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DAN McLANE - The Birth Of Mr. Dirty (misterdirty.bandcamp.com)

I don't think anyone who knew and loved Dan McLane has completely gotten over his tragic demise, but after nearly five years of work, producer/musician Oliver Ignatius has managed to complete Dan's magnum opus, The Birth of Mr. Dirty. As Oliver explains in the 2nd issue of CHAOS Music Mag, at the time of his death, Dan was in the process of reinventing himself from the goofy rock 'n' roll caricature he portrayed in the Harmonica Lewinskies to a more serious singer/songwriter: "In the time that I knew Dan, as his producer, collaborator, and finally, friend, I was always urging him to follow his weirder instincts and forge a unique artistic path of daring. I sensed both in his hero worship of famously deep writers like John Lennon and Daniel Johnston, and from the scorched earth intensity of his performances, that there was an artist in there to be reckoned with, busting to get out." The birth of Mr. Dirty, Oliver continues, began that quest. "Fleshed out over the course of many late night stoner sessions, we concluded the following: Mister Dirty was a modern day cowboy, a sort of desperado character of uncertain moral character. He was a Robin Hood type, a Che Guevara, a symbol of the people. He had almost certainly killed before, perhaps even in cold blood. He may or may not have been slowly metamorphosing into a horrifying prawn creature. He was to be a Rock and Roll Superhero."

A lot of lost souls comes to mind listening to this: Harry Nilsson, Warren Zevon, Jim Carroll, John Lennon. That's probably the vestiges of my grief talking, but Dan did share with those artists the ability to pluck the best from pop music to brighten what might otherwise have been devastatingly sad songs. One thing's for sure: Dan McLane was a free spirit and that spirit runs rampant all over this album, borrowing from country, blues, Motown, jazz, and whatever else he needed to complete an idea. "What Have You Ever Done For Me" sounds like a typical guy-dissing-an-ex ballad until Dan decides to make it personal - and funny: "Nancy Reagan, what has she ever done for me?" Ray Liotta? Herman Hesse? Desmond Tutu? "Mr. Dirty? What has he ever done for me?"

"Sad All Over" might be my favorite song on the album; it's far more than a clever pun on the Dave Clark 5 hit. Musically, it's the track where Oliver's presence becomes most pronounced, and lyrically, it's the most cruelly ironic, Jim Carroll's "People Who Died" set to a Van Morrison melody with a Motown bridge.

With its nasty vocals, throbbing white-soul beat, and sassy horn section, "Mr. Dirty" might comes closest to the Harmonica Lewinskies' party vibe. In contrast, "No Powder" most powerfully lets Dan incarnate the Mr. Dirty character, with its creepy vocal, gloomy vibe, as well as some impressive lead guitar licks and a bassline that won't stop. The strutting bar room blues of "God Has No Time For Mr. Dirty" wraps things up with mocking "woe is me" self-pity, which in hindsight seems like a cry for help. That's the thing; we'll never know. I hope Dan just wanted to make me smile, something he could do better than almost anyone I've ever known.

DAN PAQUIN - The Incredible True Story (danpaquin.bandcamp.com)

Back when nobody paid any attention whatsoever to Jersey City (at least musically,) Dan Paquin was playing bass in the underrated and overlooked Dirt Bike Annie, who presaged the pop punk revival of the mid-00's (and included the young Mikey Erg.) Dan's kept a low-profile for quite a while, which may be why the songs on this album can be all over the place. Mostly, Dan's doing romantic ballads with heavily reverb'd guitars, like an updated Chris Isaak. But there's also a Fountains of Wayne-ish indie pop tune and a 94-second pop-punk rave-up that sounds like a Groovie Ghoulies cover. Welcome back, pal.

stillhungry - S/T (selfhungryband.bandcamp.com)

THE FLESHTONES - Face Of The Screaming Werewolf (Yep Roc; thefleshtones.bandcamp.com)

THE HOLD STEADY - Open Door Policy (Positive Jams/Thirty Tigers; theholdsteady.bandcamp.com)

CHEEKFACE - Emphatically, No.
(New Professor Records)

I've always had a soft spot for indie rock trios. Add to that list Cheekface, a quirky L.A. combo with a delightful sense of self-deprecating humor. Associations: Jonathan Richman, Weezer, British post-punk, the spazziness of the Minutemen, the intelligence of the dB's, Camper Von Beethoven. The band formed after the 2017 inauguration and there's a running sense of paranoia and anxiety we're all familiar with, without being overtly political. "Life itself is a pre-existing condition," the band notes on "Original Composition;" "no shirt, no shoes, no justice, I did not mean to offend" they proffer on "No Connection." And how do you not love a line like, "They say smiling is contagious. But you know, so is yawning." The rapid-fire spoke/sung lyrics often mirror the post-Beatnik poesy of Jeffrey Lewis, but with sunny L.A. boulevards replacing stinky Lower East Side sidestreets. All dozen tracks deliver a smile and something to think about. Inspirational verse: "Poetic/synthetic/they mean the same to me/I inspire pathos/among the faculty/A nine minute mile/a minor misery/they're gonna give me tenure/see you at Appleby's."

THE PLANES - "The Oracle Of Marcy" EP (theplanesnyc.bandcamp.com)

SHAME - Drunk Tank Pink (Dead Oceans)

PSYCHIATRIC METAPHORS – Body Snatchers (psychiatricmetaphors.bandcamp.com)

Sam Taylor, a sonic scientist based in Union City, NJ, writes and records as Psychiatric Metaphors (although there’s a live lineup for shows.) This is his fourth album under that name, begun in late 2019 but mostly completed during COVID lockdown. “City Lights” kickstarts these ten tracks with churning post-punk reminiscent of The Fall, with spoken/sung vocals and a chugging barrage of guitars. Taylor’s palette expands to include insane psychedelic guitar sounds and spazzy solos, along with pummeling Goth, Industrial, and Punk influences. The cavernous vocals and wall-of-sound perfectly mesh with the six-minute Spacemen 3 cover, “Revolution,” which takes the track in the direction that Sonic Boom and J.Spaceman would pursue in Spiritualized. A good half of the tracks sound like the soundtrack to a nervous breakdown; I’m guessing those are the ones written during COVID. Best listened to with headphones, loudly.

TERRY McCARTHY - Home (terrymccarthymusic.com)

LANGHORNE SLIM - Strawberry Mansion (Dualtone)

You remember the really great interviews and the really awful ones. Langhorne Slim was one of the bad ones. I was unprepared; he did not have much to say, and probably wanted to get back to soundcheck (he was playing Bowery Ballroom to support his self-titled 2008 album, following a short, disastrous stint on major label V2.) He was happy to be out of Langhorne, PA (the hometown that inspired his stage name,) happier still to be out from under V2's thumb. But other than that, we struggled to connect. Back then, Slim (real name: Sean Scolnick) dressed like a sexy hobo, in tight shirts or tanktops and skinny jeans, with a pork pie hat and a cherubic face that looked like it had seen more than its share of hard times. I wrote him off, embarassed as much by my own failure as an interviewer as my lack of interest in his music. (I skipped the Ballroom show that night and went to Maxwell's.) So here we are, all these years later, and I'm humbly pleased to admit that the hobo shtick has not only aged well but surprisingly gracefully. Strawberry Mansion - all 18 tracks, plus a demo - never wears out its welcome, seguing from old timey honky tonk to supple folk and bluegrass. Mellow analog instruments like banjo, fiddle, strings, and organ provide soothing, organic tones. There are tracks that deal with his problems with prescription drugs, depression, and anxiety, others that view the world with an unabating optimism born of love and the examples of his Jewish grandfathers (to whom the title track is dedicated.) A longtime resident of Nashville, Slim embraces country music's roots, including bluegrass and gospel, but not the commercial gloss of Modern Country, which might mean that Strawberry Mansion won't get played much on the radio. It's nice to meet a guy who'd rather make the music he loves than a buck.

LITTLE HAG - Whatever Happened To Avery Jane? (Bar-None)

BRIAN ERICKSON - Little Secrets (Mint 400)

E.R.I.E. - Don't Wanna Live, Don't Wanna Die (Mint 400)

THE CAMPBELL APARTMENT - Curmudgeon (Mint 400)

San Franciscan Ari Vais fronts The Campbell Apartment, joined by bassist Kevin Frank and drummer Jon Hand. I've been a fan for a while, but even I was taken aback at how good this album is. Reportedly these tracks sat around a few years; when Mint 400 signed the band, a deal was struck to remix the album with a rawer and more live sound. It worked. The opening track "VP Of Snails" explodes with a burst of power pop rock reminiscent of the Eels or Game Theory. Vais infuses strong elements of Americana bordering on Country for the stalwart melodies, major chords, and crisp, clean guitar parts on much of the album, from the twangy "Frustration Station" to the square dance stomp of "I Know What I Done" to the weepy "Since November" to the pungent irony of "Baby's Wedding Day." "Burning Bridges" injects a bit of pub rock glam to the proceedings, and "You Winsome, You Loathsome" wraps clever lyrics around an old-timey music hall ballad. RIYL Nick Lowe, Fountains Of Wayne, Elvis Costello

LOGAN X - "Lame Dystopia" EP (loganxnyc.bandcamp.com)

MOD FUN - "Day After Day" EP (modfun.com)

THE JUAN SOLO 7 - When We Are None

PETER STAMPFEL & THE BOTTLE CAPS - Demo '84 (Don Giovanni Records)

The three albums that Peter Stampfel made with his '80's band the Bottle Caps have been out of print for decades, available only as used vinyl or CD's on the collector's market. Happily, Don Giovanni's Joe Steinhardt found this long-lost and all-but-forgotten demo tape while rummaging through a collection he bought from a well-respected and highly renowned rock critic (well...me, actually.) So until Peter can wrangle back the rights to reissue the other stuff, we can rejoice in this gloriously skronky artifact of fractured folk punk, featuring Stampfel's yowling vocals, slippery fiddle, and one of the best bar bands of its era. Two Maxwell's regulars, drummer Peter Moser and bassist Al Greller (formerly of Coyote Records' Beat Rodeo) anchor the sound, which included precision guitars and backup vocals from the late W.T. Overgard and John Scherman. The songs range from jovial novelty folk-rock ("Random Violence," "Funny The First Time," "Drink American") to the hilarious "Surfer Angel" (the world's first - and only - surf/death song) to skronking Rounders-esque folk ("Everything Must Go," "Lonely Junkie") to the unlikely-but-shoulda-been-a-hit fusion of Robert Service poetry and 70's disco vibes, "Impossible Groove." All of these wound up on the Rounder's self-titled debut album, while the rousing "When It's Springtime In Alaska (It's Forty Below") would have to wait for the third Bottle Caps album to see the light of the day. But you can hear them all here, direct from 1984 to your digital player of choice. (You can read my interview with Peter Stampfel about the demo and other projects here.)

HARVEY GOLD - It's Messy, Vol I (Smog Veil)

"Founding member of Tin Huey" is only the first line of Harvey Gold's impressive resume', but it should be more than enough to give this irascible aging hippie a listen. The remaining members of Tin Huey reunite here for "Lemon Beazly," with Half Cleveland (the Hueys with Chris Butler of The Waitresses fame,) Harvey In The Hall, The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach, and the Byrds' Chris Hillman also lending a hand. But mostly this is Harvey Gold's record, more than living up to the title "It's Messy" with forays into power pop, electronica, orchestral pop, acoustic American folk, a protest song, a bit of music hall, and a weird instrumental. It's Messy, Vol. 1 revels in being mercurial and unpredictable, waxing formalist and orchestral on "Eidola," invoking traditional folk on "Allegheny Load," infusing Motown grooves into the hipster rant "In Consideration Of Joe Strummer" and then wigging out for the seven minutes of weirdness that is "Lemon Beazly." Gold slows the Beatles' "I've Just Seen A Face" down to quaalude tempo, throws in a Beefheartian 90-second instrumental, then wraps the show up with a silly novelty tune about breakfast foods. It's... messy. But fun.

