Digger: Powerbait

Digger: Powerbait

1996

Hopeless Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Digger  2. Boy Toy Days  3. Dale  4. I Want My Hat Back  5. Lifestyles Of The Middle School Lamest  6. The Boot  7. Rollercoaster Girl  8. String In My Throat  9. Day In The Life Of Joel  10. Bigwheel  11. September  12. Geek Love  13. Ducky's Curse  14. True Blue



I love Powerbait! Sometimes I'll put on some Skinemax and powerbait all night long! 

 Tug-tug-tug-(make muscle in mirror)-tug.... 

The other day I was paging through the "Powerbait" CD booklet and after being initially stunned by the picture of the guy holding the big-ass fish...

...I glanced at the "thank you" list and the first names on it kind of popped out at me... Tim and Joel Heidecker...Is that the same Tim Heidecker from "Tom Goes to the Mayor"?

  Is there a Tim and Eric/Digger connection? It seems like that might be the case, since Tim Heidecker is from Pennsylvania and look at the address listed as their contact address! Coldplay, PA?!?!  

 So I can only assume that Joel is Tim's brother...Does that mean that the song "A Day in the Life of Joel" is about Tim Heidecker's brother?!?!

 I think I'm in the wrong line of business...I should be a Private Eye or something...

 Bourbon on my breath...Feet up on my desk...Getting mixed up with murderous dames...I mean, I do all that stuff already, but I think the Private Eye job has a better 401k...

Oh yea, I should talk about the album itself..."Powerbait" is the debut full-length by pop-punkers Digger, who sound like a less pie-fucking version of Blink 182 or something...Real Second-Term Bill Clinton punk...Lots of nerdy, sugary songs about teachers, holding hands on  roller coasters and 80's pop-culture references...And as someone who loves this kind of shit, I love this kind of shit...I'll admit, it's a bit juvenile at times and I skip about 1/3rd of the album whenever I listen to it (I guess I just don't share their nostalgia for Madonna...

...I remember being slightly more forgiving when this first came out, but listening to this in 2014 after having survived "Music" and "American Life" I can't help but grit my teeth a little....), but when these guys were on, they were on..."Dale" is a textbook example of how to write the perfect late 90's pop-punk track...The near-emo dynamics, the girly lyrics, the in-jokes...I'm not quite sure who Dale is...Is he the guy holding the giant fish in the inside cover? Who knows...I'm not even sure if that certain something in the water makes the narrator like Dale as a person or if it makes him act like Dale...I also remember "I Want My Hat Back" being something of a Summer of '96 favorite...I can assure you I spent many an hour driving around Michigan aimlessly while blasting this track before King Horsin' in at a bonfire...

So, I guess this album is all about nostalgia for me...If someone's asking me what are the vital punk albums of the 90's were, I don't think "Powerbait" would leap immediately to mind...But when I'm pounding the cheap beers on a Friday Night thinking back on the good ol' days it's one of the first things I often reach for..Comfort punk...

So let's do it...Let's put on "Dale" and drink to the old days...Hear, hear...