The boys of DEK are back in town and ready to rock.
They dress in funky 1970s threads, their music is old-school punk and the Seattle music scene thinks they're the cat's meow. On top of all that, these guys are barely out of middle school.
DEK, which performs Saturday in Richland, is made up of Mark Vraney on guitar and vocals, Bret Chernoff on guitar and vocals, Thani Suchoknand on drums and Nick Myette on bass and vocals.
The last time they hit town a year ago, DEK was just making a name for itself around the Northwest. Since then, they've released an album, Boner, on the California-based Finger Records label, toured the country with such bands as TSOL, the Skulls, Social Distortion, The Adolescents and The Presidents of the United States of America.
The quartet's members, who are all from the Seattle area, range in age from 15 to 17. The group's provides the kind of noise the entertainment-straved youths of today want to hear, said the band's manager, Mike Vraney, who's also Mark's dad.
The senior Vraney is as much a punk rocker as his son. He was part of the original crowd of young people who hung out at Seattle's early punk rock clubs in the 1980s and managed the popular 1980s bands The Dead Kennedys and The Accused.
"These boys have a lot of fun with their fans wherever they go," Mike Vraney said in a recent telephone interview. "Parents don't have to worry about their kids attending a DEK concert."
Also appearing with DEK at Ray's on Saturday will be the all-female Seattle group Mechanical Dolls, which is rapidly drawing crowds of fans wherever they perform.