I've been lucky to have jobs in my life that get me free stuff.

I worked briefly for Sony Playstation, and you can imagine the product we got.

I worked in radio at various times over the years. Free CDs, concert tickets, and lots of other goodies (but geez, you really fill your cabinets with mugs that have station call letters and a closet of goofy T-shirts).

I guess the brief time I worked at the post office, I was just lucky not to be shot. And we never got free stamps there. A few letter carriers would steal free samples, but that's another story for another day.

Working at the Reader, I'll occasionally get freebies. It might be movie passes, the occasional concert tickets, a free chauffered car to take me from party to party, so I can drink without worrying about how I'll get home.

Okay, that last one is just wishful thinking.

I did get a bottle of booze sent to me from a company that was putting on a party in the Gaslamp. I noticed our secretary opened the box; I'm not sure why. But the bottle wasn't touched. I'm saving it for a possible re-gift, or to bring to a party.

I get CDs sent to me. Sometimes they're from local bands, other times national touring acts. And they usually suck.

But the other day I got two pieces of mail that were welcome surprises.

One was a book on comedian Bill Hicks. I had blogged about him, and some publishing company called Counter Point Press saw that and sent it. I'm looking forward to reading it, as he's one of the best comedians ever.

I glanced thru it and saw there was a segment about something he did on Letterman that was edited (His mom with Dave recently talked about the incident). A lot of the book has word-for-word pieces of his stand-up; probably not as funny as watching him perform, but I'm looking forward to the read.

That same day I got a CD from the local band "Revenge Club". I caught them by accident at the Casbah one night, when I was there to see a few other bands I liked. I ended up writing a music feature on them, saying they blew the other bands off stage.

When I saw this CD titled "The Reds of Their Eyes," I wasn't expecting much. You see, Revenge Club is a punk band, and I wasn't sure their energy live would translate well to disc. Boy was I wrong.

This is some great, hardcore punk. The way it should be played (for my friends that like goofy bands like Offspring and Green Day, or fellow writer here, Jay Sanford, that loves The Ramones...[said in my Seinfeld voice] Not that there's anything wrong with that).

It started with a song called "Bad Wave". I wished the vocals had been a tad louder on this track, which clocks in at around a minute and a half. How cool is that? Songs should be short and to the point. I mean, Pink Floyd and that 22 minute crap called Echoes. Really? Even The Doors piece, The End, has gotten a bit boring after it reaches the 10 minute mark.

After Bad Wave, it goes right into the song "Dead Girls," which reminded me of Blondie's "Rip Her to Shreds", but with a lot more muscle.

The song Explosion Devices reminded me of the band X, on steroids!

I found myself turning up the CD in my car and turning into one of those guys I hate. You know the ones, that think everyone else at the stoplight should enjoy the stuff they're listening to.

I'm not sure if it was the next song that was only :45 seconds long. I think I liked it, but at less than a minute, I can't be sure. It ended with the female vocalist screaming "Let me die in peace." I hear ya, sister!

"Dead Weight Season" is the only song I have a complaint with. Don't get me wrong...it kicked ass. I just hated the timpani drum sticks used in the first half of the track. I guess it's the same way I think of keyboards. They have no business being in a hardcore punk band, and neither do timpani sticks. The drumming did rock later in the song.

That reminded me of a conversation I had once with Paul McCartney's guitarist, Rusty Anderson. I was telling him how much I enjoyed his solo CD. I told him if I didn't like it, I would've still found something in it I liked and just stuck with complimenting that. He laughed and said when his musician friends give him a CD and he doesn't care for it, he finds himself complimenting the drums a lot, with comments like "The high hat on track 5 is really good."

Anyway, whatever about the song that the timpani sticks bothered me, the strong lyrics made up for it (although, I can't print the lyrics here...not that they were dirty or anything...I just can't understand a lot of it; it is punk, after all).

There's a song on the disc called "Ex Reject", a good title. Again, couldn't understand the lyrics aside from "Get out of my way!" But hey...that didn't stop us from enjoying the Stones in the 70s, did it?

That reminds me...a girl made me a mix-tape in the mid-90s that had an accoustic punky sounding song called "Ex Darling". Anyone know where I can find that on CD?

This CD, which I think consisted of less than 10 songs, ends with "Did you Die?" An amazing guitar solo on this, while the drums kept a pounding, pulsating beat the entire time. It reminded me how much I hate heavy metal bands, and their goofy double-bass drumming (sorry Metallica fans, Lars bites).

I think the entire disc was around 30 minutes, and not one minute I regretted.

The Reds of Their Eyes -- it's going to be the red of my ear drums, after keeping this in my car for the next few weeks blasting it!