The Knock Ups – “The Knock Ups”
The Knock Ups come knock, knock, knockin’ on my door, but unlike the fifties song by Little Richard- “I Hear You Knockin'” where you can’t come in. Well, I swing my doors wide open, bow courteously and invite them in, graciously.
Because what they’re bringing in is some mighty, courageous, garage rockin’, riot grrl-in’, punk rockin’ ram-a-llama ding dong ding! And they deliver the goods, more dependable than Federal Express or the Pony Express or more dependable that your daily plans, so well laid out the night before, most certainly will surely go down the shitter.
But instead of quitting, and coming back in an hour and trying again, these two dames and dude forge on with some well-crafted tunes, great lyrics and songs played with passion and precision, with poise and wild abandonment, and with a rock that hits your soft parts hard and a roll that soothes nicely, all the pangs away.
What I’m trying to say is- forget about the letters on the page, let’s get to it, let’s howl a bit and let this record spin!
With a distorted, grunge-y guitar leading us into the song “Knock You Up”, it really comes alive once the drum hits a snare beat and the bass comes barreling along. It’s a tune about a mama warning her country girl, that when she moves to the big city, to not let the boys knock her up. This is a rockin’, little number- kind of like a mashup of The Runaways with L7. There’s a killer bass interlude here followed by a cool, psychedelic guitar one that sounds like stars exploding, then dripping down from space. “Sold all her possessions dear/ Traded love for whiskey and beer.” Well, at least she got one thing right. Maybe you disagree? But I know you probably won’t contradict me, when I say how everything is right about this near perfect song.
“1969” is taken at a more moderate beat and what really wins me over, is that it reminds me of one of my favorite songs “Malibu” by Hole. Like that song it has a mellow, acoustic guitar verse coupled with a ringing, melodic, passion filled chorus. “And you will be one of the bright lights in the sky/ So don’t mind all the sirens through the night/ Or all the screaming right outside your front door/ It’s just another bad trip running down the corridor.” This song is about Charles Manson and his followers who slaughtered people gruesomely in the year that is the title. But the glorious chorus takes away any notion of depression brought by stark lines like “kneeling beside this dead starlet’s corpse.” At least it does for me. Amazing tune.
“You don’t talk very much/ But I do/ All of your words are so simple/ But they’re true.” So starts “All Of Me” a straight-forward, in your face, garage rockin’ punk tune. “I’d like to get your alone/ In your room/ Find out all your sins/ To consume.” This is a turn the tables, female aggressor fable with a simple but effective guitar solo and a great chorus that recalls The Psychedelic Furs. “Talk to me/ Dance for me/ Sing to me/ Fuck for me.” The song says, “You look longingly at the door,” but with a song this great it will make you want to stay forever.
“Busted” comes out of the starting gate with a steady, rockin’ beat and dirty, grinding guitars. Seems this song is about a cheating dude but again, the tables are turned on him by the protagonist of the song. “Friends say he’s poison like a dirty rat/ But in the bedroom he’s my kitty cat…How I love using you, how I love abusing you.” The chorus snarls with a venomous, controlled anger and springs alive with a burst of passion when the title hits like a tidal wave. “But you’re BUSTED, BUSTED, BUSTED.” Sung with dual voices and so much joy and excitement and anger that it makes the hair on my arms stand up.
This sounds, at times, like how the cool bands of the eighties sounded. You know, the ones who fell into the category of new wave, not because they were some tarted up pop band but because they offered up something vital and fresh and true.
This sounds, at times, like the riot grrl music of the nineties. In my mind, the best and most punk music of that decade, or most decades, beating out all your Rancid, Green Day, NOFX “boy bands”- by a mile.
This sounds, at times, like the garage/punk I grew up with at The Rat in the late seventies/eighties in Boston. In fact, it almost always reminds me of that. And that’s always a great thing to be reminded of.
This sounds, always like, some of the best music out now. That might be dragged, wrongly, into the indi camp but whose heart is, rightly, in the anger, realness and purity of punk and riot grrl. This sounds like something I would listen to and love because it’s passionate, raw and true.
This sounds like something I’d really like to write about, that is- if I ever get around to it. And sounds like something I’d urge others to check out, too.
It is.
(Slimedog)
