ME FIRST AND THE GIMME GIMMES:
Go Down Under: CDEP
1995, really? Someone who’s drinking age now was five years old when Gimme Gimmes started? That doesn’t sound possible. Well, their gig’s well documented. Dudes from NOFX, Swingin’ Utters, Foo Fighters, No Use For A Name. Themed albums, taking standards, plugging in overt punk rock references (DOA and Black Flag in this one), adding real drums and guitars, and wham-o, a decade-and-half-and-still-going worth of material. I’ve been told by bands visiting Japan that Me First songs are playing over the loudspeakers at the airport, so they must be doing something right in the international royalties market. This time, they go to the world’s largest island (or smallest continent, you decide): Australia. They tackle everyone’s favorite autoerotic asphyxiator, Michael Hutchence (INXS), Olivia Newton John (who’s pop took nasty Nazi Rudolph Hess into custody at the end of WWII so he could face trial at Nuremburg), the undeniably great Easybeats (onstage back flips in the mid ‘60s!), and the Sammy Hagar-penned, Rick Springfield-performed “I’ve Done Everything for You.” Fun. Are the Gimmes going to discover the cure for AIDS? No, but they continue to prove that laughter’s a great medicine. –Todd Taylor (Fat)