Strong Killings ::: photo by Josh Lovseth

Once upon a time, long before the glitz and glamor of blogging for Sound on the Sound, long before I began raising other people’s children at local non-profits, long before I donned a white apron at Pasta and Company and batted my long eye lashes at alluring housewives, I was a teenage shithead.

Not just any teenage shithead, I was one of the best.

My pals and I use to work at Sam Goody (remember that place?) in the Reston Town Center (the blueprint to your “Bellevue Square” and “University Village,” I’m not even kidding. You pricks stole your idea of suburban hell directly from Northern Virginia). We had one store manager who was really into Kenny G (native Seattlite) and we had another store manager who would pay me to find him pot while I was on the clock. The rest of my co-workers were teenage shitheads just like me. We would steal CD’s, DVD’s, posters etc. in trash bags at the end of the night (rallying against big corporations our excuse, of course). We would smoke cigarettes and “white boys” out by the trash compactors in grey retail corridors. If our store was packed with customers eager to buy the new Backstreet Boys or Handel’s Messiah compilation, we’d blast Motley Crue and Ratt until our store was empty. These are somewhat wholesome examples of what we did, the adolescent debauchery goes much, much deeper gentle readers.

I could tell you exciting tales of a young Philip Douglas Bouie, watching his friends snort coke on a picnic table behind a police station before I had my learner’s permit (and the like) but that would be uncalled for (I guess we’ll have to hangout sometime).

The point is, all teenage shitheads need a soundtrack and if Strong Killings existed during the latter half of the 1990’s, they would’ve been my favorite band for sure. Combining humor with “punk rock ethos” (whatever that means to you, poser) and rocking good tunes, how could they not be every young misguided souls favorite soundtrack?

Yet, the year is 2011 and I’m an able-bodied adult that has mostly underachieved and I still think this album is amazing. This is no attempt to throw breadcrumbs at the feet of corporate sponsorship but I’d be shocked/outraged/disappointed if none of these songs ended up on the X-Games or the next Tony Hawk video game. If I don’t see Strong Killings competing on Wheel of Fortune, I’m going to shave Pat Sajak’s head. These tunes are so good and catchy, how can they not be available for mass consumption in the near future? This is already the most “fun” album I’ve heard so far this year. I know most Seattle musicians haven’t seen that word since they learned how to spell and that’s fine. That just means less of a competitive playing field for Strong Killings.

Tonight they have their album release show at the Rendezvous with Hounds of the Wild Hunt and Boom City. Right now, we have the album streaming on our lovely website. Listen to the whole thing over and over again. My favorite tracks are “Annals of Animals,” “Licked, Nicked” “Too Cool,” “Minimum Wage,” “Stupid Punk” and “(You Never Wanna) Dance With Me.” If you haven’t noticed, that’s basically half of the album. I could have kept on listing songs but I didn’t want to get carried away with naming every song by accident.

A proper album review (as it is justly deserved) will be coming soon, but today (and for the next week) you can stream the album in its entirety above.