The Chemical Brothers “Push The Button” Review

Da Chemical Brothas- Push Da Button
By Frank “Frankie Caps” Kosciuszko as told to Hadley Tomicki

Check it out, I’m doing my collections this morning, like normal, and next to a stack of soiled Black Tail Magazines and used Q-Tips (the swabs not the rapper, who by the way is a friend from way back), what do I spy in the dumpster but a new CD from Da Chemical Brothas? Push Da Button it’s called and has a real hippie cover with a raised blue fist coming outta some chess piece or lighthouse or some crap.

Awright, awright…Now I know a lot youse guys are saying, what the hell does a waste management expert from Greenpoint, Brooklyn know about electronic music? And you’re sorta right. When Maria makes me take her dancing at Sammy’s on a Friday, it usually takes about three songs of steady bleeping and burping before I feel like a fag and refuse to dance any more. All that “One More Time” Cher shit? Can’t stand it. But this CD here got a little more to it. Less crap noise and more rockin’, if you know what I mean. And these Chemical Boys, two English douchebags who look like nerds, show some really creative impulses. Not as creative as my method of making guys pay up, but you know, you say tomater and I say tomotter. Then I say, go learn English you bum!

Like the first track for example, Galvanize. Sounds gay, right? Well, it sorta is, but it’s also like, really good. Using a whole lotta them beats and sounds from the Poonjabi movies, it steadily chugs along like my brother-in-law Mikey after he’s had too many shots of Georgi, threatening to fall apart but still the kinda dude you want backing you up when it goes down, see? (“Yo, whattup mighty Mike?! You’re my dogg B! I know you readin’ this!”)That little rap dude, Q-Tip, you know, the black guy (not the discarded ear swab), raps on the track, and sounds pretty tight. Boxer has a promising title but is crappy Burt Baccharach-style techno, with a bit of a groove and some crazy sound effects I would have to smoke like, a big joint, to really appreciate. But I don’t touch that druggie junk! This is the kind of album that has tonsa 7 minute songs and crap. So everytime I’m leaving my truck, I come back and it’s still the same song. What happened to those Ramones guys with a good 2 minute song? They still puttin’ out albums anymore?

The third song, Believe, I thought was gonna be like some R. Kelly bullcrap. It’s not though, its gotta dark sounding thing to it, with a pounding disco beat that makes me want to do the electric slide like we did at Benny’s wedding last year when they played The Baha men. By the way, those dudes are pretty good. Hey, what? I’m just sayin’. The song cracks apart and dovetails with rap beats and noisy rumbles. “I Needed to Believe in Something,” sings the guy passionately, who’s probably not getting any whoopie or he wouldn’t act like such a skirt in public. That’s my theory!

Okay, so I don’t totally hate this thing, Pushing Da Buttons. But it don’t mean nothing about me liking pasty British dudes or nothing, okay? Every song has a different feel from the haunting chick vocals of Hold Tight London to The Big Jump, which sounds like two people doin’ it with a bunch of Africans yelling in the background. I seen a movie like that once. It was sick stuff, I didn’t really watch it more than twice anyway. My partner, this Puerto-Rican guy named Antonio, he was really into Shake, Break, Bounce, ‘cos it has all these Latin guitars in it and a good hip-hop beat. Another one of them songs I kinda liked was Left Right, which has kind of a tougher Jay-Z dude rapping on it about the world and its problems. You know, he’s shoutin’ out ta’ Syria, Bosnia, Afganiwherever… Fortunately, George W. is on his way, man, so you don’t haffta worry about it. Already taken care of! The rest is basically a bunch of psychedelic hippie techno crap for girls and such. You’d probably like it, Tinkerbell. Me, I’ll wait ‘til a recently re-reunited Motley Crue put out another metal masterpiece. Those guys freakin’ rock and 10-1 they could kick the Chemical Brothers ass!!

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