Top 10 Albums of 2004

Every year, I really enjoy doing these anniversary posts and listing my top ten albums from ten, twenty, and thirty years ago. I especially like setting my time machine for one decade ago. It's such a trip down memory lane as I recall the "heyday" of my time writing about music. It's really hard to believe that all the records listed below came out ten years ago. It's like a decade passed in the blink of an eye! Has it really been ten years since George W. Bush won reelection and the Red Sox won their first World Series since 1918? The "wardrobe malfunction" was ten Super Bowls ago? Napoleon Dynamite is ten years old? That's crazy! For a lot of you, I'm sure some of these names will bring back memories. And if 2004 was a little "before your time", I highly recommend you check out some of these bands/releases!

10. Kevin K and the Real Kool Kats- Addiction
It was right around 2004 when I noticed a shift in "the scene". That throwback '77 punk sound that had been my niche for so many years was no longer as popular or prevalent as it had been in the late '90s. But one guy who was still keeping the faith was the one and only Kevin K - that ageless and prolific disciple of Johnny Thunders and The Ramones. It seemed like he put out a new album every year circa the mid-2000s. Addiction, recorded with his French backing band the Real Kool Kats, is among the best of his 72 LPs. 

9. The Crumbs - Last Exit
The Crumbs were a band of this era that got improperly lumped into the pop-punk scene due to their leather jacket look and Lookout! Records affiliation. To my ears, they were more along the lines of The Saints meet later Social Distortion. Last Exit came out on TKO Records with very little hype behind it, and for whatever reason went largely unnoticed. In my book, it's the best Crumbs album by far. 

8. Mojomatics- A Sweet Mama Gonna Hoodoo Me
These Italian lads mixed garage punk with British Invasion pop and mid 20th century American roots music to create one of the best and most unique sounds of the 2000s. They're still going strong today. This was where it all started!

7. BobbyTeens- Cruisin' For A Bruisin'
This ended up being the last BobbyTeens LP, and a damn fine one at that! If 2000's Not So Sweet sounded like the Shangri-La's blowing bubblegum on a group date with The Dictators, Cruisin' For A Bruisin' was more of a return to the band's roots lo-fi trash roots. "Hot Sweet 'N' Sticky" is the jam! 

6. The Hives- Tyrannosaurus Hives
It was probably less "cool" to like The Hives in 2004 than it had been in 2000. But if you could get over the fact that it came out on (God forbid!) a major label, it was hard to deny that Tyrannosaurus Hives was every bit as good as Veni Vidi Vicious.

5. The Lids- self titled
One of the all-time most underrated Rip Off Records releases. 

4. Marked Men- On The Outside
The beginning of a long and fruitful marriage between Dirtnap Records, the Marked Men, and their countless off-shoots. 

3. Clorox Girls - self titled
Looking back a full decade, it's remarkable how influential this album and the first two Marked Men LPs were on the powerpop/punk sound that's so popular today. Unquestionably a classic.

2. Reigning Sound- Too Much Guitar
Arguably the finest rock n' roll songwriter of his generation, Greg Cartwright has been an integral part of some of the best albums of the last two decades. Too Much Guitar is my favorite of them all - a classic collection of soulful and massively hooky garage/rock n' roll songs. The title says it all!

1. Dimestore Haloes - Ghosts of Saturday Night 
I could have sworn that this album didn't actually see the light of day until 2005. But I've killed a lot of brain cells drinking all these imperial stouts and barleywines this winter. I've seen conflicting release dates for this release all over the Internet. According to the band, it was July 7, 2004. And hell, the band ought to know! Recorded over a couple years with two different lineups, Ghosts was the glam/rock n' roll masterpiece the Haloes had been working towards for their entire existence. You can stream it now over at the Haloes' brand spanking new Bandcamp page! 

Honorable Mentions:
Deadly Weapons - Get Right In There
The Briefs- Sex Objects 
Guitar Wolf - Loverock
The Ends - Concrete Disappointment
The Muffs- Really Really Happy
Die Hunns - Long Legs
Hatepinks - Sehr Gut Rock Und Roll
Real Losers - Time To Lose
The Bodies- Addicted To You

Alright, then. Who did I forget?

-L.R. 

Dimestore Haloes go digital!

There are things I really hate about this futuristic modern world of ours, but there are also things I totally love. If you wanted to hear a certain band back in the day, you had to buy their record. And once it was sold out, you were shit out of luck. Once I nearly broke another man's finger in a spirited scuffle over a rare Nipple Erectors single. Nowadays, you can hear those songs on YouTube for free. Such technology would have blown my mind in 1997. And how awesome is it that every album from my #1 favorite band of the '90s is now available for download on Bandcamp?! Who needs flying cars? The future has hooked us up!

