STRANGE ATTRACTOR "Good Boy Bad Boy" LP

140g Black Vinyl, Full colour Jacket, Riso Poster, DL code, wetnap and hand stamped centre labels. 45 RPM. Giddyup. You can file this one in your mental record bin next to VOM, the Angry Samoans, the Reatards, the Chats (their singer makes an appearance here.), and the Gizmos (my 70s teen band). Y’know, punk-rock with garage guffaws wrapped up in the mix real good. You will find neither grim hardcore nor retro fashion show here.

The title track “Good Boy, Bad Boy” reminds me of the Panics, the Bloomington, Indiana punk band after the Gizmos in the early 80s.It’s the aggressive nasal sneer that’s been a mainstay of punktitude since at least Question Mark and Sky Saxon circa 1966. But it’s the opening track “I Wanna Be You” that sounds like the single to me—snarling power-poppy punk with an inverted ironic warning against envy. “Nature Man” is another winner. Is it a modern answer song to the Eden Ahbez/Nat King Cole standard “Nature Boy”? To me, it is! Is there a big Spanish-speaking community in Sudbury? Coz there’s also a song called “Destruye Todo” that takes a mere 24 seconds to “destroy everything.” “Don’t Waste My Time” sounds like a good follow-up to should-be-a-hit-single “I Wanna Be You,” another catchy punker that could be an anthem if anybody was singing along. How about you? Maybe this one? The Chats singer shows up on “Warm Piss.” Yep, you can hear his beer-sodden Oz vocal trading barbs with Jeff’s nasal whine. And there’s more! 18 tracks total! Yay!

I got very burned out on punk and garage rockisms in the late 80s. Jazz, noise, and improv turned me on. Hip hop became rock. But my post-2014 Gizmos comeback years perfectly dovetailed with a new generation of punkers who somehow don’t sound tired or full of crap. Who woulda thunk it could NOT suck in this third stupid decade of the 21st Century? Cheers!—Heavy Eddie Flowers
Bloomington, 2023 (Celluloid Lunch Records /Discos De Muerte/ Drunken Sailor Records)