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Wreck Room
Ever since kids started getting blue Mohawks and regulation punk gear at the mall, I’ve been questioning the ongoing validity of punk music. After all, paying corporations money so you can look like a real cool rebel seems to indicate a misunderstanding, at least, of the original aesthetic. Then again, not everybody gives a rat’s ass about aesthetics.
Take the Rio Grande Babies, who serve notice on the title track of their e.p., Pissed and Proud, that they “don’t go for that uniform junk.” Guitarist-singer Matt Hickey goes on to admit that “everybody knows that I’m a dick” before warning “mess with me and I’ll beat you to death.” Dumb? You betcha. But isn’t it better than listening to some of those new pop-punk turds singing about doing homework or committing suicide or whatever it is young folk do?
Back in February, the RGB got a lot of attention opening a show for Italian melodic punksters the Forty Winks — and not just because the Babies went overtime and made the rest of the bands late. They’ve been around since mid-Y2K, playing odd locations like now-defunct Westside metal dive Dirty Perch’s, Arlington’s Club Optimo, and Microplay in Cleburne. Formed from the fallout of Explosive Fertilizer, the RGB has had loads of personnel changes, the only constant being Hickey, who recently ceded the mic to original singer Ray Kadleck to make the band a foursome.
There’s nothing remotely pop about the RGB’s music. Rather, it’s chock full of buzzsaw chords and bludgeoning beats with vocals more declaimed (but not rapped) than sung. Oh, and the Babies do get their social commentary ticket punched for “The Incident,” inspired by the 2000 Wedgwood Church shootings. “Big Al, where’s your sheep / Lying in eternal sleep.” Quick, somebody alert the Nobel committee! — Ken Shimamoto
Sun at the Wreck Room, 3208 W 7th St, FW. 817-348-8303.
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