11/19/07: The Bullys: “I’m A Boy” (1998)You might have heard something about the massive success of
The Dangerous Book for Boys. It’s yet another thing that’s kind of depressing to claim as a conservative triumph. You’d think we could safely state that Leftists are pro-boy, but that wouldn’t be the truth. Sadly,
The Dangerous Book of Boys is a fine Christmas gift for lots of older men who’ll be reminded of how much of their own childhood has been denied to others.
Anyway, all that talk about
The Dangerous Book for Boys had gotten us thinking about this incredible NYC punk band called The Bullys. There are always lots of punk bands in NYC, but The Bullys were one of the few memorable ones. They were really bigger than the punk scene they embraced. It was more like working-class rock, but delivered with a mad sense of abandon that made The Bullys a punk act by default. They would’ve scared away any other audience.
Their debut album was
Stomposition, and it was a pretty big deal on the local level. A lot of folks were surprised to hear anything that great coming out of the NYC punk scene. We were especially pleased to hear “I’m A Boy,” with lyrics that would make Moby turn as green as his tea:
I like the sound of electric guitars/And the speed of a racing car/I spit into the air/Put chewing gum in a little girl’s hair/I blow up G.I. Joes/I think that homework blows/I follow fire trucks/I hate to listen to a band that sucks/I’m a boy/And I like getting dirty…Stomposition is full of that kind of greatness. Even a writer for the
Village Voice had to celebrate The Bullys’ truly politically incorrect ways—although she padded it into a cultural thing by talking about the band as a bunch of “Celtic warriors.”
But that was when everyone was paying tribute to The Bullys, which brings us to a sad ending. The Bullys sang about being a boy, but most of their songs were written by a good man—specifically, guitarist Johnny Heffernan. He liked to follow fire trucks to the extent that he’d grown up to be a New York City firefighter. We lost him on September 11, 2001.
The Dangerous Book for Boys has been out for a while. We’ve just been putting off writing this entry. Then we thought that maybe it was a good idea for Thanksgiving. We certainly don’t join the hippies in thinking of Thanksgiving as a day of mourning, and this week’s official entry for the holiday will be pretty lighthearted. It probably trivializes things to even be thankful that Johnny Heffernan left behind a lot of great songs. We probably just want to say that people should count their blessings, and Heffernan meant a lot to New York City in a lot of ways, and there’ll be plenty more things to come along and remind us that we should’ve appreciated The Bullys more back in the ’90s.
Make it your own: We’ve been talking in the past sense, but The Bullys didn’t quit. They’re still a great live band—even if (and possibly because) they’ll always be a tribute act now. You can keep track of shows through their
MySpace page. There’s also an inspiring Bullys
website, and it’s easy to start collecting
their records.
Stomposition was almost bettered by 1999’s
Tonite We Fight Again! Then the band returned with last year’s
BQE Overdrive, with half the album consisting of more fine songs by Heffernan. The newer songs are surprisingly strong, too. “I’m A Boy” also shows up to represent The Bullys on the (mostly very good)
Music From Ground Zero compilation album.
Also, we should add that Moby might actually have been a fan of The Bullys. We don’t know him personally, but it’s not unusual to see Moby at shows that we’re attending, and we’re starting to feel better about the guy.
