As of 3:08 PM CDT 4.8.94, the Rip Offs are my favorite band. I know this seems uncharacteristically giddy, but i'm trying not to be so GOSH dang negative this month. I mean, my god, i belittled Greg Shaw's fucking GRAPHIC DESIGN. Is that BITCHY or what? I should be on all fours orally retrieving Shaw toejam with my tongue for ALLOWING me sonic congress with hyperclassic Stiv Bators material via his BOMP! record label (actually, you should be helping me. You take the left foot, i'll take the right); instead i belittle the guy's shaky artistic skills (which he's probly real sensitive about), immediately following which the guy puts me to shame with the cover art for "L.A. L.A.," the Bators outtakes/rarities disc (which i can't really recommend to anyone other than Night Of The Living Stiv types such as myself [even though Stiv covers Slade's boffo "Gudbuy T'Jane" on it] [which is misspelled the wrong way on the track listings i'll have you know!]—i mean, how many "alternate versions" of this stuff can a fella REALLY be expected to consume, especially when the only discernible difference between "versions" is a conspicuous lack of fidelity? [GOD DAMMIT, there i go being snide again. I warned myself—further continuation of the snottiness thing will land me an entire weekend's worth of watching Barney flicks as penance]). Luckily, BOMP!'s 10" reissue of Stiv's "Disconnected" LP—which EVERYBODY needs in one form or another (looking at the top right corner of the back cover, i see that i own #4043 out of a limited edition of 10...what label is this on? Planet Pimp??)—has even lamer graphic design than the CD version which set me howling last ish, thus i feel somewhat vindicated—though not particularly justified—in my wounded aesthete hissy fit. Jesus, what a PERTURBING selection of colors. Whoops, Barney time! I also cut down the Humpers liner notes—boy, that was swift. I mean, not that the liner notes in question don't SUCK or anything, but i probly coulda found different things to smart off about. NOW i'll probably run into them one day and begin to gush about how fucking BRILLIANT their Space-Age-As-Retro packaging (devised a Mr. "Courtship Of" Eddie Flowers, i believe) on their ball-busting "Journey To The Center Of Your Wallet" LP is, and they'll see my face and kick my ass into outer space as mandated by the Humper Room Code Of Ethics. As of 3:15 PM CDT 4.8.94, the Humpers stomp the Lazy Cowgirls like red-headed stepchildren (or was that "bald-headed stepchildren?). As of 3:16 PM CDT, a rather unsettling thought has occurred to me: is anybody who reads this (assuming for the sake of argument it actually gets read, which is kinda hard to believe) actually familiar with the records i'm making reference to, or am i just completely off in my own little world? Yeesh, i've just been informed that Kurt "Kookie" Cobain has kicked his own bucket—but in a more interesting development, did you know that both the Humpers and the Cockney Rejects ended their third albums (uh, there IS really a Yugoslavian Humpers album, isn't there?) with a cover of "Motorhead" (originally done by, uh, Motorhead, strangely enough)? What exactly should i do here? Write some snide eulogy for the guy or use the time to inform people that the CD reissue of the Real Kids album is exactly 35 minutes long, which makes it precisely one second shorter than both the Vibrators "Pure Mania" CD and the Beatles "Revolver" CD? What's stupider? Are they both stupid? Is there a market for this kinda stuff? How are my numbers? What kinda market share am i pulling in? Could i get a better time slot? Yeah, i agree: who the fuck cares (i mean, you KNOW there was some high-ranking Geffen exec over at Cobain's house this morning going "Well, y'know—"In Utero" really isn't moving like we thought it would, sales need a little pick-me-up...have you been feeling depressed at all lately? Have you ever considered buying a handgun? Oh, look, is that your wife's face, or did her neck throw up? Hey, did you ever play this Judas Priest album backwards?") ...many of you have asked what the deal is with the time/date shit (actually, no one has inquired—i just say things like that to radiate an aura of false interest). That should be obvious: at the very core of all worthy rock journalism lies expression of the following holy mantra: I AM COOLER THAN YOU. There are a variety of ways to insinuate this point, but the most dependable and time-honored method is to simply state that you were "into" something hep (or, conversely, "not into" something yucky) before every other joe on the planet got into or out of it (hey, it always works for me!). Buuuuuttt...stories get old and data gets fudged and dates have a way of sliding inexplicably backwards through the time stream as life drags on, so therefore, GOD