Yes, that's right! The almighty Dimestore Haloes are no longer lost to the obscurity of long out of print vinyl and CDs. Chaz Matthews, now of the amazing Cheap Cassettes, has endeavored to digitalize the complete recordings of his late, great Boston band. So if you no longer own the releases or are too young to have been around during the band's time, you can now download all four of the band's albums plus some extremely hard to find 7" tracks. It's all here: the debut (and my personal favorite) Thrill City Crime Control, Revolt Into Style, Long Ride To Nowhere, the band's masterpiece finale Ghosts of Saturday Night, and Chaz's superb solo demos collection Amazing Graceless. The prices are super low - ranging from $5 to $7 per release, which sure beats what you'd pay on iTunes or Amazon. Having spent all of the late '90s and early 2000s raving about this band, I'm so pleased by how well its music has held up over the years. And now you can hear all (or at least most) of it for yourself! There are even songs here that I've never heard before - like "Crazy"!

One really cool aspect of this digital collection is that it allows you to trace the evolution of the Haloes. The early stuff is like The Clash meets Johnny Thunders meets Chuck Berry, whereas subsequent releases move in a glammier direction and gradually embrace the hard pop tendencies now explored by Cheap Cassettes. I loved this band in the beginning because it reminded me of so many classic bands I loved. But ultimately, the Haloes also influenced my tastes in music instead of merely reflecting them (It was Chaz who made me my first Replacements and Hanoi Rocks compilation tapes). And while so much of what was written about the Haloes over the years referenced fashion and style, what ultimately defined the band was genuine talent. If you, like me, are a fan, you won't dispute my contention that Chaz was (and still is) one of the finest songwriters of his time. And it's likely that the Haloes had some influence on the newer generations of glam-punk - which still thrives all over the world. So listen and enjoy - and buy something if the music moves you!

-L.R. 

http://thedimestorehaloes.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Dimestore-Haloes/138848529536778

The Instigation

"The Instigation is a garage band who play hardcore songs. Or maybe a hardcore band who play garage songs. Either way they mix snotty early USHC fury with leather jackets and Converse. They like Dean Dirg, Teengenerate, Rot Shit and cheap beers in front of convenience stores." 

I love it when a band's self-description pretty much says it all. It makes my job so much easier! That's less time I have to spend searching for adjectives and more time I can spend listening to records and imbibing adult beverages. Instigation members hail from Japan, England, and Canada and are currently spread out between Tokyo, Kobe, London, and Shanghai. So when they do manage to put out new music, they have to make it count! They just released their second E.P., and it's a total ripper! What I'm reminded of the most are the early days of American hardcore - when the music basically sounded like classic punk rock played faster and harder. The songs clock in at around 90 seconds a piece as opposed to, say, 35. The rhythm section is an absolute powerhouse, and I love that there are some honest-to-goodness guitar leads in these songs! This is exactly how I like my hardcore - blistering and tight with aggressive vocals and really intense lyrics. The best song is the title track, "No Way Out". It takes the bleak desperation of the lyrics and channels it into a pummeling sonic attack. And "The Instigation" is what every band should have - its own theme song! What's not to love about a band that threatens to "smash your face with a brick"? And if there were any doubt about where these guys are coming from, they close the record with a bang-on cover of Reagan Youth's classic "Degenerated". I love the original, and I love D Generation's fireball version from the '90s. So I was not going to be satisfied unless The Instigation totally nailed it. Sure enough, they did! The message of this song is more pertinent than ever, and it's great to have it introduced to yet another generation of punk rockers.

If you enjoy early American hardcore or fast and ferocious punk rock of any kind, "No Way Out" ought to get your heart racing. Check it out!

-L.R. 

http://theinstigation.bandcamp.com/album/no-way-out-e-p
https://www.facebook.com/theinstigation666

Back To Sleep

If you've been seriously following garage punk music over the last eight years or so, Stockholm's Makeouts need no introduction whatsoever. They are one of the top bands going in that scene, and have been for quite some time. Their debut single was one of the first releases on the illustrious Austrian imprint Bachelor Records (it was Bachelor #3 - right after the Clorox Girls and Black Lips!). And their 2010 debut album In A Strange Land won a Swedish Manifest Award for best independent Swedish rock album. While Makeouts started out in the Rip Off Records vein of lo-fi trash, they have been growing as a band for years and taking on many different styles under the garage umbrella. New album Back To Sleep - out on Bachelor Records - is an especially accomplished release from a band with the confidence and courage to try new things while still remaining true to the aesthetics and spirit of garage punk. It's definitely their attempt at a magnum opus, and I'd say they've succeeded marvelously. With inspirations running the gamut from The Seeds to Jay Reatard and just about everything between, it's kind of like the Makeouts' own London Calling or Exile On Main St. Believe it: Back To Sleep is anything but a snoozer!

