Origin of the species: Not to get too analytical on our beloved readers, but most of the music featured at Peacedogman seems to follow the W-W-S-D model (Whiskey-Women-Satan-Death) thematically speaking. For example THE STONES "Dead Flowers" and VENOM's "Teacher's Pet" would fall under the "Women" heading, while THE ACCÜSED's "Autopsy" and most of the CARCASS catalog would clearly be covered by the "death" category. It's not a perfect system, there are some art schoolers that insist on wandering off the beaten path, but you get the idea. For the purposes of this feature, we're going to focus on the first "W" with a vengeance. While many past records

have featured a cut here and there praising the perils of alcohol (ZZ TOP's "Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers", AC/DC's "Have a Drink on Me"...um, NEIL DIAMOND's "Cracklin' Rosie", etc.) we decided to list a series of albums that just reek with alcohol across multiple cuts. While some do cross the blurred line between alcohol and other forms of narcotic refreshment, we've done our best to focus on drunk punks and beer metal, so grab a cold one and read on.

TANGORODRIM - "Unholy Metal Way", 2001: If we were to disregard the lyrical content of the bands on this list and judge them by musical style alone, TANGORODRIM would easily make the list anyway. A band based in Israel with Russian ancestry, their primeval take on old-school black metal a la HELLHAMMER brings to mind the dankest back-alley bars overflowing with smoke and leather-clad hooligans. However, all it takes is a few seconds of the crazed anti-Christian rants delivered with slurred broken English to understand that this album could have only been made possible by knocking back a few too many. Take, for instance, the lyrics of the title track: "Alcoholic blunt brains

do no catch the riffs / and the shoulder-blade of priest / has been using as pick for bass guitar." Or how about the lyrics to "Alcoholic Desecration": "Cracking bones in flame of eternity / the bones that put together / stupid Christian essence." Now, did we mention that this stuff is coming from a band located smack-dab in the middle of the Holy Land? They may be currently defunct (frontman Larenuff Sebokharm now fronts the equally frightening HELL DARKNESS), but for the short time they were around, TANGORODRIM were some of the ballsy-est badasses on the planet.

TANK - "Filth Hounds of Hades", 1982: Early 80's NWOBHM is nothing without the alcoholic influence of pubs, pints and parties. Dozens of albums from RAVEN and SAXON catalogue are perfect to accompany your six-packs but let us remind you of this rowdy, high octane fighting man's band from London. Like MOTORHEAD with more melodic solos, the Ward, Brabbs & Brabbs trio forsakes doomy epics and sappy love songs for the black humor of street life in "Blood, Guts & Beer", "(He Fell in Love with a) Stormtrooper" and other merciless and rude observations. The production style is rugged, distorted, heavy and bluesy, equivalent to the taste of cheap, strong whiskey upon your tongue.

It's impossible to listen to "Run Like Hell" and other road rages without pounding your fist in the air and searching for the nearest bar counter with your eyes regardless of where you are listening to this massacre. "She's ugly, stupid, drunk and almost blind" - so you will be when TANK is through with you!

GANG GREEN - "Another Wasted Night", 1986: "You got the beer, we've got the time / You got the coke, Gimme a line!" If punk was dead by 1981, nobody bothered to tell these barflys from Boston. Good thing, too - because Chris Doherty and his ever-changing lineup of guitarists and bassists became integral players in the formation of the Northeast crossover punk scene. While all of their 80s-era releases are worth owning in terms of quality middle-finger-to-sobriety guitaristic skater punk, "Another Wasted Night" is something special. Doherty's Lemmy-like bark adds a timeless life to much of the material here like "Skate to Hell", "Have Fun", and of course, "Alcohol". The cover of

TIL TUESDAY's "Voices Carry" will forever remain one of the most mysterious head-scratchers of the GANG GREEN discography; I guess you had to be there to understand that one.