COCKTAILS - CASTROPHIC ENTERTAINMENT (cocktails.bandcamp.com)

San Francisco's Cocktails will delight any listener looking for an indie-pop band that's not afraid to sound happy, clever, and bright. The band gleefully transcends genres, from 70's Cheap Trick to 80's New Wave to Nineties indie rock, with echoes of Teenage Fanclub, the Replacements, and even Fountains of Wayne on cuts like their paean to "Bun E. Carlos," or the bittersweet pop-rock gem "Nobody's Going To The Movies." The band flashes its punkier side on "Janeland," gets twangy on "Washoe Country," and channels the Undertones on "Waiting On The Summer." The singer's unique voice comes across as one part Joe Strummer and two parts Joe Jack Talcum, a sweet mix of geeky abandon and the young Conor Oberst's earnestness. It's a winning combination.

SPECIAL MOVES - Little Help (Darla; jigsaw-records.com)

VIGILANTE COWBOYS - "Five Easy Pieces" EP (facebook.com/TheVigilanteCowboys)

This Central Jersey quartet falls somewhere between classic rock and punk, with influences that range from Jersey ex-pats Dramarama to Sixties. Mark Donohue's leathery vocals remind me of a less buffonish Handsome Dick Manitoba or a cooler Randy Bachman. The two covers - Badfinger's "No Matter What" and the Stones' "Get Off My Cloud" - suit the band perfectly; they're a little ragged, garagey, and cozily familiar. "Crampin' (Summertime)" suggests Bob Stinson dueling with Ross The Boss, with both catchy riffs and technical rock solos, while "Perfect Moment" and "Get Me Out Of Here" capture the band's poppier side. Most importantly, Vigilante Cowboys sound like they're having fun, know how to play their instruments, and can deliver a good hook.

SABET & DOHERTY - S/T EP

Steve Sabet played guitar in the fin de siecle Jersey indie band Darby Jones, Brian Doherty played drums for They Might Be Giants; both sing and harmonize beautifully. Together, they've recorded this eclectic 5-song EP that ranges from soft rock ala' America to a feisty indie-rock rager reminiscent of Rockpile. "Lakewood" is a meditative folk-prog instrumental spotlighting acoustic guitar and gentle percussion, while "Another World" channels the tight two-part harmonies of Simon & Garfunkel. I'm a bigger fan of the uptempo "Fire In A Trash Can" than of the mellower aspects of Sabet & Doherty, but I'd certainly like to hear more. The EP can be streamed on Spotify and Amazon Music.

JUNIPER - S/T

THE ROADSIDE GRAVES - That's Why We're Running Away (Don Giovanni)

AMANDA ROSE RILEY - Better (amandaroseriley.com)

From her perch in Lincoln Park, NJ (nestled between Wayne and Pequannock,) Amanda Rose Riley and her acoustic guitar create fearless folk music that chronicles the observations and aspirations of, in her own words, "a middle range millennial." I say fearless because there's just a voice and a strum and a lot of ideas coming at you, so it's a bit bleak and monotone. But Riley's voice (and by that I mean her words, not just her vocals) is a commanding presence; she writes of suburban overdevelopment from the point of view of a squirrel on one song, and tells a prospective soulmate "this isn't like that hobby that you gave up, you're gonna have to give it your all" on another. Written and recorded just before everything turned to shit with the pandemic, Better could be speaking to us as we're sheltering in place and trying to figure out a future; of the joyless, selfish, and uncaring, she sings, "we can't let them win." On the title track, she counsels a friend in spiritual distress (or perhaps herself,) "every move you make is another chance to fuck up, but every day's another chance to get better." And it's nice to hear someone say, "it's gonna be fine, you're gonna be just fine."

HIGH WAISTED - Sick Of Saying Sorry (highwaisted.party)

THE HI-END - Class Kicks (Rum Bar Records)

From Boston, the city that gave us the Real Kids and J. Geils Band, comes a rock 'n' roll combo that delivers a bit of both, along with a little Dictators and a whole lotta boogie and a truckload of road house vigor. Frontman Johnny Carnevale sounds like a guy who smokes too much, drinks cheap whiskey, and never buttons the top of his shirt, and his band rocks like the kids your mom told you to stay away from in high school. All jokes aside, this is down 'n' dirty rock 'n' roll, nothing fancy or ironic or reinvented, just three chords and an attitude. For my money, the shorter and faster these songs get, the better. "A Way Of Life" sounds a little like "Ace Of Spades, and if you think that's a bad thing, fight me.

THE CHALLENGED – Wallfighter (thechallenged.bandcamp.com)

These stalwarts from the remnants of NYC’s Pop Punk Message Bored scene have been banging away for close to 20 years with very little to show for it, other than the ability to consistently make records that blow you away. Rob Suss’ melodic, expressive vocals remind me of Dan Vapid’s, although the roiling emotions on this album – regret, sadness, disgust – transcend pop-punk, scaling the same heights as the best of Jawbreaker or Husker Du. The uplifting “For Hope’s Sake,” with its promise that things will get better, recalls the Bouncing Souls. This is an album that’s deeply disappointed with the state of the world, yet somehow makes this ungainly mess we’ve made of things seem beautiful and worth saving.

COURTESY TIER - "Ithaca" EP (courtesytier.bandcamp.com)

THE BASEBALL PROJECT - LIVE In Space (thebaseballproject.bandcamp.com)

This musical busman's holiday lets Steve Wynn, Linda Pitmon, Mike Mills, and Scott McCaughey a chance to combine their love of baseball with rock 'n' roll, writing songs that range from nostalgic and sentimental to humorous to satiric. LIVE In Space chronicles a show from 2015 recorded at a small concert hall in Evanston, IL. Stage patter is included so you get a good feel for the band's good natured banter and obvious love for the subject, and the 19 tracks include a little taste of all three studio LP's. I love some of these songs, and not just the ones about the Yankees or the Mets; "The Day Dock Went Hunting Heads" recounts the epic no-hitter that Dock Ellis threw while high on LSD, there's a lament for poor World Series goat Bill Buckner, and songs about Pete Rose, Henry Aaron, and "Ted Fucking Williams." But some of the best tracks eschew the famous for the obscure, like "Larry Yount," a career minor leaguer who never threw a pitch in the Big Leagues, or my favorite, "Monument Park," about a player who realizes his career has run its course and it's time to go home. If you haven't heard the Baseball Project, here's a great way to experience what they were all about. And who knows, maybe there'll be another album someday, once we can all start going to ballgames again.

SHINER - Schadenfreude (shinerkc.bandcamp.com)

Singer/guitarist Allen Epley formed Kansas City, MO's Shiner in 1992 with a couple of friends, and after a decade of personnel changes and several excellent post-punk albums on labels like DeSoto and Sub-Pop, became the sole founding member. The band broke up following 2001's The Egg, but in the last decade, Epley - along with drummer Jason Gerken, bass player Paul Malinowski, and guitarist Josh Newton - started playing shows again, and now there's a new album. Shiner's style of heavy, gauzy post-punk has become so engrained into the DNA of today's indie rock that if you didn't know the backstory, you'd think this album came from four Brooklyn millennials instead of these midwestern fiftysomethings. Shiner's sound remains significantly the same, somewhere between post-punk drone, stoner rock, and bombastic grunge. Fans of Hum, Queens of the Stone Age, or Soundgarden will no doubt revel in the thick spacious grooves here. For me, it's like watching a friend eat sashimi; I admire the quality and skill involved, but would rather have something else.

HOLSAPPLE & STAMEY - Our Back Pages (omnivorerecordings.com)

The original versions of these songs featured dueling lead guitars, Gene Holder’s throbbing bass, and Will Rigby’s crisp and precise drumming, but Holsapple and Stamey stripped the songs down to acoustic guitar and vocals, with the duo finessing exquisite harmonies throughout the album. The arrangements highlight the lyrics, which were always clever and quirky and quite wonderful, and the album works perfectly.

It’s hard to pick favorites – the dB’s, throughout a long career with several iterations and lineups, have always been a personal favorite – but it’s wonderful to hear “Black and White,” “Happenstance,” “Big Brown Eyes,” and “Molly Says” in these new arrangements. The guitar is sublime, the harmonies transcendent, and the songs more than hold up.

TALL JUAN - Atlantico (talljuan.bandcamp.com)

Juan Zaballa, aka Tall Juan, was transplanted from his native Argentina to Rockaway Beach at a young age and, on his first spate of records, took inspiration from Queens natives the Ramones. He covered Dee Dee's "Chinese Rocks," and wrote & played Ramones-tempo punk and garage-rock songs on acoustic guitar. "Atlantico" brings him back to his South American roots, with a nod to the African rhythms that influenced much of that music. There's one song in English, five in Spanish, and two short instrumentals, ranging from sassy Cumbia (a Colombian style which combines indigenous folk music with European and African influences,) to Latin dance grooves to romantic ballads.

ROCKSTAR RACECAR - Hunk Oasis (rockstarracecar.bandcamp.com)

THE NEVERENDS - Party Boi facebook.com/theneverendsband)

SVNSET CHILDREN - Ignite (svnsetchildrenband.com)

I met this multi-racial alternative quintet at the 2019 JC Studios Battle of the Bands, where I was impressed by what I can best describe as their "soft grunge" sound, with Juliette Musungu's mellifluous vocals mixed on top of sonic guitars and thrashing drums. There are definitely hints of Nirvana and Pearl Jam here, as well as some metallic crunch, all delivered with insistent, repetitive rhythms. My biggest criticism comes from the samey-sounding deliberativeness of the first four tracks, only the EP closing "Daydreaming" adds some nice psychedelic guitars and a bit more melody. While it's pronounced "Sunset Children," look for the band on social media as #svnsetchildren.

THE WEEKLINGS - 3 (Jem Records)

I will be frank here: I don't get the Weeklings. Fronted by Asbury stalwarts Glen Burtnik and Bob Burger, the band writes and plays faux-Beatles pop tunes, all more pointedly "Please Please Me" pop fluff than, say, "Penny Lane." A straight up Beatles tribute band would pay better, but pointy-headed critics like me aren't going to extend any artistic cred for rewriting the Beatles songbook a dozen times. (Also, Burtnik toured with a version of Styx for a bit, so there's also a forgettable prog number, as well as a cover of the Easybeats' "Friday on My Mind" that's not as good as the one Earth Quake did on Beskerkely Record back in the Eighties.) So again I ask, why?

THE WARHAWKS - Stardust Disco (New Rivals Entertainment; thewarhawks.bandcamp.com)

GOODMAN - The Era Of Buckets (goodmanmusic.bandcamp.com)

THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL - "Committing To The Bit" EP, "Perpetual Emotion Motion," "Ready For Love Or Disappointment," "Whiff" (thegreatamericannovel.bandcamp.com)

Layne Montgomery's still wearing his heart on his sleeve. No news there. Still straining to sing a bit about his natural range. Aidan Shepherd still mans the drums, as savvy and subtle a stickslinger as there abides in New York City. Steve Shaw and Ian Grey have joined the band on bass and lead guitar on the "Committing To The Bit" EP. It followed the three digital singles that GAN released in 2019, with slightly different lineups. All of it was produced by Billy Aukstik at Hive Mind Recording. Taken together, you've got close to a damn fine album. Montgomery's songwriting more and more resembles his hero Bob Pollard, with strong riffs but even stronger lyrics. My favorite is "Whiff," in which Layne takes pity on a bully at work ("being you must get pretty rough.") "Committing To The Bit" sounds like something a horse does when it accepts its lot in life, and the song certainly has a fatalistic air (Layne, always post your lyrics on Bandcamp!). But given that the dude's mom is a standup comic, I suspect the song means sticking to your shtick through thick and thin. "Good Bad Company" kicks off with a killer Seventies rock riff (get it? it's good Bad Company,) while "It's A Living" has an awesome call and response chorus. Instead of mooning about girls who don't look at him, Layne's got more on his mind on these tracks. They're all about perseverance, commitment, endurance; turning the struggles of a musician (or a working stiff, or a boyfriend) into a metaphor for how fucked up life has become for all of us in 2019, and how the only answer is to keep plugging away. I like these songs more every time I listen to them. You will too.

