The Automatik

Throughout the mid-’80s, punk’s corpse transmogrified into hardcore’s zombie nightmare as thousands watched in horror.

Then along came Redd Kross, with their witches’ brew of tacky, metallic glam, angel dusted with pop culture’s cleverest sound bites and Hollywood Boulevard in-jokes. Neurotica features the powerhouse combination of guitarist Robert Hecker’s KISS-inspired noodlings and the skin-bashing of drummer Roy McDonald.

Really though, the spotlight always belonged to the Glitter Twins, brothers Jeff and Steve McDonald, who originated Redd Kross and would remain its molten core while a stream of guitarists, drummers, and even a keyboard player, paraded by. Jeff and Steve already had two albums under their belts by the time they were out of junior high school, but hints of their future pop-trash glory wouldn’t be really apparent until 1984′s Teen Babes From Monsanto, crammed with ingenious covers, including a cover of their own previously recorded ode to Exorcist star Linda Blair. By this time, Steve’s sultry basslines and Jeff’s sneering whine had been honed to perfection, two factors which helped to make Neurotica so bloody brilliant.

But the brothers McD were far from snot-nosed ignoramuses: their references ranged from folkster Buffy St. Marie to the white man blues of Led Zeppelin. Putting Simon Le Bon’s face on the drum kit, wearing crushed-velvet bellbottoms and doing covers of Yoko Ono songs nonwithstanding, it was their obvious adoration of all things musical that allowed them to poke fun at their own idols without coming across as mere pastiche.

Although their stellar combination of musicianship, harmony and outright hooks would reach its zenith in Phaseshifter and the criminally underrated Show World, nothing tops Neurotica for flawless synthesis of influences, not to mention its significance as the birth of the Redd Kross popular cult. Thrill to its stolen riffs and double pop culture entendres or just bask in the glow of its far-out sound. “We are not stupid boys, but we want to do it wrong,” insists Jeff McDonald in “Play My Song.” Now THAT’S punk rock.

Big Time, 1987