TCB

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The Bums' Rush

Strident Austin street-punks the Krum Bums confront complacency, futility, and dishonesty on robust new Bubble-recorded TKO album As the Tide Turns, but David Rodriguez – blistering his lungs nightly as singer Dave Tejas – says to not mistake the negative tone of songs like "Forsaken" for despair. "Disregarded Youth," he explains, is "more of an anthem for us to say, 'Fuck you, we're here, and you've had your day.'" Now 28, Rodriguez was watching the Motards assault the Blue Flamingo by age 15, and feeling like an outsider in a scene ruled by eventual friends and labelmates the Lower Class Brats made him and his four mates even hungrier. "I always joke that we're the band of starving wolves," he says. Little has changed, Rodriguez adds, now that the Bums are themselves one of local punk's top draws: "Now I feel like that presence has to be there even more." Normally it is; the Bums hold down time-honored punk rock jobs like pizza chef and Pharmaco subject, so they have plenty of time to tour and go to shows. Hurry though, as the Bums will be scarce after Tuesday's Red 7 show with 13th Victim and Silence Kills, joining the Tossers and Street Dogs on a six-week U.S. tour. "It's going to be a strange tour for us," Rodriguez says of his Celtic-tinged companions. "We'll be the oddballs on this one."