Disco Porn With Smear!
by Rich Kane
Back in our wild
video-store-clerk days at the old Brea Music Plus, there was this greasy,
porn-addicted retiree who'd come in on weekday mornings and rent the nastiest,
ugliest flesh flicks we had in stock. "That oughta keep him busy
for a week," we'd joke after sleaze boy left limping out the door, saliva
dripping from his jowls. Try "busy for a few hours": he'd always
return later that same day and check more out. And the storage boxes
his tapes were in would be really sticky, which totally grossed us minimum-wage-earning
peons.
We recount
this tale only because Smear is based in Brea, and we're almost positive
they're somehow related to that guy. The first piece of evidence
we produce is the name of their publishing company--Poop Stain Music.
Then there are the lyrics: these lads croon about their dicks, drinking
piss, eating shit, bondage, dominance, spanking, pedophilia, and doing
both the Brady girls and the baby-sitter (but not at the same time--hey,
they have morals). And there's that "Used Ass Paper" song, which
says all you need to know in the title. If the kids from South Park
ever make it to junior high, we're sure that Smear is the band they'll
be into.
We usually
get bored when a band tries to be shocking--honey, we've heard and seen
it all--and we ordinarily would have thrown Smear's disc on our sell-to-used-CD-store-and-hope-their-guitar-player-isn't-working-behind-the-counter
pile. But we actually like them because of their ultrahummable music.
Really. "You Could Be a Star"--a sweet reminiscence about growing
up in the '70's--sounds like a friendly, Top 40 hit, with a melody that,
in a better world, would get on your nerves as badly as "Mmmbop" (whether
that line about "running around with my pecker out" would actually make
the radio, though, is another story). And you can sufficiently shake
your groove thang to some of their funkier tunes, which is only appropriate
for a self-described "disco-porno band." We assume the dance they
have in mind is the horizontal bop.
When they
want to, they have the ability to rein in their libidos. "Tonight"
has simple I-love-you-baby lines, and it's a direction they could try exploring
more in the future. But with this--their first orgasmic extravaganza--who
knows? Maybe Smear will grow to become North County's own version
of G.G. Allin. Lord knows Brea could use some excitement; it sure
was Dullsville when we works there.