Gears: I Smoke Dope

The Controllers will always rank as one of those bands that should have been. For whatever reason, they just never hit. It might have had to do with the group’s ridiculous lyrical content – how many successful acts count songs about duking a corpse? The Pagans. Nah.

Anyway, with the Controllers ostensibly goin’ nowhere and major labels ignoring California punk bands, the ensemble’s guitarist Kidd Spike (presumably a smack reference) quit its ranks and went on to found the Gears. Most likely, if you’re familiar with this latter band at all, there’s simply an image of that black and yellow album floating around in your head. Whether or not hearing it was a part of your life might still be up in the air. After all, there were a huge number of discs detailing lesser bands from the era. And it becomes difficult to separate one from the other.

With Spike in charge of the melodic portion of this group, one would expect quick-fast caterwauling chords with an occasional solo tossed in for nothing other than an ear splitting second. But the Gears were a world away from the Controllers. X might be a more apt comparison. Well, X if they were less musically adept and incapable of turning country into punk and its opposite. Still, the Gears’ one album Rockin' at Ground Zero counts a few memorable moments. It’s just that the slower ones, like “Darlin’ Baby,” with its opening fifties revelry, is just kind of a bore. And even when the song kicks into punky territory, it’s only for a few moments.

What the band and its only album is remembered for, though, is the tandem “Trudie, Trudie” and “Baby Run Around,” each sitting more closely to the Controllers camp than anything else comprising the album. That first track’s just a love song, but it sports a pretty unique name for the time. And whether or not the fifties rock stuff is bothersome to most folks, the back-up vocals and vaguely rockabilly riff works perfectly. “Baby Run Around,” probably counting as the band’s magnum opus, sports a pretty memorably melody while Gears’ vocalist actually turns in a convincing rock star stance as he chastises some slut.

“I Smoke Dope” should be better considering its title. But the two minutes spent hearing the band revel in its own filth is worth examination. Is it great? Nah, but it’s probably better than most of the other nonsense masquerading as punk during 1980.