Pioneering Los Angeles punk rockers the Weirdos have lined up a short West Coast tour for this winter to plug their new anthology, We Got the Neutron Bomb: Weird World Volume Two. The group, now in its twenty-sixth year, has gone through occasional periods of dormancy, and the shows, currently slated to begin November 29th in Seattle, are the Weirdos' first in four years.

"Having put the compilation together, we thought it would be fun to play again," guitarist Cliff Roman says. "For the Weirdos, that's what it was always about. We released a few albums worth of material, but the original incarnation of the group, we always preferred playing."

From that original incarnation, the core unit -- Roman, singer John Denney and guitarist Dix Denney -- remains in tact with bassist Zander Schloss (the Circle Jerks) and drummer Sean Antillion (Gears) handling rhythm duty.

With politically tinged punk songs like "Hey Big Oil," "Barbaric Americana" and their best-known song, "We Got the Neutron Bomb," the Weirdos catalog has obtained a newfound pertinence with the current global climate. "We never really thought that far ahead," says Roman. "It was always in the here and now that was inspiring. I guess things just don't change a lot, do they?"

Those three songs appear with thirteen others on the anthology which runs from the band's beginnings in 1977 through 1989. The first Weird World compilation -- which was released in 1991 and covered the band's first four years -- and Volume Two have helped pull the group's catalog, largely issued as singles and EPs in the day, back from collector's obscurity. And timing is fitting for the band, with multiple musical generations of post-punk groups having sprung from the Weirdos' roots. "I remember going to record stores and there would be a little box on the counter," Roman says. "It said, 'Punk,' and there would be four records in it. Now it's pretty vast, and I do marvel at how many bands have been able to do it. Every so often it looks like it's dying, and it always returns every few years to rear its ugly head."

As for the group's future, Roman says that he has a whole album's worth of new material, and that the group might move forward after the tour. "In some ways the new material sounds like classic Weirdos," he says. "But it also sounds like new music to me as well. The style is there and the structure, we could easily go into the studio and make a record."

Track listing for We Got the Neutron Bomb: Weird World Volume Two: Terrain
Cyclops Helicopter
7 and 7 Is
Shining Silver Light
What Will You Do
Hey Big Oil
It Means Nothing
The Hideout
Jungle Rock
Fat Back
Skateboards to Hell
Barbaric Americana
We Got the Neutron Bomb
Destroy All Music
I Want What I Want
I'm Not Like You

The Weirdos tour dates:

11/29: Seattle, Graceland
12/5: Los Angeles, El Rey
12/13: San Francisco, Slim's

ANDREW DANSBY
(October 16, 2003)