Nobody Told Mr. Dinkles to Calm Down, and Thank God for That

R.I.P.T. Is DIY Punk for  Everyone Who Smiles and Grinds Their Teeth 

By Elena Stevens Radio Garden State / Riot + Reverie Radio 

Single: "Grinding My Teeth" | DIY Punk | Quiet Panic | Out Now  

Here's something nobody puts in the press release about being a  young musician in 2026: it is not that different from being a young  musician in 1977 or 1991, except that now the whole catastrophe  plays out in public, in real time, with an algorithm watching and a  

comment section weighing in. Mr. Dinkles, the LA/Seattle duo Mac  Rettig on vocals and guitar and Rocco Ramos on drums, have made  a five-song EP, R.I.P.T., that understands this distinction and treats it  with exactly the right mixture of fury and dark comedy.  

The EP is out now on Quiet Panic, and from the opening seconds of  "Socialism Ditty" it announces itself as music that has no interest in  being liked by everyone, which is, historically, the first sign that  something might actually deserve to be loved by the right people. 

Rettig's guitar sits in the collision zone between lo-fi garage rock  and the kind of post-grunge that Nirvana made essential and lesser  bands spent the following decade making embarrassing. Here it's  neither embarrassing nor nostalgic, it’s just alive, slightly ragged,  and firmly on the right side of the line between rough and sloppy.

"Letter To Elon" and "Eat Chips and Talk Shit" — a title that should  be on a T-shirt immediately — fill the middle of the record with  political sarcasm that lands because it's coming from people  actually in the situation they're describing, not commentating from  a safe remove. Closer "IDRW" arrives like a long exhale after the  previous four songs have wrung everything out.  

Fans of Worriers, Jeff Rosenstock, or any punk act that thinks the  genre ought to maintain a sense of humor about its own sincerity  will find R.I.P.T. essential. Rettig and Ramos are doing something  genuinely difficult here: making music that's angry and funny at  once, without either quality undercutting the other. That's rarer  than it sounds, and worth your time. 

CONNECT WITH MR. DINKLES

instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrdinklesband/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mrdinklesband
Bandcamp: https://mrdinkles.bandcamp.com/