IN ROTATION
Tips from The Times’ music staff on recommended new releases and reissues.
Fidlar
“Fidlar”
Mom + Pop Records
Depending on what kind of parent you are, the presence of Fidlar’s new record in your teenager’s collection will either horrify or reassure you. A band of young punks born in Orange County, its name is an acronym (roughly) for “Forget It, Dog, Life’s a Risk,” and it introduces its predilections early in the record.
The chorus of the first track on its roaring self-titled debut is (roughly), “I drink beer! So what! Forget you!” Another song, “Wake, Bake, Skate,” became an instaclassic when it was released as a single last year, and references waking up, smoking dope and going skateboarding. God-fearing adults be forewarned, there is blasphemy here, but parents who grew up amid the early L.A. punk scene, rejoice. The kids still understand.
Four young men in their 20s, Fidlar is part of a wave of new youth aggression that draws on pre-Nirvana American punk rock as practiced by the likes of Black Flag, the Descendents and the Urinals: scream-along anthems about ragged youth, disappointment and messing up. It’s apparently in their blood — two of the band’s members, Elvis and Max Kuehn, are sons of Greg Kuehn, formerly of T.S.O.L., which roared out of the late ’70s O.C. punk scene that inspired Fidlar.
Luckily, they aren’t a bunch of retro posers, nor are their fans. Rather they’re humans addicted to noise and volume whose bellowing cries are as true as they are teenage-eternal. “Five to Nine” updates “Rock Around the Clock” for a new generation. Beginning at 3 a.m. they’re already having double vision, sings Zac Carper. At 8 a.m. they’re coming down off heavy drugs and by 9 a.m. they’re drunk and driving to Culver City. They get pulled over at 11 a.m.: “Arrested on my way to L.A. County!”
Bummer, dude. At least your dad will understand.
— Randall Roberts