Stick Men With Ray Guns, Grave City (End Of An Ear, 2015)
Sometimes I wonder if punk rock ruined my life. Did it make antisocial and destructive behaviors appealing to my young mind? Did it make me suspicious of success and happiness? Or was I predisposed to become a cynical, negative, nihilistic person and punk rock is what it is because it’s made by people like me? It’s a chicken-egg situation that will make a therapist very happy.
Stick Men’s frontman Bobby Soxx was definitely the kind of person punk rock’s public image was built upon. Listen to episode 8 of the Barely Human podcast to learn everything you need to know about him, the good and the very bad. He was a sick man and he found an outlet in music, alcohol and drugs. This led to some disturbing behavior and to some disturbing punk rock, which in our fucked up value system means great punk rock.
This album compiles every studio recording by the band, which amounts to a mere six tracks (plus two live cuts). Everything is top-tier Texas punk—slow, filthy, repetitive fight music for social reprobates. Side A is perfect from start to finish. The bass sounds like a cement mixer, the guitar player is clearly only trying his best to annoy the listener and the drummer sounds just bored, while Bobby sounds like Johnny Rotten if he was a real person. Side B has a couple of bad-but-fun numbers, before “Kill The Innocent” ends on a high note.
During their original run in the 80s, Stick Men with Ray Guns weren’t supposed to release any records, and didn’t. They existed only to specifically terrorize and piss off their hometown of Dallas with their wild, extremely dangerous live shows and their annoyingly confrontational music and lyrics. Everything went wrong: they ended up being cited as a major influence by the Butthole Surfers, and Bobby Soxx died way too late in 2000, a couple of weeks short of turning 46. Nobody was supposed to listen to these songs, let alone enjoy them. But I wish I could write something so visceral, so wrong and so dangerous as “Grave City”. What’s wrong with me?
Click here to listen to Grave City on YouTube.
Follow GRRAWR on Instagram to get a record review every Wednesday in your IG feed.
