Muck and the Mires - Quarantine-Age Kicks

What's this, another COVID-19 record? Not exactly! Muck and the Mires and Rum Bar Records thought you might need a little break from the lockdown blues and have prepared a nifty little compilation for your listening pleasure. Quarantine-Age Kicks includes nine newly remastered tracks culled from a handful of long out of print releases by Boston's premier garage rock and roll band. The material is mostly taken from 2004's Beginner's Muck LP and the 2006 follow-up 1-2-3-4. Also included are both sides from 2014's "Double White Line" 7" - the last songs ever produced by the great Kim Fowley. It was Fowley who described Muck and the Mires as a cross between the 1964 Beatles and the 1977 Ramones. And that perfectly sums up why this is one of my favorite garage bands. They have the energy and timeless cool to match any punk-influenced garage outfit you could name, but man oh day do they ever have the songs as well! "Double White Line" was one of the first Rum Bar releases I ever reviewed (back when the label was still called King Yum), and it was no coincidence that Lou wanted both Muck and The Connection on his label. Both bands share a love for the particular strain of garage rock that sprang directly from the British Invasion. Collectively, these songs sound great as a single album - which was clearly the point! "Next Door To Me" and "Double White Line" bring to mind the Beatles when they were still obsessed with rhythm & blues and early rock and roll. "This Town Makes Me Feel So Lonely" is a firecracker of garage soul that'll have you feeling the pain but still dancing like a fool. "Lesley" is a winning homage to those classic hits that came out of the Brill Building in the late '50s and early '60s. If "Only One Way To Know" doesn't lift you out of your quarantine doldrums, I don't know if anything will.

The objective of Quarantine-Age Kicks is to provide us all with music that is uplifting, full of energy, and suitable for spirited dance sessions in our basements, bedrooms, kitchens, walk-in closets, backyards, and any other makeshift venue of our choosing. On that level, it clearly succeeds. But this album will hold up well beyond these days of boredom and confinement. Muck and the Mires are unsurpassed when it comes to infusing garage rock with the ageless melodies and feelgood spirit of '60s pop and soul music. And if there's one thing I would say is most underrated about Muck and the Mires, it would be the songwriting prowess of Evan Shore. I put him on a similar ground with his label mate Hervé Peroncini from The Peawees. While not quite a "best of" collection, Quarantine-Age Kicks condenses the sustained greatness of Muck and the Mires into the ultimate all-killer, no-filler experience. Time to dust off those dancing shoes!



-L.R.

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