Snobbin: Beautiful Trash in the Pop Culture Gutter

Although I've listened to The Real Kids self-titled record many times since I discovered them, it always seems refreshingly new to me. From the first notes of their arguably greatest song, "All Kindsa Girls," the Real Kids prove that they were doing something different than their peers. Just like punk bands, they were attempting to simplify rock music, trying to move away from the excesses of the '70s, and look forward to a more visceral, less cerebral, take on guitar music that owed as much to the early days of rock as anything the Ramones or the Sex Pistols were doing at the time. The focus is on fun and excitement. The Real Kids is pure fun; rocking guitars, harmony vocals, songs about girls, the sound of a bar band on perpetual overload, all mixed together into a satisfying, lurching, sloppy rock 'n' roll ride. The later Flamin' Groovies cover similar territory, but are never as fun as the Kids' take on all things rock. John Felice's son...

Does anyone have the fond memory from childhood of listening to the radio late at night under the covers? This habit seems to be common among the record collecting breed. The Ramones song "Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio?"celebrates it. For me, it was as ubiquitous as hiding under the covers reading an old superhero comic book, or staying up late watching old horror movies with the subtitles on. Although I can't say that I listened to the same stuff the Ramones did. There was no Murray the K coming out of the speakers in my quiet northern Wisconsin town. In fact, the frequency from the local Top 40 station often drowned out the other stations with a constant buzz of mainstream static. But the nights that I could get other stations in, I found some interesting music. One of the local public radio stations would play a mix of Native American music, indie folk, and rock 'n' roll. The station regularly blew my mind -- you just didn't hear such variet...