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Countless Thousands – Lazar Wolf

Countless Thousands – Lazar Wolf

If there is one thing missing from music these days, it’s a sense of humor. Countless Thousands is a band of playful punks who are unafraid to tickle the funny bone while others just tickle the ivories.

Lazar Wolf is the band’s unhinged version of kosher kookiness. Their Fiddler on the Goof offers a riotous recipe of musical matzah that comes fresh and unleavened in its screw-loose silliness. Of course, one would expect nothing less from a group that has created a musical decoupage of demented ditties during its decade-long existence under the radar of radio (and most of the Internet).

This, after all, is the group from Glendale, California, that has set the words of Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and Trump sycophant Lindsey Graham to music, the same band of mirthful merrymakers who penned a rather enthusiastic jam about Space Nazis.

While their anthemic antics may not be for everyone, their everyman tales of rebellious jocularity are sure to put a smile on the faces of most. Check out their old video for Gang Fight for further proof.

Countless Thousands is a band that seems hard to ignore. Perhaps something funny is to blame.

X – Goodbye Year, Goodbye

X – Goodbye Year, Goodbye

There are few iconic bands as resilient as the raucous X, the L.A. legends who unfortunately are often not given their true due for the role they played in defining the punk sound for the U.S.

Goodbye Year, Goodbye is the band’s audacious anthem to the longest year in recent memory, a musical middle finger to 2020 and the protests, pandemonium, and problematic pandemic that made it the year from hell. The song is a blast from the past with a nod to the now – a perfectly punk answer to a simply unforgettable year.

I had the good fortune of catching X in concert back in 1982 when the band had just signed with major label Elektra and released Under the Big Black Sun, which mixed bits of Americana into their pioneering punk oeuvre. Goodbye Year, Goodbye presents X exactly as I remember the band – raw, rebellious, and really fun.

It is comforting to know that all four original members – vocalist Exene Cervenka, vocalist-bassist John Doe, guitarist Billy Zoom, and drummer D.J. Bonebrake – can still rock with the best. Alphabetland, the band’s eighth album but first in 27 years, shows X remains a vital force. In saying good riddance to a godforsaken year, thank goodness some things that have not changed.