DAMMIT, when i officially fuckin' declare something, I WANT IT PROPERLY ANNOTATED. In fifteen years there's gonna be all these crappy authorized biographies of the Rip Offs published by St. Martin's Press floating about, and in every last one of 'em I'M gonna come off looking like the coolest motherfucker on the face of Planet X because I WAS THE FIRST PERSON TO PUBLICLY DECLARE THEM MY FAVORITE BAND, AND I WILL HAVE WITNESSES GALORE TO BACK ME UP. Tragic things happen if you have no corroborating evidence, like in the peculiar case of the Shitbirds (the band with the John Kricfalusi record art and the Fastbacks-cum-Chipmunks vocal delivery): Something like eight years ago, i used to constantly sing the jingle from the "Icebird" sno-cone machine commercial that was on Saturday morning TV about fourteen times an hour in the 70's to myself as i mopped stairwells. I tried to persuade the band i was in to learn it, but their moms must've made them play outside too much on Saturdays cuz none of 'em claimed to remember it. The better part of a decade later, the fricking Shitbirds re-do it as "Scheissebird" (in the immortal parlance of Arnold from Happy Days: "mmm BA HA HA!!! "), and i'm left to just sit around fruitlessly wheezing about how i had the idea eight years ago and it should be ME, ME, ME reaping the bountiful harvest of fame & glory that will no doubt be visited upon the Birds-O-Shit for their efforts. Bah! Never again will my claim be so jumped! As of 3:38 PM CDT 4.8.94, any conviction of extreme brilliance i might wind up in possession of—be it regarding avian-shaped sno-cone makers or any other contraptions of great importance—will be duly ascribed to ME, ME, ME, and registered with TO-THE-MINUTE accuracy, because i understand how this Hundredth Monkey shit works, and i know that a day or two after i have some heartstopping flash of insight, you'll probably luck into it too via your dingy remaining connections to the cosmic unconscious. The FUCK you will, pal! Yeah, well, like i said, the Rip Offs are my favorite band and Rip Off Records is my favorite label—which brings me to the rather dodgy subject of major labels in the punk scene, which i believe i was asked to touch upon in between insults. In a nutshell: I dig it. Major label interest in the punk scene is COOL, because, in some twisted little Reaganomical trickle-down theory gone right, the presence of major labels means MONEY in the bank for me (uh, INDIRECTLY of course. I have turned down ALL major label offers for the services of Boris The Sprinkler on accounta i don't wanna get obscenely rich and famous and then get all depressed over it and shoot myself). Fuck, the kids that dig these major label new wave bands like Nirvana are fucking DOPES and DUPES plus they got money, and I WANT IT! Bands used to sell t-shirts for five bucks, now you can ask eight or nine or twelve and these kids won't bat a fucking eyelash! You used to be able to go see five or so local bands for two or three dollars, now it's five or six bucks and there's MORE PEOPLE THAN EVER paying to get it! The bands i used to be in would walk away from a local show with maybe ten or twenty clams to split between us—now i walk away from gigs with bulges in BOTH my pockets. Somehow, i attribute this windfall profiteering to the presence of the majors—separating the rubes from their rubles has been a comparative cakewalk since they stuck their delicately powdered schnozzes into the scene. Okay, there IS the gripe about how most—well, no, actually ALL—of the patrons sicced upon the scene by dint of major label new wave acts are, essentially, dildos who will contaminate our happy enclave with their brutish outsider ways. Well, SURE. I'll yield you that—but there's never really gonna be enough hipsters to go around anyway. Jeezus Christ, i'm 28 years old, i been into punk rock for a million years—it is NOT real hard for me to walk into a show and figure out with a substantial amount of accuracy who the dildos are and aren't, and i'd imagine you could say the same for yourself. We can work AROUND these people. We NEED them. They might conceivably buy a T-SHIRT or something, and they're generally quite tractable folks. We can bend them to our will, divest them from their cash, and build the scene on a foundation of their bleaching bones. PUNK! Yet, even with all these direct bennies to the scene resulting from major label incursions onto our turf, some people STILL refuse to purchase their product. Not me, man! I don't give two hoots and a handjob whether the slabs beckoning to me at the record store on Friday night were pressed by two high school kids or by fricking Bank Of America; if it rocks, I'LL BUY IT. To espouse any other position is a complete and utter BETRAYAL of all that is rockin'; it is punk rock treason