INTERNATIONAL POP OVERTHROW: THE COMPACT DISC VOL. 22 (Omnivore Recordings)

DEFECTING GREY - "Run Silent" EP (defectinggrey.bandcamp.com)

Cadging their name from a Pretty Things song provides a clue to the proclivities of this Central Jersey trio, which features brothers C.J. and Vince Grogan on guitar and bass, and the mighty Mike Polilli (of NJ’s legendary Buzzkill) on drums. This is the band’s second EP (sadly, I missed the first,) with six high-powered tracks of buzzsaw pop rock with a psychedelic sparkle. Think Husker Du’s “Eight Miles High,” since both the grungy Minneapolitans (especially Grant Hart’s poppier compositions) and the Byrds loom large in Defecting Grey’s punchy sound. I don’t know what the title “AYR” means (I don’t think it’s about the jeans brand) but man, what a killer song, with a shouted chorus guaranteed to have you punching the air. The band knows how to write a hooky rock ‘n’ roll song, and with decades of experience between them, can deliver even the simplest three-chord progression with panache and distinctiveness. Both EP’s are available from the group’s Bandcamp page.

SAM SHERWIN - "Left In" EP (samsherwin.net)

Jersey transplant Sam Sherwin's traditional take on blues rock recalls the Van Morrison of "Moondance," Tom Waits, and early Springsteen, with standout contributions from Peter Vitalone on piano and the B3 organ, and the Spin Doctors' Aaron Comess on drums. Three tracks of roadhouse boogie and one ballad, well orchestrated. Jersey City notable Walter Parks contributes backing vocals, small world! RIYL: Joe Grushecky, Ike Reilly, Southside Johnny.

THE HOLY SMOKES - Goldish (smokestheholy.bandcamp.com)

STEVE GOODMAN
Affordable Art
Artistic Hair
(Omnivore Records)

Steve Goodman, a singer, songwriter, and guitarist of enormous talent, died of leukemia in 1984 at age 36, a huge loss that affected me deeply. I had become a fan with 1972's Other People's Money, although most people knew Goodman from the covers of his songs by other artists, like Arlo Guthrie's "City Of New Orleans" or David Allan Coe's country hit with "You Never Even Call Me By My Name." Omnivore has launched a project to bring Goodman's catalog back into the public domain and it starts with the final two albums Goodman released before his death, the odds 'n' sods live collection Affordable Art and Goodman's final studio album, Artistic Hair. Both boast a plethora of delights, including most of Goodman's best known songs ("Chicken Cordon Blues," "I Don't KNow Where I'm Going But I'm Going Nowhere In A Hurry Blues," and "Go Cubs Go," which the Chicago Cubs play after every home win.) But thanks to the inclusion of ample bonus tracks on both albums, there's a treasure trove of material here that even diehard Goodman fans will never have heard, and new listeners will find enchanting. Goodman duets with his close friend John Prine on Prine's "Souvenirs," there are acoustic demos of the whimsical "Vegematic" and the witty "Don't Do Me Anymore Favors," and a gorgeous cover of Ralph McTell's "City Of London." Baseball fans (and especially Cub fans) will want to own not just "Go Cubs Go" but Goodman's nimble version of "Take Me Out To The Ballgame," and one of the greatest sports songs ever written, "A Dying Cubs Fan's Last Request.) (Ironically, the Cubs made the playoffs for the first time in 45 years in the fall after Goodman's death.) I remember and revere Goodman's humor, his songwriting (which, like his buddy Prine, could be tender or moving or laugh out loud funny,) and his wonderfully expressive voice. I had forgotten what a wicked guitarist he was; since Goodman usually played solo without a band, he wasn't afraid to show off on his acoustic guitar, and whether it's rapidfire chord changes or speedy finger-picked solos, his playing here dazzles and impresses. I love both of these records, and can't wait to see what Omnivore pulls from the vaults next.

RICK BARRY - A Sunk Cost Fallacy & The Enduring Mirage (rickbarry.bandcamp.com)

BARK - Terminal Everything (Striped Light/Cool Dog Sound)

The AARP should hire Tim and Susan Bauer Lee, who perform and record as Bark, for all of their commercials. "This can't be as good as it gets/if you ask me, we haven't even gotten to the good part yet." How's that for an anthem, fellow sexagenarians? If you have a long memory and a big record collection, you might remember Tim Lee from his days in the Windbreakers, a twangaholic combo from the Eighties, or his time with the Tim Lee 3. Now he and his wife Susan play swampy blues and twangy country from their home in Knoxville, TN. Susan plays Emmylou Harris to Tim's Gram Parsons, as big fat reverb'd guitars swagger to solid simple drum beats, on songs that range from the downbeat to the whimsical. Death recurs as a frequent theme: "Walk Small" reminds us of how time can whittle even the biggest of us down to size. On "This World," a phone call brings the news that another old friend has passed away. But this album isn't about wallowing in grief, it's about taking life's best shots and getting back up to try and try again. And as we all do the "Apocalypse Shimmy" to the Great Beyond, there's power in the idea that we oughta throw a "Big Ol' Party" to celebrate our lives, and "do it before it's too late."

CAR CITY - S/T (carcityband.bandcamp.com)

As an unabashed fan of power pop, it was a delight to come across this Wisconsin quintet fronted by Jason Lemke. Car City play the shimmery brand of Midwestern power pop trademarked by Shoes and Green and Material Issue, with a little Weezer. It's catchy and simple and heartfelt, with knockout harmonies and big catchy hooks. There are ten tracks and I can't pick a favorite, although the roller rink organ of "Challenger" and the ebullient, uplifting "Soul Jam" (batting ninth in the lineup!) come close. Click on the bandcamp link and check this out, you won't regret it.

CASTLE BLACK - "Dead In A Dream" EP (castleblack.bandcamp.com)

CHRIS STAMEY - New Songs For The 20th Century (Omnivore)

Like Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart, and Elvis Costello before him, pop-rocker/producer Chris Stamey has turned for inspiration to the Great America Songbook, that treasury of songs written by the likes of Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Henry Mancini, and Irving Berlin from the 30's through the early 60's, and popularized by generations of singers, from Bing Crosby to Frank Sinatra to Johnny Mathis. But this isn't a covers album, oh no; instead, Stamey has written a double-CD's worth of his own in the style of American standards, performed by his symphonic ModRec Orchestra and sung by a stellar lineup of guest vocalists, from contemporaries like Nels Cline and Marshall Crenshaw, to North Carolina musicans like Skylar Gudasz and Django Haskins, to jazz great NNeena Freelon. The 26-track collection also includes songs from Stamey's radio play about the jazz scene in Sixties Manhattan, "Occasional Shivers;" there are even a couple of older Stamey compositions given an orchestral makeover. The LP cover announces its intentions in large letters: "Written by Chris Stamey."

The critical reaction to this album can be summed up by Audiophile's review: "The new album by Chris Stamey is quite remarkable because it is unexpected." Indeed. And who knows, maybe today's jazz greats - Michael Buble, Harry Connick Jr., or even Tony Bennett, still going strong at 92 - will embrace and record these songs and transform them into new popular standards. But until then, it's hard not to look at this as a genre exercise. To wit, if Stamey wrote ten new songs that borrowed techniques and harmonies and chord changes from Pet Sounds, it would be fun to hear... once, maybe. But it wouldn't be Pet Sounds.

And that's how I feel about this album. Like Stamey, I grew up with the Great American Songbook. Sinatra and Ella and Basie and Broadway cast albums, that's the music I listened to and loved at home long before I heard the Beatles for the first time. These songs remind me of other songs, but they're not going to replace the originals. I can imagine "Manhattan Mystery" - which fuses "Moondance" with "New York, New York" - on the soundtrack of a Woody Allen movie, maybe. Nneela Freelon's vocal on "Occasional Shivers" reminds me of why I loved Ella Fitzgerald. "In-tox-i-cho-cli-fi-ca-tion" strives for the urbane wit of Cole Porter but misses the mark, with a clunky line like "a good cigar and a chocolate bar."

The orchestrations are lovely, the musicianship impressive, the vocal performances unassailable. This album is remarkable because it's so unexpected. I just don't see myself ever playing it again.

JOANNA STERNBERG - And Then I Try Some More (Team Love)

DAN WEBB & THE SPIDERS - Be Alright (Bandcamp.com)

Funny, I used to review a ton of bands from Boston, but they've become something of a rarity. But here's Dan Webb & The Spiders, ten-year veterans of the Beantown band scene, blasting out reliably loud guitar rock like it was still 1986. Appropriately the album sounds like it was recorded live at the Rat (or somebody's basement.) Its good-naturedly lunkheaded tunes like "Acme Girls," "Jerk In Progress," and "Complicated" fall squarely into the tradition of the Dogmatics, Neighborhoods, Outlets, and Blackjacks from Boston's glory days, while still sure to please fans of contemporary garage-punk bands like the Dopamines and Copyrights.

WILLIAM B. SIMPSON- "Tender Boy" EP (williambsimpson.bandcamp.com)

Will Simpson, formerly of the Harmonica Lewinskies, makes his solo debut with this eclectic three song EP. "Feeling Better" channels REM jangle-pop with a sunny doo-doo-doo chorus, "Pendulum" goes all raga psychedelic, while "Outhouse Blues" seems most like something the Lewinskies might have tackled, with its Beatlesque chord changes, big vocal, clattering drums, and gang vocals. Three strong but diverse songs stoke anticipation for the full length follow up.

R. STEVIE MOORE - Afterlife (Bar/None; rsteviemoore.com)

The King of DIY Recording will surprise longtime fans and delight new ones with this 14-song opus, which is decidedly high fidelity in every regard. Recorded in professional studios (as opposed to a bedroom or basement) over a seven-year span, Afterlife cherrypicks tracks from Moore's prodigious discography and presents them with the sort of arrangements and production they always demanded. R. Stevie has always worn his influences on his sleeve and you can hear them all here, from Big Star to the Beatles to Beach Boys to Roy Wood's Move. Moore, in his late Sixties, has been plagued by health issues that have kept him off the road, and some songs here reflect encroaching mortality, like "Too Old (To Fall In Love,)" "Another Day Slips Away," and the existential "What Do I Do With The Rest Of My Life?" But pop music is in R. Stevie Moore's soul, so there's the delightfully chipper "Come My Way" (which could be a lost Housemartins track) and the Pet Sounds inspired "Here Comes Summer Again," both sure to rev your engines.

DEVO SPICE - The Anarchist's Cookbook (devospice.com)

I'm not sure anyone uses the term Nerdcore anymore, but Jersey-based comedy rapper Devo Spice (aka Tom Rockwell) certainly fits the bill. Over samples, beats, and homemade tracks, Devo Spice raps about the Hulk and Spiderman, Halloween and Black Friday, video games and "Stranger Things." There's a song about Cheetos and another in which a Gilbert Goffried impersonator yells about mayonnaise. In other words, nerd stuff. There's also a healthy serving of inspired nonsense and, on the version I received, several rap battles with fellow Dr. Demento alumni like Blythe Renay, The Great Luke Ski, and Insane Ian. Bottom line, this is a comedy album more than a rap album, rising to chuckle-inducing at its best, and amusing even when the jokes don't quite hit. RIYL Weird Al, MC Chris.

VAL EMMICH - Tizzy (valemmich.com)

ALEX CHILTON - Memphis To New Orleans: The Best Of The 1980's Recordings (Bar/None)

I was lucky enough not only to be around but also be aware of Big Star back when those remarkable albums first came out. Later came the Ork singles and Like Flies On Sherbert, with songs like "Bangkok" and "My Rival." I was hooked. So I remember when, after a self-imposed hiatus, Alex Chilton returned to touring and showed up at Maxwell's for the first time. My friends and I were PSYCHED. We'd finally get to hear "Ballad Of El Goodo" and "In My Car" and "Take Me Home And Make Me Like It " done live. And then Alex Chilton came on stage and sang... "Volare." It would have been one thing if Chilton were clearly doing it ironically, or campily, or jokingly. But nope, he was just standing there, perfectly happy with himself, singing "Volare." I don't think I've ever been more crushed.

"Volare," happily, isn't on this collection, largely culled from the 80's "No Sex" EP and High Priest album. In fact, these songs are all fairly enjoyable, as long as you know in advance that you're getting Alex Chilton fucking around with novelty songs and pop standards, and not making any effort to live up to the pop genius he exhibited in the past.

In hindsight, I feel for the man; here he was in his mid-thirties, for all intents and purposes a has-been. The 90's CD reissue boom would eventually make Big Star accessible again; but in the Eighties, those albums and his early solo recordings were more myth than anything else. Alex must have figured, well, I gave making art a shot, nobody wanted it, now I'm going to do exactly what I feel like doing and nothing more.

