Carol Bales: bass Steve Kiraly: drums JenCharles: guitar/vocals Chris Auman: guitar/vocals
Influences
X, Pretenders, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, Germs, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, Dills, The Clash, The Replacements, Husker Du, Superchunk, Meat Puppets, Minutemen, DOA, Fugazi, Team Satan, Subhumans, Flipper, Buzzcocks, Avengers, Television, Richard Hell & The Voidoids, Sonic Youth
Sucktastic! CD It seems everybody these days needs a hustle of some sort or another. The garage bands have their 15 mintues' fame. New York acts are busy riding The Strokes' coattails. Even Blink 182's turned in its juvenility for a new slant, the matured-band gimmick. What the hell happened to the music? Reagan National Crash Diet are so far removed from the sort of band who lives and dies by manipulating its audience's cruddy attention span that the poorly recorded angle on Suktastic! doesn't really count as an attention-getting ploy. In fact, the quickly recorded studio tracks and live cuts on this record play into the scattered urgency of RNCD: With dueling male/female vocals at its helm and guitars that crash wildly against one another, the band has the mentality, if not the gritty riffs and explosive rhythms of the legendary Los Angeles punk band. In reality, the allusions to X only tell half the tale of the Chicago band's sound. While the songs, mostly culled from the band's 7-inch EP of the same name, screech through punk territory, they stick as close to the sounds of Richard Hell and the Voidoids or a slightly peeved Television as anything borne in the City of Angels. "Hitlicker" takes a buzzing jangle through riffs that are more primal and directly linked to rock'n'roll than three-chord punk and throws them under a pair of vocal tracks that let singer/guitarist Jen Charles and Chris Auman deliver harmonies and backups worthy of John and Exene comparisons. "Pretender" doesn't carom into punk's no-future wasteland as much as it precariously peers into the no mans' land, while live versions of "Anomaly" and "DNA" plunge headlong into punk's well crafted chaos. RCND plays punk for the record collectors and anyone who's grown out of their Epitaph-inspired angst. While it's not as ostentatious as most of its flash-and-burn Californian counterparts, Reagan National Crash Diet makes up in intelligence what it lacks in immediacy.
Administration CD
If there is one complaint to be made about punk, or punk rock, or just plain
rock music these days, it would have to be that most bands take themselves too
seriously. When one does find an inkling of humor embedded in a punk song, it
is of the bitter sort, eliciting a spitting, harsh laughter bereft of any joy.
Granted, times are serious, and punk bands are usually commenting on the things
that piss them off--not puppies or flowers or what they find amusing. That said,
it's a relief to see, and hear, a band like Reagan National Crash Diet. From
the opening lines of "Ghetto Sled," on its disc Administration, it becomes immediately
apparent that these boys and girls have a sense of humor. Over a fast beat as
forceful and sloppy and relentless as the car they describe, singer Chris Auman
informs us: "I don't come from the ghetto.../ But I drive around town in my
ghetto sled/ And I hate it when the light turns red." And the music is nice
and hard too, crunchy and atonal, but catchy in the vein of the Jon Spencer
Blues Explosion--wild and pounding, and daring the listener to join in near
the edge of chaos. RNCD is good at drawing you back from the brink of the abyss
with infectious beats and guitar lines written in such a way that they hook
the listener with out seeming heavy-handed or jingly. Auman sings with the assurance
of the mad. He's a wild troubadour of lunacy, crooning songs of love and steel.
Besides his half-shouted, half-moaned lyrics, what stands out are the guitars
and the drums. The entire band is a tight package, pounding along through rhythms
that are speedy and energetic but not overly thrashy. Reagan National Crash
Diet is punk without the doom and "woe is me" sentimental self-pity, deranged
pop without the sugar and oversimplified dumbness. A definite keeper.
Kurt
Brighton Westword
Reagan National Crash Diet's Friend Space (Top 12)
We have a brand new website and myspace. We would love for you to check out our amps at our shop at 812 W Irving Park in Chicago. We are offering discounts to musicians who are serious about upgrading their gear. Give us a call at 773-529-1788 to make an appointment. AMPS DESIGNED AND BUILT BY MUSICIANS!!!
PLUS CHECK OUT THE VIDEO ON OUR MYSPACE THAT FEATURES OUR AMPS THAT WILL APPEAR ON MTV!!!!!
The concrete and steel of the city are your amplifiers and your sound is like the electric blue sparks that fly off of the EL tracks!
LONG LIVE R.N.C.D.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