of the highest order. Shit, i rarely buy anything on major labels anyway, but THAT'S NOT THE POINT. The point is that i would GLADLY buy major label releases IF I COULD FIND ANY THAT WERE ANY GOOD, and deal with the ancillary crap like "Oh, Reverend Nørb, how could you buy that new 'Mewling Puke-Pukes' album on Corp-Tone when the label's parent company supplies the hand soap for a chemical weapons factory in Belize?" later. And why shouldn't i? What the fuck's it to ME if the new Green Day album is on Reprise or Lookout? Like i give a fuck! Like somehow the new Bad Religion album sucked LESS when it was on Epitaph and not Atlantic? Like there's some HUGE world of difference between the two? Sure, majors are significantly lamer than indie labels—but as far as i'm concerned, ANY LABEL THAT'S BIGGER THAN ONE GUY SITTING IN AN APARTMENT WITH A COUPLE CARTONS OF RECORDS ON THE FLOOR IS, ESSENTIALLY, A CORPORATE SATAN ANYWAY. Independent labels are just smaller, that's about it. Talk to someone who works for a major. Now talk to someone who works for an indie. Unless you're particularly hot shit at the moment, you're probably still gonna get that "don't bother attempting to impress me, i'm a fashionably jaded music industry professional" vibe from th' both of 'em. It's just like trying to deal with fucking clubowners—the ones who run the divey little shitholes aren't any nicer or more humble than the guys who book the really big places (except for Wes at Quarters Rock Palace in Milwaukee [capacity 50]—Wes rules!); hell, usually they're even BIGGER dicks, probably cause they ain't got a decent place to shit when they come to work. I just don't see a quantum leap of difference between majors and independents—they both seem to espouse the same agenda, the majors just have a more advanced case of it. Now, you get down to the Rip Off Records level, and you KNOW the only motivation behind their product is "Rip Off Records CEO Greg Lowery making records that Rip Off Records CEO Greg Lowery would himself want to find in a record store," which is, hands down, THE WAY TO BE. You KNOW that the guy gets up in the morning, sits up on the edge of his unmade bed in his underwear and sunglasses, picks up one of his label's records from a cardboard box on the floor, stares at it a while and goes "Fuck, man! These records are sooooooo cool!", and that is beautiful. You KNOW that he's happiest about MAKING the record, not selling it (although i'm sure he occasionally hasta scratch his punk rock head and muse aloud over why squares would rather be sitting around the basement listening to NOFX when they could be spinning the new Spoiled Brats 45 instead) (yeah, okay, sure—i'll CEDE ya the point that, yes, NOFX have improved quite a bit over the last million years—but still, not tilling their last record "So What If We're On Epitaph" shows a staggering lack of vision) (i think their next one should be called "So What If We're On Matador," regardless of what label it's actually on). Itty bitty labels like that are a labor of love (or hate, or whatever); majors and larger indies are both businesses—so what's the diff? Besides, once some daffy fuck at a major label sticks you on a freebie list, you're on for ages. I haven't put out a zine in four years; even when i did i never sent copies to major labels asking for promos—yet somehow i still get crap from all those outfits. A very small fraction i keep —the rest gets parlayed into cash, which is why they gotta make sure to send me my David Lee Roth and Ronnie James Dio albums on CD (uh, i have no cassette player! Yeah!) (worse yet, half the shit they send me on cassette i can't get a fucking nickel for—which leads me to believe, in my heart of hearts, that major labels could do no worse signing bands by picking names out of a hat). By virtue of me being on the Reprise promo list, i was spared the indignity of having to actually pay for the new Green Day record—so think about it: When Green Day was on an independent label, i had to buy their records After they signed to a major, i got their records for free. OH, GEEZ, PLEASE, NO, STOP, FREE RECORDS, I CAN'T TAKE ANY MORE OR THIS MAJOR LABEL OUTRAGE!!! Fuck, as long as they keep me on the list, i hope EVERYBODY gets signed, except for Naked Aggression. Not only that, but "Dookie," on the wicked major label, is measurably better than the new Mr. T Experience record on the kind and good independent label; what's up with that? (I know, i know—it's the absence of Jon Von that crippled MTX. Fuck, he couldn't help it, he wanted to be in the Rip Offs because they're my favorite band. Who can blame him? He sold his shares in MTX when they were at their peak, got in on the ground floor of something even BIGGER. If he was a stockbroker, we'd all be cleaning his toilets) And, since we're on the subject, do you wanna know what it is that proves, beyond the flimsiest see-thru poncho of a doubt, that the new Green Day record is, indeed, cool? I'll give ya a hint: it's not the feces-colored jewel box. It's not the bleeped-out cusswords on MTV. It's not the drugs & masturbation references on mainstream radio (for the record, 'bout a year or so ago i was talking to the station manager of the local Crud Rock FM station, telling him i was gonna send him a tape of my band's technically wondrous opus entitled "Drugs & Masturbation." '"Drugs & Masturbation,' come on, doesn't that sound like a hit? 