“It’s like a freight train of rock,” my friend Nick leans over to tell me. I had never seen Max Cady (rhymes with lady, not caddy as the opening band, Salute, thought) before I got to the Double Wide last night for the CD release party (photos) of the band's second album, Gun Crime.

I know of Max Cady from trying to peel its stickers off of that chrome bar in every bathroom stall in Dallas while I’m peeing. Not that I dislike their stickers or had any animosity toward them, it’s just the only thing to do when you’re standing there trying to expel however many beers out of your system and you’re all out of boogers to wipe on the wall.

OK, so I managed to get a little crass there, and maybe a little too personal, I remember the first time I was with a girl in a guy’s bathroom and she noticed all the hardened boogers on the wall and became visibly and audibly repulsed at the thought of men evacuating their bladders and leaning over to rid their hands of their new found nose friends, but here is the point I was trying to achieve with all of this is that -– well, shit, that fits in there a little too well –- Max Cady makes me want to pick my nose and drink beer and be in a bathroom stall with a girl… two girls, and we have to scream questions at each other until we all just do that loud concert, “OH, OK,” acquiescence because we can’t hear anything over the rock.

Immediately after taking the stage the entire crowd at the Double Wide took a cue from Jeff, the Flying V player in the group, and lit up a cigarette covering the whole set in an inch of smoke that might have been a trick to make the lights look cool. Somebody compared Max Cady to Queens of the Stone Age, but I would like to think that any one of these guys would have kicked Josh Homme in the nuts and made him grow his hair out.

The sound didn’t let up until ... well the sound is still with me and I don’t know if it is going to let up at all today. The songs started and I just found my fingers curling up into the devil horns on their own free will. And as with any Dallas group, you see these guys passed out at (fill in the blank) bar and once you see them you can’t believe how tight they are. Not that being a “tight” band should be a compliment, but how may times have you had to see your friend’s band and you just shook your head while they pretend rock and fumbled through some songs you heard them writing last night. -- Justin Skrakowski

Highlight of the night: Losing count of all the guys who weigh 130 pounds dripping wet, wearing a black shirt with one full sleeve of tattoo and another bare arm because they ran out of money after their first tattoo session. Seriously, it was the recruiting station for one armed-tattoo black shirt guys.