200 POUND UNDERGROUND

WHERE'S THE MUTHA WHEN YOU NEED HIM? -- THE JACKS AND THE RETURN OF 'SHORE CORE'


When I was just a mere nipper of a napper, my family and I used to take yearly vacations down to the Jersey Shore. Most of the time they were pretty uneventful visits. My older sisters would get drunk and try to hook up with guidos from North Jersey while my parents and their friends would get drunk in our bungalows while playing cards. Which left lil old me with really nothing to do. In my sad little mind danced a bizarre (Bizarre for a twelve year old) obsession with the Beach Punkers of Southern California. Skate parks, dudes wearing leather jackets in ninety degree weather, turf wars, etc. All this stuff was implanted in there by numerous readings of my older brothers’ issues of Flipside, We Got Power, and other SoCal Punk rags. I thought that maybe, just maybe, there had to be something similar going on at the sandy terrains in our state. No such luck, shmuck. I would ride my skateboard up and down the boardwalk hoping to find one kindred soul or even someone who would beat me up for being a poser, but there was nothin’ doin’. Little did I know there was that whole Mutha scene going on somewhere near by, but even though it was close to the beach, I wouldn’t really consider any of those bands ‘Beach Punk’. Most of those guys just looked like they wanted to be in The Anti-Nowhere League and seemed pretty tame and lame at the time. If only I knew then what I know now. I’d be a proud property owner from all the copies of the Send Help single I woulda scopped up at that weird ass record store on Morley’s Pier! But I digress…



If only I had found The Jacks ‘Concrete Death’ single amongst all the musty second hand copies of ‘Nantucket Sleighride’ and Chronic Sick singles back then, I would have been psyched . In typical shitty fashion, I find it twenty something years after the fact when I can't stand on a skateboard for five seconds without crashing to the ground in an elderly heap. But I’m still psyched I found out about it. Awesome mid-tempo beach moves with hooks a plenty and a real dense though fitting recording job. And they're from the Jersey Shore man! And even though the idea of something like this in this day and age might sound abit cheesy to the bitter contingent reading this (Hello brothers!) it ain’t. Lyrics about cruising down North 35, feeling weird about trading your stick in for a job in the city, smelly book smart hippy punks, etc. Shit man, where’s Mark Chesley when you need him to put this shit out? I guess these guys are just gonna hafta reap the benefits of these swell sounds by releasing it on their own. If I coulda sandwiched these tunes in between some Symbol Six and Simpletones on the mix tape I blasted on my walkman those lonely days down the shore, it wouldn’t have been so bad. I guess for now I’ll just sandwich them in between some Agitation Free and Distance on some CDR and be happy with it. Check these cats out on their MySpace page and buy a couple copies of the single off them while you’re there. http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=3451584



And while you’re still using this glorified typewriter, splooge on over to the Wounded Galaxy blogspot and check out David’s rather awesome observations on music and fun. This Canuck has got the fever and it won’t go down. http://woundedgalaxy.blogspot.com/


…And check out Jay Hinman’s newest blog-o-sphere entitled Detailed Twang, an obvious reference to everyone’s fave Brit art punk nutises The Door and The Window. I knew you couldn’t keep the Hin-mann down…http://detailedtwang.blogspot.com

So, I guess that’s about it for now…next time perhaps some musings on more gemstones of sound of an interview or just plain ole bellyaching…either way, you know you’ll love it…