Pulley
Esteem Driven Engine (Epitaph)
by Chaz Thorndike
Punk rock sugar groups carry less weight for me than a wet Bounty paper towel. The fact that Don Dickweed used to play rhythm guitar for Electric Cowtippers (they were influenced by the Ramones, kinda like half a generation, and dropped the “the” from the beginning) before the band kicked him out, got a guitarist who knew four chords, and got signed to a conglomalabel that milked their one song for three albums that sold trillions, is a useless bit of trivia best left to dumbfucks with time to kill and cash to blow. I care.
Specifically, Pulley consists of vocalist Scott (ex-Ten Foot Pole), guitarist Jim (bassist of Strung Out), drummer Jordan (of Strung Out), bassist Matt (ex-Face To Face, now with 22 Jacks and No Use For a Name), and a guy named Mike (played drums in Scared Straight before they became Ten Foot Pole without him). Got all that? Coincidentally Ryan Green produced Esteem… (He’s the knob-twiddler who made Jordan sound huge on Strung Out’s Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues, like he made NOFX’s Erik Ghint sound like a perfectly-miked speedbag). This sounds like Fat Wreck Chord territory, mohawked cats and kitties. Ya know, that Lagwagon/Strung Out/pop punk/melodicore fast stuff with lots of harmonies and lyrics about the punk scene, and oh the sadness of it all. Yawn. And that’s if the lyrics aren’t all that horrid artsy symbolism that try in vain to mask the fact that the writer has read more song lyrics than actual books. “This Parking Lot of Life?” Oh, Pul-leaze!
All my bitching aside, Pulley is probably no worse than all the other dime-a-dozen “punk” bands clogging the cut-out bins. Question: If semi-memorable, quick-tempoed pop (called punk by people who don’t know any better) is so cheap to find, why are the CDs still so expensive? “One Shot” ought to be a theme song, even with the backup vocalist who needs a hormone injection. The irony of a hit single with lyrics like, “I know if the radio plays this song all the kids will buy it and I won’t be cool anymore” is just too good to pass up. Too bad you have to buy the whole CD to enjoy the full effect of the song’s spite, thus becoming one of the boobs they’re railing against.
