Saturday, February 26, 2011

Some Days Are Just As Bad



The first time I saw Dag Nasty, at Lupo's early in '86, they had Dave Smalley singing and were pretty darn good. By the third time I saw them (at CBGB's in late '87) they had added the midget bass player from Incest Cattle, Doug Carrion, and were on their third singer and were pretty easy to ignore. Carrion would also spend time in the Descendents, and then in the early '90s he had a wimpy college-rock band called Pale. I pulled out an old issue of Seven to find their review of this single, and it includes this quote from the presskit: "With past successes in CMJ and Cashbox, writeups in Spin, and numerous tours, Pale will rapidly become a staple in the college music scene", which is enough to give anyone a reason to dislike this record.. but wait, the a-side is actually pretty nifty. The beginning part is kinda dumb, and you may end up being reminded of Boyracer because there's no bridge and no real chorus, but by the time the back-masked guitar part kicks in at the finish, you'll be fighting the urge to go back and listen to this one again. If you're feeling pissed off that something this lame could be so intriguing, yeah, me too.




Pale -

"...And Shed Her Skin"


2 comments:

Chris said...

I'm quite fond of Peter Cortner's Dag Nasty vocals but then I only discovered the band in the early nineties and his were the first I heard.

Brushback said...

I saw them twice with Peter Cortner, but I wasn't interested. The only reason I liked them at first was Dave Smalley. Not having ever seen DYS or Minor Threat, seeing both Brian Baker and Dave Smalley on stage was pretty awesome.