Thursday, July 17, 2025

TIMES NEW ROMAN ROCK


Well, that was a long piss break. Guess what happened. Nothing. I just wanted to see what it was like to take my unproductive tendencies to the next level. It got pretty boring. I guess one thing did happen. The traffic here jumped, not a little, but a lot. The past few months have had the most hits in the time I've been doing this, something like seventeen years. If this blog was monetized, it would be the ultimate "passive income", money for sitting on your ass. I ain't got time for that.

So, anyway, the Viagra Boys. I happened on a link to one of their videos. Sometimes a band name will be the only reason I click. Viagra Boys: the stupidest fucking band name I've ever heard of. That's precisely what sucked me in. I was hoping for another Oklahoma Blood. Oklahoma Blood you ask? Another band that also sucked me in via a bad band name, with very different results. Oklahoma Blood is a metal band from, you guessed it, Oklahoma. I'm not sure what their reach is but the gigs in the videos have the look of a band still in their take-any-gig stage. To wit, the first video I saw was an instrumental banger called "Stompin' Nachos" and they're playing in what appears to be someone's back yard, complete with a junior headbanger back by the drummer. I'm no judge of this type of metal, but I can say they seem earnest.. I have to admit, the scene is humorous but you know what? Good for them. They're doing it.

Back to the Viagra Boys. I was pleasantly surprised. After .watching a few videos and without knowing anything about the band I came away thinking they sounded like the My War-era Black Flag with a little early Stooges, with Weirdos singer John Denny and a dash of Flipper sludge. If you're an old fart like me and liked those bands back in the day your assessment might be different. Good. Another thing was that they had a synth player and sax, both played abrasively enough that it made me think of the No Wave stuff from the No New York compilation. Add all that up and it's a salad bowl of good shit. [I should add here that in subsequent listening I'd add a dozen other bands. Heroes-era Bowie is in there, all sorts of stuff.]

I gave it a couple weeks to see if it was just the mood I was in when I first ran across them. Sampled some recordings, watched a few more videos. Okay, I realized that I dig them, a lot more than any "new" band that's come down the pike the past few years. I'm surprised as hell that I hadn't heard of them. Really. They been around for six years or something. I'm so out of the loop that I don't care about being out of the loop.

It's better this way. Even though I thought they had a stupid name, with no pre-conceived notions about their music I was allowing myself almost total objectivity, I'm' pleased as punch, I dig them, from out of nowhere. Late to the party? Says who? The party starts when I show up.


Then, the lyrics. They kill me. "I Ain't No Thief", sung in the first person, is about a guy who gets accused of stealing things, repeatedly. His defense is always..., well the chorus says it all with a snarl. "I ain't no thief!, I ain't no thief!, I ain't no thief!, I just got the same stuff!!" Lyrics Larry, Moe and Curly would envy.he In "Sports", singer Sebastian Murphy rattles off things that could only be loosely defined by some as sports or sports related, including "Getting high in the morning, Buying things on the internet, ..." ending multiple verses with "wiener dog" which is really a stretch. It's like one of those drunken jams you have with your buds where you just improvise random lyrics. After that as my initial assessment, I ran across an interview with Murphy alluding to almost that exact scenario. When writing he just fits random words and phrases to the music and fine tunes them later once he thinks of something better. Sometimes he doesn't. Hence, wiener dog.


Here's just a sampling. There's a shitload of videos at YouTube on their "channel"; some live, some live in studio and some official music videos. Whoever does their videos does a bang up job. The live stuff is well mixed and has great camera work with multiple cameras. Not the shaky fan videos done with someone's phone. The "official" music videos are entertaining in a David Lynch "what the fuck is this?" sort of way. 
Videos
Viagra Boys.channel at YouTube A shitload of well done videos.
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