If there is anyone not singing the teen sensation Hanson tune “MMM Bop,” it is Shoot The Gift singer Troy Raszka.

“The music industry is getting stale,” Raszka said. “MTV revolts me, and there is so much crap on the radio today. There is an eight-year-old singing ‘MMM Bop’ making millions of dollars. Pop radio is crap.”

Paul Carmack, bass player and background vocalist for the Cincinnati punk quartet, describes Shoot The Gift’s style of music as “two distinct styles.” “Troy plays a more melodic style while I play a more in-your-face style of punk,” he said.

Shoot The Gift describes its fans as “drunk.” Raszka and Carmack said the band once played a ladies’ night where those dressed in drag could get in free. Some of the band’s fans showed up in pigtails and miniskirts. “It got pretty crazy and things got broken,” Carmack said.

Raszka, Carmack and the band’s drummer, Bones, have been together for three-and-a-half years, while guitarist Andy completed the band two years ago.

When Shoot The Gift first got together, it began doing covers of the Fat Albert songs from the Junkyard Gang. “We just started jammin’ after that,” Carmack said.

The name “Shoot The Gift comes from an English/African-American slang dictionary, meaning “to speak in rhythm or rhyme,” Carmack said. “We saw that and said, ‘Hey, that’s pretty cool. I like it.'”

Shoot The Gift not only plays together but also has fun together. “Playing live is much more fun. We can just goof off,” Raszka said. “Playing in the studio is a different mindset. It is like work.”

Things seem to get wild when Shoot The Gift is in town. The band has been kicked out of every club it has played in New York. At one show the band was paid $12. “Whenever we experience adversity, we seem to always turn it into something fun,” Raszka said.

The cover of the band’s latest CD, “High Friends in Low Places,” caricatures the band in a way that sums up its laid-back style. Raszka is holding a bottle in the air while a random punk rocker who could not hang with the band is passed out next to a bottle of Jim Beam.

Shoot The Gift traces its particular style back to Southern California punk rock and the black-and-white oldies stations in Cincinnati.

“We can’t really listen to anything else given the state of the music industry today,” Carmack said. “We like the old-school punk.”

Shoot the Gift will open for Murphy’s Law at an all-ages show tonight at the Safari Club, 2307 University Ave., Des Moines.