How can you not love this? Really. “It shouldn’t be about money, be about fame, push the right buttons, play the right game? You must be fucking joking!” That’s in the first verse of “Barebones”, and it means that whatever else I say in the rest of this is essentially pointless, because, that is the crux of this matter.
On the notes that Dirt Box Disco sent with this, their eighth record, there is a section headed “Influences”. This is exactly what it says: “Kiss, Shawaddywaddy, Ramones, Rancid, The Damned, The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, GBH, Kerbdog, Nirvana, Alice Cooper, Supersuckers, The Beatles, Leatherface, Bowie, Bad Religion, UK SUBS.
Forget the fact that it has got two of my favourite bands in (Alice and Supersuckers for clarity), there are two things here that guarantee a review: Kerbdog and Showaddywaddy.
I have still got the Best of Showaddywaddy on vinyl, in the green sleeve that my Gran bought me one Christmas when I used to pretend I was a DJ and play all my records for hours, talking in between, and Kerbdog….well Cormac’s boys they knew how to mix melody with heavy (see also his other band, Wilt, but I digress).
The Nottingham masked super-heroes are back to save the world, and they need us to help, this time: “If you’re with us, we’re with you, we stand together, we’re unstoppable” sings Spunk Volcano (his other band is ace too, by the way) and they’re off and running.
The vibe is one of drunken Northern blokes who are enjoying themselves. “We don’t like quitters, we don’t like splitters, we don’t air our dirty underpants on Facebook or Twitter” is a hell of a first line on any record, and the name that keeps coming into the head is that of Massive Wagons. A bit rougher around the edges, maybe, but Baz’s rock stars, they’d love this.
For all that this is a band that got together in a Nottingham pub for a laugh in 2008, they are very, very serious about the music. Danny Fingers’ lead breaks are not those of anyone who isn’t putting his all into it, while the scuzzy punk of “Insomniac” is as catchy as it gets. Imagine Chuck Berry after he’d sniffed glue all day.
“I Want Out” is a kind of working class lament. A ballad, about hating your job, your life “barking out the orders in a Primark shirt and tie” is one of the best put downs of middle management, you’ll ever read too. “Dickhead And The Hype” gets overtly punky and “The Count of Monte Cristo Lives in San Francisco” has to be heard to be believed (first line: “I’m reading a book, its as boring as fuck”).
“Reminisce” builds up on the type of stuff The Wildhearts – who DBD have opened for – used to whack all over their b—sides years back, the sort of thing of thing The Yo-Yo’s did for grins, and absolutely the stuff that Tom Spencer has brought to The Professionals. It’s a belter. But to be honest, that goes without saying here.
The acoustics come out for “3 Bottles”, but not for a long, and if they are going to have a hangover in the morning, they’ll worry about that then.
It says much for the type of women I like that when “Bitch Full Of Stitches” comes on, with its Hip Priest’s type flavour, and they get to the bit about having a “tattoo on her forehead that just says die!” I am wondering if I could get her number, but I digress, again.
“VDTV” is 96 seconds of filth and fury, but it actually saves its best for the one that follows. “Simple But Effective” is aptly named, and manages to elevate itself by this: “sing a song of sexpest, politics and shame, four and twenty punk bands sounding all the same.” Here’s one that doesn’t, it really doesn’t.
A number of these are longer, more nuanced than many would have done too, “Ain’t Life Grand” is one, slower, more reflective, it also ends the album – except I’ve got the bonus tracks, and “Tizwatitiz” gets a moshpit going, and “Wake Up” is like so many of those bands I used to love at the turn of the century – the B-Movie Heroes, The Chasers and others – did things, think Honeycrack without the pop melodies.
You know that list of influences at the start? What that list tells you about DBD is also important.
They are fans, they do this, like Billie Piper once said “because we want to”, but also because they can. And simply put, this is simple. It’s simply rock n roll.
Rock n roll with dirt under it’s fingernails and punk in its heart, and that might actually be better than a Sex show on TV, maybe? (although if you have any decent links, send them to me, lads, you know, so I can research…..)
I am not sure that when Dirt Box Disco made this they thought they’d come up with something that would be close to album of the year territory, and I am not sure that Classic Rock or Planet Rock will have “Tv Sex Show” in their end of 2020 lists, but that doesn’t make it any less true of a statement. This is absolute magnificence.
Rating 10/10
