Hip and the Hipsters

Awesome show at the Urban Bike Project last Saturday, in which not one, not two, but three rock and roll bands played! We were fortunate to have the Stalkers in from Brooklyn and the Toughshits in from Philly, and even though they looked like a) boyfriends of rock band Heart cerca 1973, b) extras from "Almost Famous", c) Sonny Bono conventioneers, or d) the dude selling Pall Malls while wathing "Little House on the Prairie" at the Texaco station, we all know that punk rock is 99% music and 1% everything else, so they were f@*#ing great! Plus they are very photogenic! The Stalkers in particular were fab, covering "Needle in the Camel's Eye" by Eno, and playing their own brand of punk influenced power-pop, not unlike the Stiletto Boys. The Apes finished off the evening with their neo-pomo-grunge revival, drunkenly and admirably! I guess it goes without saying that, like always, Tit Patrol was the greatest and best band that played that night or any night! No competion from the great Sexon Horse because Butch Worthy was sick. The Hunt Club also played. All photos by me (Dan) except Tit Patrol shots by mc Ben.

TIT PATROL!!

The STALKERS! (from Brooklyn, NY)

The TOUGH SHITS! (from Philly, PA)

The APES! (from Wilmington, DE)

Tit Patrol Saturday December 6

Thanks to Mr. Moist for the flyer!

The Thorns of Life

1,2,3,4 who's punk what's the score? Well, we all know Aaron Cometbus is. For the uninitiated, Cometbus is the zine master behind (obviously) Cometbus and contributor over the years to Maximumrocknroll, Absolutely Zippo, and Tales of Blaarg, not to mention lots of mini-books. He may be even better known as drummer alum for Crimpshrine, my precious Sweet Baby, and the awesome Pinhead Gunpowder, among a lot of others. Well, A.C. has a new outfit, and you may have heard of the singer, some dude named Blake Jawbreaker. Along with Danyella Sea from the Gr'ups, they are known as the Thorns of Life and are secretly rockin' 'round Brooklyn, on the wrong side of the Williamsburg Bridge, building buzz among the hipsters, who will undoubtedly abandon them when the punks get ahold! I don't know any song names or anything, but check out the NBT.

Tit Patrol Gets Less Worse

We're back! Delaware's preeminent pop-punk five piece Tit Patrol has just returned from a five day sojourn to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, birthplace and current residence of (the legendary) Joe Queer. We recorded our second full length record entitled "Tit Patrol Gets Less Worse", thirteen songs, all pure gold, including a Ramones cover and a Power of IV cover. Portsmouth was great, even with their 98% Caucasian status (as opposed to our precious Wilmington at around 36% whities) they were great to us. We recorded at the Electric Cave with punk engineer extraordinaire Jim Teirney and Joe Queer produced us, along with an assist from Wimpy! Joe and Wimpy even sang on a bunch of tunes! We in the Tit really can't thank those dudes enough for being so cool, even if they were a bad influence on the Main Man Timmy Toner, who is now a bad-ass pop punk dude, and to him we're all "motherfuckers." His drums are wicked loud and live and meaty, Mike "The Rad One" Radka was absolutely smokin' on lead guitar, and Grant impressed us all with above and beyond vocals. Look for "Gets Less Worse" out on Madison Underground Records this February, the perfect Valentine's gift. What's more, Joe and Jim worked out a deal for us for a full pro mixing board, alot of pro equipment, including the one inch eight track that "Kicked Out of the Webelos" was recorded on! That means that Madison Underground Studios will be up and running this spring/summer. SO... come out this Saturday (December 6) to the Bike Spot on 19th and Market in Wilmington and dig the incomparable Tit Patrol, along with the Stalkers from Brooklyn, The Toughshits from Philly, The Hunt Club, Sexon Horses, and the Apes, be there by seven or something, and as always, Tit Patrol hates everybody else!!

Tit Patrol and Joe Queer

Here are a slew of photos from Tit Patrol's recording session at the Electric Cave in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.














Todd Patrol - guitar

Mike "The Rad One" Radka - lead guitar

Grant Robinson - vocals

Timmy "Main Man" Toner - drums

Wimpy and Joe Queer - producers

Father and Son? Wimpy Rutherford and Mike Radka

Shootin' the Puss.

Danny Robinson - bass

Creepy Uncle Jim Teirney - engineer

Unpublished "Urine Zine" Column, 1995

Here's a little something I wrote thirteen years ago for the Urine Zine that apparently didn't make the cut. I found it in my archives and got a good laugh. Nothing is changed, even the parts that don't make sense. Did I think suicide was a moral failing? Weird! Also I've since learned that Ray Combs hung himself with his bed sheets, not a rope. C'est la vie!