And so we got catchy and quirky tracks like "Dalai Lama" and "Lost My Job," a genuinely fun cover of "Little GTO" and the tongue-in-cheek AIDS-era anthem "No Sex." The Motown/Stax arrangements on tracks like "Thank You John" and "Make A Little Love" recall the teenaged Alex's work with The Box Tops.

Thankfully, I can listen to these songs now and enjoy them, without the resentment I felt when Alex stood there and defiantly told us that "Volare" was as far as he was going to go to entertain us. The songs on From Memphis To New Orleans sound like Alex had a lot of funny singing them, and it's fun to hear them now. And think about how much we miss. And what might have been.

ALEX CHILTON - 987 Robin Hood Lane (Bar/None)

NO WIN - downey (Dangerbird Records)

URBAN OUTFIELDERS - "Out Of This World" EP (Hidden Home)

EZRA CASPI - The Best Is Yet To Come (ezracaspi.bandcamp.com)

At only 17, Ezra Caspi certainly has a point when he sings "the best is yet to come." The son of veteran Jersey shore rocker Jon Caspi, Ezra has clearly picked up a few things from his dad, along with influences that range from Brian Wilson to Gram Parsons. And if Jeff Tweedy had written a song about his four years in high school for Uncle Tupelo, it might have sounded a lot like this album's title track, pleasantly jangly and introspective and just a bit Dylanesque. Ezra has a pleasant yet powerful voice, a natural gift for lyrics, and the production here - with horns and strings and keyboards and layers of vocal harmonies - remains consistently impressive. "Follow You" reminds me a little of Hootie's "Only Wanna Be With You," which - whatever you think of that band - was catchy as anything on the radio in the Nineties. I love how Ezra's songs reference growing up on the Jersey shore, the love songs don't come across as precocious or forced, and "Say Whatever" rules as my favorite new pop song of 2019 so far. I understand Ezra released a debut EP as a 15 year old which I haven't heard, but The Best Is Yet To Come more than suggests he's going to be a force on the local music scene for a long time to come.

EXPERIMENT 34 - What Dying Feels Like (experiment34music.bandcamp.com)

CYCLONE STATIC - From Scratch (Mint 400; cyclonestatic.bandcamp.com)

Call it "Dad Rock" if you will, but Cyclone Static - guitarist James Salerno, bassist Danny Patieno (of Aminal,) and drummer Jon LeVine - fly the flannel of Nineties alternative rock proudly and with an unbridled sense of fun on their debut album. From Scratch's ten tracks bring the kind of ageless energy that you might expect from the Descendents, from the exhuberant title track to the Teen Spirit smell that's been smeared all over "Company Man." I'd like to think that if Joe Strummer were still with us, he'd be writing songs as enthused and forceful as "Runaway"or "Walk This Line." Three longer tracks - "Sacred Island," "Ordinary Days," and "Too Many Roads" fuse White Stripes minimalism with jammy drones with psychedelic effect, and the album closes with In Utero inspired "Unstoppable," which seems both a promise and a threat. In other words, don't write these mooks off. They are coming for your children's ears (and souls.)

J HACHA DE ZOLA - Syn Illusion (jhachadezola.bandcamp.com)

ROCKSTAR RACECAR - The Real Housewives Of Pyongyang (rockstarracecar.bandcamp.com)

Roll over, Ted Leo, and tell Johnny Dirt the news: Bloomfield, NJ is rockin' again thanks to Rockstar Racecar, whose sophomore album delivers a thoroughly entertaining romp complete with memorable youth anthems ("A Hundred Miles An Hour," "Open The Door,") some choice punk-rock bangers ("Jean," "Freeze Your Brain,") catchy power-pop rockers ("Real Housewives Of Pyongyang,") a heartfelt power ballad ("Drink 'Til The End,") and even a thoughtful political protest song ("Dear Mr. President.") I love this band's sense of humor and the way they don't let their influences (from Ozzy to the Ramones) define them. There's a little Cheap Trick here, some Green Day there, but it always comes out sounding like Rockstar Racecar. Kudos to producer Gerry Griffin at his Temple of Tuneage studio for capturing the band's live energy and never dampening the group's exuberant sense of fun. And I should probably mention that singer/lead guitarist/principal songwriter Troy Donohue, bassist Violet, and guitarist Stanton are all of 15, while their drummer (known only as "the Wolverine") is 11. As I once said of another band from Bloomfield: Today puberty, tomorrow the world.

SUNSHINE & THE RAIN - Beneath The Stars (Ernest Jenning Record Co.; sunshineandtherain.bandcamp.com)

Ashley and Justin Morey, the John and Yoko (or maybe the Richard and Linda Thompson?) of Jersey City indie rock, return as Sunshine & The Rain with their second album, this time with a much brighter, ginchier, go-go sound thanks to exquisite production by Hoboken's Tom Beaujour. It's a little unnerving at first to hear a diehard guitar rocker like Justin (who literally grew up in front of me playing in the heavy-as-fuck Rye Coalition and psyche-rockers Black Hollies) having so much fun with synthesizers and drum machines. Ashley's yummy, reverb'd vocals and keyboards dominate these tracks; they get a little oomph from Justin's guitars but really float on tinkly keyboards and dreamy melodies and an absolutely airy sense of playfulness. There's a lot of bouncy Eighties new wave (think Go Go's, Bangles) and the drama of Phil Spector's girl-group pop here, and I love the way the couple uses their marriage as grist for their songwriting ("We'll Figure It Out," "Thank You For Believing In Me," "Just Stay," "All We Need.") Highly recommended: The frantic danceable synth-pop of "Just The Way It Goes," the romantic, piano-driven "Just Say," and the hand-clapping opener "It's All In Your Mind," in which Taylor Swift takes the dB's to the prom and they dance to Bananarama all night.

BROOK PRIDEMORE - Metal Is My Only Friend (brookpridemore.bandcamp.com)

DEFEND THE RHINO - Fabricated (Mint 400)

YAWN MOWER - "Could Eat, Would Sleep" EP (Mint 400)

POSTER CHILDREN - Grand Bargain! (posterchildren.com)

What 14 year hiatus? Grand Bargain! is angry, energetic, political, and absolutely thrilling. The Poster Children's first release since 2004 (kids, y'know; it's hard to tour with kids) rocks with an urgency that makes this one of 2018's most exhilarating releases. Remember that before the band took its break, the Posterkids released a covers EP as a reaction to George W. Bush's re-election with tracks like the Clash's "Clampdown," Heaven 17's "We Don't Need No Fascist Groove Thang," and Fear's "Let's Have A War."

"Grand Bargain" kickstarts the new album with a fiery "fuck you" to Trumpworld, with guitarist/vocalist Rick Valentin spitting out declamatory lyrics over a thundering backbeat and ear-punishing riffs:

"America held hostage day one/A lot of folks woke up without power this morning /It’s every man for himself/And every woman at 70% of the going rate/ In the land of the free market/And the home of the wage slave/It's not the robots you need to worry about/It's the corporate human/I am a paid enemy of the state/Guilty in an attempt to educate/To teach is to leech to sell divine/The business of America is business.""

"Hippie Hills," "World's Insane," "Final Offense," and "Big Surprise" continue the album's assault, each a driving rock track with Valentin's disgust over the modern world palpable in his delivery. The band slows things down a bit on the reflective "Lucky Ones" (with a lovely doo-doo-doo bridge that reminds me of Pavement's "Cut My Hair,") and the quiet, foreboding "Safe Tonight."

If you liked the Poster Children before (I discovered them before they had even released their debut EP, thanks to an invite by old pal Mike Potential, and raved about every release through 2004's No More Songs About Sleep And Fire,) rest assured you won't be let down by Grand Bargain! Everything this band did well - from frantic barnburners to moody ballads, always with intriguing lyrics and earwig hooks - comes back with a vengeance. What took you guys so long? (Poster Children will be at Rough Trade in Williamsburg on Wednesday, July 18.)

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THE PORCHISTAS - Porch Drive (store.cdbaby.com/cd/theporchistas7)

Montclair's backporch troubadours The Porchistas drop their latest album digitally and on (CD? No. Vinyl? Guess again...) a 2G flash-drive wristband, an idea that's both delightfully goofy and just flat out brilliant. And that describes the band's music as well, with Alan Smith and Adam Falzer sharing lead vocal duties on 10 tracks that will make you both smile and think. These genre-hopping folkies seamless drop a reggae shuffle into one track, honky tonk piano on another, skittery ska here and laconic country pop there; and while you'll smile all the way through, these guys drop some meaty ideas into almost every track: "Intervention" mocks the hypocrisy of corporations that sponsor "Wellness Weeks" for their employees while polluting the water and air; "Hope For the Flowers," a lovely duet between Smith and Jenn Mustachio, reiterates the band's ecological ideals; and "The Abe Vigoda Polka" melds They Might Be Giants whimsy with gypsy violin in a hilarious road trip tale that includes a chance meeting with the infamous rubber-faced actor. Falzer's "Blue Louise" and several of the tracks remind me of the "country-eastern" rock pioneered by NJ's Cropduster a generation ago; good-timey music that's melds Nashville twang with Jersey snark. Give this a listen and treat yourself to a good time.

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FORGET THE WHALE - "Take To The Skies" EP (soundcloud.com/forget-the-whale)

This is the third EP from Forget The Whale, an indie-pop quartet that's part of the recent wave of exciting new Hudson County bands. This eclectic but charming 4-song EP showcases the hearty vocals of Alishia Taiping, Peter Durning's nimble touch on guitar and harp, Dan Pieraccini's melodic bass, and AJ Zienowicz' crisp, economical drums. They're pretty much Jersey kids through and through, eschewing trends, hyphenated labels, and esoteric sounds for solid musicianship and good ol' meat and potatoes pop songs. The old-fashioned classic-rock formalism of the title track references the Who, Fleetwood Mac, and sounds like something that could come wafting from Sirius's 90's channel (the same holds true for ""Without You.") "Ghost" unabashedly embraces Sixties blues-rock; it's smokily atmospheric and completely unapologetic in its embrace of lounge rock tropes, and succeeds because (not despite) that earnestness. "Half Way Home" - my favorite track, if you're keeping score at home - adds a slaphappy trumpet to a rollicking country-tinged melody, the sort of thing that could probably be a monster pop single for American Idol winner Maddie Poppe or some other contemporary New Country diva - it's got an irresistible hook and a catchy da-da-da chorus and really hows off Alishia's pipes. Forget the whale and just call me Ishmael, why rock the boat? (Forget The Whale's EP release show is Wednesday, June 20 as part of the Live In The Park series at Leonard Gordon Park in Jersey City.

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SONS OF AN ILLUSTRIOUS FATHER - Deus Sex Machina; or, Moving Slowly Beyond Nikola Tesla (sonsofanillustriousfather.com)

I met Ezra Miller at a Mama Coco's Funky Kitchen barbecue quite a few years ago, and it was immediately apparent that this young man had a passionate love of music. But even as a teenager, he earned his living as an actor - at that point, in a series of well-regarded but little seen indie films like City Island and We Need To Talk About Kevin, and TV appearances on shows like Royal Pains and Law & Order:SVU. It became an unspoken rule that if I wrote about Ezra and his band, I didn't mention the "other thing." The last thing that he and his bandmates, Lilah Larson and Josh Aubin, seemed to want was to cash in on their drummer's non-musical notoriety.

All that's changed now; for the first time, SOAIF is being described as "Ezra Miller's band" and everything I've seen online mentions his breakout roles as the Flash (in the Justice League films) and his cult appearance in the Potterverse (as Credence Barebone in Amazing Beasts And Where To Find Them.) And why not? Lots of young actors play in bands and then abandon them once they've "made it;" Ezra's commitment just confirms my impression of him as truly devoted to his music and his friends. Speaking of which, Deus Sex Machina was recorded with Oliver Ignatius at Holy Fang Studios in Bushwick, the current incarnation of what used to be Mama Coco's, and you can hear Oliver all over this record - playing, singing, recording, arranging.

While earlier SOAIF albums always divided lead vocals democratically, Ezra emerges on Deus Sex Machina as the de factor lead singer and frontman of the band (even though he's technically the drummer; the band members switch instruments frequently, and for the first time on this album, incorporates the use of electronics heavily.) Lilah Larson and Josh Aubin do get a lead vocal occasionally, but mostly it's Ezra's supple, expressive, and dramatic vocals that predominate here. This band isn't going to tell you what to think, but they will tell you how to feel, and the emotions - anger, frustration, resentment, regret - tend to be communicated by melody and rhythm.

