D.R.I. - Dealing With It

Dealing With It is the greatest concept album about teen angst ever recorded. There are some obvious holes to this theory: the band name (Dirty Rotten Imbeciles), cover art, and simpleton themes running throughout the album don’t exactly point to an archetypical concept record. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty certain that none of the members of D.R.I. have ever gone on record to state that Dealing With It is a concept album at all, let alone try to explain a story line.

n many ways, D.R.I.‘s second long-player

Allow me.

Dealing With It is the story of four teenage boys coming of age in the ’80s, dealing with issues of social alienation and feelings of worthlessness. They notice the crass consumerism of those more fortunate than them and begin to notice the hypocrisy of Ronald Reagan‘s voodoo economics. While they’re not able to completely understand or eloquently address the ills of society, they’re able to determine what’s right and wrong, and they struggle with why those who are presumably more intelligent can’t see the same things.

They all share of love of things hardcore and punk, a combination that had not been fully examined in the early ’80s. The four start a band inspired by this love of music, and because they understand that time is precious, most of their material barely reaches the one-minute mark. The songs within Dealing With It represent the manner in which they survived their teenage years, an audio document on how they dealt with the forces against them, turning an outlet forged of frustration into a sustainable band.

Vocalist Kurt Brecht and guitarist Spike Cassidy started Dirty Rotten Imbeciles a few years prior, along with Kurt’s brother Eric on drums and Dennis Johnson on bass. The four would practice at the Brecht’s house, usually finding their practices interrupted by Kurt and Eric’s father. He would berate the boys, calling them a bunch of “dirty rotten imbeciles” and kick Spike and Dennis out of the house until the next evening when they’d start over again.

For most of us, that repeated intolerance would surely be enough to dissuade. To the members of D.R.I., they turned it into a band name, a song (“Madman”), and an album cover. As a reminder—and a motivational tool for those facing similar criticisms—they included an audio sample of Brecht’s father pulling the plug on a rehearsal during a fairly cantankerous mood at the beginning of “Madman.” You hear the father bang on the door, advising them “Look…The party’s over!” before reminding his sons, “You have to go to school and these others (referring to Spike and Dennis) are dropouts.” Spike takes offense to this implication, challenging the father with the fact “We all work.” The dad squares up Spike with the strut of a homeowner: “I don’t need you…When I come home, I want to relax!”

Ironically, so did D.R.I. The two just took different paths in how to get there.

By the time that Dealing With It was recorded, the band had moved out of their parent’s house and found common refugees in San Francisco. Eric Brecht eventually left the fold and Dennis Johnson headed back home, but Kurt and Spike forged ahead and turned the remnants of their teenage angst into the best album of their career.

But what makes it such a landmark album is the maturity that is prevalent in their musicianship. No longer being content with the fastest band in the world, Spike Cassidy begins to demonstrate a unique knack of balancing between punk and metal riffs. With this album, he identifies himself as a thrash pioneer, a perfect compliment to Kurt’s limited vocal range. It is his talents that ultimately save D.R.I. from becoming just another footnote in the annals of punk. Unfortunately, it is also those same talents that began to consider the possibility of a wider audience, and D.R.I. started to examine those possibilities with subsequent albums that took on a more metal direction.

The thing is, the band’s weaknesses began to really show the moment they began pursuing those “crossover” ideas. Dealing With It is a perfect balance of the two genres, as any shortcomings are diminished with the reactionary nature of punk’s tradition.

Consider such lines as “I won’t fight your stupid war!” (“Stupid, Stupid War”) or “I’ve lost all usefulness / I want to die!” (“Nursing Home Blues”) or “Every day I get more pissed / Slit my wrists! Slit My Wrists!” (“Slit My Wrists”) and imagine how they’d fare in complex arrangements or with times exceeding a minute or more. You’d be looking at an album with so much creative contradiction that any power behind it would be lost in the guitar solos, tempo changes, and repetitive lyrics.

