Purple

I haven’t done really punk rock shit like trash a convenient store or yell at my mom in a long time. Because I’m, for the most part, what you would call an adult. And thus cannot be trusted.

But there is a part of me that remembers almost going to juvenile hall. There’s a part of me that remembers my friend hitting a kid in the head with a skateboard. There’s a part of me that remembers slinkily drinking Early Times whiskey in a ditch behind the park. There a part of me that I’ll probably forget soon because I smoked a lot of weed out of aluminum cans when my stupid preteen monkey brain was still forming. There a part of me that will always be all about ninjas and pirates and lasers and shit.

That’s why I got a stirring in my loin piece for party punkers, Purple. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, Purple pushed them peppers past Peter’s penis because Peter was purportedly a total perv. The ratty East Texas trio has that shit-kicker attitude to go along with their riffy confections.

I bet that if the members of Purple have a Christmas tree it’s made out of alternating cans of Tecate and Rolling Rock. I bet at least one of them owns a unneutered male cat. I bet nobody's wiped off the coffee table in longer than anyone can remember. I bet someone in the house has a stash of illegal fireworks. I bet there's a lonesome condom between the couch cushions. I bet they're running low on toilet paper. I bet that their moms are mad at them. I bet that their dads wish they could be them.

Singer Hannah Brewer’s infectious post-adolescent laissez-Fuckface steelo has all the trapping of a young Gwen Stefani or Dance Hall Crasher’s Karina Deniké Schwarz and Elyse Rogers without the skanking and more of the moshing. I always kind of secretly hope for some subversive politics in my punk but found Purple’s angsty tantrums meets sometimes surf rock just the pill to pop.

The record is less a straight ahead punk record, or traditional rock, or some kind of alt fusion a la the Growlers, but more of a smorgasbord of all three for the sole purpose of party vibes and panty raids. When Brewer shouts, “I’m the girl, you’re supposed to be chasing me!” on “Wall Flower”. I was all like putting on my snazzy New Balance running shoes I never wear and prepping for le sprintz!

Those of you who know me know that I don’t own snazzy New Balance shoes, as I’ve been wearing the same pair of black Pumas with the hole in the heel for far longer than is appropriate for a man of my age and stature. Maybe that’s what makes Purple so fucking tasty! They’re like an old pair of scuffed up shoes somehow made appropriate to wear without disappointing my parents.