WARRIOR SOUL - "Salutations from the Ghetto Nation", 1992 : Long before his gig as Eric Wagner's replacement in TROUBLE, Kory Clarke served as frontman for LA's WARRIOR SOUL, a band that would make some of the most underrated hard rock of the early 90s. Much like his hero and fellow Detroiter Iggy Pop, Clarke infused partying and protest (and long, shaggy hair) in order to serve as a middle finger in the face of the right wing, the record industry and anyone else who pissed him off. So how does "Salutations from the Ghetto Nation" qualify for this list? First, there's "Punk and Belligerent," where Clarke proudly exclaims, "I`m going out tonight and I`m going out drinking / Don`t bother

waiting up 'cause I`m coming home stinking!" If that weren't enough, there's also "Ass Kickin'," with such words of wisdom as "No one`s gonna keep me out of the bar tonight / Gonna keep on drinkin` till I feel alright / There`s no place I`d rather be / Smokin` babes, a bottle and the bros and me!" It's not all fun and games on this album, though, because there are also such lyrical subjects as urban decay ("Love Destruction," "Ghetto Nation") and the bitter satire of the Republican Party, called simply "The Party." Put it all together and what's he really trying to say? The world sucks, so let's get wasted! Sounds like a recurring sentiment here, doesn't it?!

TANKARD - "Chemical Invasion", 1987: Though they were never catapulted to the teutonic A-list with other suspects like KREATOR and SODOM, mainstays Andreas Geremia and Frank Thorwarth kept these necksnapping, beer swilling Germans cranking out albums for over 20 years now. Make no mistake, 1987's "Chemical Invasion" delivered exactly what pointy-guitar-obsessed dirtbags like us were craving during thrash metal's heyday. The lead in "Total Addiction" competes easily with anything on the early DESTRUCTION records, and the acoustic intro of the epic instrumental "For a Thousand Beers" is as genuine and engaging as it gets. I didn't realize there was a cover of GANG GREEN's

"Alcohol" (see "Another Wasted Night" review above) on the album until post time, but it just goes to show how closely linked these drunk punks and beer metal lunatics really are at heart. You couldn't make up a band like this, seriously.

SHAM 69 - "That's Life", 1978: This one's essentially a punk concept album about life of a working class lad in Britain who hates his job, loses his job, wins a bet at the track and gets together with his friends to celebrate his unexpected winnings at a bar. The simplistic Oi-chanting encouragement to go down the pub makes "Hurry Up, Harry" an instant classic. After spewing in the pub toilet, the album's everyday heroes look to pick up girls from another pub in follow-up "Evil Way". Anyone that has tried to pick up a girl in a bar will be able to relate with the two part conversational piece "Reggae Pick Up", provided that they can understand the Cockney accents. "Sunday Morning Nightmare"

documents the worst results of a morning after a heavy Saturday night out drinking complete with effective added dialog and warbling all-in disco style choruses. Drinking beer is a mandatory activity whilst listening to this album.

SEXTRASH - "Sexual Carnage", 1990: I don't know if it's the packaging material, thin-as-hell vinyl itself or just the content but all Cogumelo Records LPs taste and smell like someone has thrown up on them in the factory. Besides SARCOFAGO's "Sex, Drinks & Metal" and CIRRHOSIS' "Alcohol Rules", there are other clues as to why some of the mad punks from Belo Horizonte probably felt a bit sick in the morning. One of them is the send-all-posers-to-mausoleum delirious speed-death of SEXTRASH, too late and too primitive to be in every wannabe cult collection but yet guaranteed to cause hangover whether or not you have a drink on the side. Besides brutal hymns that sound like

an even more wasted first MLP-era DESTRUCTION fronted by the vocalist from CARCASS' first LP, Oswaldo Pussy Ripper, Rodrigo Damned Sentry with others better left unnamed spice up their debut album with sensible, structured speed metal lead guitars, viral tremolo melodies in "INRI" tradition and violent blasts of hardcore pummeling. You don't need to hear the song "Alcoholic Mosh" to guess how great it is, but I will mention it features a tempo/shred-wise totally unplayable riff unless you find a way to concentrate some promilles of alcohol into your guitar itself. Or, as they say in "Delirium Tremens": "Alcohol is corrosive but I can't stop!"

DEAD KENNEDYS - "Give Me Convenience of Give Me Death", 1987: This compilation of DEAD KENNEDYS tracks sourced from various recordings may not qualify as a proper album, but it's one of the greatest punk singles collections of all time. Although the subject matter of "Police Truck" is the hypocrisy of the force (probably to Biafra's disappointment), the lines "We're goin' downtown, gonna beat up drunks/You're turn to drive, I'll bring the beer" create a great track for downing amber nectar. "Too Drunk To Fuck" continues the drinking theme straight away cheerleading drunken punkness sticking a fork straight to the brain. Although the cover of "I fought the Law" is twisted into

a much more political DEAD KENNEDYS fashion, "drinking beer in the hot sun" is still very much a part. Turn the album up and get your buzzbomb on.

