The Austin Chronicle
by Daniel Mee
Review
Over their six years together, Austin's Yuppie Pricks' role-playing punk schtick has depreciated somewhat, their eponymous stereotype now supplanted by the hipster douche bag as pop-cultural whipping boy de rigueur. Fortunately, the Pricks compensate for their decreasing timeliness by being a better band. Balls. is tighter and beefier than 2004's Brokers Banquet, and in a daring test of the old saw that risk is necessary to good satire, vocalist Trevor Middleton continues to proudly flip the bird at irreverence as he leaves it in the dust of plain obscenity. The Pricks hedge (har!) their bets with gloriously ripping performances of songs by the Undertones, the Chumps, and Big Boys – charitably overlooking the anti-yuppie message of "Frat Cars" – and do the music world a final service by festooning their disc with a hairy man's flag-clad nether regions. Now nobody else needs to do that. ***
the run-off groove
Open up the Sunday newspaper and you might believe that Avril Lavigne is actually a punk princess. Even she knows she isn't, so fuck her and the doughnut box she brought in. If you want some decent punk rock, seek out Balls (Chicken Ranch), the new album by a band who are proud to be named Yuppie Pricks.
The group take a bit of the Dead Kennedy's prowess with slivers of The Dehumanizers to offer a ruthless collection of I-don't-really-give-a-fuck songs. On the surface, it seems that while a lot of bands are trying to take the best of what the 80's may have offered, Yuppie Pricks poke fun at the excess of the decade and go back and discover why punk bands were doing the kind of music they were doing in the first place.
Some punk purists may not like their melodic sense, because "Fraternity Days" could easily become an anthem in the next Seth Rogen movie, but even Rogen would probably want to salute songs like "Fuck You, I'm Rich", "Donkey SHow", and "PRICK4LIFE". The band hold up and deliver those riffs with strength, and they do it while not taking themselves too seriously. Makes one wish Avril Lavigne was this good. Then again on second thought...
Aversion by Matt Schild
Punk rock -- or a casual approximation of it -- turned up in a lot of weird places lately: Blaring in the background of luxury car commercials, pumping from SUVs driven by snotty rich kids, auto-loading on the MySpace page of every sniveling, future Republican scenester in America. Yeah, it's really disconcerting, isn't it?
The Yuppie Pricks are here to take punk rock back for the punks. Launching an over-the-top offensive at everything that was, long ago, anathema to the punk spirit -- rich guys, Republicans, fashionistas, frat boys -- Balls aims to burn every bridge punk's built with the mainstream over the past two decades. If it doesn't immediately sound like a wonderful idea, you probably have no business buying punk records in the first place. Try moving on to Coldplay.
As divisive as possible, The Yuppie Pricks make that abrasive, snotty and defiant punk album that's been on the endangered species list for eight or nine years. Guitars sound like they're being crushed by falling cinder blocks as much as they're being played, the rhythm section is an earthquake in a scrap yard and singer Trevor Middleton learned his trade by singing along to Dead Kennedys albums. It's the sort of album you can play for your own enjoyment, or play at your stuffy neighbors, coworkers or sister for your own amusement.
The Yuppie Pricks hate all the right things, and use their amalgam of '80s California punk, hardcore and metal as a vehicle for that hate. "Collars Up" blasts the popped-collar status symbol that's swept the nation again, "Fraternity Days" takes an easy pot-shot at the Greek sector of campus, "Fuck You, I'm Rich" spares no words satirizing upper-class values. "G.O.P." retools Buzzcocks' classic "ESP," to piss off the red states. In the spirit of bipartisanship, "Donkey Show" swoops in to disgust the Democrats. The pro-suicide "Loser" is there just to piss off anyone The Yuppie Pricks might have overlooked.
It's all done with a snide smile -- there's as much Guttermouth and Vandals in Balls as there are Dead Kennedys and Crass -- so the Pricks are flicking authority's nose rather than aiming a gun at it in the name of the proletariat. Smile all you want, though: Balls is the sort of album punk's needed for a while -- let's pray it finds its way into the ears of the pop-punk scene.
captains dead
one can safely assume that with song titles like "fuck you, i'm rich," "donkey show" and "fraternity days" that the yuppie pricks have a certain social class and their much maligned lifestyle directly in their crosshairs. clocking in at a whopping minute and a few seconds, "collars up" is as punk as it comes and in the classic sense, and not in the recent crop of mtv styled pussies sense.
A Limerick Ox
What's more infuriating: tales of woebegotten hard-working middle class people who get screwed over by big business and the government, or images of people flaunting their lavish, high-rolling, decadent lifestyle in perfect knowledge that most of us will never be able to afford it? What gets you riled up more: news pieces on human indignities, or the drunken antics of the latest starlet on TMZ?
Fact is, we're more involved with the rich and powerful and their dealings and doings than we are with actual, tangible events happening to everyday, normal people. Tales of human suffering seem to get lost in the shuffle of Sean Penn selling his home and Mini-Me having sex. And that's exactly where the Yuppie Pricks become more punk than punk.
If punk music was the ultimate tool of musical subversion, it's hard to imagine being more inflammatory than a group of musicians clothed in pristine power suits with lit Cubans tucked between their teeth, powering through the most searing and ferocious guitar chords this side of a Black Flag concert, cufflinks glistening along in the light. With champagne towers and naked sushi girls accessorizing their exaltation of capitalism, the NRA, and the bombing of Arab countries, Yuppie Pricks may actually the perfect combination of tongue-in-cheek and in-your-face to forecefully slap us back down to earth for a much needed reality re-evaluation.
