Boy, did these LA hardcore legends become unfunny fast. And boy, did they run out of good songs in less time than a Minutemen song. They released the classic Group Sex—with its fourteen furious blasts of loud and fast in just over fifteen minutes—in 1980, and after that? They foisted this pair of leper-worn Doc Martens on us.
And truth be told the best songs on Group Sex were ripped off—either by lead vocalist Keith Morris from his previous band Black Flag or by guitarist Greg Hetson from his previous band Red Cross. Which is to say that the Circle Jerks were never very funny and wrote, at best, a small few number of good songs on their own, none of which you’ll find on 1982’s Wild in the Streets. Talk about your great rock’n’roll swindles.
The punk-metal hybrids on Wild in the Streets pack a sonic punch, but you’ll search in vain for a timeless song—the only numbers I’ve ever found listenable are “86’d (Good and Gone)” and the snotty cover of Jackie DeShannon’s “Put a Little Love in Your Heart.” And the DeShannon cover pales in comparison to the tongue-in-check medley “Golden Shower of Hits (Jerks on 45)” from Wild in the Streets’ 1983 follow-up Golden Shower of Hits, which in the Circle Jerks’ defense actually includes a few good songs (“In Your Eyes,” “When the Shit Hits the Fan,” “Coup d’Etat.”) Wild in the Streets declines to do us the same favor.
Hardcore in its pure form didn’t last much longer than the running time of Group Sex, and you could count the number of truly great bands on two hands, or one if you’re me. Remember Youth Brigade? Reagan Youth? Circle One? I don’t. But the best bands on the scene either quickly wearied of the constraints of the hardcore form and branched out in truly innovative directions (think the Meat Puppets) or never bought into hardcore’s reductionist aesthetic to begin with (think No Trend and Flipper).
The Circle Jerks, on the other hand, merely coarsened over time. They upped the metal quotient (a common move), which served only to thicken their sound and add ballast. Worse, they proved they didn’t have a homegrown sense of humor, and there’s nothing more yawn-worthy in this world than a bratty punk who isn’t funny. You just want him to stop whining already.
Opener “Wild in the Streets” is a Garland Jeffreys cover that sinks beneath its own weight—the loud and fast just ain’t loud and fast enough, although I like Hetson’s blur of a guitar solo. On “Leave Me Alone” Morris has the right attitude (which is to say a bad attitude) but the sentiment’s so much humorless ho-hum and the song itself is second-rate Black Flag. And “Stars and Stripes” is worse—a standard example of second-rate political agit-punk. (The Dead Kennedys and the Minutemen were the only hardcore bands that could get away with writing propaganda songs, because Jello Biafra is a clever bastard and D. Boon was smart and had a giant heart. He was hardcore’s Woody Guthrie.) “86’d (Good as Gone)” is as close as the Circle Jerks get to producing a hardcore standard on Wild in the Streets—it kicks like a mule and its melody is catchy and what’s more Morris isn’t throwing a pity party.
“Meet the Press” also has loud and fast cred—Morris has to sing it in a mad rush, and that’s always a good sign. Unfortunately it’s moralistic in tone and its subject matter is pure who cares—politician gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar, big whoop and write an op-ed already. “Trapped” has a big rumbling bass line and a stop-start thing going on with Morris shouting “Trapped!” “I’m trapped!” Not bad, but Black Flag could do better in their sleep, and maybe make you laugh while they’re at it.
“Murder the Disturbed” could have been great–that title has real chuckle potential. But the song isn’t the least bit funny, and there’s no cure for that. “Letter Bomb,” same deal. It’s about how awful it is to have to have a job and how you’re going to pay your boss back by blowing him up and there isn’t a laugh line in it. Besides, everybody knows punks don’t have jobs.
“Question Authority” opens with some drum tattoo and humongous power chords before greyhounding out of the starting blocks; unfortunately, lyrics along the lines of “Question authority/Pay the price, the future belongs to me/This is the time, this is the hour/The world’s our dowry/Glory and the power” kill the song dead in its tracks. “The world’s our dowry” may be the worst line in a hardcore song ever, and doesn’t’ Morris know that talking about a brighter future makes you a goddamn hippie? No wonder the guy ended up in dreadlocks. Circle Jerks? They should have changed their name to Drum Circle.
“Defamation Innuendo” is a song about music critics (like ME, the bastards!) and how (I’ll stick to the first person here) I’m a big dick because I wrote bad things about the Circle Jerks to get them back for not putting me on the guest list. Not true! I’d have crucified ‘em even if they had! “Mortal Majority” is, oh god, don’t make me talk about it. On “Forced Labor” Morris rants about having to work a dead end job and from there goes on to deliver a lecture on how you have to fight communism and fascism and Naziism, which is a bit of a stretch if you ask me.
The song is ho-hum political sloganeering of the lowest common denominator and Morris should really smarten up and realize that nothing ever changes and besides punks have more important things to do (like slamdancing and getting wasted, for instance) than be lectured to. Message to Keith: Stop doing Ian MacKaye’s job! I mean, have a larf for shit’s sake. If I want to be bored into total stupefaction I’ll become a poli-sci major.
“Political Stu” is even worse, a rant about the world and how terrible it is that all these terrible things are happening and people are getting screwed everywhere. No shit, Keith, stop spouting cliches and get back to doing something truly entertaining like you did in Repo Man with that great lounge version of “When the Shit Hits the Fan.” Why, I’m not even sure I trust the guy’s sincerity. He was just doing what every other second-rate punk was doing at the time. Ranting about Reagan because that’s what you did.
“Just Like Me” is a more or less a straight up and rather sub par cover of a Paul Revere & the Raiders song I don’t find very exciting in the first place. And Morris isn’t even playing it for giggles. Which leaves us with the Jerks’ cover of “Put a Little Love in Your Heart,” which really ain’t all that but at least Morris sings it out of tune like a good punk should and the band speeds things up real good at the end.
The Circle Jerks were the most overrated of the hardcore giants, and they earned their rep on the backs of others to begin with. Which isn’t to say that Group Sex isn’t an essential hardcore record. But left to their own devices the Circle Jerks were, well, one big circle jerk. At its best hardcore produced some very entertaining bile and a tiny, tiny handful of truly innovative sounds. Wild in the Streets is neither entertaining nor innovative. It’s a pedestrian creature of it time, and the humorless sound of a short-lived moment in musical history whimpering its way into irrelevance.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
D+
