From the Dallas Observer, May 31st, 1990
Dude Rocks
by Tom Maurstad
So, the compilation - the one that has been over a year in the making, the
one that most gave about as much chance of coming off successfully as a
spur-of-the-moment midnight coke deal, the one with the stupid name (but,
mind you, it's deliberately stupid)-is out. I would call Dude, You Rock!
the second Deep Ellum compilation (after Island's 1987 The Sound of Deep
Ellum) to be released, but that would be to miss the point entirely.
This is not a Deep Ellum compilation for the simple reason that out of the
13 bands represented here, maybe half of them can play there (that is, find
clubs willing to book them) on anything even approximating a steady basis.
(Try to recall the last time you saw Sedition playing in a Deep Ellum club
and you begin to see what I mean.) If anything, this is a compilation
acknowledging the abundance of music/bands that have emerged and developed
in Dallas as much in spite of Deep Ellum as because of it.
That Dude, You Rock! has been assembled and released is, in itself, a self-
justifying achievement. Like other scene-covering compilations - Athens,
Ga. Inside/Out, for instance - Dude, You Rock! takes on the air of an
archival work from the instant it is completed and packaged for release.
There are many reasons for making such a compilation, but its one overriding
accomplishment is to document one particular moment in the time of a scene,
to capture and hold one distinct picture in an ever-shifting stream of
images, and to preserve that picture when the rest have been washed away in
a blur of trends and upheavals.
Which is not to say that is makes no difference whether or not the music is
good; introducing yourself to the world just so that everyone can discover
for themselves that you suck (Dude, You Suck!) would be nothing more than an
exercise in self-defeat. Fortunately, that is not the case. Working in a
format that is notorious for delivering up erratically sketchy grab bags of
music, Dude, You Rock! is a compilation that constructs1 its view of the
Dallas scene on a foundation of consistently strong material.
Unlike its predecessor on Island, Dude, You Rock! hasn't tailored its
contents and contributors to manufacture a misleadingly homogenous sampler
of Dallas music (a trait heralded by the presumptuous claim of the earlier
collection's title to have distilled Deep Ellum down to a single sound).
With few exceptions - folk-rock, the hybridized pop that Club Dada has
become a forum for - Dude, Your Rock! provides examples of every
significant musical style to have contributed to Dallas' alternative
sounds. Indeed, among all of these guys playing loud guitars, one is struck
by just how singularly realized each band's approach is, and coming out of
a city infamous for its intolerance of non-conformity and its reverent
attendance to market considerations, it is no coincidence that the bands
here display a willful disregard for commercial approaches; you know there's
something going on when Three On a Hill's churning/Chiming "Overdrive" is
the poppiest song on the album.
Course of Empire gives compelling evidence of why they are the current fave
rave of so many with the album's opening cut, "God's Jig." Countering the
song's lyrical bleakness ("While the women walk behind/Just like culture
taught them to") with the dense textures coming off of the relentlessly
frenetic guitars, the band creates an atmosphere that is both sweepingly
barren and disturbingly claustrophobic. For its part, Decadent Dub Team has
come up with its best work yet on "(Makin' Funky) Money," in the process
directly addressing the album's central issue (to be or not to be-commercial,
that is). The track has a rock-solid beat, and any song that finds room for
both the Partridge Family and Aerosmith is something right.
One of the standout tracks, Loco Gringos' version of "Texas Ranger Man," is
an irresistibly hip-wagging reminder of why, when the drums kick in and Pepe,
that patriarch of a lost generation, starts chopping chords and stumbling
over lyrics, they are a great rock 'n' roll band. Lithium Xmas also conjures
up a nifty three-minute mindtrip on "Love Buzz," and Scam's track,. "The
Culprit," is cool for the way the band has those jungle drums pounding
through all that metal noise.
Though one could quibble over the success or failure of a particular track,
taken as a whole, Dude, You Rock! is an impressive document of a group of
bands that whether you like it or not are going to play their music their way.
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