Idjit Savant
In the heyday of L.A. punk, you could always count on the Dickies to come up with a new musical variation on the ol' pull-my-finger gag, and the intervening years haven't dimmed that ability any. Frontman Leonard Graves Phillips (still armed with his penis puppet) injects his cartoonish chirp into typically stoopid sprints such as "I'm on Crack" and "Zeppelina." At times, the band tries a little too hard--punk harpsichord and cello playingsoundfunnier than they actually are--but when they actually settle down and play (like on their cover of Pat Smear's utterly swell "Golden Boys"), the Dickies remind their progeny exactly who are the punks and who are the godfathers.--David Sprague