School Punks 1974 Album

Brownsville Station

After three subpar albums the boys from Brownsville finally hit their stride on School Punks, which - if nothing else - was a fairly direct, succinct album with one general purpose – to nostalgically rock. Its' main point was to charm the listener with awkward stories of misadventures from their high school days. Apparently, the bookend tracks became minor chart hits, and to these ears, deservedly so. “Kings of the Party” is in the same ball park as their major hit “Smokin’ in the Boys Room”, but looser and more fun if you can believe it, for here the name of the game is the band celebrating their newfound fame. “I’m the Leader of the Gang” is a cover of a Gary Glitter song, and Brownsville is able to take the hooligan/soccer-style chants and give it more of a Midwestern high school football twist. Furthermore, the interplay between comedy and pop music on songs like “Mama Don’t Allow No Parkin” and “Fast Phyllis” is fascinating. When the band gets cover-heavy towards the end of the album the whole package starts to lose its’ luster for me a bit. I have images of the original artwork and I have to say; the overall theme is a good fit. The cover photo painting of the band is pretty scary, though, in that I actually remember guys looking like this back when I was in high school. But overall, this is the first real consistent start-to-finish Brownsville platter that holds real entertainment value.