In 1981, Debbie Harry told us to "say don't stop to punk rock" in "Rapture", a song that was number
1 in America and number 5 in the United Kingdom. On both sides of the Atlantic, nihilistic unwashed
adolescents in leather jackets took that message to heart, and happily, punk survived the adenoidal,
synthesized '80s in one scruffy form or another. Punk metal, surf punk, ska punk, horror punk, skate
punk, death punk, Christian punk, punk pop, hard core - all with the proverbial hand on the zipper so
as to take a piss on the establishment wherever it may be found. Punk rock... yeah.
So it's 1996, and it must be that only God or Iggy Pop knows why in the midst of a so-called punk
revival, the face of punk is to be found on the grinning mugs of happy-go-lucky bastards like Green
Day. People who wouldn't have a bone to pick if one got stuck in their throats.
If a million people are going to buy a 'punk album', it should really be NY Loose's YEAR OF THE
RAT. So they copped their name from a Stooges' song and stuck an NY in front of it, but at least right
off, like punk legends the New York Dolls (as well as decidely non-punk establishments like DKNY
and NYDC) you know that they're from New York and not Alaska. Or worse, Seattle. And with that
kind of iconoclastic gall, it helps that NY Loose are the real, unpretentious article - vociferously
disaffected street punks who play fast, catchy, cathartically furious 3-minute shots of your vintage
nihilistic dogma.
But that said, they're not throwbacks or hangers-on either. The original authority-destroying message
of punk is going to do as much as it did back in the late '70s. Which is to say, nothing. So punk's only
relevant distillation is maximum rock n' roll - attitude as opposed to agenda. It's like what's said on one
of the "fortune cookie" sayings that you'll find scattered on the inner sleeve of NY Loose's album:
"Rage is a matter of feelings, not fears". And that's just what you get on YEAR OF THE RAT. Lines
like "Least I know with you it's always gonna be a bad time", "I'm not bigger than this burden", and "It
doesn't phase me/I'd trash the given chance" alone sound like the confessions of a defeated soul, but
vocalist Brijitte West sings them in the quinessentially punk manner - pissed-off and unapologetic.
Together with the rage, there's also the biting, semi-ironic humour that comes across in lines like "She
was such a pretty suicide/oh what a beautiful mess" and the sneeringly-purveyed "apathy is golden/
apathy is good". Or in "Detanator", when a none-too concilliatory Ms West tells a lover, "I'm so
bored, but not as bored as you are boring/I'm a bitch/But you've always known how to bring out my
best". And on the flipside, there's "Hide", an eerie outsider's lullaby that starts with a few desolate
strums on the guitar, and then runs off into a harrowing caterwaul of screeching riffs.
Best of all, NY Loose aren't afraid to play their instruments like they actually know how to (unlike
bands who can't and say it's punk not to know how to), and are shameless enough to turn in a straight,
'60s pop rendition of the Velvet Underground's "Sunday Morning", Brijitte West cooing all over the
string orchestra like a flesh and blood version of Wendy James.
So nevermind that anarchy isn't on the menu, in this case hearing someone in tight jeans and a leather
jacket going "ooh.. yeah!" two dozen or so times on a song called "Spit" is by far a purer rock n' roll
experience. 1997 may be the 20th anniversary of the Sex Pistols' NEVERMIND THE BOLLOCKS,
HERE'S THE SEX PISTOLS and the Ramones' "Sheena Was A Punk Rocker". But 1997 is also the
Year of the Pig. 1996, on the other hand, is in no uncertain terms the Year of the Rat.
Gerald Tan 1997
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