The Greatest Show on Dirt

Stop Playing With Your Pud
by: smoke

It's good to feel a pulse again. It's good to feel the beast tremble again. It's good to realize that somewhere underneath today's popular music, somebody's still got a spine. Welcome back to life! Here, we get crazy at shows, aren't afraid to say what we think, have unforgettable (or maybe forgettable) drinking nights and listen to Custom Made Scare.

Political correctness, marijuana laziness and "journeys back to roots" has all but killed what we have come to know as punk music. Thank the powers above that on the eighth day, an underground scene was created. Now don't get me wrong, I applaud the explorations that some bands are making into new or different styles of music, but the fist-clenching blend of rockabilly and punk found on The Greatest Show on Dirt makes a proud statement that intensity and exploration can be combined and man, it feels good!

The band has captured the most elusive quality in punk recordings: how to translate the energy of a live show onto a recorded album. Custom Made Scare wastes no time in getting into the album by stringing together three songs at the beginning which lecture all followers on how to link together a laid back voice tone with fast and precise changes. "5 O'Clock" is what an observer hears after the style of the Stray Cats and the speed of 22 Jacks pile up in a two-car collision. "Sick, Sober and Sorry" will definitely be played every Saturday morning from this day on (you'll smile when you hear it). Finally, "Stupid Fuck" echoes exactly what is making all of us so sick about today's music and is a wake-up call to those who have been sucked into the hole of corporate music.

Remember what is was like to see that opening band that no one had ever heard of, but you'd rather hear them another hour instead of the main act? Remember how they started the crowd moving no matter who they were there to see? Remember how the songs moved so well that you swear you had heard them all before? Chances are, I wouldn't have been surprised if Custom Made Scare was the band you saw. Snap out of the lull of radio and, as the album puts so well:

Don't sit around playin with your pud
Don't be another cow
Just chewin on your cud