In the past, I've found this band a bit droney, but this collection of songs resonates and reverberates with roiling highs and lows. The powerful "Eg" finds a funky groove you won't expect, while "Unarmed" delivers us into the arms of David Bowie.

The lyrics hit on several themes; Miller has identified as gay in several interviews and the theme of otherness recurs frequently, although often couched in cryptic and free-verse allusions. "U.S. Gay" kicks off the album with contradictory and often violent imagery

I want "FAG" tattooed in red on my forehead
A revolution in my bed
To do as Valerie said (cut up men)
I wanna be straight instead

And then there's this free-verse passage from "Extraordinary Rendition:"

Oh, the allure of new experience
And so, sex
Nowadays you can get your sex
In bloody plastic oil spill concentrate convenience

Nicholas Tesla is the forgotten father of alternating current, a man whom time (and Thomas Edison) tossed into the dustbin of history. Getting past that kind of thing isn't easy, but then, neither is struggling for identity in the modern world. "Deus Sex Machina;" well, that's a pun on a last-minute twist in the plot that surprisingly solves everybody's problems, SOAIF just add sex to the mix. That's kind of what Sons Of An Illustrious Father try to do with this album - get through to the next day, putting yesterday's injustices behind us, hoping that something will come along that will make things turn out okay.

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THE FRONT BOTTOMS - "Ann" EP (Fueled By Ramen)

The press release says, "The six-track Ann EP, which follows 2014’s Rose EP, will feature five new recordings of never before released fan favorite songs as well as a brand new track, 'Tie Dye Dragon.'" Sorry, FBR, but that isn't true, since two of the tracks - "Pale Beneath The Tan (Squeeze)" and "Lonely Eyes" - appeared on the band's out-of-print 2008 EP, "I Hate My Friends" (which you can find on Youtube) and I don't know if any of these songs actually qualify as "fan favorites" (unless by "fans" you mean the handful of kids who used to see the FB's at the Meat Locker and all-ages basement shows back before they signed to Bar/None, who might remember a few of these tracks.) I will grant that all fans of the band's earlier, rawer, more angsty material should like these songs; they represent what Brian Sella does best, expressing the hormone-driven angst of adolescence with unabashed passion and taking the whole thing much more seriously than grown-ups ever do. " The next 29 minutes are gonna flow like concrete / my heart'll get so low, it can touch my feet," Sella wails on "Today Is Not Real." But broken hearts, even teenage ones, heal: "I'll feel better," he recites, again and again like a mantra, for the chorus. I can hear the kids singing along even now. When these songs were originally written and performed, the Front Bottoms were a trio, just acoustic guitar, Matt Uychich's stripped down kit, and his brother Brian on keyboards. These days the Front Bottoms record with a full band, but the tracks on "Ann" eschew the overproduction and elaborate arrangements that many fans disliked on Going Grey (their most recent full length.) The sound here hits your ears fuller and bigger than on their early demos, but the EP still sounds like it was recorded in a closet; "a bone thrown to the fans of the scuzzball sound of the early EP's," as a friend of mine opined.

On "Somebody Else," the hook - "And I have no idea what you're going through," each vowel stretched and yowled with pained regret epitomizes classic Sella. "I Think You're Nose Is Bleeding" so perfectly captures the desperation of a kid who thinks his or her world is falling apart that I'm amazed it wasn't picked up for the soundtrack of "13 Reasons Why:"

Well, I will move to the city
And I will sleep on a bench in Central Park
And I will make new friends
And we can keep all our things in shopping carts
And when the cops come to find me
The new friends will hide me
We will steal whatever we need for fun
And if they get suspicious, it means all my new friends will run

The new song, "Tie-Dyed Dragon," finds the 30-ish Sella still writing from the point of view of his younger self, remembering an acid trip from his school days, perched on the brink of adult self-awareness:

I guess I'm older now
I guess I'm older now
I am caught in between who I am and who I'm supposed to be
Everything's confusing

Nobody likes me. Nobody loves me. There's nobody I can trust. And it's all my fault. That's what growing up feels like. That's what the Front Bottoms sing about. That's why the kids - and the kid still alive in all of our hearts - love them.

GENE TURONIS (Gene D. Plumber) - All The Pretty Girls (Bar/None)

Long before Steve Fallon, Glenn Morrow and Richard Barone set the wheels in motion to turn Hoboken into a latterday music Mecca, Gene Turonis was regaling friends and family with kitchen-table hootenannies and bar room performances of winsome covers and clever originals. At the same time, Gene spent his days unclogging the Mile Square City's sinks and fixing their boilers, and so he became known as "Gene The Singing Plumber" (and later, Gene D. Plumber.) Now Bar/None (hi, Glenn!) brings the story full circle by releasing this collection (5 covers, eight originals,) recorded originally with just Gene and his acoustic guitar, then fleshed out by a gaggle of talented friends on guitars, bass, fiddle, piano, organ, and drums. The pleasures here come fast and often, whether Gene is revisting Sixties boogaloo or Mexican cojunto or whistling through the bridge of a Merle Haggard chestnut or putting his own spin of one of George Jones' whiskey-stained country standards. The self-deprecating, homespun humor of "I've Been A Fool All My Life" (co-written with the Insect Trust's Luke Faust) and the tongue-in-cheek waltz "Diamonds As Big As Potatoes" prove that Gene's as much a songwriter as an impeccable interpreter of other people's recordings. They don't make 'em like this anymore, folks, and more's the pity.

DR. FRANK - The Way It Sounds Like (Sounds Rad! soundsradical.com)

CHRIS BUTLER - Got It Together (ChrisButler1.bandcamp.com)

JEFFREY LEWIS - Works By Tuli Kupferberg (1923-2010) (Don Giovanni)

MADAM WEST - "Warm Bodies" EP (madamwest.bandcamp.com)

As a sequel to the 2016 full-length Madam West Loves You, the six-song "Warm Bodies" EP (produced and recorded by Oliver Ignatius at Wild Fang Studios) finds vocalist Sophie Chernin once again cooing over an intriguing mix of shoegazey synths, undulating bass, sophisticated percussion, and stinging guitars. Bushwick millennials usually strive to be in-your-face Saturday nighters but Madam West would rather soundtrack your lazy Sunday brunch; the strengths here tend to be muted rather than extravagant, with forays into skittish jazz and sophisticated scatting melodies. Languid and almost aquatic in their immersiveness, the 5-minute "Seams" and the 6-minute "Wise Blood" skirt the border where prog-rock transgresses into noodley jamming, redeemed by rhythmic bursts of adrenalin that squirt a shot of bourbon into Madam West's sonic chamomile tea.

GUY CAPECELATRO III - "July" (Two Ton Santa; Bandcamp.com)

SAILOR BOYFRIEND - "EXPOSURE!" EP (sailorboyfriend.bandcamp.com)

JOHN PRINE - The Tree Of Forgiveness (Oh Boy!)

WRECKLESS ERIC - Construction Time And Demolition (Southern Domestic)

ACID DAD s/t (Greenway Records)

Even though Acid Dad has been bouncing around Bushwick for a good four years, they've taken their time releasing their first full-length (following a well-received EP and 7-inch,) and it shows. Acid Dad sounds as if every note, every beat has been woodshedded and tweaked to seamless efficiency, the way bands used to do it in the Seventies. Acid Dad nabashedly embraces its influences, which include Television's undulating guitar lines, the Velvets' incessant chug, Nineties grunge fantasias, shoegaze's groove-laden drones, and slow psychedelic jams. It's rare these days to hear a band having as much fun as Acid Dad does playing "Mistress;" you'll feel the same way listening to "Die Hard" or "2ci." If you like a little variety with your tempos (and/or your drugs,) dig these guys stretching out on the languid "Child" or "Dissin.'" I made it a point to see these guys at SXSW this year and they blew me away. See them now, Brooklyn, they'll be on the road and beyond your grasp before you know it.

ANDREW WHOLF - Forever Is So (andrewwholf.bandcamp.com)

A Hoboken teenager and guitar phenom who you'll often find busking at the train station (or occasionally playing restaurants and bars around town, if he can talk his way in,) Andrew Wholf brings a love of classic blues and freeform jazz to his own take on modern pop. Recording with friends Brian Lawlor on keyboards, Cody McCorry on bass, and Kevin Grossman on drums, Forever Is So showcases Andrew's virtuosity on seven instrumental tracks, from the groove of "4 AM Funk" to the syncopated intricacies of "Careful Of A Fool," to the sinuous, romantic "Forever Is So." Jazz fans, here's your perfect brunch music. New Jersey, remember the name, you'll be seeing it soon.

BIG NEIL - Never A Full Moment (Something Wicked; bigneil.bandcamp.com)

After several years of touring with the Front Bottoms, Tom Warren has returned to his mostly-acoustic folk/punk project Big Neil. The best tracks here demonstrate an abiding affection for Pavement and the Lemonheads, early Beck, and a little Loudon Wainwright III. So if you're into slacker anthems and sweet, earnest vocals and the occasionally pithy guitar lick, banjo plink, or cowbell clang, this is the album for you. (Warren wrote and recorded the album by himself, by the way.) I haven't heard his earlier Big Neil releases but this one completely won me over. Like the Front Bottoms' Brian Sella, Warren writes with a self-deprecating sense of humor and enormous warmth, honesty, and self-awareness: "Most days you feel like shit/some nights you get over it," he philosophizes on "Axl Rose"; "wish I could play like Paul Simon/but it always comes out like Neil Diamond," he confesses on "Down All Day." The lyrics meld well with some eyebrow-raising musicianship (check out the acoustic guitar on "Alibi,") and some easy, gentle, loping melodies ("Tolerance.")

CONFIDENCE MAN - Confident Music For Confident People (Heavenly)

There used to be a NJ band called Planet Janet. Now a young Aussie named Janet Planet coyly talk/sings as the lead vocalist of Confidence Man, four Antipodean musicians who have left behind their teenaged psychedelic noodling for giddy, mostly electronic dance-pop. There are nods here to Right Said Fred, Donna Summer, and the Spice Girls, pushing all of it to the point of cartoonish caricature. But that's the point here: This is fun music, dancing around your bedroom music, bouncing off the walls at the clubs music. And on that level, it succeeds brilliantly. It sounds a bit as if Helen Love's teenage daughter traded in her mom's signature Casio for some vintage synths and set all her most revealing Snapchats to a disco soundtrack.

TUFFY - Lighting Things On Fire (tuffy2.bandcamp.com)

AMY RIGBY - The Old Guys (Southern Domestic; amyrigby.com)

STARDUST ONE - "Lonely Station " EP (CDBaby.com)

If you were around Maxwell's back in the Nineties, you might remember Friction Wheel, a bunch of Fordham kids with a punchy rock sound who caught the ear of Steve Fallon. It's 20 years later or so and lead singer/guitarist Will Lopez (now a professional standup comic in Miami!) has returned with a new band, Stardust One. Other than time, not much has changed; Willie's still got a great voice, like a more expressive and supple Dave Grohl, and his band packs the same sonic kick, with obvious debts to Husker Du, Superchunk, and Dinosaur Jr. Stardust One knows riffs and hooks; this sounds less dated than you might think and simply classic. I've been listening to this for months now, and I have to apologize to Willie for taking so long to review it. None of us are getting any younger.

TONY SAXON - Old Souls & Long Term Goals (Mint 400)

As you can see from the artwork, Tony Saxon brings a throwback vibe to NJ's Mint 400 Records, a latterday garage rocker who mixes soul, R&B, rockabilly, and surf rock into a likable combination that's part Fleshtons, part Screamin' Jay Hawkins, and part Ventures. I have a huge problem with the sequencing on this album though. It starts with a surf instrumental (who starts a vocal album with an instrumental?), and then, after the representative (and entertaining) "Fortune Teller," delivers three covers in a row. The first, Elvis' "One Night," bombs; I am firmly of the mind that covering Elvis is always mistake unless you really remake the song. You're never going to better the original, but you're probably going to devolve into shtick. Johnny Kidd & The Pirates' "Shakin' All Over" brings nothing new to a song that most fans of this genre will already know. It might have been best to limit the covers to the Flamin' Groovies' "Slow Death," a fairly obscure track that Saxon manages to bring back to life. The rest of the album is fine, as described above, although did we really need two songs about fortune tellers? I hear Saxon's stage show is fantastic, and there are moments here that hint at that, but Old Souls & Long Term Goals winds up more Tony Clifton than Peter Zaremba.

