Gasoline

Driven (Flipside)
by Nik Rainey

Aw, heck. A guy takes a critical stand one month and has to take it back the next. Give me a second to take a deep breath and insert my tail firmly between my legs… (sigh) OK, not every Flipside release sucks rubber donkey lungs by definition. Happy? Satisfied? Fine, now the blood can start draining from my cheeks to my fingers so I can write about the catalyst of my about-face, Gasoline. The three mugs that comprise this band have been lurking ’round the fringes of the L.A. scene for nearly 15 years, and it shows – Driven, their first effort (under this rubric, at least), soaks up a decade and a half worth of influences and squeezes ’em into 16 loose-but-skilled jazz/punk originals. Their most obvious touchstone is the chattering punk haikus (punkus?) of the late, great Minutemen (put away that fIREHOSE, man – d. boon was the one with the water pressure), and the poisoned surf guitar may bring back memories of the Dead Kennedys (though I think it skews closer to the less-heralded Feederz – anybody remember “Jesus Entering From The Rear?” The song, I mean). It’s pretty damn good stuff – swift ‘n’ spastic, complex ‘n’ concise – but I can’t help but address a couple of petty grievances. First, where exactly are the echoes of Bauhaus and the Birthday Party the bio promised? I’ve been waiting for a punk band to mix in a little of those bands’ gloomistic tendencies, and these guys ain’t it. Second, they’ve got smarts but feel obligated to undercut them on “Stupid Bufont Bitch” with two of punk’s worst traits – misogyny (hmmm, maybe that’s what they got from Cave) and misspelling. Those gripes aside, Gasoline brings needed dimension to an increasingly rote realm and are as slick and inflammatory as their namesake. I’ll take my Molotov cocktail shaken, not stirred.