Static
Radio NJ - An Evening of Bad Decisions….”
CD (Black Numbers)
I’m definitely not the target audience
for this, so while I can easily digest the songs
where Static Radio nj stretch things out a bit
and come up with something that’s punker
and more melodic, their thrashier songs with
the NOFX beats just leave me a bit bored. Static
Radio nj seem to be a band that can do a lot
of things very well, from speedy Pennywise/No
Use For A Name style “melodic hardcore”
to the more pop-punk Samian/Hot Water Music
type stuff that a number of bands (Iron Chic,
Get Bent, Make Do & Mend) are doing these
days, and overall this isn’t a bad CD;
far from it. In fact, this CD rips—the
sound is meaty and the songs are good-- so I
can pretty much guess that if you’re around
17 and a part of the same scene as Static Radio
nj, then this CD is a really big deal. I think
it’s kinda funny that they printed a glossy
booklet for this CD and then tried to make the
cover look like a cheap paper photocopy, but
that’s about it right now.
The
Safes - “Sight Of All Light” EP
(O’Brothers)
I think it can be said that The Safes' last
full-length, "Well Well Well", is
one of the best Kinks/Cheap Trick-styled rock
albums of all time (if you ask me), and the
five songs on "Sight of All Light"
keep the string going as far as melody goes
while also bringing back the tougher edge found
in some of The Safes' earliest stuff. If you
know a little bit about The Safes then you already
know that they can move back and forth between
lush Pet Sounds-like power pop, garage rock,
and pop punk very effectively, but on “Sight
Of All Light” they pretty much stick with
the hard charging stuff all of the way through.
It makes for a fairly blistering experience,
while there’s still tons of melody-- in
fact, this is one of those CDs that sounds great
in the car while you’re driving around
(the deep, surf-rock riff that kicks “Troublemaker”
into gear is especially good for this). I'm
told that there's already another full LP's
worth of songs in the can, which is good news,
because The Safes are now four records into
their catalog and they haven't released a bad
one yet.
The
OffRamps - Split the Difference (Deluxe)
Sounding like the ‘Mats while covering
the Nils adds up to a pretty good start, so
even though Michigan’s The OffRamps also
cover Gordon Lightfoot (!) on the same CD, they’ve
still more or less earned their shot already.
I’m always on the look-out for sturdy,
punked-out indie rock—a holdover from
growing up in the 80’s listening to bands
like The Replacements and the Pontiac Brothers,
I guess-- and sturdy, punked-out indie rock
is what The OffRamps do best, with the occasional
detour into a plucky Westerberg-ish ballad or
two. Songs like “It’ll Do For Now”,
“Everything on a Longshot”, and
“Party of One” (“I’m
the life of the party/Party of one”) contain
plenty of punch and attitude, so if you’re
a fan of stuff like The Safes and The Milwaukees,
The OffRamps are a band that you’re definitely
gonna want to check out. The packaging for the
CD (their 2nd) looks sharp, the recording sounds
great, plus they’re from Michigan and
Michigan’s shaped kinda neat—it’s
got that part way up top which is really Canada.
Adrenalin
O.D. “The Wacky Hi-Jinks Of…”
CD re-issue (Chunksaah)
Man, does this rock. For starters, Adrenalin
O.D. were lightning fast (like, D.R.I./Gang
Green fast), and heavy. And I do mean heavy;
on this, a re-issue of A.O.D.’s classic
LP from ’84, there’s plenty of NYHC-style
chugga-chugga riffs and breakdowns in-between
all the thrash parts, if that’s your kind
of thing. But what separated A.O.D. from just
about all the other hardcore hardcore bands
back then was their wicked sense of humor (as
noted by Jim Testa himself in the liner notes
to this CD) and their sharp melodic sense. Being
fast as hell was one of A.O.D.’s trademarks,
but their songs were really catchy, too. Listen
to “Suburbia”-- one of the songs
from the 1983 “Let’s Barbecue”
EP which makes up part of the 2nd bonus CD--
and you can easily see why A.O.D. get mentioned
as an influence for any number of pop-punk bands
that started sprouting up in the years after
it was first released, as “Suburbia”
sounds like Screeching Weasel on speed if nothing
else.
I’m pretty sure it was exactly this
sense of humor and melody that helped make
A.O.D. popular on the West Coast, because
it seemed none of the big-time California
punk zines at the time (Flipside, MRR, Ink
Disease) cut any of the NY/NJ-area HC bands
any slack, except for A.O.D. I especially
remember an interview with A.O.D. by the late
Donny The Punk—one of those ill-fated
“Alternative Press & Radio Council”
interviews, I’m pretty sure—which
ran in MRR. A.O.D.’s humor went way
over Donny’s head, unfortunately, and
I can remember them trying to explain to him
the meaning behind songs like “White
Hassle” (about the White Castle drive-thru
at 2am), “Clean and Jerk” (jocks,
of course), and the brilliant “Rock
& Roll Gas Station”, to no avail.
This made the interview even funnier to read
(for me, at least, if no one else), even if
it was unintentional.
But, this isn’t rockin’ just because
“Wacky Hi-Jinks” was fast, funny,
heavy, and catchy; the excellent mastering job
makes this CD loud as hell, too, capturing the
full power and fury that was Adrenalin O.D.
