The Yuppie Pricks

Broken Banquet (Alternative Tentacles)
by Scott Hefflon

The Yuppie Pricks are what’s missing from punk rock: The ability to make fun of everything including themselves, without being ironic about it. From the opening blast of “Coke Party,” you either get it, or you’re a moron. Imagine a younger (ahem, and funnier) Jello Biafra (ex-Dead Kennedys’ singer, owner of Alternative Tentacles, and if I needed to tell you that, uh, seriously, brush up a bit, huh?) fronting a lively band, the concept being kids in it for the blow, the blowjobs, and cuz they can. Punk rock, in other words. Not since Strapping Young Lad’s Devin Townsend and friends chuckled their way through the criminally-unknown Punky Brüster’s Cooked on Phonics has punk rock been so accurately parodied.

Punk rock is easy to play, that’s the point of it. Kids who can’t play, play punk. A “punk cover” is basically just faster, with the hard parts skipped or fumbled badly. Punk went from being dangerous “fuck off, we know we suck” to self-aware “I want to meet girls like Good Charlotte does.” Punk is scrubbed free of anti-social behavior and making tons of money because it doesn’t make you think. If you think Blink-182 and Jackass are trouble-causing punks and not frat boys with spiky haircuts, yer missing something. And it’s easy to miss it in an advertising-heavy, mass-marketed culture.

The Yuppie Pricks are a riot. They can play, they write good songs, you can sing along and bop yer head. This CD isn’t going to sell well, and there’s no ad dollars or promotion behind it. It’ll be the secret of real punks mocking the fake punks, the way it should be.
(www.alternativetentacles.com)