0 [FROM THE CRATES #26 ] Jughead's Revenge - Image is Everything (1996)

Words by Matt Abramson

Jughead's Revenge - Image is Everything
(Nitro - 1996)

Oh the sweet, sweet nostalgia trip that is now mid 1990's punk. Indeed a strange time for a genre so naturally caustic that it was declared dead within seconds of being invented or coined or whatever... and yet here we are in 2010, thirty plus years after the fact (notice how I carefully dance around the supposed incept date as it is the source of much useless deliberation), and there's still a shit load of great punk bands. Hell, there's even punk bands who are inventive and original - and even in Seattle! [A gracious nod to our friends in Warning! Danger and Android Hero]


But I digress. Punk in the mid-90's was treading strange waters. Green Day and the Offspring got swept up in the grunge flood waters to multiplatinum success, prompting the ever tired rally cry of "sellout!" from the poseuratti (side note: why does the fucking "sellout" conversation never drift toward the fact that the Sex Pistols and Ramones became cultural phenomenons well beyond their "punk" roots?) and the rest of the punk bands to try to, well, be punk as fuck. A lot of them ended up sounding the same.


Jughead's Revenge, however, deep in the trenches since the late 80's, remained largely untouched by all this upheaval. They stuck to their guns. They were punk as fuck, but on principal! It's like those dudes who talk nonstop about being in Vietnam or some bullshit while the guys who actually saw action never say a word.


'Image is Everything' is a great record in large part because of its variance. It's got a distinctive soCal sound and moves from "normal" sounding punk toward hardcore and then does a complete reversal and includes a surf instrumental (The Rev. Metal Matt's sermon of the day: Never, never, my son, never underestimate the role that surf music played in the development of punk and hardcore). The guys are tough but they aren't jocks, the music is more technical but not flashy. The lyrical themes are both heartfelt and against the grain without being totally nihilistic and over-the-top.


More about being punk as fuck. Idiots and fuckers endlessly debate what punk is, but who really cares? Punk is an energy that can explode in any direction - anger, personal, political, fun, whatever. People get hot about it so it's got to be worth something. Jughead's Revenge is an awesome punk band because they do their shit and the rest of it be damned. As usual, the folks who say the most about punk know the least because there's nothing to know! Turn the shit up and get something going!