EP Review: Johny Skullknuckles – A Face Made For Radio

The Kopek Millionaires‘ singer guitarist just can’t seem to stop himself making music. And thank goodness for that, because he is mining a particularly rich vein of trashy punk-pop that has an almost unique and nostalgic charm. Nostalgic? Sure. There’s a strong dash of 1978 in these spiky bursts of punky goodness that give a flavour of what might have happened if Buzzcocks with Howard Devoto had smashed into the Dead Boys in some kind of colossal punk rock atomic collider. A Face Made For Radio veers between joyous, careering poppy R&B (Turn My Day To Night) to a kind of trashy Jilted John-ish self-analysing ode to lost love (Overattached). I’d assumed that Raped‘s Cheap Night Out was an addition to the well-established punk canon of songs about wanking. I prefer Johnny‘s version. It has kind of furtive joy that scanning mags that feature ‘flange and jugs’ can afford (I’m told), where the original is a bit shrill and cold. The heroine of Cheap Night Out reappears in Cool Christine which updates the teenage centrefold fantasy and spans the decades between the songs. The two songs are a pair, musical bookends to a 40-plus-year catalogue of surreptitious self-pleasure. Full marks to Johny for brining the story full circle.

It’s the amp-hum introduced Overattached that best captures Johnny Skullknuckles‘ buccaneering attitude and his brilliantly devil-may-care approach to punk pop. Trends, over-production and serious topics mean nothing to him. This is four tracks of unalloyed joy with a genuine and unrepentant foot in the past that also sounds thrillingly contemporary. Very highly recommended.

A Face Made For Radio is now available for streaming, download and also as a limited run CD via The Kopek Millionaires Bandcamp. It was performed, recorded, produced and mastered at Manchester’s Millionaire Mansions studios by Johny Skullknuckles.