Rode Hard and Put Away Wet (Honest Don’s)
by Scott Hefflon
Opening their fourth full-length (all on Honest Don’s, including Cock Rock, Honest Don’s first release) with “Boxers or Brief,” the band’s contribution to Fat’s ever-essential Short Music for Short People, Diesel Boy set the stage for what is to come (probably all over the place, knowing them): Short, fast, funny, irreverent, breaking down more than an old Econoline van, making you reach for the lyric sheets faster than the jeans around your ankles when you here someone jiggling the doorknob to the bathroom, and worthy of more chuckles than flipping through a friend’s old photo album. (“Dude, you had feathered hair! And what’s with that Duran Duran poster on the wall behind you?”)
It’s produced by Ryan Greene and has many of the same elements as, ya know, punkpop (singable melodies, stacked harmonies, often thundering NOFXian drumming), but there’s the undeniable sense of humor (self-effacing humor, the kinda honest “Yeah, I’m kind of a dork, a closet romantic, I love a good bologna sandwich, but maybe when you stop laughing in my face, we can catch a movie or something?”), and – without getting all clinical and shit – a real understanding of how to shine a light on the pop culture we all see so much that we don’t see anymore and make it look goofy and absurd. Favorites “Stroking My Cat” (a list of all the hotties the singer’d like to “pet”), “Rock Anthem,” and “Emo Boy” (“what’s an emo boy to do with a broken heart and some minor chords”) combine all that’s good about punkpop, emo breakdowns that don’t suck, and full-on powerhouse singing (no yelping, cracked notes, or sing-the-same-notes-as-the-guitar bullshit). There are a couple kinda boner tracks here, but this is a nose-thumbing punk record and not a state of the union address, so shit, cut it slack…
(PO Box 193690 San Francisco, CA 94119)