When I die it's gonna be cool. My afterlife, as I see it, will be spent in greaser clothes with my hair combed like George from the Halflings, protecting the innocent and righting wrongs, much like the ill-fated Gary Coleman Show, I believe it was called, in which the great Gary Coleman, tv's Arnold, lends his likeness and voice to a cartoon in which he plays an angel who does much of the same, except mine will be a ghost, not a pussy angel. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Ya see I hafta die first, and the way I'll probably do this is me and Nick will probably be playing on the railroad tracks one summer night. Nick will most likely be quite drunk. So after hours of fun the sun begins to rise and Nick stands staggering on the tracks as a speeding train is only seconds away from breakin' him up, but good. So, being the kinda guy I am I race to save him and push him outta the way just in time to keep him from being killed but not soon enough for me. With a brilliant flash of light I am in conference with god who tells me that even though I was a bad boy, I had a good heart and I had died saving my good friend's life so if I agreed to serving the powers of light for an undecided amount of time I would get into heaven. So of course I'd fight common crooks, evil spirits, and even ALIENS!! With my knowledge of my righteous mission you can only imagine the trepidation that followed my hearing of how the Family Feud's Ray Combs had committed suicide in his hospital room. Now there's a foe I don't look forward to soon tangling with. My current assignment will be to protect an infant of great courage and honesty, quite possibly the future Green Lantern of Sector 2814. I'd sit hunched in his moonlit nursery when I hear a sound in his closet. I slowly move to it and slowly open the creaking door as the corpse of Ray Combs falls the full length of his suicide rope, dangles as he smiles at me and says in his gameshow host voice, "Survey SAYS, It's time to die!!" "I'm already dead, fucker!" I say as my ghost and the corpse of Ray Combs engage in battle over the future Green Lantern of Sector 2814.

Raul and the Sunshine Posse

By the time I came back to school for my sophomore year, I was a full-fledged punk rocker, complete with an electric guitar, songs, friends, fashion, hard pointy hair, and a sneer affixed permanently to my lips that made Sid Vicious look like Elvis. What's more, I considered myself in charge, the main spokesman to Whitey on behalf of the growing number of kids in my class who seemed to care deeply about this amalgamation of hard, fast, melodious music with all it's facets and arteries and the attitude that accompanied it. I sure didn't know it all (I am still learning my craft to this day), but I knew the most. Of course, I could not see into the future, and if I could, I wouldn't have wanted to. As I mentioned before, I mistook the trend for permanence, a flaw later shed whilst learning of Buddhism and Death and Dying, two subjects I was ignorant of at the time. So, in my class we had my band Ninja Attak, originally formed of Dan Robinson (me) on lead guitar and vocals, Brendan Huffman on other guiatar and vocals, Nick Cappelli on bass, and Joe "Eightball" McBride on drums. Soon, it became apparent that Nick and Joe weren't in it to win it (they formed the ill-fated Amish Ramish), so Huffer moved to bass and we poached Mike Cruz. Speaking of which their was also Sex Girl Patrol (name coined by me) with Cruz on drums, Nick Erwin on vocals and rhythm guitar, Mike Gallagher on lead guitar, and Danny Oi! aka Fat Dan Krapf on bass. I hung out with S.G.P. all the time, messin' around and doing interviews on 91.7 WMPH's Anomaly Punk Show, and eventually trumped their friendship and musicianship, claiming Mike Cruz as my own. We also had the incomparable singer/guitar dude Billy Frolic, who went through many band incarnations (The Dick Nixon Project), finally achieving greatness with Science for Kids, including Sandro Braidotti on bass and vocals and Timmy "Ham Juice" Toner on drums. I would later join up on lead guitar. There were also a handful of contributors, specifically our girlfriends and girls we wanted to be our girlfriends. Point being, there were enough of us to skew the private Catholic school to predominantly punk rock for a year. It only made sense, as Wilmington/West Chester legends the Crash and Plow United were alumni of our school. I was heir apparent, dig? Things were in full swing and I envisioned some kind of anti-authoritarian neo-Age of Aquarius, I was coming into (physical) adulthood during the months that Green Day ruled the world, so when we had a new freshman class under us, I looked at them as recruits, picking and choosing the most promising. Among them was Mike Bianchino, my on again of again frenemy who actually did start a band, Wrenfield, and played shows with us using Cruz as the drummer, Brian Louie, Dave Keef, Steve Wocolski, Kyle Gregg, Brian Westerner, Nick DiAngelo, etc... No one really amounted to what I wanted them to. (Though, in a nearby school, Justin Vavala was becoming one of the future's brightest!) But their was one dude who stood out, given name Paul Voss, dubbed by me as Raul VanderVoss Sunshine. Raul was a real deal space dude, using weed well before I would form an addiction! You literally never knew what this dude was gonna say and he was a source of constant entertainment to me, and a real friend! As I was trying to push everyone I knew into musicianhood, I set Raul up with a band name, Raul and His Sunshine Posse, and he began giving me lyrics, a few a day for a few months. Now, ask my mom and she'll tell you, I never throw away anything, at all. I have every lyric I ever wrote, every article I ever wrote, everything you ever wrote. All of Huffer and Sandro's and everybody's Urine Zine and Kid Spastik articles. Every anti-jock lyric Huff penned, original Pam Mullenhour lyrics, and you better believe it, every Raul lyric. I have huge tupperware containers full of 'em, war trophies. What follows are some of Raul's greatest hits.

