The Network - Money Money 2020 - 2003 (iTunes - Amazon)
The Network were a side project of Green Day's plus a few friends in the early 00's. Apparently there was a "feud" between the two bands, which generated interest in The Network. Remember that? Me neither.
In the early 80s I had an album called Red Snerts, the sounds of Gulcher Records. (That's a link with a rapidshare download. If you know, you want it.) It was a compilation of midwest new wave bands. I got it for like a buck. I bought shit like that when I was 16. The Network sounds like just about every band on that album.
Or like you took a Devo cover band, made them learn Green Day's music, then forced them, after sleep deprivation, to write an album of their own. And it would be good!
This is piffle, a trifle, just for fun. And it is.
The boys have studied very hard at the feet of the minimalist hi-tech (for the 80s era) purveyors of New Wave and come up with a 30 minute retro party curio.
One of the most fun tracks is Spike, a spoken word one sided telephone call between a kid named Spike who is trying to score some drugs. But it's also way out of place on here because it sounds too much like just a small tweak in production and ditching of the keyboards would have turned it into a great Green Day tune.
But Spastic Society is like a leftover from Are We Not Men.
There is a great synth record called Group:Xex from a New Jersey band called, appropriately, Xex. I might review it here sometime, it was a favorite of mine. I bring it up because, although it sounds very little like any of the songs, the ominous synth-laden X-Ray Hamburger reminds me of Xex. And, it is therefore, one of my favorite songs on the record.
And there's a Misfits cover, "Teenagers from Mars". How cool is that?
Worth every second.
Grade B-
A Side: Joe Robot, Reto, X-Ray Hamburger
BlindSide: Spike, Spastic Society
DownSide: Love and Money, Right Hand a Rama
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