Doughboys, Part II: Crush is Fucking AWESOME

Isn't it awesome when two things you love go together great? I was hanging out with Adam Franklin from Swervedriver between soundcheck and showtime in downtown Seattle and when the Doughboys came up in conversation, he immediately revealed that only was John Kastner a good friend, but also a guitar tech for the Swervies when they played Coachella this past spring. Small world. Apparently both bands gigged together some back in the day...what I wouldn't give to have been born a decade earlier...

Crush arrived while I was still at college. Appropriately, the CD was in fact crushed, the case cracked and the lower-right corner of the case broken off. Dismayed, I gave the seller some neutral feedback and threw the album on.

Holy shit.

Better than Home Again? It's sure as shit in the same league, at the very, very least. But here, most of the band's hardcore elements are completely stripped away. In their place? Pop. Outright, catchy-as-hell vocal harmonies even more accessible than on previous records. Polished guitar tone with just enough messiness in the playing to keep things loose and fun. This is a special record, and not like Home Again; Crush is a rare record: incredibly commercial, but entirely guilt-free. The Husker Du-influenced "honest" sound of Kastner and company's vocals are hardly gone, but soaked in just enough sugar.

There's not a bad song on the record. "Shine" kicks it off with a riff that, well, shines like the summer sun. The energy has nowhere to go but up on the chorus of "Melt"-- its soaring guitars beautifully juxtaposed with the slightly subdued but still active bass fuzztone of Peter Arsenault during the verses. "Disposable" briefly takes things down a notch with a tale of a girl who's "drunk again/on Listerine" and who's "just a toothpaste cap/falling down my bathroom sink." Another phenomal chorus. "Fix Me" explodes with a riff that hits you face first. It's also ripe for photogenic slo-mo headbanging in pop-punk. Don't take my word for it, watch below.


Note John singing the prechorus just before returning to headbanging.

You get all this awesome in just the first four tracks. There's still 2/3 of an album's worth of awesome left.

So go to eBay, sort through the dollar bins and find this record. It can easily be had for under five bucks.

I'll post a song or two soon, check back.

You Don't Know Them

But they still rule.

This post is about the Doughboys.

Before I delve into sentimental "what the record means to me" waxing and a summary of their career, I want to give a shoutout to mah boy Tony Pence at Celebrated Summer Records. His recommendations never disappoint.

A few months ago I had a jonesin' in me. I'd been playing Husker Du's Warehouse: Songs and Stories record now and again ever since I'd found it on cassette last summer, and couldn't get enough of the Descendents' classic Milo Goes to College. Something inside me was thirsty for punk-based music imbued with melody–and not in the manner of Green Day-Blink-182 crap I'd been subjected to all of middle school.

So I walk into Celebrated Summer one fine Friday and try to explain to Tony the sort of sound I'm looking for. He hardly hesitated before whipping out the Doughboys' second record, 1988's Home Again, on CD and popped it in. It wasn't as intense as the sound I'd wanted to hear, but the conglomeration of the music and the imagery in the jacket completely sold me. In the former department, the lo-fi production grabbed me immediately (in a good way) and everything about the tunes seemed to simply sound honest. In the latter, I opened the sleeve to see pictures of guitarist/lead singer John Kastner doing an insane jump with his Les Paul outstretched. Other guitarist/singer John Cummins was in mid-headbang. Brock Pytel was sweating his ass off on the drums and John Bondhead, crouched with his bass, almost looked like Mike from COC did in the mid-80s. I couldn't help but feel the hair length kinship, even though the dudes' dos were in crusty dreads. To top it all off, they all sang lead in every damn song. Sweet.

I bought Home Again on the spot and I'm still listening to it all the way through these days. Right from the disc's opening seconds, "Buying Time" has you jumping stokedly up and down. There is a whimsical, nonchalant youth about the album that seems to revel in its state of semi-slackerdom. "I don't care/if I never sleep again," sings Kastner on "Never Sleep." "I don't care/if this highway never ends." The record closes with the sole tune Bondhead penned, the ballad "She Doesn't Live There Anymore," a downright charming jam with soft acoustic plucking underneath the usual wash of flanged-as-hell distorted electric guitars. It also features a fantastic simile in the description of the girl Bondhead focuses on: "She had hair just like the wheat in Colorado/and every time we pass those fields I have to wonder/because they're waving there just for me/I can't wait to get back home again and leave."

After purchasing the previous album Whatever (1987) on vinyl and having it mailed home to Seattle (I have no turntable out here at school), I downloaded the album digitally for further investigation. A solid batch of tunes, to be sure. There's certainly more intensity as most of the
record melds a blazing hardcore punk sound with the pop that would eventually become more prominent down the line. Amusingly, the video for "You're Related" reminds me of '90s Nickelodeon. Pssst...click here to check the record out.


As of today, I've got their third record, 1990's Happy Accidents, headed my way on purple vinyl. I'm substantially stoked but haven't been able to find it online yet. With that said, if the songs are a tenth as awesome as they are in this live footage from what I believe to be the tour for the same album in Florida circa 1991, color me excited.





Their next full-length, 1993's Crush, marked a change to a predominantly powerpop sound. "Shine" was evidently a Top 40 hit while I was still in preschool. After this record, Cummins was the latest casualty of the band's semi-frequent lineup changes (the rhythm section from Home Again was long gone) and was replaced by Mega City Four's Darren "Wiz" Brown, who unfortunately passed away due to a blood clot in his brain on December 6th, 2006. According to Tony, the record is still good–better, even– than the band's early material. It can be found for a dollar darn near everywhere...so don't be a moron like yours truly and pay $5.50 for it.

At this time the band was signed to A&M. They put out Turn Me On in 1996 and broke up after touring as the opening act for the Offspring. Their La Muejere demo was reissued in 2003, and I've seen a rare live German tour 7" from the Home Again days on eBay. This band is worth your money.

And now, the band/their crew talk about their cocks backstage.