Teenage BottleRocket ... or the Ramones Redux

Teenage BottleRocket is composed of a pair of punk rock twins, the ex lead signer of one of my favorite bands (and in my opinion the best pop punk band ever The Lillingtons) and a gun for hire bass player that's been all over this country playing fine punk rock. As I went to see them at the Satyricon in PDX last night I was reminded about how these bands (both Lillingtons and TBR) are comprised of all the things we love about the Ramones.

 The 1-2-3-4's from the drummer before almost every song... That 3 to 5 chords in a riff that gets stuck in your head for the next week... They all wear the same basic thing on stage (normally with them all coming on stage with leather jackets and black jeans).... The set list has no breaks except to chug some water (seriously last night they played for a little over an hour and I think they took like 10 minutes to say Hi and drink water over the course of that hour... they went from song to song like lightning) .....  The fact that these guys genuinely get along (The Ramones' were often quoted that they would go from city to city on tour without talking to each other... There was some serious resentment in the band... ).

 That's the biggest difference, TBR gets along, they talk to each other and odds are do sing alongs when in the van on the road. The other biggest difference from them and the Ramones is their harmony's. Kody (from The Lillingtons) has one of the smoothest original voices in punk rock (now that Jack Dalrymple is on hiatus)... and Ray Carlisle (who is none to shabby a singer) trade off vocals that very much resemble a finer tuned version of Joey Ramone harmonizing with himself. Their lyrics range from anything from hating work, to outer space, to songs about girls.... None the less every chorus these guys sings is instantly burnt into your head, the melody's are second to none in these days full of Indy noise and DJ's just playing old hits remixed.

Check em Out