Ideas Are Bulletproof-The Pist

Ideas Are Bulletproof-The Pist
01 - Still Pist
02 - Never Question
03 - Street Punk
04 - Dead In Its Tracks
05 - Alternative
06 - The Customer (Is Always Right)
07 - Slogans
08 - Ideas Are Bulletproof
09 - Small Town
10 - Energy
11 - Textbook Salvation
12 - Do What You're Told
13 - New School
14 - Great American Sportsman
15 - Perceptions
16 - Not Your Problem
17 - Song For You
18 - Black And Blue Collar
19 - Deal With It

download

THE PIST basically defined punk rock for me back in 1996 when a friend gave me a copied tape of their full length record IDEAS ARE BULLETPROOF. I really had no idea what the record actually sounded like until about 3 years later though because the tape I had was in at least it's 6th generation: a copy of a copy of a copy etc. The best way I can describe this tape is to mention the cocaine that gets repeatedly stepped on hard by every biker in town before eventually ending up for sale to college kids at the local strip club. But, maybe everyone didn't grow up in a town like mine so I guess I'll just say it was shit and it was a relief when I finally got a hold of a vinyl copy.

All my tapes were like that back then though. I think I even got used to it and started to prefer the distorted and overly treble heavy sound. See, the only way I could get good music when I was a teenager was to copy tapes from travelling punk kids who actually saw the band play at some point, and were now stuck in Kingston, ON for some reason. These tapes were copied way too many times more often than not, but it had to be suffered. The local bookstore only ordered one copy of Maximum RockNRoll per month, and it was always on lay away for one of the employees (why they never seemed to want to order two per month was beyond me). The Internet was still a useless bag of smashed assholes for a lot of reasons then too, so even if you could find anything good on there it would take a week to download each song. With very limited access to mail order through zines and no good Internets it was tough work getting good records. But, I'm way off topic here now...

So anyways, the tape I had was of low quality but the album wasn't, and it was a big deal to me. Simple three chord hardcore/street punk put to some of the most genuinely pissed off vocals I've ever heard. Singer Al Ouimet sounds like a 50 foot tall skinhead who probably has cinder blocks for hands and could jump out of your speakers at any moment to rip your fucking head off because you bought a pair legit Chuck Taylors and everyone knows they're technically Nikes now. The delivery also makes it easy to understand every word on the record, which is rare, and perfect in this case.

Although most of the the lyrics don't have a lot of depth in the ideas they address, I think they are effective at conveying frustration and anger with American/western culture, and they put forward positive messages of equality, animal liberation, feminism, getting off your lazy apathetic ass etc. There is only so much that can be covered in a 2 minute song anyways, and I think it's important to keep these kinds of songs common in punk rock. There can never really be too many songs about how Nazi skinheads are shitty dudes and I don't think the punx should start ignoring how fucked up "the system" is either. I wonder if I would have bothered to educate myself on some of the issues that are so important to me now if it weren't for the politically charged punk songs I listened to as I grew up; as shallow and sloganary as so many of them might be.

All this being said, I hope I'm not giving the wrong impression... The lyrics are really well written, clever, and are a big part of what makes this album so fucking good. They are brutally honest and straight forward, and sometimes pretty funny. and I can recite every word on this record cold. Here's an example of why:

The Great American Sportsman

Here comes the Great American Sportsman
With camouflage and a gun
Here comes the Great American Coward
If the odds were evened up, I bet you’d fuckin’ run

This ain’t no sport cause the deck is stacked against the prey
You’re armed to the teeth, and they can only run away
You’re a tough guy hunter, a real fuckin’ man
If you are so tough, why don’t you hunt with your bare hands

Here comes the Great American Sportsman
A member of the NRA
Here comes the Great American Coward
Hiding in the bushes, so you can sneak up on your prey
Now you’ve jacked a buck and you can kick back with a beer
Drowning all your sorrows, keep on running from your fear
Finish off a six-pack and your feeling brave again
Go brag about your murder to all your loser friends

I want to see a hunter caught in a leg-hold trap
I want to see a hunter with an arrow in his back
I want to see a hunter with a hook right through his cheek
I want to see a hunter carved up like a piece of meat
I want to see a hunter’s body, strapped to the hood of a car
I want to see a hunter’s bravery when he is unarmed
I want to see a hunter wounded and on the run
I want to see a hunter through the sites of a gun…

Here comes the Great American Sportsman
Who I wouldn’t mind seeing dead
Here comes the Great American Coward
I hope another hunter shoots you in the head

You carry a weapon to mask the weakness that you feel
And your predatory stance mirrors the American ideal
When the odds are in your favor, you go on the attack
I’ll bet you wouldn’t venture in the woods if the animals shot back

Shoot back

IDEAS ARE BULLETPROOF is in my top 5 punk releases of all time, and was a huge influence on me. I discovered it the band the same year they broke up, but luckily they did two reunion shows in 2007 so I got to see them play for the first time after an 11 year wait. The show was at some rented hall outside of Pittsburgh, PA. Cover was $5 or something and there was no stage preventing me from yelling my guts out into the microphone to all these songs. They played with ANNIHILATION TIME, CRIMINAL DAMAGE, and MUNICIPAL WASTE among others. Fucking ridiculous.

THE PIST are from Meriden Connecticut. They have a myspace page.
IDEAS ARE BULLETPROOF was released on ELEVATOR MUSIC in 1994. THE PIST recently released a kind of discography record, so go look for that. If you like THE PIST then you might also like EAST COAST PANIC and VOMIT PUNX.


I'm not good at making internets so had to include this (non) video so you could hear the opening track from the record without having to download the whole thing. I'm sure there was better way to do it, but whatever.