Control Freaks
Mindless Entertainment

Greg Lowery.

One of those involved in the Rip Offs and Rip Off Records.

End of story.

Because there's nothing else needed to blindly rush towards "«Mindless Entertainment».

Which, if it isn't the definitive punk record of this year 2017, is pretty close.

It is certainly the record of the summer, like the music festival that was all the rage until a few years ago.

Except here I'm talking about a punk summer and not A summer album but THE summer album.

I know that Greg Lowery, the Rip Offs, and Rip Off Records are for you worse than Carneade, who was this person, so I'll give a bit of history.

And what a history.

Because Greg Lowery initially played in Supercharger and that's already a beautiful thing in itself.

Then, however, he ended up in the Rip Offs.

I'll put it this way: if there's still a reason to listen to punk in the Nineties and beyond, then the Rip Offs are an immense reason and "«Got a Record» is little more than the cross to slap in the face of the corporate-punk horde that rages in that dark and desperate decade.

Just like Abraham van Helsing, in Dracula's face.

Away with Blink 182, obviously, but also Green Day and Offspring, and even Rancid, away with all of them.

"Got a Record", in short, baptizes all the lo-fi to come, all the low-fidelity punk that returns to echo raw and dirty in the basements, the New Bomb Turks and the Teengenerate from everywhere.

It's a matter of style, but also of image.

All dressed in black, black masks on their faces, and off pissing in broad daylight on the side of the cops’ van.

Issue of style plus image, someone calls it attitude.

Which is that thing that makes you realize that a punk band, but truly punk, can't last for years.

So the Rip Offs last a few months, that epochal record, and a handful of singles.

Then the lines dissolve.

But Rip Off Records remains, just to spread the word.

Statics, Registrators, Loli & The Chones, and also many other fine people all come from there.

They don't conquer the world, mind you, none of those ugly mugs.

But for those stuck to the do-it-yourself post, like the period 1974/1976, it's a barrage of thrill that's hard to describe if you haven't lived it.

Now, among the countless fortunes of my life, I live through that period, and maybe I settle for very little, but those bands are still firmly rooted in my heart.

Greg also puts together other stories, the Infections and the Zodiac Killers, which share the fate of the Rip Offs and there I lose track of him.

Late Nineties, early century, more or less.

But a few decades passed in silence are not enough to make me forget who wrote a great story, no matter how small and little shared it may be.

Then, a few months ago, Slovenly Recordings come out with this page where they scream that they've managed to bring Greg back on the scene and boast about it greatly.

And they have every reason to do so.

Going in order.

The Control Freaks are the new creation of Greg Lowery.

"Mindless Entertainment" is the debut album and sounds like the logical consequence of the marvel of "«Cretin Hop».

Because if the idiots want to jump again, "«Mindless Entertainment» is the album that will make them jump until exhaustion and maybe, like in a nice little fairy tale, will even send them to paradise.

Programmatic from the title, senseless entertainment, insane, in thoughts, words, deeds, and even omissions.

Translate it as you prefer, but the substance is always that of an almost perfect pop punk, especially nice and raw like the early Buzzcocks.

And then it's true that there's Greg here and there's Greg there, and up and down, but someone out of their mind like Natalie Sweet, with whom Greg shares the stage, is really worth noting.

Like her chirpy, and even querulous, voice in that masterpiece that is "«PTSD» and that is really marking my summer in an indelible way.

Better to stay quiet and not breathe a word.

C-O-N-T-R-O-L CONTROL FREAKS!