Supersuckers

The Evil Powers of Rock’n’Roll (Koch)
by Brian Varney

This is the first new non-country LP from the Supersuckers in a couple of years, but the layoff hasn’t seen the boys undergo much of a change. If I were forced to give a single-sentence summation of this album, I’d probably say, “It’s a Supersuckers album.” Variety may not be their forte, but they do what they do extremely well. And what they do is create non-denominational rock music. With all of the symbolic barriers which compartmentalize rock music these days, it doesn’t seem like kids ever wander to the other sections in the record store. I work in a record store, and I can usually tell where someone’s headed in about four seconds. It’s all so safe and predictable, just like the music they call punk these days. It would be better for rock music if kids surprised me more often, but they rarely do. Luckily for you and me, the Supersuckers were kids who went all over the store. So although they may consider themselves a punk rock band, they’re a punk band that respects the ROCK (meaning they’re not afraid to wear a Thin Lizzy shirt or talk about Black Sabbath or cover a UFO song), something which seems harder and harder to find these days. I kinda doubt that any of the gimp bands that soil the name of punk could summon the energy to headbang along with “Hot Like the Sun,” let alone write and perform it. Which is too bad for them since the sort of closed-mindedness that leads one to shun an entire sub-genre of rock can only strip the fun from the music. And perhaps that, more than anything else, is what I love about the Supersuckers – their music never fails to smear an irreverent smile on my face, a tactic both underestimated and underutilized by sourpuss punkers everywhere.

I dunno, I’m probably getting too caught up with all of the classifying. My point is this: Were you to see a Supersuckers’ “To Do” list, it would probably look something like this:

• Rock
• Fuck
• Drugs
• Fun

I’m not so sure about the order, but I’m fairly certain the list would not extend beyond these four items. If your own personal life-plan includes these four items, the Supersuckers are the band for you. Speaking for myself, I like this so much that I’ve been writing “Cool Manchu” across my chest with a permanent marker every morning before I leave the house. The opportunity to show someone has not yet arisen, but it’s the thought that counts, right?
(740 Broadway 7th Fl. New York, NY 10003)