STARCRAWLER - STARCRAWLER (Rough Trade)

Strawcrawler are a Los Angeles glam band fronted by 18-year old Arrow DeWilde along with some high school pals. There isn't really an original idea on this album (by the third track, they're copping a Nirvana riff, and "Pussy Tower" rips off the Runaways' "Cherry Bomb," ) but I give these kids credit: It's catchy and jumpy fun, they look tragically fabulous, and glam certainly beats another shoegazer snoozeathon. If MTV still played music videos, they'd already be big stars. Remember it was Rough Trade who swooped in and signed the Strokes the last time rock 'n' roll needed a Messiah. Today, driver's license; tomorrow the world.

PAINTED DOLL - Painted Doll (Tee Pee)

Painted Doll is the unlikely collaboration of comedian Dave Hill (who actually has plenty of indie cred from his time in Cleveland's Cobra Verde) and heavy metal shredder Chris Reifert. What they've come up is an album of psychedelic garage rock with a heavy debt to early Pink Floyd, Roky Erikson, and Blue Oyster Cult, and it's awesome. "We surrendered long ago/to a thing called rock 'n' roll" Hill wails on the opener, "Together Alone," and backs it up with the next nine tracks, packed with smoking riffs, mind-melting solos, and head-thrashing rhythms. Hill's love of the Kinks and power-pop supply the melodies, while Reifert keeps things down and dirty. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a garage rock joint this thoroughly. And the album art's a guaranteed contender for cover of the year too.

MARYBETH D'AMICO - Great & Solemn Wild (marybethmusic.bandcamp.com)

POTATO ROCKET - Grown Ass Adults (Rhodehouse Records; potatorocket.bandcamp.com)

The title Grown Ass Adults, the debut from Calgary's Potato Rocket, resonates with me because I knew singer/guitarist Jesse Rhodes when he was barely out of high-school and part of the all-ages brigade of the Pop Punk Message Board/Insubordination Fest scene in the mid-00's. Clearly all those shows spent worshipping at the feet of Grath Madden and Mikey Erg paid off, and now Rhodes' Potato Rocket has picked up the mantle of dispossessed twentysomething punk, griping about dead-end jobs and not enough coffee and dead-end relationships to catchy singalong power-chorded guitars and rampaging drums. Rhodes' husky vocals, equal parts Ben Weasel snot and Blake Schwarzenbach rasp, provide a perfect counterbalance to bassist Tila Lee's honey-sweet voice (they should do more of that back and forth thing,) and drummer Jonathan Clayton is a smoking powerhouse. Pop-punk may be dead, but somebody didn't get the memo.

THE GINGERLYS - S/T (Top Shelf/Babe City)

The Gingerlys have been through a lot - including several lead singers - since forming in Valley Stream back in 2013, but this self-titled album makes the statement that the band has found its identity and is ready to take on the world. Jackie Mendoza's gossamer vocals float over airy synths and shoe-gazey guitars to create dream-pop symphonies set to a motorik 4/4 beat inspired by Krautrock. Lots of bands do pretty vocals and shimmery guitars, it's really the rhythm section here that sucks me in. Gingerlys is perfect at 10 tracks; short enough not to become repetitive, long enough to let the band stretch and show off its talent for textures, melody, and rhythm.

KEVIN DEVINE - We Are Who We've Always Been (Procrastinate! Music)

Kevin Devine has announced he will put his solo career on hold and tour with his longtime friends Brand New for the forseeable future; this album, an acoustic reworking of his 2016 fuzz-rock release Instigator, serves as a good-bye to his fans and a recapitulation of his career. Given the financial realities of being an indie artist in 2017 (Devine has a wife and daughter,) I can see why he'd make this decision, but Kevin has been a friend of mine for as long as I've been a fan of his music and I'd really hate to think we won't be hearing any new songs or tours from him and the Goddamn Band. For the time being, We Are Who We've Always Been provides some solace. Instigator was a terrific but overlooked album; Devine's tour to promote it had to be cancelled, and it never got the attention it deserved. The tracks that had big bold band arrangements on Instigator are rearrangedhere with just acoustic guitar, imbuing them with the intimacy of one of Kevin's solo shows, allowing Devine to bring new nuances to tracks like "No Why," "Magic Magnet," and the very personal two-song punch of "No History" and "Before You're Here" (the latter about the birth of his daughter.) Songs presented acoustically on Instigator have been expanded with additional instruments and players, making a song like "Freddy Gray's Blues" (about the murder of unarmed African-Americans by police) even more powerful. I thought last year that Instigator might have been Devine's best album; now it's a tie.

RATS OF UNUSUAL SIZE - Duck (facebook.com/ROUSgroup)

Back in the Nineties, Jim Fourniadis and his Rats Of Unusual Size were a local favorite in a scene we affectionately called Scumrock, which railed against the injustices and indignities of Giuliani's NYC. Jim relocated to Michigan and we lost touch for a while, but now in 2017, he's brought back the band to take on Donald Trump. Duck revives the grungy, garagey, thrashy, goofy sound of scumrock with satirical lyrics that rake the current POTUS over the coals. On tracks like "GOPBlues," "I'm Presidential," "I'm White," "Billionaire," and "Down Mar A Lago Way," ROUS skewer Trump's pomposity, hypocrisy, and incompetence. "When I hear his latest shocking quote, sure wish I could go back and change my vote," wails a repentant Republican in "GOPBlues," while the epidemic of politically-tinged fake news gets its comeuppance on "Ted Baxter." Good to have you back, guys.

THE VICE RAGS - "The Vice Rags" EP (thevicerags.bandcamp.com)

SHILPA RAY - Door Girl (Northern Spy)

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ROCKSTAR RACECAR - S/T (Rockstarracecar.com)

ATOM DRIVER – “In The West” EP (atomdriver.bandcamp.com)

THE CRYPTKEEPER 5 – The Stronghold (cryptkeeperfive.com)

DEBRA DEVI – “Wild Little Girl” EP (debradevi.com)

JIGSAW YOUTH – America’s Sweethearts (jigsawyouth.bandcamp.com)

JOHNNY ANGEL WENDELL – “Smut And Politics” EP (johnnyangelwendell.bandcamp.com)

THE MOMS – “Songs From The Road” EP (Bar/None)

JULIAN FULTON – “Battered Receptions” EP (julianfulton.bandcamp.com)

======================================================

by Jim Testa

It all started with a pun.

When my buddy Howard Wuelfing and I graduated from Rutgers, Howard eloped and moved to Washington DC and I went home to Weehawken. Howard became very involved with the early D.C. punk scene (which is how I wound up writing a song for the Slickee Boys... but that's a whole other story.) Howard started a fanzine, first called Descenes and then later Dischords, and had friends from around the country submit scene reports. (This was years before Maximum Rock N Roll, mind you.) So the writer from L.A. would talk about seeing the Descendents play in his friend's backyard and the guy from Minneapolis would rave about watching Husker Du in a basement. I wanted in, and I had started hanging out at Maxwell's, so I decided to do a column about the nascent NJ scene, and called it "Jersey Beat" - a pun on Mersey Beat, the term British music journalists in the 60's coined to describe the sound coming from Liverpool and other towns along the Mersey River (like, y'know, the Beatles.) A few years later, Howard's marriage ended and with it the zine, but I was having so much been being "the fanzine guy" at Maxwell's (I used to leave a stack of every issue on the cigarette machine at the door) that I decided to just start my own zine. It was 1982, DIY was in the air, I wanted to be a music writer and couldn't get published anywhere else... so why not?

And that's how Jersey Beat was born. In the beginning, every issue was about 12 pages, printed by a old hippie on an offset press in between cranking out wedding invitations and business cards. I'd get the pages, bring them home, collate them, staple them, and voila! A fanzine! There were no computers in 1982, remember. I had a manual typewriter, a pair of scissors, a jar of rubber cement, and a lot of imagination. (Press-off letters provided the headlines.)

In 1982, word was just beginning to get out about the scene at Maxwell's, moreso in NYC (thanks to publications like New York Rocker and the Soho Weekly News that employed Hoboken regulars like Glenn Morrow and Ira Kaplan). But Jersey had a scene of its own. The drinking age was still 18, and there were clubs and live music all over the place - the Showplace in Dover, the Dirt Club and the Jetty in Bloomfield, Patrix and the Court Tavern in New Brunswick... So for our first issue, for reasons that make no sense to me now, I decided to put a skinny-tie New Wave band called the Jitterz on the cover of our first issue. They've long disappeared into the mists of rock 'n' roll oblivion, but I did better with the second issue, which featured the biggest stars of the Maxwell's scene, the Bongos.

When I wasn't bouncing around to the sound of pop rock at Maxwell's, I was banging my head to the latest new sound to hit the east coast, something called hardcore that had migrated from California and soon found a short-lived home in a club a few blocks from Maxwell's called Mile Square City. Bikers used to like to drink there late at night, so the promoter started and ended the hardcore shows early, and that's where I met bands like Adrenalin O.D. (who'd be NJ's premier HC band well into the Nineties,) Even Worse, and Pleased Youth. At least until the Saturday night when either the bikers showed up early or the punk show ran late; whatever, the two factions started an old-fashioned bottle-smashing furniture-crashing brawl that smashed up the place and ended live music at Mile Square City.

Thanks to my day job in insurance, I was on the cutting edge of the personal computer revolution as it happened. And everytime the computers at work got upgraded, so did the quality of the zine. Soon I learned I could have photos professionally dot-screened so they'd look as good as they did in professional magazines and newspapers. As the zine's notoriety grew, I started attracting a few advertisers and could add pages, content, and more features. Friends and local musicians joined the staff. And then one day I went to see my old hippie printer and found that his store had burned to the ground.

That was a rough couple of issues. Photocopier technology then was not was it is now. We did a couple of issues that looked like crap. Then Jack Rabid, who started his zine The Big Takeover a few months before I published the first Jersey Beat, told me about a plant in Long Island City called Linco Printing. They had this marvelous machine that could print eight newsprint pages at a time, fold and collate and staple the whole shebang, and spit it out as a finished magazine. For a few more bucks, you could even add a color cover on glossy heavy paper. As long as I did multiples of 8 pages, we were gold.

The punk rock boom of the Nineties (launched by Nirvana and then followed by Green Day and the Offspring) meant that a lot of the silly little bands I had been writing about for years were suddenly starting to make money. The same for their labels. And God bless 'em, the people at Lookoout and Epitaph and SST and Twintone were very generous about pouring some of their newfound wealth back into the scene. Advertising took off and at our little fanzine ballooned to 128 pages with a glossy coveer, and stayed that way until we stopped publishing in 2007.

See, a funny thing happened in the '00's. Record labels stopped making money hand over fist. The pop punk boom (which Jersey Beat had covered extensively; I'm sure I hold the world record for interviewing Screeching Weasel and the Queers) waned. But even more than the decline in advertising, the death of independent distribution is what really killed our print zine. In the boom years of the Eighties and Nineties, it was easy to send hundreds of zines to both mom 'n' pop and chain record stores. (Tower Records' magazine wing played a huge role in the story of 80's fanzinedom; they had stores all over the country and actually paid you honestly and on time.) But all those distributors either went bankrupt (often taking huge amounts of unpaid-for inventory with them) or were bought up by bigger companies who had no interest in zines. By our final issues, I was giving away way more copies than I was selling. And most of the copies I was selling was through mail order which, thanks to rising postal rates, actually lost me money.

Jersey Beat had hopped on the web almost as soon as it was possible, back in the days of dial-up modems and tiny graphics and text-based sites. We registered the JerseyBeat.com domain in 1997 - one of the first fanzines to do so - and once the print issues stopped, we revamped the site to be a full-fledged online music magazine And that's where we are now.

On Friday, April 14, we're going to return to Maxwell's (now known at Maxwell's Tavern,) and many of the people who helped inspire me to start the zine back in 1982 will be there to perform and celebrate: Richard Barone of the Bongos, Glenn Morrow of the Individuals (who went on to a pretty nice career as the owner of Bar/None Records,) Glenn Mercer and Dave Weckerman of the Feelies, the original lineup of the Cucumbers, three founding members of Gutbank (Alice Genese, Karyn Kuhl, and Bob Bert,) John and Toni Baumgartner of Speed The Plough, Joe and Cindi Merklee of Balloon Squad, and many more. Thirty-five years after it all started, it's a miracle we're all still around; beyond miraculous that we're all not only still making music, but also fast friends. It will be a night of nostalgia, to be sure. But it will also be a chance to hear some of the music that rocked Maxwell's fabled walls way back then, by artists who - in my humble opinion - have only gotten better with age.

