Blanks 77
Tanked and Pogoed
Radical
Fifteen new snot-nosed, black-sunglasses-wearing, leather-jacketed 100% punk rock from some of your favorite punks. While the last album of theirs I caught, Killer Blanks, had some of the crank album packaging I’d ever seen on a punk record, Tanked and Pogoed relies on most traditional packaging and an almost minimalist feel. This seems to be indicative of something, as their song “Hit And Run” screams out about being called sellouts, yet not having a cent, playing every little club across the land, and having to live in an old school bus. I guess the Partridge Family gig is only fun on television. Blanks 77 are a great punk band I think it’s sad that anyone even applies “sell out” to anything these days. I mean, if you aren’t sold out, you’re doing something wrong…
“I Wanna Be A Punk” is another song dealing with the “selling-out,” but this is about the selling-out of a generation to the false world of television. That, I think, is probably the most important issue punk rock should be addressing. Although heroin and depression are pretty important, which are the subjects of “Suburbia,” the real problem, it seems, is this image on television of what life is supposed to be like, yet the lives of the characters on TV shows are so alien to what’s being experienced… But this is what advertisers think is real, so… So Blanks 77 wrote “No One Cares” about rebelling against the post X-generation. They’re looking for somewhere to fit in, where they really will fit in, I guess. Of course there’s always work, which is discussed in “Up the System.” But work sucks, too. Hey! This is an album full of confused punk songs! A Triumph! Radical Records, 77 Bleeker Street, Suite C2-21, New York, NY 10012
