DILLINGER FOUR

ANTI-ROBOT MUSIC SINCE 1994

I ain’t gonna bullshit you. If that was the plan, this package would come with a cigarette, a match, and a long straw so you could blow smoke up your own ass.

Dillinger Four – no scene can straightjacket them. No “core” can completely holster their sound. No genre can lock ‘em. If you’ve got ears, it doesn’t take much more than a simian brain to realize that D4 have taken that putty-filled term, “punk rock,” stretched it beyond its primitive beginnings, and continue to make it snap and bounce in ways it never has.

Hold on, mister. You say they’re progressive? Kinda like ELO or Mott the Hoople? No. Here are some secrets. Folks who say it’s all been said before; well they’re fucking wrong. There are folks who say that punk’s over played, that it’s lost its utility. I posit this: has our culture ever been more mall-ified? Have SUVs secretly alleviated the suffering of growing up in America? No, to all that. That scratchy feeling that punk can give when it’s under your skin, imagine it as a string that’s dangling at the back of your throat. What would happen if it was really a lit fuse? You get music you explode with in the present tense.

The cage has been built. It’s not enough to just rattle it. That’s for pansies. Enter four Midwesterners. Load them up with stereophonic dynamite, the loud poetry of revolt imbedded in hook-filled punishment. What’s the result? They take a musical cul-de-sac and make a freeway right to your headphones, your stereo, and if all goes right, to your fists, head, and heart.

HOW D4? AN INTIMATE PORTRAIT IN BOLD STROKES

Cold weather makes human fingers feel like pork chops and makes it difficult to play musical instruments. A smart architect came up with the advent of putting rooms at the bottom of houses in Minnesota. These were ideal breeding grounds – little petri dishes for a die-hard culture. Almost soundproof, these basements hosted many bands that used amplification and electricity. Dillinger Four was one such band who exhibited a large amount of sass, ass, and cold weather brawn. They plugged in. Like-minded malcontents, miscreants, rogues, and girls with large winter coats assembled. They all yelled, danced, drank, sweat, and clapped. What started out as a band that said they sounded “like Screeching Weasel but with nuts as big as grapefruit, you know?”, gained both popularity and notoriety. Basements could no longer contain them.

Lazy bastards or leisure geniuses? You decide. Somewhere in this slow-moving juggernaut, they recorded two neutron bombs of albums titled Midwestern Songs of the Americas and Versus God for Hopeless Records. Both’ll make you want to crash your car and dance around the wreckage. Fun stuff. Save your drama for your momma, ‘cause there ain’t any here. On June 4th, 2002, D4’ll be releasing their third full-length, Situationist Comedy. This one’s on Fat Wreck Chords.

TWIN CITIES POP MAFIA ROLE CALL

Erik (guitar, vocals) : If D4 was a fruity band that relied on synchronized Youth Of Today style jumping, he’d be used as the sexy marketing tool due to the fact that he’s the least fat of the four. But never mistake him for a tool of any type. In his spare time, he runs a modest, well-liked eating and drinking establishment, the Triple Rock. He smokes a lot.

Billy (guitar, vocals) : Perhaps it’s his uncanny resemblance to Lemmy during D4’s all-Motorhead Halloween cover set. Perhaps it’s because he’s a Simpsons-phile (I bet he knows the price of Maggie when she’s scanned at the beginning of each episode.), but it’s easy to see that Billy’s a man of all seasons. In his spare time he’s been a calendar model (pouring liquor with doe eyes) and siphons off the really collectible records brought into Extreme Noise (a record emporium).

Lane (drums) : After the relentless pursuit of becoming a full-time Pabst mascot and an abbreviated stint as a one-man synchronized swimmer in Las Vegas casino fountains, Lane settled in, buckled down, and finished his Ph.D. in psychology. (No shit.) His bosses were impressed that Green Day invited D4 to open for them in Japan. The airline staff wasn’t so enthused that D4 drank all their beer before crossing the international date line.

Paddy (vocals, bass) : If he were an underwear model, he’d be called husky. This intenerate photocopier at various sundry firms is also a hired gun bassist. He was in the Beltones for eight minutes. He’s in Cleveland Bound Death Sentence, but that’s more of a studio thing. He’s the guy with words tattooed across his chest. He cuts the ass cheeks out of electric pink biking shorts and jumps on bouncers. People he doesn’t like, they get kicked in the throat.

PASS THE BOTTLE

So, what’s it going to be for you? Which side you on? Mourning musical corpses or dancing on their graves? Let D4 flick the on switch that’ll jackhammer the mausoleum. Let’s get fucked…