'Drugs & Masturbation?'" He assured me that it sounded more like a near miss. NOW ya turn on the fucking radio and there's Green Day singing about—you guessed it—drugs & masturbation. There's ANOTHER thing i shoulda fucking annotated!). It's not the acne, not the stoopid nosering. It is, in fact, what's written on the little banner trailing from the end of the "BAD YEAR" blimp in the upper left-hand corner of the album cover, to wit: "EAT AT CHEF WONG'S." Think about that: where did you see that before? Stop thinking already, you won't remember: that was on the t-shirt worn by the guy who was getting lobotomized in the John Holmstrom cartoon next to the lyrics to the song "Teenage Lobotomy" on the inner sleeve to "Rocket To Russia" by the Ramones. D-uh! Green Day are officially cool for that reference alone!!! Oh yeah, the Ramones—i kind of took them off the active list. They're still like my favorite bands of all time or something, but i hadda retire their jerseys because toting around the flicking albatross-like burden of having the goddamn Ramones as my favorite band just got to be more trouble than it was worth. I mean yes, sure, fine, they're the greatest band of all time, whatever. But they're NEVER gonna be truly great again; it's just time to MOVE ON (if Nirvana broke punk in 1991, i'd say it's about goddamn time we started fixing it!). Youth of America! Heed my plea! DUMPTHE FUCKERS! Find a new Acting Deputy Favorite Band that makes ya wet your pants merely imagining what their next record is gonna sound like! Stop mollycoddling what's left of the Ramones! Let's melt down Joey into Soylent White! Find Johnny a new life thru the Witness Protection Program! Ignore the other two guys because they're not REAL Ramones anyway! Better yet, let's just replace them with Head when no one's looking—'cause as of 4:29 PM CDT, Head are cooler than the Ramones anyway. The ONLY way the Ramones could convince me that they're back on the right track after "Acid Eaters" (How do you spell "Somebody To Love?" T-H-E E-N-D) would be to roll out a "Boogadaboogadaboogada" tribute album—which reminds me, i took a fellow-columnist's name in vain last issue, apparently i'm not supposed to do that (yeah, like i should just know this stuff—like i actually read MRR or something!). I suppose this means that expressing my naked lust for that twelve-year-old bespectacled chick they got writing a column is right out. As of 4:32 PM CDT 4.8.94, the Rip Offs! are still my favorite band, and Kurt Cobain is still dead. Rev out.

P.S. Shit, i completely forgot the COOLEST thing about major labels: They give you an automatic reason to hate a band you don't feel like liking. Take Rancid, for instance: i own all their records, and i enjoy all their records, but there's some real weird elusive quality about them that makes 'em seem real eminently, um, unlikeable. For a while, i thought it would be all right to dislike them because they were on Epitaph—but then that Blitz cover from out of left field cancelled that out. But God DAMMIT, they're STILL suspect as a Goodwill porkchop—so i WANT 'em to get signed so i can have a valid excuse for not liking them. I could try not to like them because of the way they used the word "punx" on the "Radio" sleeve (i think i'm a "punk rocker" by trade—which i believe means i owned a Blondie record at one point in time—and i would clamor against those who wouldst call themselves "punks" and "punx" if only their sects weren't both a lot tougher than my sect, who are all a bunch of poseurs anyway), but that would be too technical to be understood by most of the punx. But doggone it all, imagine what it would be like if John Cleese dropped by your house and found your Rancid album and started reading the lyric sheet and got to the line that read "I'm gonna amplify the rage of a class that's made to feel inferior"—he'd probably cock an eyebrow, look up at you and deadpan "Bit of a moron, are we?" Who needs a tumble down the social register of THAT magnitude?? No, the sooner Rancid get signed, the better i'll sleep at night. Christ, they have former members of Operation Ivy in the band—how cool could they be??? WHOOPS, BARNEY TIME!!