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DERANGED DICTION: IN!
Hot dog, punx ('n drunx), we got us a hoe-down now. Huh? Who let the poser in? Uhhhhhh, yeah... Alright, now back in 1982 Missoula was home to a blasting hardcore group called Deranged Diction. They played desperate, underground hardcore, named their first Missoula-recorded EP No Art, No Cowboys, No Rules and quickly outgrew the town, and moved west. From there they had some lineup changes, and continued to be one of the west's original hardcore groups, trading tapes /corresponding with with skate kids in rural towns, running distros, and fucking shit up for the man.

The band may have been the first to start the bummer trend of the town's regularly hemorrhaging great acts, but we'll save the tedious theorizing for another place... All I know is that last year Deranged Diction reformed to play two shows for their 25th anniversary and for the purpose of finally recording some never-released songs. They re-issued their No Art, No Cowboys record (with the newly recorded old songs) as a double CD for a show last year and I went to the show. My only context was having heard and loved their songs on Matt Svendsen's/Poisoned Candy's Welcome To Montana CD comp from a handful of years ago, and I didn't know exactly what to expect from guys 25 years older. In 1982 I was 8 years old and punk wasn't near my radar.

Long story short it was excellent. There's video from the show below. The songs were great, and the dudes played 'em hard, fast and with guts. My neck hurt the next day, and I had a smile glued onto my face. Say what you will about reunions and reuniting, but getting to see a small piece of history once in a while is a pretty special thing. And its doubly excellent when you live in a town like Missoula where that history's pretty thin. We won't get all watery-eyed and tell you that "without Deranged Diction blah, blah, blah" but we will say "hey, this is the real deal, it's a rad thing, and we think you'll dig it, man."

Read about them on MRR
Read about them in the Seattle PI blog