I've said it many times - George Tabb is a pretty prolific punk. He has fronted a bunch of great punk rock bands (Furious George, Iron Prostate, Letch Patrol, Roach Motel), has written two books and wries "Take My Life, Please", a column that's run in Maximumrocknroll for many years.
He also is dealing with serious health problems as a result of Sept. 11. In the wake of the Trade Towers disaster, New Yorkers were exposed to a wide range of toxins dispersed into the air. For Tabb, this lead to sinus problems and severe asthma. It caused ulcers that lead to him having over a foot of his large intestine removed. The latest development is a diagnosis of polycystic kidney disease, which is incurable.
Tabb has taken these problems in stride, speaking out and appearing on television and in print, trying to inform the nation of his health issues and the issues of all the New Yorkers exposed at Ground Zero.
Because of his health problems, Tabb has not been able to work or play out. Because of the city's failure to acknowledge the full nature of this problem, he's been left with mounting medical bills as well.
The punk community has tried to help. T-shirts and benefit shows have been held, and Tabb is also soliciting donations via his MySpace site. The latest effort, Help George Tabb! The George Tabb Tribute Vol. 1, is a benefit album from Psychic Hamster Music to help raise money for those bills. And it's a great album to boot (OK, not to physically boot, because that would imply that it's a bad album, because it's good for kicking, when actually it's good for rocking, not booting - forget I said anything about booting, because I already did).
The album largely consists of bands covering Tabb's songs from various eras of his career. They do it justice too, especially when it calls for in-your-face punk rock. While I'll profess unfamiliarity with many of the bands on the album, I was into the sounds and songs right away, especially the unapologetic fast blasts. Mike Blanx w/ Pro-Ject:Radiation covers "Betty Crocker, Punk Rocker" (Furious George), American Business Machine belts out "Monkey in a Man Suit" (Furious George) and Drunko does "Mad Dog/Sorry Ass Sucker" (Roach Motel), all with suitably snot-nosed abandon.
It's not just straight-up three-chord punk rock, either. Norman Bates & The Showerheads do a hard-rocking version of "The Taxidermist" (The False Prophets) with both fast hardcore riffs and gratuitous guitar noise, Last Rate Service delivers "Abduct Me" (Furious George) in a loose, gritty Social D-influenced fashion that features an infectious guitar melody, and Full Boar's version of "Bring Me The Head of Jerry Garcia", with its decidedly outlaw country sound, completes the package.
The original tunes are also really nice. In fact, "Mama Married A Mau Mau" by The Adz, with a sound that lifts heavily from the Cramps, is one of the best tracks on the album, and Suburban Lockdown's "Twisted Nerve" is also a pleasant dose of old-school punk rock.
At the end of the day, and at the end of the day after that, and even at the end of the day after that, this is one of the better compilations hitting the streets right now. For that alone it's worth picking up. The fact that all the proceeds go to help George Tabb pay his medical bills just serves to put some warm fuzzies in your tummy while you're listening.
To distort Tabb's trademark phrase in a way that I'm sure he'd approve, "Buy this album, please."
