Thursday, May 22, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Music: Come clean

Mad Parade stays true to spotless roots

By Newt Briggs

Surfacing out of the same Southern California tar pit that produced legendary punkers Fear, Social Distortion and X, Mad Parade was once the dapper darling of the old-school L.A. punk scene. Sharing stages with everyone from the Circle Jerks to Bad Religion, the members of Mad Parade quickly earned the dubious moniker of "clean punks"--a reference to both their refined sound and their inclination towards at least a modicum of personal hygiene. But the band never realized the widespread success of its grimier contemporaries. Instead, Mad Parade schlepped between roller rinks and back-alley nightclubs, occasionally playing for crowds of less than a dozen (if the shows weren't cancelled outright).

"Were we bitter?" says Mad Parade guitarist Joey Kelly. "Big time."

Although there's no definitive reason why Mad Parade missed the early '80s punk-rock gravy train, Kelly attributes at least part of their failure to premature ego inflation--swollen self-conceptions that couldn't handle the reality of public opinion. Much like a certain local band of suspect repute (ahem, Clockwise), Mad Parade was thrust onto a scene that wasn't quite ready for its sound. And not even a barrage of industry hype could dent the public's resolve.

"For a little while, our stuff was all over the radio, and we seemed to be getting bigger and bigger," says Kelly. "But at the same time, our egos started to get big, and we started thinking, `Hey, let's ask for more money. Let's live it up like rock stars.' So then we go on tour and we play these shows, and 15 people show up. Ten people show up. Five people show up. A show gets canceled. And we're like, `Wait a minute, now. It's time to get back to reality.'"

The reality was, Mad Parade embraced a sonic aesthetic unfamiliar to fans of early SoCal punk, playing polished melodi-core in an era that reveled in the loutish muck of the Dils and The Germs (who, despite the fierce brilliance of G.I., are widely reputed to have sucked live). In contrast, Mad Parade gleaned its sound off of British bands like the Buzzcocks and 999--first-generation punk bands that mixed spit and shine, grunge and gloss.

Says Kelly: "Nowadays, punk-pop is huge. Just look at like Blink-182. But back in the day, no one was doing the stuff we were doing. A lot of British bands were doing it, but nobody in L.A. It was all hardcore. It was all Circle Jerks and Black Flag and GBH and noise. You couldn't find a melody anywhere."

And the passage of years didn't help Mad Parade's cause. As the epochal seesaw tilted to the latter half of the eighties, public opinion skewed dramatically toward metal, and punk bands (most notably, T.S.O.L.) began growing their hair long and slowing down--even resorting to the glitz and glitter of glam--to save their dwindling audience. Before long, Mad Parade was headlining for L.A. Guns and members of Guns 'n Roses. "I remember seeing Axl Rose play before us when he was in another band," says Kelly. "It was obvious that things were changing for the worse."

Still in a desperate bid for relevance, Mad Parade made a half-hearted go at the "metal thing" (Kelly admits that even he let his hair shag down to his shoulders). But hairspray and acid-wash proved a poor substitute for buzzcuts and Chuck Taylors, and the band splintered off into other projects. It wasn't until 1993 that they reunited, finally burying the hatchet of wounded pride and cranking out albums with the verve of punks half their age. Since then, they've been rediscovering old fans and winning over new ones--all to the familiar, catchy refrains of clean punk from back in the day.

"We can't write thrash, man. We can't write too poppy, either. We can't be like the NOFXes and all their clones. It's just garbage to me. You know what? We're not going to change. If people like it, they like it. If they don't, well, fuck 'em."