled off amid-tempo beat, not too fast, nottoo slow, martial but minimal.Chip Beef laid down the bass lines,the skeleton that supportedGuitardo’s muscular distortion andfrenetic fuzz. Chavez barked thelyrics, his voice the fastest noise inthe mix. The bouncers formed abald wall, hedging the revelers inthe pit. Plastic tankards of beerwent airborne every sixty secondsor so. Guitardo wandered aroundthe stage, wanting to go fartherthan his cord would let him.Chavez pounded beers betweensongs. Halfway through the set hewas demanding more beer, andweed after the show. Tim bangedhis sticks together as if to say,“Enough bullshit, let’s go!” andthey blasted out another song. Itfelt like a DC-10 was taking off inthe pit. Everyone knew the words.On second thought, maybe itwasn’t Costa Misery. Maybe it wasAnaheim. Or Long Beach. OrHollywood. It doesn’t matter.Music hadn’t felt this importantsince I was a kid listening to Devoand The Ramones on my wannabeWalkman while delivering newspapers.This was music that tookmy imagination to places it couldn’tget to on its own, music thatmade my body go spastic, musicthat demanded instant and immediateannihilation by weed,whiskey, whatever means necessary.I turned all my friends on tothe band and with knowing nodsand whispered assertions weagreed Smogtown was differentfrom other bands, they might evenbe – Ssshhh! Don’t say it! – special.EYES MELT,SKIN EXPLODES,EVERYBODY DEADSmogtown emerged from aSouth County band called Vader’sCrank. The name comes from theirgeek-stoner fascination with themeth Darth Vader might havemade to finance the Empire’s waragainst the rebels. (Science fictionconspiracy theory or eerie prescience?Hmmmm…) Someonespun out and the band broke up. Idon’t know all the details, but ifyou’re ever at the Doheny Saloonand you see a big guy wearing asawed off denim jacket withVader’s Crank on the back, buyhim a beer and he’ll tell you thewhole story. Guitardo was in aninstrumental death metal band andsome of those songs have workedtheir way into the Smogtown catalog.Guitardo, Tim and Chavezgrew up in the San Clemente/SanJuan Capistrano area, beach kidswho surfed and skated together.Chavez comes from a militaryfamily and was born on an islandthat was home to a radar trackingstation. Guitardo’s family is deeplyreligious, and his mom regularlypurged his punk rock records fromthe house. Chip, by all accounts,was the last piece of the puzzle,Fag Rabbit’s former bassist whowould only join the band if theboys got their shit together. Theygot a van, dubbed it the GrossPolluter, and Smogtown was born.They put out a bunch of demos(now available on Disaster as Talesof Gross Pollution); recorded somesingles, including the excellent“Audiophile” on Hostage Records;and appeared on some comps.They played with a handful oflocal OC/SB bands, a group theydubbed the New Beach Alliance.Brash, bratty, and belligerent,Smogtown launched a New Waveof suburban Southern Californiapunk.If Beach City Butchers exposesCalifornia’s false promises,Führers of the New Wave –Smogtown’s epic, full-lengthdebut – targets the lie. The recordingis more ambitious, the songsmore sophisticated. The narrativepossibilities introduced inButchers are developed in Führersinto a full-on concept album with astory as rich and complex as amovie. (Chavez copped the ideafor a punk rock concept albumfrom Jesus Christ Superstar.Seriously.) It’s about a nasty bunchof boys in a band called theFührers who are the cancer of suburbanSurf City. They party withbulimic models and kidnap CaseyKasem, demanding airplay and along black limousine. The Führer’sbattle cry is an ode to street violence.Bodie 601, a Big Brotheresqueentity, vows to run them outof town by blasting them with radiation.Each of the songs tells achapter in the story. The last songserves as a coda of sorts by repeatingthe album’s themes and revealingthe fate of the characters andhow they all fit together in thestory. The songs are told from variouspoints of view. In “I am theCancer” the Führer’s taunt theirarch-nemesis. Bodie 601 replieswith a Weirdos-esque broadcast tothe citizens of surf city insistingthey will “Kill this New Wavedead.”At first it all sounds a bitcampy, like the outtake from RepoMan that opens the album. Butbeneath the Führer’s bravado(“Knock out my teeth? I didn’tneed them anyway”) is a bleak