Quit Your Dayjob

Quit Your Dayjob (2004)

Hein Terweduwe

Damn these Swedes! They've been able to offer the world Abba, Refused, Millencolin and The Hives. I doubt if Quit Your Dayjob will turn out to be the band that will end up being a classic band, but it has to be said that they again do a good job in producing music that at this time is quite "daring" and appealing to say the least.

Two adolescent boys, Jonass and Marcass, got together in Landskrona in southern Sweden in the early 80's with a guitar and a bassynthesizer to produce some punk-extravaganza, only to be joined some fifteen years later by skamaniac Andreass to form Quit Your Dayjob. This mini-album was first released on an obscure little label, I Made This, and stranded at Bad Taste Records who decided to release it. The instrumentation used are a guitar, drums and synthesizers, resulting in a weird but very uplifting techno-punk sound, while at the same time reminding of new wave classics from the eighties like Devo but with a much harder approach and also some of that Hives swaggering rockpotion. In Belgium we had Front 242 (although they sounded not this lively) and more recently The Epoxies on Fat Wreck Europe grabbed back to this synthesizer-style, but these three dudes crank it up a lot more, especially in the first few songs which should get you wild cruising in your car with the volume at 10. In some way I guess the sound of German band D.A.F. comes pretty near to this sound, espcially in "Look! A Dollar," which you can download here.

Definitely check this out if you'd like to hear the B-52's at warp speed, or Devo in a punkpackage or if you just simply want to rock out on 21st century punked up new wave. I really thought it was an enjoyable 8-song joyride, and it's even very danceable music. I have to admit though that the second part of the release is not as appealing as the first. Reminded me a bit of the old days in black, but fortunately they managed to give it an additional guitarded punktreatment. It's a bizarre release actually, but it came as a welcome gift amidst all the nowaday stuff that often can't move me. At least I felt the sudden urge to review this thing, which to my regret doesn't happen too often these days.