Don’t worry, this isn’t some lame-sounding
re-issue of poorly-recorded early 80’s
American hardcore, the kind with the paper-thin
drums and tin-can guitar. I mean, this CD is
full-blown loud. Plus, as I mentioned before,
there’s also a 33-track bonus CD that
includes the “Let’s Barbecue”
EP (which I used to own; my copy had “Our
People Talk Loud” mis-printed on the back
of the sleeve, with the “Our” scribbled
out by hand and “Old” written over
it) and a bunch of live and compilation tracks,
some of which I recognize as being from the
“Caught In The Act” live EP. You’ll
be getting your money’s worth here, without
question, along with all the inside jokes and
references to New Jersey “culture”
as well, including the booklet photos of the
Tick Tock Diner, Uncle Floyd, and the turnpike
being shown as the “Jersey parking lot”—
yup, people who’ve never been to New Jersey
don’t know what they’re missing…
COCO
B's (K-Double Recording Co.)
I get very suspicious when any band gets compared
to Spoon, who're virtually untouchable, yet
the awkwardly cool, offhand manner in which
Kevin of the Coco B's tosses off a line like
"Yeah, I got access to numbers" is
nothing if not Britt Daniel-ish. The Coco B's
as a whole sound very much like "Girls
Can Tell"-era Spoon as heard through a
Superdrag pop-rock filter, and while those might
sound like some heavy duty words to be throwing
around, this CD is up to the challenge, trust
me. Too many times I've gotten CDs to review
that I've really liked, but then gone back to
them a few months later and found the shine
had worn dull; but I've been listening to this
CD in my car and on my mp3 player since Jim
sent it to me 5 or 6 months ago, and it hasn't
started annoying me yet. If that doesn't sound
like much of a compliment then it probably isn't,
but this is still an awesome, awesome CD.
THE
PAGANS - "The Blue Album" live CD
(Smog Veil)
Nine songs taken from a Pagans live set in
Madison, Wisconsin from 20 years ago (1988),
and while it isn't from a soundboard tape,
it at least sounds like it was professionally
mic'ed (probably with a couple of microphones
in the back of the room, which is the way
college radio stations sometimes do it). "She's
A Cadaver" is on here-- my favorite Pagans
song, which also happens to be the first Pagans
song I ever heard (on a tape comp of Cleveland
bands, or maybe it was a mix tape or something,
that a friend sent me back in '86)-- as well
as a version of "(Us And) All Our Friends
Are So Messed Up", which I think I might
like better than the studio version that was
released on "Family Fare". Almost
every song on here rips, almost every song
on here is a minute-and-a-half long (including
a super-thrashy cover of "Can't Explain"
which clocks in at 1:09), but whether or not
nine passably - recorded live songs are worth
11 bucks probably depends upon how big a Pagans
fan you are.
TEACHER’S PET (Smog Veil)
A retrospective CD documenting original '78
Ohio punk rockers Teacher's Pet, and while that
annoying late-70's new-wavish percussive synth
sound (think Sparks, or the Poodle Boys, or,um,
Devo, maybe) is up front and in full effect
here, the guitar sound is crunchy as hell. I
mean, if you can manage to tune out those stupid
keyboards in your head while you're listening
to this, which is what I tried to do, this CD
is about as loud as any other guitar rock album
from that era that you could possibly find.
Heck, on one of the three live tracks here--
a cover of Status Quo's "Big Fat Mama"--
the guitars sound like something from Judas
Priest's "Point of Entry", for cryin'
out loud. Plus Teacher's Pet's songs cover all
the usual subject matter that you'd expect from
a late-70's punk/new wave band: "Don't
Need You", "Lonely
Boy", "Teenage Suicide", "The
Cops Are Coming"... there's even a song
on here about the Who concert in Cincinnati,
called "Cincinnati Stomp" ("When
they open the doors, we'll be in a rage/To get
the seats right by the stage/Don't stomp on
me, don't stomp on me"), which is almost
as funny as the one by Weird Al Yankovic. There's
also five songs recorded to video on here somewhere,
though I couldn't find the files-- not that
I tried really hard. I really didn't expect
to like this, but to tell you the truth, if
I owned a 45 from '78 with a couple of these
songs on it, I'd probably think it was one of
the coolest things in the world, and that's
what we need more of these days: more album-length
CDs that have us wishing they were two-song
45's.
SWALLOW
- Teach Your Bird To Sing (Flotation)
This is the third LP from one-time Sub Pop
band Swallow, recorded in 1990 but unreleased
until now, and you might be surprised to find
out that it isn't a complete suckfest-- well,
it surprised the heck out of me at least.
Not ever knowing too much about Swallow, I
was a bit fearful about listening to "Teach
Your Bird To Sing" for the first time;
but as it turns out, Swallow are more along
the lines of the poppier pre-"grunge"
bands from the Pacific Northwest that I actually
used to like back in the late '80s (meaning
bands like Chemistry Set and Treepeople) I
mean, there's still plenty of distortion and
flannel and scratchy vocals involved here--
this isn't totally removed from its time in
that sense-- and the lyrics are really frickin'
dumb, but this sounds a lot more like "And
The Horse They Rode In On"-era Soul Asylum
than Soundgarden or Tad. To put it another
way, you could play this for your friends
and tell them it's the new Two Cow Garage
CD, and they probably wouldn't even start
blinking for the first 4 or 5 minutes.
CD
Reviews by Dave Run It
