ROTTERS - Pull It & Yell

In all honesty, there was a time not all that long ago when I wouldn't have given a second-tier (or third or maybe even tenth) band like the Rotters the time of day. I remembered the "Sit on My Face Stevie Nicks" single being entertaining in a lowest common denominator-kinda way... NEXT! But as anyone over 35 knows, time is an evil motherfucker, and many an agonizing reappraisal will be made as muscle turns to flab.

Thus, when I read guitarist Phester Swollen's hilarious liner notes, and he states, "It was 1978, and rock & roll was the most putrefying heap of overblown bovine excrement imaginable," and I can easily equate that feeling with rockroll Circa 2007-- well, you might be able to see why I'd slap my noggin wonderin' what the hell my problem could be with the likes of the Rotters.

Mr. Swollen and bandmates Nigel Nitro (vox), Johnny Condom (drums) & bassist Rip Chord (all good X-ian names) like millions of others of the era, found salvation in the Sex Pistols. They met in a film class at Moonpark College, a few miles northwest of Los Angeles, and instead of boring us with shitty art-films featuring half-naked hippies holding crystals while reciting horrendous poetry, they picked up instruments they couldn't tune, let alone master.

I'm not gonna split hairs-- these guys were utterly influenced by the Pistols, right down to Nitro's faux-anglais accent, but fuck it--- at least they got punk right. No PC-isms ("Bomb the Whales, Buy Japanese Goods" anyone?), no "arty" aspirations, no bullshit. The fact that they managed to piss off dinosaurs (even then) like Fleetwood Mac is a mere bonus.

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