Typical Friday night. The debate rages on: eat the $5 cover and go out, or continue drinking beers until 1:00 when the cover ends. We're all cheap bastards, and with a pool table and a standup Q-Bert machine in the basement, it's become a debate indeed. On the night in question, we decide to stay in and shoot some stick.

When the appointed hour is upon us, I, as always, am expected to drive (the curse of owning a nine- passenger van, I guess, but the chicks dig it). We pile in, and I pop the new Money Mark in the deck and watch the reaction of my friends. At first, they're pleased that I'm not forcing techno down their throats again, but it only takes about ten minutes before the derogatory comments start floating up from the peons in back. One asks, "Does this bite, or is it just me?" Another proffers: "Can we listen to techno again, please?" When my friends ask for techno, it's not a good sign.

Push The Button has been a disappointment. After the frenetic funkdown of Mark's Keyboard Repair, Button pales in comparison, trading lackluster lo-fi pop eclecticism for the raw energy present on Money's first critically- lauded album. He's clearly trying to break into whole- song territory, attempting the two to three- minute standard with little luck, suggesting he might want to stick with the short- attention span noodlings that garned him so much attention in '96. Most tracks introduce an interesting sound, but lose direction and beat themselves to death by the time their three minutes are up, making for tiring listening and a cramped FFWD finger.

After we'd listened to most of it, I asked the boys how they'd rate Push The Button, and it came in between 50% and 60% unanimously. Push The Button makes the effort but doesn't deliver much more than an aimless, fragmented recording whose only redeeming factor is its momentarily bright and funky moments. Let's not write Money off yet, but I'm saving my money for a bumpersticker that says "If the van's a-rockin', don't come a-knockin'."

-James P. Wisdom