Dirt Box Disco - People Made of Paper

There's some words that people seem intent in carving in stone.

Punk is dead are but three of them.

Of course punk isn't dead though.

What happened was that the original premise was co opted by the leather and studs crew in the early eighties and the wider perception of what punk is was misinterpreted.

Well that's my take on it.

No longer was it a celebration of tearing up the rule book with anarchic glee, but instead it was about writing new rules.

The punk police had arrived to join the party and it was the start of a downward slide.

I guess the easiest way to show the divide between what it was, and what it became, is to go out of an evening and visit a gig.

Those like The Damned, The Stooges and The Stranglers to name a few can still fill the larger venues.

Now where are the others who redefined what the general public thought of as punk rock though?

Playing pubs to eighty people if they are still together is the answer.

Thankfully the original premises pulse never weakened to the point that punk left the building.

Instead some clung onto it, and as with Dirt Box Disco, refused to let that final nail be hammered into the coffin.

With their debut album they shook things up a fair bit and delivered a fun filled manifesto of intent, but I doubt anyone was ready to commit to thinking that their next release would be one that blew the roof off.

Personally I thought that we would have seen an incremental improvement, an improvement that would continue over a few albums until finally we got to immerse ourselves in a release that that would be a fat free work of raw passion that levelled the competition.

Who would have thought that they would have delivered it so early with 'People Made of Paper'.

In punky parlance this is the dogs bollocks innit?

With their tongues firmly in their cheeks they're wearing a huge shit eating grin and with each track daring us to not to love them.

I heard them once described as a punk rock Steel Panther and I can see where that comes from from, but I would still disagree.

Steel Panther are an excellent parody of a scene, whereas Dirt Box Disco are no parody.

Instead they are a full on punk band who have a sense of humour.

Fuck smashing the system when there's a party over there that can be crashed.

This album is actually a joyous celebration of doing what the fuck you want, and that's as punk as you can get.

People Made of Paper is the album that delivers the middle fingered salute at all the po faced punters out there who think they are different because they are still clinging onto their membership of a club that is as mainstream and unbending as all the shite that they allegedly hate.

I bloody love it and if you give it half a chance then I suspect so will you.

They are out on tour with The Misfits in the UK soon.

Best get there early and see the best band of the night is all I'll say about that.

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