Review: Part Time Christians - "Rock and Roll is Disco" [Re-issue]


With a cheeky name and a weirdness that eclipses their musical talent and songwriting abilities, I’m entirely unsurprised that Jello Biafra has been a supporter of Part Time Christians from the get-go. Rock and Roll Is Disco is a re-release of the original Alternative Tentacles vinyl from 1984, and though I greatly respect Taang! for their devotion to archivist releases, this is one of the few they've done that could just as easily have stayed dead.

Combined with the reissuing of the Rock and Roll Is Disco EP are four songs that make up the P.T.C. Lives EP from 2008, and P.T.C. Demo circa 1983. While the production improves significantly with each studio effort, the songs are, for the most part, drawn-out punk-metal hybrids with goofy lyrics that leave a lot to be desired.

For some reason, Part Time Christians decided on bowling themes as their gimmick of choice. “Strength Through Bowling,” “Bowling Pin Massacre,” “Orthopedic Bowling Shoes” and “Gutterball” take up the majority of Rock and Roll Is Disco. The first song, “Religion on a Stick” is actually the best song musically and seems like a lot more appropriate of a theme, but is nevertheless held back by ridiculous lyrics. “Gutterball” is okay as a metaphor but still milks the strange bowling theme a little too much, while “Orthopedic Bowling Shoes” is just a cringer. “Salisbury House” is a paranoid horror song about a mansion in Des Moines that was renovated in the late '70s and apparently “scared the hell out of” lead singer Cosmo. I visited it many times on elementary school field trips and can’t say I necessarily empathize.

The P.T.C. Lives 2008 EP has one good song called “Bionic Cop” but the songs are slow and long and border on metal-y butt rock. The last track of the EP, “One Dead Bee” clocks in at a horrifyingly boring 6:44, cheesy solos included.

The raw 1983 demos are probably the best part of this release. The 49-second “Ultra Violence” isn’t exactly hi-fidelity, but it’s a lot more enjoyable than the slow, sludgy, Flipper-like “Headache” or the demo of “Salisbury House.”

There are a couple decent tunes on Rock and Roll Is Disco but in general it’s pretty obvious why Part Time Christians never became a household name. Though there might be some appeal for those with a less-refined sense of humor and patience to wait out five-minute songs, the majority would get more out of some of Taang!’s other quality re-releases.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Dropkick Murphys / H2O / Civet live in Minneapolis

In Jersey, they’re called guidos. In Boston, they’re chuckleheads. Southern California just calls them bros. Wherever you are or whatever you do, there’s an overabundance of intolerably obnoxious, pinheaded macho males that effectively ruin some prime sector of society. In Minneapolis we have a very special pejorative amalgamation for the types of people we don’t want crowding our concerts and bars with their noxious colognes and juvenile mentalities and they are unaffectionately known exclusively as dude-bros. And in 2009, the dude-bros have put down their O.A.R. CDs, put on their green polos and found a whole new reason to get drunk: the Dropkick Murphys. The sad reality is that the Dropkick Murphys haven’t even really done anything to acquire these distasteful fans. Sure, they gained a few more mainstream fans signing with the Warner-backed Independent Label Group, but not a whole lot more than were already jumping on the bandwagon at the end of their Hellcat stint. As a touring ban
Read more

Interview: Jesse Michaels (Operation Ivy, Classics of Love, Common Rider)

Image
When I first started getting heavily into punk around 9th grade, Operation Ivy was one of the first bands to really resonate with me. Their simple message of individualism, unity, and nonconformity was uncompromising, but never without a glimmer of hope hidden beneath. Years later I heard my first taste of Common Rider and was blown away to find out it was the same singer as Operation Ivy, Jesse Michaels. Since then, I have collected every piece of music he has done, from Operation Ivy bootlegs to the four-song Big Rig EP, to Common Rider and beyond. When I heard Jesse Michaels and his new band Classics of Love was coming to Minneapolis, I jumped at the chance to interview him and could not be happier with meeting him and finding out more about his life and projects. In a 2003 interview, Michaels said of the late Joe Strummer, “I was lucky enough to meet him and he was everything one would hope for in somebody they looked up to.” Now I can say the same of Jesse Michaels. You can click
Read more

Interview: Paint it Black (Dan Yemin and Andy Nelson)

Image
Full interview with Dan Yemin and Andy Nelson of Paint it Black. Abridged version originally appeared in Poweredge skateboarding magazine. Check out Poweredge for the interview details and intro. Interview by Tyler Barrett, photo by Adam DeGross. RadioActivist: Why’d you decide to play your two Midwestern shows in the dead of winter? Dan Yemin: To be honest, we were so excited about coming we didn’t really consider the weather until we arranged everything. We haven’t been here in like six years because of a weird combination of things—partly that we don’t really tour and partly because coming out just to play a couple shows in the Midwest from Philly is really hard. It’s either drive and play Chicago and Detroit or fly and play Minneapolis and Chicago. And we’ve been talking about doing it for the last three years but we keep going to like England, like someone offers “Hey, we’ll fly you over to England” and we’re like “Okay, cool.” And so we end up spending all the time we had to
Read more