The Shakedowns

Move (Morphius)
by Craig Regala

Nice-guy punk’n’roll with a few cool hard rock touches up in guitarville. They cite New Bomb Turks and Devil Dogs as antecedents, and those bands did come before’m, but The Shakedowns feel more like they germinated out of a hopped-up power-pop combo that whittled the stuff into more of a gut punch. Songs concern girls and rockin’ out topics well within their grasp and good ones for all bands. Why? Because all songs (rather than song as spoken word/rant/opinion) in describing experiential reality (y’know, life, as it were) are innately “political” or “social” as contextualized by the effectiveness of the emotional impact of the song. Yes, by how much it makes you feel joy, pity, serenity, comfort, et. al.

So, The Shakedowns do ok. The ’50s-’70s rock’n’roll roots flash a big sign that reads “Dictators” more than “Ramones,” and they could certainly gig with these “nu-garage” bands I’ve been hearing about. The singer has that clean-cut feel, like a regular non-asshole on fire for a good time, baby… Maybe with you, or at least your sister. Yeah, you can throw their “Are You a Rocker or Not?” on your next keg party CDR between DMZ’s, “Bad Attitude” and The Spitfires’ “Juke Box High” and not get mocked by the geeks who run theperfectmix.com.
(PO Box 13474 Baltimore, MD 21203)