THE
CRIMINALS
The club lights go down, a long
forgotten cheesy rock anthem plays
through the speakers and the audi-
ence parts to let an odd looking
young man wearing a dress and a
diamond studded crown make his
way to the stage. In the spotlight, his
lime-green dress nearly splits at the
seams as he reaches for a dozen
roses thrown onstage from some-
where in th
n the pit. Just as the queen of
the stage finishes his last wave, the
music abruptly stops and from
somewhere up i
p in the rafters, blood
spills down, drenching the confused
looking man in the dress. As the
last of the blood falls the lights blast
on. The Criminals and their Carrie
for a day lead singer, Jesse
Luscious, explode into their set.
Playing together for four years,
The Criminals know how to move a
crowd. With Cap'n Feedback St.
Felony (Brady) on guitar, Mike
Sexxx on bass, Stixx on drums and
Luscious on vocals, the criminals are
one of the best bands out there to
see play live. Loud, abrasive and in
your face, their music sucks you in
and spits you out, leaving you deaf,
drained, and pissed at the world.
After playing in Blatz. The
Aborted. The Gr'ups, and Jet
Black Jesus, the members of the
criminals joined together and
formed a band that doesn't just take
the stage, it steals it. Their full length
CD, Never Been Caught is available
on Lookout Records and it's 100%
punk. Get it before the cops confis-
cate it and use it as evidence. If you
want to get a hold of The Criminals
you can write PO Box 40004.
Berkely, CA 94704. For booking info
call: 213-856-9082.
--Jim Theibaud
Thrasher caught up with The
Criminals in Berkely, CA and the fol-
lowing is the extruded mind mush
that came out of these East Bay punkers.
JT: Your new album is called
Never Been Caught, which is a per-
fect segue into our first question.
Never Been Caught is also a song
on your album, and I'm wondering
if Brady could tell us where the
lyrics for that song came from?
B: They're all taken from Robert
Graysmith's book about the Zodiac
Killer, and they're actual letters that the
Zodiac Killer wrote to the San
Francisco Chronicle. He had a relation-
ship with them where he would go out
and do the killings and then write about
them until they got in the paper. When
they stopped writing about them, he
would write more letters with these fan-
tastic ciphers and cryptic notes- sort of
taunting them.
J: He has never been caught, hence
the title Never Been Caught.
JT: What's up with The Criminals
and mucus?
M: Jesse's always congested.
J: We're just a bunch of angry kids.
B: People need to think of a better
word to assign to punk bands. You're
sitting there with your shitty fanzine and
your review and probably a pretty
decent punk record, better than you
could do, and the only word you can
think of is "snotty" for vocals? There's a
lot of other words you could use.
JT: I heard you play hockey when
you're not on tour.
M: We all do.
J: Mike wakes up in the morning and
plays hockey. We're actually in a league.
and we were league champions last year.
B: It's this intramural league at
U.C. Berkeley.
J: And the season's only four games
long, but we're the champions.
B: It's all these punk rockers on this team
against all these fraternity houses, and
they're all scared of the punk rock team.
JT: Do you guys skate?
B: Yeah, absolutely. There's going to
be a new place to skate in Berkeley.
M: I'd like to give a shout out to the E-
ville skate posse.
B: I like to skate around SF
B: We used to skate out at Wade
Speyer's house on his little halfpipe
in his garage until he'd yell at us
and tell us to leave.
J: Actually, I'm kind of excited
about this because I grew up read-
ing Thrasher- all of us did- when
punk rock and skating was COC
and DRI. I never skated then, but
all of my friends skated. It was kind
of like the latest fashion.
B: It was more of an outlaw thing:
that's what attracted me to it. I
bought my first punk record
through Thrasher Magazine.
J: Brady the enforcer. When all the
skaters had big rad wheels and big
rad boards, they also had good music.
B: I bought a Faction record out
of Thrasher. That changed my
whole life, to be totally honest with
you. And now I'm a Criminal. I met
Ray Stevens a couple weeks ago
in San Jose. He used to be in The
Faction and used to skate. We
talked about that whole situation. It
was really cool- I don't get
starstruck that often. He was a real-
ly down to Earth, nice guy. He still
works with The Odd Numbers
and some other bands.
JT: I understand that out of
everyone here, not counting
Jesse and his need for nudity,
that you
've had the closest
brush with the law involving
your mom.
M: We were in Philadelphia and
we were at Jesse's mom's house.
who's a lovely lady; I hope she
reads this- Hello Jesse's mom.
Love your food. So I called home to
Central Jersey, 117 exit, and my
brother says, "Mike, I don't know
how to tell you this, but our Mom's
in jail." So I'm like, "Get the fuck
outta here, I'll see you in an hour or
two. Sure enough, we get there and
she's in the hole. It turns out she beat
her mother up with a broomstick and a
phone. The next day, me and my
brother visited Mom in the hole and she
was behind the little glass thing with
phone. We asked her to show us her
boobies but she wouldn't show them to
us, so we were pretty bored.
JT: Is there anything else you
I want to say before we close?
M: I forgive you Grandma. I love you.
J: He's lying. You should have heard
the shit he was talking about you.
What about that thing with your mom
and the hot dog?
B: I've got something to say. Skate
and Destroy.
-J Taatjes
Putting the Arms in Armageddon
BIG
BEATX
NOFX
FROM
BADSVILLE
The Cramps
Big Beat from Badsville
BOLDO
LOS
VOODIN
GLOW
Voodo Glow Skulls
Balle De Los Locos
THE
BOUNCING
SOULS
The Bouncing Souls
MILLENCOLI
Millencolin
For Monkeys
NOFX
000000
So Long and thanks
for all the shoes
PENNYWISE
R
Pennywise
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