The Slobs “Down the Tubes” 1996. Centsless Productions. Snotty 90′s punk rock via Cincinnati and a pull from our “should it stay or should it go?” pile. It’s fitting I grabbed this today because tomorrow we are heading up to middle-of-nowhere Horicon, WI for Jersey St. Music Fest to see two Cincinnati bands who are most definitely NOT snotty 90′s punk rock: Suck the Honey and Lemon Sky. Anyway, Down the Tubes is the only full-length from The Slobs (there is a somewhat mysterious non-label cassette and a couple of singles and EP’s). The band members did the cliched Ramones thing by taking their surnames from the band’s name: i.e. Pat Slob on guitar, John Slob on vocals, Chip Slob on drums and Andy Slob on bass, Andy also ran Centsless Productions who put out a few releases in the 90′s and some a bit more recently, the only notable one a Candy Snatchers 7″ from 1997. The music on Down the Tubes is pretty standard punk stuff, fast-n-loud, sneering, adolescent. The track “Goin’ Downtown” is about going downtown, seeing cops, etc., “Public Nuisance” about being an outcast, “Six Pack” is about beer (duh), “Tired of Fuckin’ You” is pretty self-explanatory…you get the idea. Not particularly clever, even when they are trying to be. On the album insert they have this “This is the spot where most bands put a thanks list. Since we are normally out of our minds and our memories regularly fail us, we have decided to not waste our barely precious time by laboring at such a mindless task. If you are one those [sic] people that get some kind of queer satisfaction out of appearing in such a list, you’re shit out of luck!” So poor copy editing as well as rude! This album is going to go.