I'm also excited to announce that I'm beginning work on a Best Of Jersey Beat antholgy to be published by Don Giovanni Records, which has already published two books by our old friend Larry Livermore of Lookout Records fame.

Advance tickets are $10 and available here. Proceeds will benefit The Project Matters, a local NJ charity that mentors and supports young musicians.

WYLDLIFE - Out On Your Block (wickedcoolrecords.com)

There's a fine line where the sweaty arrogance of punk rock meets the manicured catchiness of power-pop, and on their third full-length, Wyldlife straddle it with a compellingly casual swagger. Frontman Dave Feldman tosses off his snotty vocals like the bastard child of Johny Thunders and Phil Lynott, greasy and grooving on the 70's styled party anthem "Get Loud," with its seductive riffage (Thin Lizzy meets Eddie & The Hot Rods?) Everybody gets a chance to shine here, though, from Spencer Alexander's head-bobbing bassline on "Teenage Heart" to Sam Allen's shredding solo on the (ironically) Ramonesy "Deadbeats" to Stevie Dios' nuanced drumming, pounding and frantic on an uptempo track like "Contraband" to a disciplined backbeat on the poppier "120 Minutes." Dave Feldman's lyrics toss off inspired rhyming couplets with the wit and grace of my old running buddy Johnny Puke in Cletus, providing a solid structure that contrasts with the scuzzy abandon of the music. I really liked Wyldife's first two albums but this one doesn't miss a beat; it's a consistently entertaining Saturday night on the town with four boys who really know how to party.

THE CATHOLIC GIRLS - Somebody Better Get A Room (CDBaby.com)

Jersey Beat #5 (Fall, 1982) included our first reviews of the Cucumbers and the Smithereens, and as if that weren't enough, on the cover we featured a red-hot group of young women from Essex County who played sassy punk rock in Catholic school uniforms. Twenty years before Britney Spears cashed in on the idea, they were called the Catholic Girls, one of the first Jersey indie bands to sign to a major label. They were banned by both Saturday Night Live and the archdiocese of Rhode Island for being too risque back then, and now, a miraculous 35 years later, the uniforms are long gone but they've got a new album that shows they haven't lost a step. It's not like the band has been MIA for 30 years; after a hiatus to start families and careers, the group has been rocking and recording throughout the new millennium. On Somebody Better Get A Room, the Catholic Girls - which includes founding members Gail Petersen on vocals, guitarist Roxy Andersen, and drummer Doreen Holmes - give us four new tracks, with Petersen's quavering alto still as alluring and commanding as ever. The songs range from the hard-rocking "Don't Cry" to the wry, winking, harmony-drenched power-pop of "Somebody Better Get A Room" to the power ballad "Without A Country," to the dramatic hearbreak of "Gone." Part Patti Smith, part Pat Benatar, part Chryssie Hynde, part Joan Jett, this music - like all those artists - has an agelessness to it. On the following five live tracks, the 'Girls revisit their discography, including the controversial-at-the-time "Young Boys," which now just sounds kind of cute coming from these adult - but far from over the hill - ladies.

JAIME ROSE - "Nowhere" EP (CD Baby.com)

ADAM & THE PLANTS - "Born With The Gift Of Magic" (Sniffling Indie Kids)

LILAH LARSON - Pentimento (lilahlarson.com)

Primarily known as one third of the NYC alt-folk band Sons Of An Illustrious Father, Lilah Larson has purged her soul with this deeply felt collection of self-reflective ballads, recorded in Montreal with producer Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire, Vic Chestnutt.) Most tracks feature stripped down arrangements with Larson's vocals, guitar, and an antique pump organ, built around old-timey folk and country melodies. Larson's always been outspoken about her role as a queer musician in an often unwelcoming culture, but the graceful country waltz "Dear Mountain, Love Valley" could have been a hit on the Grand Old Opry. Larson's often compared to Patti Smith but for me, the depth of emotional engagement and effortless dynamics in her voice recall Bette Midler, if you can imagine the Divine Miss M surrounded by rustic acoustic instrumentation. The heartbroken breakup song "tbh" and the mellifluous romantic ballad "Father Daughter Ghost" (whose warm instrumentation is juxtaposed to a cold metallic electronic beat) traffic in universal emotions, even if written from a deeply personal perspective, but the track that hit me hardest is the Dylanesque "On Inertia," with its simple wisdom about surviving trying times: "All my friends who I never see/have no way to know they mean so much to me." Lilah Larson's voice is a warm, inviting thing, like coffee and toast on a chilly Sunday morning, and the pain in her lyrics is filtered through a unwaning, almost religious belief in hope and salvation.

THE KURT BAKER COMBO - In Orbit! (Wicked Cool Records)

Steve Van Zandt and I have a lot in common. Besides both being big Bruce Springsteen fans, we also dig bands who deliver the catchiness of power-pop with the energy of garage-punk. So it's not surprising that Little Steven's Wicked Cool Records has signed not only my Jersey City bros Wyldlife (see above) but my old pal Kurt Baker, now living in Spain (where people still pay to hear rock n' roll) and recording with his live combo. Kurt's always been a prolific songwriter, from his teenage days in the Leftovers to his solo career, but In Orbit! really is one of his strongest releases to date, filled with his trademark My Aim Is True-like hooks but with the energy amped up considerably. "Modern Day Rock 'N' Roll Girl" has the cheeky wit and chunky riffs of classic Nick Lowe, while "Ugly Way To Be" reaches back to Mersey Beat pop for its inspiration. There's not a duff track here, just bright and brash rock 'n' roll delivered for a complete disregard of whatever trendy crap might be in vogue. That's what living in Spain will do for ya.

THE CONNECTION - Just For Fun (Rum Bar Records)

Geoff Palmer and his band the Connection hit the studio late last year wit a few friends (like Chris "B-Face" Barnard of Queers/Mopes fame) to record a set of rock 'n' roll covers, and boy, it's great. From the familiar (Bob Seger's "Get Out Of Denver," the Stones' "No Expectations," Cheap Trick's "Southern Girls") to some deep album cuts, Geoff & Co. do their picks proud. It's great to hear the Dictators' "Stay With Me" taken absolutely seriously and delivered with power pop precision, or Gary Lewis' "I Can Read Between The Lines" performed with a Byrds-ian jangle. Dave Edmunds' "Other Guys Girls" is a natural fit, and Gram Parson's "Streeets of Baltimore" lets Palmer affectionately play around with alt-country. (It's the harmonies on this one that nail it.) From Buddy Holly to George Thorogood, the Connections seem capable of making any catchy guitar track their own. and why not? A covers album by one of Amereica's best bar bands seems like a slam dunk to me. If I had a jukebox in my corner bar, it'd sound pretty much like this.

ATOM DRIVER - "Slackjaw"EP (Powerbunny 4x4)

THE PORCHISTAS - "Axis And Allies" EP (theporchistas.com)

Montclair's folk-pop jesters the Porchistas have always had a penchant for novelty tunes, and on their new EP, they deliver a passle of them. With The Defending Champions horns, the EP starts with a spooky ska-infused salute to a Soprano's styled Jersey hitman on "Mischief Night," spoof Alex Jones conspiracy wingnuts with the reggae-ish "Ebolabama," and serve up a funky F-you to the PEOTUS called "Mr. Chump" (that's even nastier than my anti-Trump song!) Then there's a boozy horn-fueled love song to the Porchista's home base, Tierney's Tavern in Montclair, that's enjoyable even if you don't get all the hometown references. So far, this EP has been all shits 'n' giggles, funny genre songs with a message (like Randy Newman at his pithiest,) but the finishes on a sentimental note with "Old And Gray," a slightly tongue-in-cheek but nonetheless winsomely romantic ballad, on which frontman Alan Smith duets with Jenn Santa Maria (from the wonderful folk group Bone & Marrow.)

SEASIDE CAVES - Hope (Chunksaah)

MAGIC MOUNTAIN - Magic Mountain (Powerbunny 4x4)

TONY LOW - Rendezvousing (reverbnation.com/tonylow)

UNCLE EINAR - Get Thee To Nod (uncleeinar.bandcamp.com)

STUART MOXHAM IN THE STRAIGHT WORLD (Les Disques Maladroits)

The Young Marble Giants never made much of an impact in America, but in the Hoboken pop scene of the Eighties, they were as revered as Big Star, and with good reason. With Allison Statton's reserved, almost shy vocals and Stuart Moxham's minimalist, gently beautiful songwriting and arrangements, YMG stood in sharp contrast to the loud, fast bands of 1979, but their music holds up wonderfully. This compilation features NJ's Speed The Plough doing one of YMG's signature songs, "Final Day," and over a dozen groups I'm frankly not familiar with, all with intriguing names (Photon, The Pippinger-Flur, Entre Knobs, Watoo Watoo, Bureau Of Public Secrets,) doing mostly reverent versions of YMG's fairly small catalog. A nice surprise is that Stuart Moxham himself (whom this comp will benefit) ontributes an unreleased track that fans will definitely want to add to their collection.

THE BITTER CHILLS - Feel Good Songs For Bad People (Mint 400)

This Americana group caught my ear at last fall's North Jersey Independent Rock Festival, and their second album more than lives up to that promise. With Matt Cheplic (of Mint 400's flagship band Fairmont) on vocals and guitar, the Bitter Chills utilize mandolin, upright bass, accordion, piano, and guitars to create comforting and ingratiating melodies with a bit of power-pop brio, inspiring Bar/None's Glenn Morrow to compare them to Marshall Crenshaw. Lots of bands can do catchy twang; the kicker here is the band's everyman sense of humor, reflected in the casual observances of songs like "Girls Like Guys," "My Baby Lacks The Energy (To Find Someone New,)" "Folk It Down," and "Jared Livingston, Last Of The Great American Schoolyard Bullies," an inspired fusion of Bob Dylan's epic character songs and the modern "Wimpy Kid" novels of Jeff Kininey. I must be bad people; these songs left me feeling pretty good.

MINT 40 RECORDS PRESENTS IN UTERO (mint400records.bandcamp.com)

In the past, NJ's Mint 400 Records has organized tribute compilations to Pet Sounds, Lou Reed, and the year 1967, so why not Nirvana's masterwork, considered by many to be the best album of the '90's? What can we learn from a tribute version In Utero? Without Kurt Cobain's voice and Steve Albini's controversial production, what remains are the songs, and some damn good ones at that, especially as interpreted here by the likes of Duke Of Norfolk, Fairmont, A.Bird (who I assume is Adam Bird of Those Mockingbirds,) and the Maravines. Peeling away the familiar angst and distortion, these artists find the psychedelic melodicism and garage-rock classicism buried in Cobain's compositions. A good song is always worth another listen; a great song begs for reinterpretation. "Rape Me" here is reborn as a classical instrumental, but as compensation, Theordore Grimm unearths the barely-heard Nirvana track "Sappy" and Fairmont covers the Dave Grohl-penned B-side "Marigold."

pronoun - There's No One New Around You (Rhyme & Reason)

THE FUZZTONE (RAISIN’ A RUCKUS) by Rudi Protrudi (www.fanproshop.de)

THE FUZZTONE (LIFE AT PSYCHEDELIC VELOCITY) by Rudi Protrudi (www.fanproshop.de)

RICHARD BARONE - SORROWS & PROMISES: Greenwich Village In The 1960's (richardbarone.com)

THE ROMANTIC COMEDY - “Let's Be Sad Together" EP (Rhyme & Reason)

Layne Montgomery used to wear his heart on the sleeve of his Morrissey t-shirt .as the lovelorn lead singer of NYC’s The Great American Novel. Now a few years older, his yelpy bleating has seasoned into more tuneful pop singing and songwriting, but he still’s no good with girls. With 30 just a few years away, the protagonist of “Let’s Be Sad Together” pines for a girl as miserable as he is, while in “The Thirst,” our hero watches his girl ruin a viewing of “That Thing You Do” but insist she still wants to be friends. When Layne sings “it’s alright to love and be loved” on “It’s Alright To Feel,” he sounds like he’s trying to convince himself, not us. The production, by Passion Pit’s Ayad Al Adhamy, verges on being just a bit too slick and polished for such unkempt emotions, but "Let's Be Sad Together" represents a nice step forward for Layne and his bandmates, and I like the fact that Layne is back to being a frontman and leaving the bass in the capable hands of Max Miller. Familiar faces Pete Kilpin on guitar and Aidan Shepard on bass round out the lineup.

