Consumer Guide Album

The Descendents: Bonus Fat [New Alliance EP, 1985]
Adding two forgettable, surprisingly poppish pre-Milo songs and the notable post-Milo "Global Probing" to their punk classic, the 1981 seven-inch Fat E.P. Which consists of the gluttonous fifteen-second "I Like Food" ("Juicy burgers, greasy fries/Turkey legs and raw fish eyes/Teenage girls with ketchup too"), the contemptuous thirty-six-second "My Dad Sucks" ("It's value judgment time again"), the pugnacious 1:35-minute "Hey Hey" ("If you think that everything's OK/Then go home and lock your brains away"), and my second fave, a virtual miniopera at 2:09, "Mr. Bass," pronounced to rhyme with "ass," because it's about a scaly creature, not a musical instrument, as befits rock-and-rollers who work as fishermen. And topping if all off is their masterpiece, "Weinerschnitzel," eleven seconds of dialogue augmented by two guitar blams. All of the fifty or so listeners I've subjected to it have had the same basic response: "Play it again, willya?" So buy it again, willya? The sound's better. A-