I think what I like best about Back To Sleep is that even with all of its stylistic diversity, it maintains a consistent quality. If you can "progress" as a band yet still keep it fun and catchy, you're gonna win me over fast! These are by far the best songs that Makeouts have ever written, and all of it works. The straight-ahead garage rockers recalling the '60s ("Creeps", "Back To Sleep") or '90s ("Let It All Go", "Up") fit right in with ballsy punk blasters like "Warkids" and delightful rootsy janglers such as "Not Where You Belong". And some of my favorite cuts were pleasant surprises. The poppy "Bringin' Out The Stars" suggests a less polished Barracudas, while the crackling "Time Will Tell" brings to mind Sweden's own Locomotions. "Plastic Bag" is straight up '77 punk/new wave that makes me wanna pogo. And haunting album closer "It Wasn't My Idea To Dance" is almost a complete break from the band's "garage" M.O. (imagine Lee Hazelwood on an acid trip with The Mojomatics). Clearly this is not a band that's limiting itself in terms of the types of songs it's willing to write. From an energy and production standpoint, they remain the quintessential garage band. But by challenging themselves creatively, they've really allowed their exceptional talent to come shining through. I see Makeouts graduating from being known as a great garage band to being known as a great rock n' roll band, period. Back To Sleep is the first truly great garage punk album I've heard in quite some time. No surprise that it was released on Bachelor!



-L.R. 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Makeouts/106522202517
https://www.facebook.com/bachelorrecords
http://www.bachelorrecords.com/

Retro Reviews: The Vapors - New Clear Days

I once wrote a short story about a woman who so vehemently objected to her significant other's dismissal of The Vapors as a cheesy one-hit-wonder that she literally murdered him. My own stance on the matter is only slightly less passionate. The band's 1980 debut LP New Clear Days is my favorite album of all-time. The hit, "Turning Japanese", is well-known by all. If you don't like it, there must be something fatally wrong with you. The rest of the songs stick to the same new wave pop template, and are every bit as good. There is not a single track on the album that isn't totally great. Heck, even some of the songs that didn't make it onto the album are great! Often categorized as one of the standards of skinny tie power pop, New Clear Days actually transcends genre with its quirky sensibility and thoughtful lyrics.

As its title suggests, New Clear Days was a song cycle about love and life set against a backdrop of impending nuclear annihilation – overtly political in spots and otherwise informed by the tenor of Cold War times. While many of the best tracks ("Waiting for the Weekend", "Spring Collection", "Somehow") are simple variations on the songs-about-girls theme, few pop groups in 1980 were referencing military cease fires ("60 Second Interval") or World War II era nationalism ("Letter from Hiro"). The album's best track, "News At Ten", is a generational statement as pointed and literary as anything ever penned by Paul Weller (I always played Side Two first when listening on vinyl so the album would start with this song!). And David Fenton's lyrics to "Bunkers" read like something straight off the first Clash LP:

Government thugs keep me in for the week/

They call out the cops if I'm seen on the street/

It drives me spoolers in millions of ways/

I think I'll be a government thug one day/

Don't tell me in anger just tell me for real/

Why does everybody try to be a real big wheel/

It doesn't matter but if they live on the street/

With all these cowboys and bunkers and creeps

Fenton's songwriting muse would turn darker and weirder on the band's excellent second LP Magnets (the most accessible song was an ode to suicide cult leader Jim Jones!), and the album didn't even crack the top 100 on the U.K. charts. And that was all for The Vapors. To his credit, Fenton never gave in to the temptation to "unretire" from the music business. He gave up recording and became a solicitor. There have been no half-assed Vapors reunions or warmed-over comeback albums mimicking the new wave glories of yesteryear. The band's music remains in the early '80s, where it belongs - a cultural artifact as enduring and awesome as the Atari 2600, Billy Beer, and movies about truckers.



-L.R. 

Jake and the Stiffs - The Singles!

