One Base on an Overthrow: The Fags

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Everyone That I Ever Pissed Off

I've been listening to the Marvelous Darlings a bunch lately, and after a while it hit me that "Teenage Targets" sounds a lot like the former Detroit, Michigan group, The Fags. Now, I never heard of The Fags until Jeremy Porter mentioned them in the Offramps interview that I did about a year and a half ago, so figuring that he knew what he was talking about, I snagged a couple of their CDs off Amazon not long afterwards. (I think there's one other release--a tour EP-- that I don't have.)

If my initial lack of familiarity with them is any indication, The Fags were over and done with fairly quickly, chewed up and spit out without an awful lot of fanfare. I'm sure their name didn't help matters much (in fact, I'm expecting Photobucket to delete these images any moment now-- they've been on a rampage over anything tagged with naughty words lately), although they were always careful to show a cigarette on the cover just in case people didn't get the joke. Still, the two CDs of theirs that I own are both prime examples of top-shelf punkish power-pop, crammed full of enough superlative hooks and beefy power chords to make anyone who's ever liked "Tim" or "Heaven Tonight" jump for joy.

Of course, my main complaint with bands like this is that they'll outwardly flash tough-guy "outsider" poses while deep down be coveting radio airplay and commercial as much as anybody, and to an extent that's the story here, too. You'll find no shortage of sappy lyrics and late-period Goo Goo Dolls-like moments, especially on "Light 'Em Up", which edges dangerously into Wilfully Obscure-type territory (you know, the stuff that Spavid likes) and appears to be The Fags' big grab for glory. Several of the songs on their first EP are given updated treatments on the LP, and side-by-side there's no doubt that I like the earlier, rougher takes better, though the newer recordings have their moments, too... I'd even say that "Tonite" is easily my favorite track out of all the ones that I'm posting here. There's plenty of other good stuff that I left out, also, but if you want to hear the rest, you shouldn't find either of these CDs too hard to track down on Amazon like I did (idolrecords.com is still in operation for on-line ordering as well).