Thankfully, the band left us with one album to document their transition and it should be recognized as one of the blueprints of such bands as Slayer, Anthrax and other bands that went on to bigger acclaim. More importantly, it’s a wonderfully enjoyable album filled with riffs, speed, humor, and inspiration on how to properly deal with the negative forces that slight one’s environment. Dealing With It serves as a healthy self-help program for any teenager looking for a way to channel the aggression of their young angst.

This review originally appeared in Glorious Noise.

Couch Slouch: How I Can't Muster The Energy To See D.R.I. On A Weeknight

I’m totally bummed.

And it’s because I’m old.

When you’re old, you’re subjected to fatigue. When you’re old and have kids, you’re subject to immediate heart failure after too little sleep.

Which is what I’m faced against when there’s a band in the state that chooses to book their shows at 9:00pm on a weeknight, which is exactly what D.R.I. are doing Monday night in Des Moines.

The fact is, Dirty Rotten Imbeciles are on the short list of bands who invented thrash. Sure, they started out kind of squirrely-the novelty of a band releasing an album with not one, but over two dozen songs on it, most of which are a minute or under.

By record number two, the band cradled the delicate balance of metal and hardcore. Even with content that barely stretched beyond twelfth grade angst and a singer with a vocal range a few pegs below even the most limited metal singer, Dirty Rotten Imbeciles were a band that happened to be groundbreaking by dumb luck.

This wasn’t in their equation; they probably flunked math anyway. They played by a code of loud fast rules, perhaps at the behest of a father who always pulled on their rehearsals anyway.

“Dad usually starts getting pissed twenty minutes in, so let’s see if we can cramp our entire song list in that amount of time.”

They were pushing past twenty before they got tight with those breakneck rhythms, but thank God someone had the brains to hit the record button at one final take of sheer juvenilia. It was when D.R.I. began to try to sound their age when things went south. That was also around the time when they started to recognize their part in the evolution of thrash metal, identifying their acknowledgement with titles like Thrash Zone and the call-it-like-it-is Crossover.

But goddamn, the debut was as challenging as it was gimmicky and Dealing With It was/is just flat-out awesome. I still throw out fists in the car or at home whenever I hear “There’s nothing to fight-fuck-ing-for!!”

A friend of mine brought home the debut from the East coast and we admired the band’s punctuality. The cover was a sloppy black and white effort that looked like it wasn’t made at Kinko’s. It looked like it was cobbled together at the public library.

Another friend in college had Dealing With It. That cover looked like it was a cartoon that one of their stoner buddies drew out at some art class at the alternative school. But inside it was wonderful. I could have used that album as a senior in high school.

I copied the entire record for that one.

There’s an opportunity on Monday to see Dirty Rotten Imbeciles at Vaudeville Mews in Des Moines. That’s a downfall of living in Iowa: you’re often stuck with shows that are merely drive-bys to Chicago, Minneapolis, or-believe it or not-Omaha, Nebraska. They get the weekend scene-makers while we get the gas money gigs that fund the drive.

I’ve made that late night drive to a weeknight gig too many times to mention. It was a pain at 25 and it’s a killer at over 40. You’re wiped for at least two days and if you have kids, you really don’t get a recovery time anyway.

So if you’re close to Des Moines and stay up for Jimmy Fallon, shut off the television and head down to Vaudeville Mews to see D.R.I. If you’re one of those more fortunate souls that have them in town for a more reasonable day of the week, they should definitely be part of your agenda.

Just remind them, for old farts like me, of their own age and don’t have the stamina to attend late night rock shows that make us deaf and cranky at work the next day. We’ve become the “Mad Man.” When we come home, we want to relax, Goddamnit!

Don’t you dummies ever learn?

And be sure to tell them that Dealing With It still rules. That’s what makes missing Monday night’s show such a bummer.



UPDATED & CORRECTED: The show is a 5:00 pm, which is very reasonable and appreciative. Will I be going? Unfortunately, my wife is working late that evening, otherwise I would have definitely made the trip.