Space Cretins

Once Ramones songs started appearing in cell phone commercials, Nike

bought Converse, and Avril Lavigne came on the scene with her studded

belt and "angst," the commoditization of punk rock seemed complete,

the genre's skeleton picked clean by the vultures of the music

industry. Fortunately, bands like Reptilian Civilian, a scaly garage

band from Portland, took it upon themselves to resurrect the punk rock

upon which so many of us cut our teeth. While MTV got busy cleaning up

punk's disreputable image and inaccessible, off-key sound, Reptilian

Civilian and their DIY peers followed behind, sweeping up all the

discarded vulgarity, radical politics, and crude references to bodily

functions for themselves. In Reptilian Civilian's case, the music came

out sounding like the best of '60s basement punk rock—the kind that

offends your mother and all of the delicate sensibilities you're still

clinging to. If there were no references to current events like 9/11,

you might not guess that Reptilian Civilian is a 21st-century band.

Lucky for us, it is. With Three Legged Dog and Reptilian Civilian.

SARA BRICKNER

Listen to a sample of Space Cretins' "Straight to the Edge."

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Sat., March 29, 9:30 p.m., 2008