Let’s take a trip back to Novemeber 1999. I was a Senior in High School not taking a full schedule of classes, working a part time job at the Council Bluffs Target, and spending as much time as humanly possible going to shows at the Cog Factory in Omaha, NE. Hell, my part time work schedule got built around the shows I wanted to go to.

November 1999 holds the distinction of introducing me to Apocalypse Hoboken. I didn’t know anything about them really, beyond that they had advertisements in Flipside and Punk Planet. And that the vocalist Todd Pot wrote seriously twisted columns for Spank fan zine (under the title “penisdragwhoreolympics”). But, like most of the shows I went to at the Cog, it was only $5 and something to do.

I don’t really remember much about the actual show, other than Todd Pot’s extended rants about pills & blow and going on tour with AFI (who he kept calling “Affy”). He seemed pretty off kilter. I ate it up and picked up a copy of “House of the Rising Son of A Bitch”. Which I proceeded to play and play and play. The songs- the subjects- just everything about this record was so wrong and so awesome at the same time.

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Jump ahead to 2011 and It’s still one of my favorite albums. I knew this record was twisted when I got it, but as I’ve gotten older it just sinks in more and more how twisted it really is. Songs like “Pulling Worms Apart”, “Hazelnut”, and “Tickeled Pink” so poetically string together their subject matter that you almost miss their references to childhood traumatic abuse, abusive relationships, STD’s, drugs, and an entire list of urbandictionary.com-worthy sexual acts. Granted, not all of the songs are all about shock value, but there is literally nothing nice being put out there on this record. And for some reason I’ve never stopped listening to it. Still, all the aside, there’s nothing sad in the veins of Bright Eyes or those days of the early 2000’s self absorbed emo rock on this record. Just the facts, ma’am. Twisted? Yes. Wrong? Yes. Rocking? Yes- veritably, yes!