POGUES - "Rum Sodomy & the Lash", 1985 : THE POGUES's "Rum, Sodomy and the Lash" doesn't have many actual drinking songs in the strictest sense. But pretty much all of its content does revolve or involve the imbibing of alcoholic liquids. It's not that Shane MacGowan ever makes particular note of drinking as, say, an important part of his life. This is probably because for Shane to make note of drinking in this sense would be akin to any other artist writing about breathing. Shane MacGowan drinks. A lot. No, "Rum, Sodomy and the Lash" won't make its listener want to drink, in fact; it's probably more likely that you'd think "Christ, I need to cut down on my drinking lest I wake up

one day looking like Shane MacGowan". And if not, you probably have a problem. "There's Devils on each side of you with bottles in their hands You need one more drop of poison and you'll dream of foreign lands" You probably didn't need that last drop, eh? Still, "Rum, Sodomy and the Lash", whilst providing an iconoclastic vision as to just how visceral folk music can be (its jumpers may be woollen but the knuckles are bloody) , is also the perfect soundtrack to drinking yourself to death in a sick bed…

GEHENNAH - "King of the Sidewalk", 1996 : What does the cover picture depicting a drunk headbanger in a traffic warning sign have you expecting? Vampiric gloom and Shakespearean poetry? Often confused with the very different Norwegian GEHENNA, this disrespectful, out-of-control bunch of Swedish party boys remain a living legend while retro thrash fads come and go. Complete with an ELVIS cover, anyone expecting decent, appreciable and "musically involving" black metal gets this kind of a reception here: "You feel your hair with hair-mousse, you fill it with shampoo / We'll crush your face with crowbar, that's what we're gonna do!" The song structures and riffs

could originate from lost VENOM rehearsal tracks. There's barely a song here that doesn't mention drinking, bitches and/or Satan. Vocalist Mr Violence is the embodiment of middle finger in sound. Solos by Rob Stringburner are stupidly hectic and hilariously bluesy. The founding fathers of the "Headbangers Against Disco" movement, these no-strangers-to-cruise-liner-discos make it clear you might not want them to crash your party. It can be guaranteed that getting into "Demolition Team", "Chickenrace" or "Bulldozer" with Hellcop, Ronnie Ripper and others is not what your local police or fire department recommends as your next Friday night activity.

THE MACC LADS - "Beer & Sex & Chips & Gravy", 1985 : THE MACC LADS are essentially what THE RAMONES would have sounded like if they came from England (Macclesfield, in particular) and subsisted entirely on chips and gravy and Boddingtons's bitter. It's the greatest and lewdest drinking music known to man (or men from Lancashire, at least). With "Beer & Sex & Chips & Gravy" you know exactly what you're getting: see, THE MACC LADS are not just the blokes who spent all day in the pub, pulled the scabbiest women and happened to be in a band. They're the blokes who spend all day in the pub, pulled the scabbiest women and sung about their conquests.

I can certainly vouch for the fact that THE MACC LADS are the only band in the known universe to rhyme "George Michael" with "Menstrual Cycle". "You've got veins in your bodies, we've got boddies in our veins We'll out-drink anybody and then we'll go and do it all again"

WEHRMACHT - "Biermacht", 1989 : We wasted a lot of time back in the day trying to figure this band out. Was it CRYPTIC SLAUGHTER with a better sense of humor? A faster version of NUCLEAR ASSAULT? DRI with better guitar solos? Looking back, I guess it doesn't really matter, because for a head-slamming, tankard-clanking good time, there are few albums that can compete with "Biermacht". This record may nail the spirit of this entire feature better than any other on the page, with cuts like "Munchies" ( C'mon, mom, give me some food, I feel like an Ethiopian dude!) and "Drink Beer Be Free" ( If I only had a beer for every bomb they have built), all served up with copious

performances of pre-grindcore speed insanity and ridiculous guitar shredding, there's really not much more to say except maybe to go for this one first. Awesome!

