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POP-O-PIES, Pop-O-Anthology: 1984-1993 CD

By Gabe


Early SF punk/provocateur Joe Pop-O-Pies released some wonderfully snide and twisted records/social critiques in the late punk era of 80s.  He often ragged on humorless and clueless punks who didn't appreciate their earnestness being questioned and on boring whiners.

Musically, Joe's project shared a lot with Oakland's Flipper - a noisy mix of metal and simple punk years before that became a flavor of bubblegum pop.  Lyrically, maybe Attila The Stockbroker (yes, that WAS a great name).  How can you not like this stuff?  It rocks and takes the piss.

1. Joe snarls, sneers, and wrings the neck of his guitar throughout this sharp quasi-metallic reworking of the Dead's "hit", "Truckin'"

2. Electro beats paired with a deadpan "rap"

3. Rip on narrow-minded, trust-fund, pseudo-punks done in a most annoying (that's good) style

4. More traditional punk tune - three chords, lyrics about some ways in which NY sucks (echoes of Fear's "NY's Alright If You Like Saxophones" except that Joe's serious), and a bit of the old "working class peoples"

5. Hardcore parody featuring the immortal lyric "Anti-Reagan and stuff man, yeah"

6. Another Flipper-like screech through a litany of NY's horrors for the soulful SF artist which include dealing with self-indulgent junkies and high prices (noted irony: fruit is expensive despite the "Big Apple" appelation); "shithole" and "fuck"

7. Joe expounds all to "smoke pot, everybody smoke pot" over a crunchy version of the Beatles oh-so-subtle pro-drug classic

8. Hey, it's a catchy, crunchy riff carrying a funny lyric about a "bummed out guy" and interrupted by a nauseatingly wankerific guitar solo

9. Ultra-catchy punk riff on morons

10. Imagine one of the positive-thinking speeches, full of BS and buzz phrases, at one of those get rich quick seminars, set into the milieu of punk rock band management, burrito stand operation, and a Hendrix-inspired guitar; add another dig at "hardcore" kids taking panhandling spots from "legit" panhandlers and you have ... yeah ... "Spirit! Excellence! Good stuff!"

11. Tape-run-backwards cover version of another Dead song then 'appy 'ardcore forward take - ultra simple riff and lyric consisting of "Sunshine baby"

12. I'll take this as a backhanded tribute to the "Goldfinger" theme, though with the inimitable P-O-P lyrical touch - here taking music industry duplicity to task

13. Another backward-run-tape, which sounds still quite rocking, of course

14. This song could probably be just as effective at 2 minutes as at the present 7; a tweaked guitar and plaintive vocals

15. Now several years on, Joe is more straightforwardly rocking out though he's still self-deprecating

16. Shambolic start/stop/start/stop/start; amusingly simpleminded rhymes

17. Chugging metallic riff

18. Poppy punk, which was all the rage by the 1993 recording date of this track.


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