Hey Judester

Album review

After a comparatively tepid debut, the Didjits amped up their guitar roar and stomped down hard on the accelerator for this second long-player, the first in a trio of furious punk rock & roll albums that celebrate brash arrogance, sarcasm, and dedicated hedonism. Hey Judester opens with the one-two punch of "Max Wedge" and "Stingray," a pair of breakneck riff machines that blaze by like drug-fueled drag racers, built on irresistible fist-pumping choruses and cement-solid rhythm. The tempo is slurred a bit for weirdo white-trash surrealism like "(Mama Had A) Skull Baby" ("And it screamed all night long/You'd scream too if all you had was a skull") and "Under the Christmas Fish," but for the most part the Didjits stay on course with hyperspeed Chuck Berry choogling and creative, minimalist song structures. "Stumpo Knee Grinder" needs only two chords to make its point, and "King Carp" rides a funky distorto-bass riff into a rapid-fire discourse on "the fish with the bad drug problem" who rules the beach with an iron fin. It's all wrapped up with "Dad," a tuneful ode to an abusive father given to motorcycles and belt-whippings, a relatively introspective track after all the ax-handle abuse, iguana farts, and Vietnam head-cases. Despite what appears to be a goofy sensibility, the Didjits rock with a vicious abandon that catapults them past joke-band status. Any potential "zaniness" is tempered with menace, like a drunken prankster at a keg party who knows the line between funny and scary and fully intends to cross it. The Didjits followed up Hey Judester with two more amazing albums (Hornet Pinata and Full Nelson Reilly) that advanced and improved upon the wild-eyed style they honed, but their final releases lost steam and don't maintain the momentum begun here.
© Fred Beldin /TiVo