New Wave Hookers

(Junk)
by Jon Sarre

They invoke the New York Dolls’ first record on the cover of this EP, but Portland, OR’s New Wave Hookers can pretty much be summed up by frontman Derek Baron: loud, crude, and armed with a sense of aesthetics that overwhelms any concept so wad-shot in punk rock as creativity. The album itself, when compared to the Hookers’ unhinged live sets where the band’s whoh-whoh-hey Götterdämmerung as filched from the Misfits comes in a close second to fellow Portlanders Black Jack, is sorta muted. The hardcore includes the predictable pornography references and the punk is comin’ from that “classicism” cubbyhole, albeit in a Johnny-Thunders-when-not-so-lucid-sorta way. When Baron wryly twists the phrase “down for you baby” in “Hell For You” into a fellatio reference, or cleverly rhymes “lipstick” with “dipstick,” it’s not a whole lot different from a nodding Thunders and nodding Walter Lure takin’ a break during a set to argue what’s better, drugs or chicks, with the audience. The vocalist’s poetics aside, the two Gibson-strummers consistently save the day by loosing messy splurts of flaming Messerschmitt buzz chordage onto the TV screen displayin’ the continuous loop of the porno-flick they haven’t returned to the adult video store yet. Not so pretty, no, but touch that dial and yer gonna hafta wash yer hands afterwards.
(7071 Warner Ave. #F736 Huntington Beach, CA 92647)