Hickoids

Corn Demon (Saustex Media)
by Craig Regala

The thing about stuff that has a humorous component is the serious young men out there in punk-ville often shunt it to the side as trivial, as if music was supposed to be a melodramatic revolutionary call to arms/heartbreak. Luckily, their self-focused goofusses (goofi?) aren’t the actual majority of the audience; the people who can grasp the full-figured wetness of such as the Hickoids, a rockin’ unit with roots in country/boogie/schmaltz and a punk-yahoo attack. I never saw’m, but I stocked records they put out back in the mid-’80s LP days from whence this hails. Bands need tunes, and they got’m, bud. They sure as fuck got players, too. That’s no beginner guitar, and some of the lines could poke out a metal dudes left eye. From the opening hard rock surf instrumental of “Rodeo Peligroso” to “The Longest Mile”‘s Tennessee Two-step-core grafted onto Dead Kennedys’ style hard rock/punk (Fresh Fruit… ‘n’ Plastic Surgery Disasters), these guys rocked it past any “country parody” cuz 1) They believed in what the broke dick-what-the-hell-country soul means (they whacked that booze’n’dope piñata with all their might), 2)They sure weren’t trying to cash in, and 3) It woulda been great to see’m with the Butthole Surfers.

Like all of us, they’ve bought a rubber in the truck stop bathroom. Witness the common man in all his Technicolor drunken glory, howling “Ku-Fu Fighting” and everything. Jesus, ya must wonder how many times the Hickoids said: “Hey, watch this”….
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