Madcap
East to West (Side One Dummy)
by Grady Gadbow
I once heard it said that the best way to tell a movement is dead is by someone trying to revive it. This may be true. It may be false. You’ll be given the same reward. Anyone who really wants to discuss whether or not “punk is dead” has had too much to drink and needs to shut up and watch the band. But not this band.
These insipid four-chord odes to the perseverance and whoa-oh-oh of those of us who are “still here” only serve to remind me that I too am still here and should probably be on my way.
“We’re the troops from the west and we never rest!” bellow the back-up vocals way too many times on “Hometown,” one of several Madcap songs expressing great pride in having been across the country a few times which, come to think of it, is an amazing feat for a band so trite and uninspired.
Yeah fuckin’ like, solidarity bro… And if we all spike our hair, we can make a brighter day, so let’s start givin’. Me, I think it takes more to change the world (or even sell merch) than music approaching the structural complexity of the first Ramones album and lyrics expressing little more than the fact of the singers’ existence.
(PO Box 2350 Los Angeles, CA 90078)