Song: Sapsucker Sluggo
Album: Bad Move Space Cadet
Year: 1995
Genre: Pop-Punk
Something about the change of seasons makes me listen to different types of bands. When the sun eventually breaks through each depressing winter of the Great Lakes State, I find myself shuffling through the pop punk section on my iPod. Happy weather warrants happy music, I guess. Recently Mother Nature decided to throw an almost 70 degree day in the middle of a 30 degree week. I was instantaneously jonesing to hear some upbeat, melodic punk and ended up blasting a band I hadn’t listened to in a couple of years; Zoinks! In the mid 90s, the success of megastars like Green Day and The Offspring created a huge market for similar sounding bands. Smaller labels everywhere were releasing pop punk records faster than you could pay attention to them. Zoinks was signed to one of the larger of these tiny labels, Dr. Strange Records. I bought their record strictly on the basis that I was a fan of so many of the awesome bands they released, such as Rhythm Collision, Voodoo Glowskulls, Guttermouth, Face To Face, The Bollweevils and Schleprock. Plain and simple, I am a huge fan of this record. But, the strange fact is, if I was to judge it from a technical and musical standpoint, this album is heavily flawed and isn’t played very well at all. It’s full of drums that push and pull, guitar and bass that don’t always lock up, vocals that are decently out of key and songwriting that may have needed a bit more attention. Yet, the same faults I could easily slight Zoinks for is the thing that I adore the most about the band. Sincerity is the key here. This record has a punk rock heart that’s as big as a whale and proves that if you play with conviction you don’t have to be some virtuoso musicians to create something special.
Listen to "Sapsucker Sluggo" here.
No comments:
Post a Comment