Punk rock 'n' roll has always been a bit of dicey affair for me, but when that shit hits, it hits hard. In 1990 when I was feeling burnt out from a decade of listening to nothing but hardcore*, the Didjits were a new and electrifying discovery for my friends and I (ironic, because they were just updating a style that had been popular over three decades earlier). We fell hard for that band, and Hey Judester, Hornet Piñata and the Fuck the Pigs 7'' remain some of the greatest records of the era.
The rest of the '90s saw dalliances with other similar bands like Supersuckers, Turbonegro and Rick Sims' later band the Gaza Strippers (whose 1000 Watt Confessions is another certifiable classic). The noughties gave us Oakland's mighty Annihilation Time, and with their demise, the equally amazing Lecherous Gaze.
Now I can add New York's Barbed Wire to that list, and with a pedigree that includes Hank Wood and the Hammerheads and Ajax, this hook-loaded stomper comes as no surprise. Everything old is new again. Rock 'n' Roll will never die.
*Saying that, my first introduction to punk in 1980 came in the form of the pure rock 'n' roll sounds of the Sex Pistols. They didn't sound to me like "rock 'n' roll" at the time though, a style my then 12-year-old self equated with Shakin' Stevens, the Stray Cats and Grease.