Here Comes the Flood
Punk is all about being loud, angry and poor, right? Wrong. The Yuppie Pricks is an Austin, TX band whose parents were in the upper tax bracket. No wonder they come up with song titles like Frat Cars and Fuck You, I'm Rich. Their previous album was released on Jello Biafra's Alternative Tentacles label and they still sound like a lot like the Dead Kennedys with a rock back beat and highly political and funny lyrics.
Balls is album to be played at top volume to scare the shit out of the dorks down the hall. Housed in a sleeve that is a belated answer to the Black Crowes' Amorica it deserves top billing on this year's list of best punk albums. Punk is not dead, it just changed its wardrobe.
SUBBA-CULTCHA by Alan Baillie
According to their press release The Yuppie Pricks are 'reminiscent of bands such as The Sex Pistols, Black Flag and The Dead Kennedys'. Rather an ambitious announcement to make I think. I failed to uncover the slightest trace of Sex Pistols similarities. I shall allow them the Dead Kennedys one but based more on the Jello Biafra vocal delivery rather than any real musical likeness. And Black Flag are such a parcel of everything that I'm sure there may exist bits of that in their somewhere too. Regardless though of what's there and what's not The Yuppie Pricks are quite a good band and this is a rather decent album.
The opening track 'Collars Up' is the one that contains the vocal likeness of Jello Biafra. The song itself is a very rapid, short lived attack lasting all of 59 seconds but it does a good job as opener with the speed being beneficial to its purpose, almost like a very quick and simple introduction to the band that doesn't need to be fussed over. 'Greed Is Good' is noticeably slower but the momentum remains steadfast enough ensuring a smooth hand over to the meaty intro of 'Donkey Show'. 'Frat Cars' is a twitching volley and my favourite song on the album. It ups the pace noticeably and opens up the whole record brilliantly. Following on is 'Fraternity Days' and 'Fuck You, I'm Rich' There isn't any obvious weaknesses anywhere and the catchy 'Male Model' followed by 'G.O.P' then 'Loser' was a great way to spend 6 minutes. Final track 'Prick 4 Life' is an inspired closer to a record that rarely drops a stitch from start to finish.
Last Days of Man on Earth 2.0
It had to be more than just coincidence that caused the new album by Yuppie Pricks to arrive at the Last Days of Man on Earth World HQ. Had to be. I mean, I had just finished writing about the underlying conservatism of hardcore and I get this thing in the mail? An album with songs entitiled "G.O.P." and "Fraternity Days"? With lyrics that explore the neverending joys of being rich, white, republican males from TexASS? HAD to be more than coincidence. Right?
Well, no. Ascribing anything more than coincidence to this would mean that I believe in fate and Stumble has no time for fatalism. The boys in Yuppie Pricks? They do. They believe they were fated to be the "haves" while you dear readers are "have-nots". Like they say they are "model guys, fraternity links with national ties". Who the fuck are you? Just some punk loser flipping burgers. This is not me talking. This is where Yuppie Pricks are coming from. Can you get next to that?
Sure the album is a novelty record in the same sense that a Gwar album is. Sure the novelty can wear thin at times. I mean, you're gonna ask me to listen to a song with the title "G.O.P." after eight fuckin' years of GW Dipshit? When the mere mention of McCain and his traveling Hockey Mom sideshow is enough to throw me into homicidal paroxisms of rage and distemper? And the song is actually good enough that I find myself singing along and laughing at how offensively stupid the whole thing is? I find myself enjoying the whole album?
Well, that takes balls, mi amigo. Balls indeed.
BANANASPAM!
In my humble opinion the death of any music form is when it loses its sense of humor, and there are ample occurrences of this down through the rock n roll age. From progressive rock in the early '70s to jazzy house and trip hop in the late '90s the history of popular music is strewn with the detritus (god I love that word) jettisoned from opuses (did you know that another plural form of opus is opera, hmmm) of an earnest nature. So when I got an email from those highly attractive, driven, astonishingly good looking yet humble and kind folks at Fanatic Promotion (sycophantic moi?) about a band from Texas called The Yuppie Pricks, I had to investigate.
Today I have their CD resting in my shweaty little mitt. It is touchingly (fnar fnar) called Balls and is ten tracks of break neck speed, melodic, driving and fun filled punk rock. The band comprised of pharmaceutical business magnate,Trevor Middleton (vocals), tgird generation divorce lawyer, Deuce Hollingsworth (guitar), Preston Hetherington (guitar), Ricky the Intern (bass) and Nigel Smythen-Wesson (drums) are based in Austin, Texas and are signed to the delightful Chicken Ranch Records label, which is also home to kick ass, Nashville, garage rockers The Clutters (check out their Don't Believe A Word CD from last year).
Yuppie Pricks deal in reserve psychology punk by ironically celebrating the materialist excesses of the upwardly mobile in songs like "Greed Is Good," "Fraternity Days," and my personal favorite, ""Fuck You, I'm Rich," which are tinged with old school UK punk, Black Flag and Dead Kennedys touches. And they get further love from me by covering a song by my one of my all time cherished bands, a tearing remake of "Male Model" by Derry's finest, The Undertones, my local band when I was growing up and purveyors of top notch, total fun, pop punk. The choice of this tune by Yuppie Pricks is a testament to their fine choice in influences, which no doubt accompanies their fine choices in Brooks Brothers button down collar shirts and Bass Weejun loafers. This is punk rock with a message that you can laugh along to as well. Seems timely.