DIE KREUZEN: PUTTING WITH POTATOES

by Steve Albini

from Forced Exposure #10, 1986
Yeah, it's 1986 all of a fucking sudden. Just like that, I'm twenty three fucking years old, I have a job, a college degree, an ulcer, bad breath and no sex drive. Without even trying, I'm a fucking geezer. And punk/rock means shit little to anybody in the world anymore, it seems, save for people who just tripped over it recently and don't know what the fuck to do with it. The precious few musical gangs still creating viable, new music are barely hanging on, thanks to an audience so bent on crushing out originality and inspiration you'd think they were some sort of revenge squad sent in as infiltrators by our parents from long ago. Punk rock was the whole fucking world once, back when it meant cutting loose, going all-out and being nobody's tool. What hasn't been bought out has changed, in the hopes that somebody would buy, save that precious few. Yes, there is a Killdozer. Yea, there are Three (count 'em) Johns. Yes, there is a Naked Raygun. Yes there is a Foetus. Yes, yes, yes there are still too many to name (but barely, fucking barely) and one of the unnamed (as yet) is Die Kreuzen. Once the Stellas, now one of the only high-speed American punk-inspired bands that doesn't suck wildly, they are a reason to keep listening. Raw, blasting noise, supremely-defined tight guitar riffs, off-kilter rhythms that swing and throttle as often as they thrash, and memorable, tortured little blasts of hot, screaming spunk. Fucking hell, they make my head swim with the thought of it all: the promise fulfilled. Punk in essence, without sacrifice, without compromise. So why the fuck did Run DMC's label, Profile, offer them a contract? Why the fuck did they say no? What's the deal?

Keith Brammer: bass
Herman Egeness: guitar
Erik Tunison: drums
Danny Kubinski: vocals
FE: Steve Albini

(Danny enters carrying a big box of coat hangers.)

Read the rest...