Geza X

You Goddam Kids! [Reissue] (2015)

John Gentile

The term “long lost classic” gets thrown around so much in punk rock that by now, it basically means any record that is slightly better than mediocre. The result is that when records truly are classics, they get washed away in the clutter of punk’s obsession with cataloging everything. (Though, to be fair, punk’s history of archiving everything certainly has its benefits.) Geza X’s sole LP, You Goddam Kids is one of the victims of this. At this point, most people don’t even know about despite the fact that it’s one of the weirdest and most interesting punk records from early west coast punk.

As you may know, Geza X first made his bread in the punk scene by producing a lot of the titanic artists, including Dead Kennedys, Germs, Black Flag, and the Avengers. (Thought, it’s worth pointing out that Geza X had been involved with music before punk even existed, having worked in the proto-punk and even late hippie scene). But, just after his initial run of production, he decided to record his own music. The final result was 1981’sYou Goddam Kids which shows just how different Geza X was form his contemporaries.

Geza X was slightly older than the punk kids around him and the three or four years maturity he has on them is what drives this record. That’s not to say that You Goddam Kids is gentler than “Lexicon Devil” or “Police.” But rather, it comes from a more abstract, skewed perspective. Instead of saying how he hates cops, Geza X comments on power imbalance in society. On “Mean Mr. Mommy Men,” he portrays the part of a kid undergoing the horrors of imperfect therapy. He approaches his topics less with righteous anger and more with a MAD magazine like ridicule. He presents horrors of the modern world, but laughs at them as much as he frowns.

Meanwhile, his half-generation gap over the punkers comes through most strongly in the music. Instead of stooges influenced bashing, there seems to be more influence from the meaner side of hippism, with some tracks have the same warped strangeness of Captain Beefheart and Zappa, or the sonic freakouts of bands like Hawkwind or Pink Fairies. “Isotope soap,” which Jello Biafra included on Let them Eat Jelly beans could have been a Devo song. The sounds of protons fire across the speakers while a sax blast in the back ground while robot voices chant the refrain in the foreground. “Pony Ride,” which might be the greatest punk instrumental, is a rollicking ride that emulates bouncing up and down as one plods through the hills. “Hungarian,” feels almost like a punk-cabaret. As Geza X laments his own backgrounds, a certain Rogers and Hammerstein presentation filters through. One almost envisions Geza X on the stage in an oversized outfit while dancers parade past him.

The Burger reissue is a straight reissue of the original album. Interestingly, Burger opts for the original, original track list instead of the limited 2002 limited rerelease that had an altered tracklisitng. However, the label also inserts the early single “RX Rock and Roll” into the tape as a sort of hidden track. It’s a nice little bonus. The sound is crisp and punchy and really, this is a marvelous presentation.

Perhaps because this is nearly the entirety of his musical output, Geza X never really caught much accolades for his own work. It’s a real shame because of how singular and out-of-time his sole album really is. Thankfully, by making this release readily available once again, Burger Records is rectifying an oversight by the punk community as a whole. Highly recommended.

Fun Fact: Paul Roessler, Don Bolles, DJ Bonebreak and others all make appearances on this record