"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!" -Benjamin Franklin

Friday, August 13, 2010

Shitty Mood- Poison Idea

Yesterday was a shitty, slow day at the shop, and I was in a shitty mood too.  Every time I sat down to work on a customer drawing, I just couldn't get anything going- it wasn't flowing.  So, I had a totally unproductive day, which doesn't help to make my mood any less shitty.  Today is going to have to be a Poison Idea day at the shop.  Poison Idea is one of those bands that gets me through- it's angry, nihilistic, self destructive punk rock at it's finest.  Forget about your crunchy metal crossover and your youth crew positivity- this is PUNK, real punk made by fat junkie alcoholics.  I bought their 'Kings of Punk' record when it came out in '85 or '86, and 25 years later, it still destroys most of what people are calling punk rock these days.  The cover of 'Kings of Punk' is a picture of Jerry A carving Poison Idea in his chest with a razor blade (and it's not faked).  Around the same time I found a copy of 'Record Collectors are Pretentious Assholes' in a used record store (that's right, an original pressing on Fatal Erection Records).  A year or 2 later, when 'War All The Time' came out, I picked that up.  At the time I thought that it wasn't as good as the earlier records and kinda lost interest in what they were doing (I wasn't even sure that they even continued past that).  Around 1997, I started buying the rest of their stuff, and realized that this was one of the greatest bands ever.  'Feel The Darkness', 'Blank, Blackout, Vacant', 'We Must Burn', 'Dysfunctional Songs for Codependent Addicts', 'Pick Your King'- all great records.  Over the years their line-up had changed, but the singer- Jerry A, and guitarist- Pig Champion, remained through all these records.  Sometime in the mid 90's they broke up, but reformed in '98 with the 'Kings of Punk' line up to record the great 'Learning To Scream' 7".  Jerry and Pig reformed the band again in 2005 to put out 'Latest Will and Testament', proving once again that they truly were the kings of punk.  Sadly, Pig Champion (Tom Roberts) died in January of 2006- R.I.P Pig.  If you think you know anything about punk rock and you don't know Poison Idea, then you don't know shit!  Go out and get some PI records- you won't be disappointed.  My personal favorites are: 'Kings of Punk', Feel The Darkness', 'Record Collectors...' and 'Latest Will and Testament'.










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