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Various

Punk Rock Is Your Friend (2002)
Kung Fu Records

Reviewer Rating:

Contributed by: Eddie
(others by this writer | submit your own)

Published on December 24th 2002

These days, Kung Fu Records has become really good at releasing cheap punk rock samplers, and "Punk Rock is Your Friend" (the third in their series) is no exception. Almost all of Kung Fu's bands make an appearance here: The Ataris, Ozma, Antifreeze, The Vandals, and their smaller bands. No Use for a Name offers a track, as well.

The CD starts off great with a couple upbeat songs by Audio Karate. It works well at starting everything off. Similar artists Useless I.D. and Mi6 contribute fun songs, as well. Antifreeze includes one of their better tracks and a good unreleased track. Despite their good songs, though, they just copy The Ataris way too much (I regret giving their debut CD 3 1/2 stars).

Weezer, I mean Ozma, also have a couple tracks, and they are one of the weakest points of this compilation. Sure, they're not bad for an average Saves the Day fan, but they've just never really clicked with me. The Vandals include a very catchy new song called "I'm Black," and "My First Christmas (as a Woman)" which has got to be one of the stupidest Vandals songs I've ever heard, but it's still very hilarious.

Tsunami Bomb's two tracks are ambitious and nicely performed. Sure, they aren't as aggressive as the other Tsunami Bomb songs, but it's still good punk.

Closing out the disc is a well-recorded live addition of No Use for a Name's "Not Your Savior," and "Make It Last" and "Are We There Yet?" (another live version) from The Ataris.

Obviously this isn't going to be something that will be found in your CD player for weeks and weeks. But it's not bad for the occasional "pop in" if you and your bored friends are driving around on a Saturday night with nothing to do. And if you want to get one of your buddies into Kung Fu artists, you can't go wrong with this.

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TheOneTrueBill (December 30, 2002)

the Vandals are the only thing worth a damn on Kung Fu

panapunk (December 29, 2002)

this album is fine, but the bands at kfr suck a lot... i really recommend it for the ones who like a lot pop punk (sucks!)

Anonymous (December 25, 2002)

it's odd, Ramo never has anything interesting to say, yet he posts all over this fucking site. watch out wuss-emo-rock, someone is taking your title!

fallingtopieces (December 25, 2002)

kung fu sucks. Every band sounds the same, the only exception being Ozma. I like Ozma, theres something intriguing about them that i cant put my finger on. Anywhoo, yeah other than that though i can safely say i dont like kung fu recs. Although, they are releasing that Alkaline Trio live DVD which should be awesome. So, some redemption will come to them, albeit not much.

PS
Tsunami bomb is ok too.

Anonymous (December 25, 2002)

This sampler was ok. But too much fuckin pop-punk. Kung fu should start siging more diverse bands.

Ramo

jonbonbandersnatch (December 24, 2002)

just about everything apocalypse hoboken did before signing with kung fu was solid. im not so supportive of their kung fu releases though.