Mad Caddies – Rock the Plank – Review

Mad Caddies

Rock the Plank (Fat)
by Jon Sarre

It’s pretty much an evenly matched match, natch, sports fans, tho’ these two bands don’t have much in common past their similar monikers. Mad Caddies hail from Santa Barbara and work that Fat Wreck pop-punk style wit’ ska flavorin’s, tho’ their newly developed pirate fixation leads ’em to dub their stuff “pirate-core,” which adds to the burgeoning Pirate’n’Roll movement cuz ya also can count in the Portland, OR band Pirate Jenny (who actually dress like Pirates, some guy from the band told me one time, but someone else described ’em as a “gay” Pirate band) and then there was the Northampton, MA Pirate Jenny, who I can’t remember seein’, dressed as pirates or not. I guess you can trace it all back to Johnny Thunders’ “Pirate Love,” one of the stupider songs on L.A.M.F. So yeah, pirate-core, an idea Mad Caddies oughtta flesh out more, for no other reason than they sound a lot like a lotta bands and mosta them don’t fancy themselves freebooters of the hi-ways.

Mad Daddys (who are named after a Cramps song, so they probably really can spell) are four weird-lookin’ guys from Jersey who traffic in Lux’n’Ivy’s good ideas without embarassin’ themselves (which is a hard trick to pull off when ya get down to it). Needless to say, their ground-up blues’n’rockabilly hamburger is meatier than the Caddies, but the Caddies got almost twice as many people, countin’ the horn section and if ya got a trombone upside the head, ya’d be feelin’ it in the mornin’, that’s for damn sure, so mebbe the Mad Daddys should be lookin’ over their shoulders in the parkin’ lot. Ar! There be pirates out there!
(PO Box 193690 San Francisco, CA 94119; 11054 Ventura Blvd Studio City, CA 91604)