TOM ANGELRIPPER - "Ein Schöner Tag", 1996: In essence, ONKEL TOM seemed like no-brainer, fluid enjoyment for me -- Tom Angelripper's a guy I'd like to have a beer with and let's face it, with Sodom, he's created some of the best thrash metal ever. However, ONKEL TOM's own side-project gives one a sense of a lost invite to what could have been a great party. That's right, I don't speak German! Thus, what could be good fun descends into a joke that most won't get -- I'm sure it's all about beer, in fact I can probably smell it. But the idea of drinking songs that ring of forced "right, we're gonna sing about boozing" isn't much fun. That's laboured, and labour's not fucking fun. Either

that or whilst playing "Ein schöner Tag" I guest get an image of sweaty, drunken Germans hugging one-another. Hmmm.

BLACK FLAG - "Damaged", 1981: You didn't think we were going to leave this one out, did you? The Rollins debut from BLACK FLAG delivered the musical interpretation of young adult angst and rebellion… and to wash it down, lots and lots of alcohol. "TV Party" has to be one of the most misinterpreted songs ever written, as folks started taking the band's satire of indifference and laziness and turning it into a pro-slacker battle cry. In their defense, it is one dangerously infectious song, with a chorus ("We've got nothing better to do / than watch TV and have a couple of brews!") that'll be burned in listeners' minds for generations. The theme continues with "Six Pack" ("Thirty-five dollars and

a six pack to my name / Spent the rest on beer so who's to blame?") and "Thirsty and Miserable" ("You drop to the floor / You drink 'til you can't even see anymore"), two tracks that are equally as witty and memorable. Fleshing out the rest of the album are anthems of hell-raising ("Rise Above," "Spray Paint"), recounts of personal problems ("Depression," both halves of the title track) and tragic tales of drug addiction ("Life of Pain"). With the clever songwriting of Greg Ginn and the ferocious vocals of Henry Rollins, "Damaged" continues to stand the test of time and may well be the pinnacle of LA hardcore punk.

SAINT VITUS - "Born Too Late", 1986: We know someone out there reading this is calling out "CHEATERS!" since we included both this album and "Damaged" by BLACK FLAG. And yes, the CD version of "Born Too Late" does include SAINT VITUS' timeless cover of "Thirsty and Miserable," perhaps the only cover that's twice the length of the original. Still, there are plenty other reasons to include this album in the list. The main reason, of course, would be the band's ode to alcoholism, "Dying Inside," where Peacedogman deity Wino laments, "Every time I wake up sick / I say 'Never again' / But then, opportunity knocks / and I'm wasted, my friend." And while we're on the subject

of mind enhancement, there's their homage to hallucinogens, "Clear Windowpane": "I see colors everywhere / I have things living in my hair." From there, we have plenty of reasons to be driven to drink, whether it's being misplaced in one's own generation (the title track) or crippling depression ("The Lost Feeling") or the looming threat of nuclear annihilation ("The War Starter"). Despite having come up with killer stuff both before and after this album, "Born Too Late" is still widely considered a high point in the careers of both SAINT VITUS and Wino.

DOOMRAISER - "Heavy Drunken Doom (Demo)", 2004: This demo has been passed around the 'net for a while now, so anyone who's a true doom metalhead should already be aware of this Italian powerhouse. Their methodology is simple: Keep the guitars tuned low, the riffs slow and never under any circumstances write a song less than ten minutes long. It'll feel like the room is spinning during the reverberating intro, but eventually "The Age of Christ" kicks in with a sound thicker than a pitcher of Guinness. "Lord of Mercy" may well be the best SOLITUDE AETURNUS song that SOLITUDE AETURNUS never wrote, and the nearly 15-minute leviathan "The Man that Ride the Past Erasing the

Remembrance" feels like pulling off a three-day bender and waking up in a ditch somewhere only to drag yourself back to the pub and do it again. And you won't even have to cash in the deposits on your empties to get this one - It's available for free download on Last.fm! As a refresher, crack open our ice-cold interview with DOOMRAISER.

CLOSING THOUGHTS: I believe Mr. Murtaugh said it best in one of his reviews a few years back, "Peacedogman.com does not condone the use of alcohol unless it is used to get blasted." As usual, there are probably an avalanche of discs we forgot to mention covering everything from Jägermeister to hangover cures, but this one has been fun. If the writing or selections seem a little hazy and sloppy compared to our usual lists, throw back a couple and it'll al make sense. 'Til next time... - Peacedogman staff.

DRI pic courtesy of www.dirtyrottenimbeciles.com

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