I am the travelin’ piano
Coming to your town
I knock your socks off
And turn you upside down

Swish goes the keys as I sing this song
Boom, boom, boom
Rock all night long

Holie Molie, look at me
Morks in my ears
Don’t know what can’t hear

Swish goes the keys as I sing this song
Boom, boom, boom
Rock all night long

Ohh don’t let the travelin’ piano get you sucka
It will grab your weiner
And out it on a motorboat to France.


The Christmas balls are hangin’
On the tree tonight
Over the sky town lights

Red, yellow, blue, green
They are the colors I have seen

You can’t touch my Christmas balls
They are really cool
And they are all mine

Red, yellow, blue, green
They are the colors I have seen

They are all my Christmas balls
And they are so sexy

Every time I turn around they fall down
Every time I turn around they fall down
Every time, Every time
Every time, Every time


I once knew a guy named Skippy
His daughter was a real big hippy
He wore gloves outside even when it was nippy

Hey Skippy Dean, Hey Skippy Dean
Walk a little faster
You’re the king of polyester Skippy Dean

I see you on the catwalk
Reading about last nights Matlock
I see you’re wearin’ a hatsock
Skippy Dean

Hey Skippy Dean, Hey Skippy Dean
Walk a little faster
You’re the king of polyester Skippy Dean

Main Man Champion

You might not believe this, but I have friends in high places. Dig if you will, Timmy "the Main Man" Toner at the World Series Champion celebration party at the Diamond Club behind home plate at the CBP. The bad news? J-Roll could not attend. The good news? You know the Main Man grabbed up on some boob! That's what I call gettin' to second base! Way to go!!

Speak Up America (Or don't!)

Alright, alright... I get it, I could have handled that better. A blog without comments is like a fine Capriotti's Bobby without cranberry sauce. I do want to hear from you, but let me explain. What I am not interested in is discourse on the minutia of a rant. Yes I rant. I rant what I believe and though I likely back off, I mean the craziest of it. It is amazing. I write things that should be wildly insulting to people's beliefs, and they wanna calmly bring up points of discussion, as if I've made any. I am never trying to convince anyone that I am right. Likewise, I can not be convinced otherwise. I may reconsider, but not because of some digital message. Think of my craziest (re:most liberal) posts as extended Zen Koans, meant to shock one out of a stasis. So... comments are back up. I will not be getting into anything controversial (politically) because it just leads to heartache. I talk tough but don't have the thick skin of a Sarah Palin. So comment away, and here are some suggestions, "Yeah Dan, the Phillies really are the morally superior team to root for!" or "My what insight! You really do see right through the mass believed lies and present it in such a scampish way!" or "Thank goodness someone is sane enough to spot racism where it lurks!" or "Spider-Man: One More Day really did set up Spidey for his best adventures yet!" or "Write on, young patriot!" You know, things like that. I have much respect for alternative oppinions and those who hold them. I just don't care to hear them! If you must, you must, but be gentle. Don't be a bummer and I look forward to hearing from you!

Skateboard News? Sure!

OMG, check it out... my boy Alex Rosenfieldenburgerstein, one of the finest artists I know, just did this bonus deck for Switch Skate Shop on Haines St. in Newark. Go buy boards and stuff from them, they're not very stupid! You can see many fine tricks at www.zhaopower.blogspot.com.