At the beginning of every year, I hold out hope for all those things I've long been wishing would happen. I think this is finally the year the Flyers will win another Stanley Cup. I think this is finally the year that kielbasa will be scientifically validated as a health food. I think this is finally the year they'll find Bigfoot. Optimism always prevails at this time of the year. And I'm feeling especially good for 2014's prospects given that two of my annual wishes have actually come true. The Phillies finally shitcanned Chris Wheeler, and the long out-of-print 7" recordings of Jake and the Stiffs have been re-mastered and re-issued for public consumption! Welcome to the year of wish fulfillment! I would not be surprised if I magically regrew my hair!

Of all the criminally overlooked and under-appreciated punk rock bands of the '90s, Delaware's Jake and the Stiffs were to my mind the most criminally overlooked and under-appreciated. They shoulda been huge! They were doing the '77 punk meets power pop thing long before it was cool, and anyone who ever saw them surely concluded that they were worthy of a prime slot on the roster of some "big" punk label. They were a knockout live act, and their supply of great songs was seemingly endless. Perhaps in their day, they were too pop for the punk crowd and too punk for the pop crowd. Singer/guitarist Randy America was and still is an incredibly talented songwriter, and Algy Siouxcide is easily one of my favorite bass players of all-time. Am I wrong in stating that "Jennifer" was the best song of the '90s? Name one that was better!

As its name implies, The Singles collects all the tracks from the four 7" records released by Jake and the Stiffs between 1993 and 1997 - Steal This Record, Spike, "Pot Belly Pete", and "I Like Girls". Randy America remixed and remastered the original tracks at his Norad Studio in Pike Creek, Delaware - and they sound awesome! Now after all these years of me proclaiming the unacknowledged greatness of Jake and the Stiffs, you can finally find out for yourself if I was full of shit! While hopefully just the first of several JATS reissues you should expect this year, The Singles has all the hits (or the should-have-been hits). Given that there was close to zero market for this kind of music in the early '90s compared to the exploding popularity of powerpop/punk in recent years, I'm excited for a whole new generation of fans to discover JATS favorites like "Holly", "Scrappy Come Home" (who isn't a sucker for a song about a dog?), and "High School Blues". You also get two versions of "All I Said" and some lesser-known gems like the terrific "TV And My Baby". And don't get me started on "Jennifer". It's got one of the catchiest melodies ever, and the lead guitar parts and bass lines ought to be the stuff of legend.

Loaded with classic originals and some standout covers ("Lonely Boy" from The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle soundtrack and The Know's 1980 power pop anthem "I Like Girls"), The Singles is a perfect summation of why Jake and the Stiffs are one of my all-time favorite bands. With any luck, it will sell enough to cover the costs of making it and allow for a few more reissues from the JATS vaults. Get it cheap from CD Baby, and be sure to check out Randy America's solo album if you haven't yet!

Sell music on Amazon at ReverbNation.com

-L.R. 

https://www.facebook.com/jakeandthestiffs
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/jakethestiffs2 

Another one from Neighborhood Brats!

I recently declared L.A.'s Neighborhood Brats one of the best punk bands going today. And by "one of the best", I'm talking top ten if not top five. If you're still among the unconverted few, think fast and aggressive punk rock with strong melodies and a powerhouse lead singer. Total Dementia is the band's fourth 7" and fifth EP overall. And like all the others, it's a scorcher! Sticking to the Dangerhouse Records meets early Black Flag blueprint of their previous releases, the brats tear out of the gates fixing to kill. The title track is a re-worked version of a B-side by Roofie And The Nightstalkers - Jenny and George's pre Neighborhood Brats project. Propelled by a typically ferocious vocal from Jenny, the song more than lives up to its title. George's guitar is a veritable buzzsaw, and new rhythm players Tommy Branch and Richie Cardenas prove to be formidable additions to this outstanding band. Branch and Cardenas especially shine on the hard-hitting "Speckelos Nightmare". And "Bombay Beach Party Death Camp" is the kind of song we've come to expect from Neighborhood Brats - classic California punk fired out at hardcore speed. In keeping with the band's "post-apocalyptic beach party" theme, the closing cover of The Go-Go's "Lust To Love" has a cool dark vibe to it. And what a killer rendition! It's neat to hear Neighborhood Brats showing a poppier side and letting up on the tempo a little - yet still sounding totally like themselves!

Originally pressed last year for a European tour, Total Dementia now gets an official release on the great Dirtnap Records. Fingers crossed that 2014 will bring us an LP from Neighborhood Brats!

-L.R. 

http://neighborhoodbrats.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/neighborhoodbrats
http://www.dirtnaprecs.com/