QUICHENIGHT - "Camille's Market" cassette (quichenight.bandcamp.com)

Boston-turned-Nashville singer/songwriter Brett Rosenberg earns his living touring in Pujol but his quirky lo-fi solo project Quichenight offers insight into this prolific auteur's wide-ranging tastes. I met Brett at W.E. Fest 15 years ago when he was still a teenage tyro playing cheeky, witty, clever power-pop, and elements of that style endure here on tracks like "Crazy And Hostile," the Beach Boys homage "Good Gods," or the twangy "Stickin' My Nose In The Cole Slaw." But there are also forays into funk, metal, country, and faux Calypso. Ween fans should love Rosenberg's irreverent genre-hopping sense of humor

. A TRIBUTE TO LINK WRAY (Mint 400)

Music historians credit Link Wray with inventing the power chord, paving the way for punk, metal, and most classic rock, but sadly he's largely remembered today only for his 1958 instrumental single "Rumble." In his day, Link Wray's ferocious guitar style was actually banned in several major cities for fear the music would incite youth violence. You can believe that hearing Jack Skuller's rumbling version of "Slinky," or Mint 400 flagship band Fairmont's tribute to "Rumble." The One And Nines manage to recreate Wray's novelty hit "Run Chicken Run" (with the electric guitar mimicking the clucking sound of barnyard poultry.) Other standout tracks include Zachs Uncle's throbbing rendition of "Jack The Ripper," The Limbos' horn-driven "The Swag," Fairmont's version of Wray's cover of Howlin Wolf's "Hidden Charms" (one of the few Wray tracks with lyrics and vocals!) and Thee Sonomatic's version of Wray's motorcycle anthem "Hang On."

NOFX - First Ditch Effort (Fat Wreck)

OVERLORD - The Well-Tempered Overlord (overlordusa.com)

PANSY DIVISION - Quite Contrary (Alternative Tentacles)

It's not surprising that the punk band that taught America how to be comfortable with homosexuality is having no problem growing older gracefully too. If you only know Pansy Division from their mid-90's Lookout albums, you'll find Quite Contrary less twee and jokey but still just as irreverent, catchy, and saucy as ever. Guitarist Jon Ginoli and bassist Chris Freeman still write paeans to horniness, and they haven't lost their sense of humor, but now instead of singing about twinks, sex toys, and groovy underwear, their songs are tempered with wisdom and reflection. "You're On The Phone" complains about a boyfriend tied to his tech, "I'm The Friend" chronicles how Ginoli's sad-sack romantic failures have followed him into his fifties, and "(Is This What It's Like) Getting Old" offers a light-hearted countryish romp not unlike Loudon Wainwriting III's recent laments about aging. But there are some lovely love songs here too, as well as a few serious ones: Ginoli's "Too Much To Ask" angrily questions a lover's lack of commitment, while Freeman's "Blame The Bible" offers a biting political barb against right-wing Christian intolerance. And bassist Joel Reader (the straight guy in this otherwise gay quartet) delivers a powerful version of the Pet Shop Boys' "It's A Sin," with PD's crunchy guitarist replacing the original's layered synths. Quite Contracy is a long overdue delight that will please longtime listeners and hopefully win Pansy Division a new generation of fans too.

YJY - "The Same Noise" EP (Sniffling Indie Kids)

One of the delights of the summer, YJY's sophomore effort delivers four tracks of chimey indie pop that combines cocky, youthful vocals with reverb-y guitars and infectious melodies.

GLUEBOY - Yikes (glueboy.bandcamp.com)

I'm sure there are 21-year olds out there with great jobs and amazing sex lives and perfect shiny teeth and great hair and six pack abs, but c'mon, those aren't the people you want starting punk rock bands. Give me the scrawny unkempt misfit ready to take on the world, who looks around and realizes the world doesn't give a fuck. That is the sound - the fury, the disgust, the resentment, the disillusionment, the urgency - of Glueboy. I'm almost glad these guys are breaking up, because it's highly unlikely they'd ever make a record this good again. Jonathan Marty's tortured vocals don't worry much about staying on key or enunciation, but man do they capture the living hell of post-adolescence. Whether you're living through it or just remember it (like me,) Glueboy's hasn't just made an album here, but a statement. Marty's guitar flails from thrashy hardcore to catchy pop jangle, supported by Coby Chafet's bouncing melodic bass and Eli Sills' thrashing drums, and in their best moments, they sound like the three of them are tumbling down a flight of stairs together without missing a note. Pissed off and not sure what to do about it, Glueboy sound like 2016. Yikes, indeed. (Glueboy's final show will be at Aviv in Brooklyn on Sunday, August 28.)

BIG CHEESE - Supersonic Nothing (bigcheeseband.bandcamp.com)

GRIM DEEDS - IF THE SHOW FITS (grimdeeds.bandcamp.com)

ERIC AMBEL - Lakeside (Last Chance Records)

THE EVERYMEN - These Mad Dogs Need Heroes (Ernest Jenning/Orchard)

KANDEL - O Great Habit (henrykandel.bandcamp.com)

If you know Henry Kandel at all, it's probably for his tenor sax in the late, lamented flagship band of the Mama Coco's Funky Kitchen collective, Ghost Pal. On O Great Habit, Henry displays his skills as a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, and it's a total mindfuck. The ambitious 17-track album is a prog-rock tour de force with visits to Renaissance Fairs, Strawberry Fields, cloistered monasteries, and an infant's nursery. Songs meander in unexpected directions, with mind-expanding arrangements that contrast the familiar analog sounds of sax, banjo, and human whistling with the otherworldly sonics of digeridoo and EWI (an "electronic wind instrument" that combines a wind controller with a synthesizer.) Kandel is fearless, up to and including not being afraid to sound like a bit of an affected dork at times, but that only adds to the guilessless beauty of the sounds he's collected here. O Great Habit will challenge you, beguile you, and mostly likely haunt you.

THE CUCUMBERS - The Fake Doom Years (1983-1986) (thecucumbers.net)

This compilation happily offers long out-of-print vinyl releases from one of my all-time favorite bands, the Cucumbers, to a new generation of listeners. The Cucumbers - at the time, and still today, Deena Shoskes and Jon Fried - were one of the first bands I discovered when I started going to Maxwell's in 1980. This compilation includes a couple of singles, a full length album, and several heretofore unavailable tracks by these relentlessly cheery new-wave popsters. Yes, this music is very Eighties, but iot's also timeless - boy/girl harmonies, earwig melodies, bouncy beats. The fun includes the group's infectious first single "My Boyfriend" (which actually caused a bit of a stir in 1983 when Jon sang the "my boyfriend won't wash the dishes" verse without changing genders;) the band's sexy cover of Elvis' "All Shook Up," which helped make the Cuckes the darlings of NYC's downtown club scene for a while; and giddy confections like "Who Betrays Me" and the surfy "Don't Watch TV." The bonus track “Keep Your Cool” was recorded when the band won recording studio time in a battle of the bands sponsored by WDHA in 1985. The second bonus track, “The Body Groove,” was recorded live at Ziggy’s nightclub in Winston-Salem, NC, in September 1985 by club soundman Dan Griffin, who later became the group's touring sound tech. Give this a listen and it'll cheer you up, I promise.

EVAN O'DONNELL - Concrete Concrete AIN SVP AVR (evanodonnell.bandcamp.com)

CONNECTIONS – Midnight Run (Anyway)

MARTHA – Blisters In The Pit Of My Heart (Dirtnap)

NO ICE - Come On Feel The NO ICE (NOICE.bandcamp.com)

DIPLOPIA - A Season Atones (diplopia.bandcamp.com)

EXPERIMENT 34 - "Charismanic" EP (experiment34music.bandcamp.com)

ROY ORBITRON - Girls' Boyfriends (royorbitron.org)

UNDERLINED PASSAGES - Fantastic Quest (Mint 400)

SINK TAPES - EP 16 (sinktapes.bandcamp.com)

GOLDEN BLOOM - Searching For Sunlight (goldenbloommusic.com)

It took one song - 2009's "Doomsday Devices" - to convert me into a diehard fan of Shawn Fogel and his always-shifting band Golden Bloom. A near-perfect indie pop tune reminiscent of Fountains of Wayne, "Doomsday Devices' introduced Fogel as a smooth-voiced crooner with a sharp wit and a knack for earwig melodies. On the crowd-funded Searching For Sunlight, there are still echoes of those days - check out the wistful "Great Unknown" - but for the most part, Fogel has moved beyond being just clever and cute. If I compare him to James Taylor, you might think it's a left-handed compliment, but Taylor's early work remains an indelible chapter of the Great American Songbook, and that's the caliber of craft Fogel's exercising here. Every penny he raised to fund this album clearly went into maximizing his time recording and mixing Every tone, every instrument, every moment sounds meticulously arranged, yet always organic and natural. Fogel's voice has never sounded better - warm, inviting, tinged with palapable regret on the beautiful "Books You've Never Read," or hopeful and uplifting on the harmonic title track. This one's going right at the top of the journal I'm keeping of the best albums of the year; I'll be seeing you again in December, buddy.

SUN CLUB - The Dongo Dorango (ATO)

J HACHA DE ZOLA – Escape From Fat Kat City (jhachadezola.bandcamp.com)

Equal parts Tom Waits gutter poetry and Dresden Dolls Brechtian angst, Escape From Fat Kat City was recorded by Jersey City’s J Hacha De Zola in the shadows of Rahway State Prison. Those grim halls seemed to have rubbed off, since this album has a murky gloom that’s hard to shake. De Zola has the flair of a carny barker and the calculated use of trumpet and accordion throughout this album adds just the right oddball touches to evoke seamy back alleys and the disreputable allure of circus sideshows. “Let It Go” showcases a soulful strut while “Hold Tight” might have sprung from a Sixties spy-flick soundtrack; the cinematic theme continues on the film noir-ish “Ice Cream & Cigarettes,” the Spaghetti Western languor of “Blue Sky,” and the piano ballad “City Girls,” which transports the listener to an intimate European café. This is a wonderfully evocative album where every song seems to create its own space and backdrop. You just may have to renew your passport to give it a proper listen.

YOUNG CUM – Something To Eat (Say No Go)

Hands down, the Worst Band Name in NYC goes to Young Cum, Bones Howell’s new rock ‘n’ roll quartet. A name like that is just about guaranteed to turn off discerning listeners who might actually dig this tuneful homage to Seventies blues-based punk and Eighties Lou Reed. “Dead End Bar” is a near perfect pop song, catchy as heck and bright as a new penny, while the tongue-twisting “Big Glasses” and the urgently screaming guitars of “Bloodrage” recall vintage Jim Carroll. A bit of glam boogie enlivens the crunchy guitars and gritty vocals of “Tradin’.” I give this EP four out of five stars, but sorry, Bones, I’m taking one away for the dumb name.

BAY KEE – Wonder Wild (Human Sound)

Christine Spilka’s voice is a gift, and it’s treated not just with respect but exaltation on the 8-song debut of her new solo project, Bay Kee. Spilka’s solo turns in the Jean Jackets, her previous band, suggested a millennial Liz Phair, adept at indie-pop. But Bay Kee opens up entirely new vistas, with vocals that capture both the innocence of childhood and the world-weary ennui of a young woman who’s passing out of adolescence into adulthood. Each track here has been crafted at Mama Coco’s Funky Kitchen to swath that voice in just the right accoutrements, from gossamer folk-pop to the ethereal neo-psychedelia of “Shady Birds,” with its analog synths and minimalist percussion (from ex-Jean Jacket Dominic Knowles.) There is a gentle but insistent groove that runs through tracks like “Red Rover” and “New Star” that makes the inclusion of Josh Parris’ rap on “Yeah, no” seem more of an inevitability than a surprise. This is music that seems destined for the mainstream, no matter how intimate the delivery or confessional the material.

RIOT ON THE DANCE FLOOR: The Story of Randy Now & City Gardens (DVD) (www.citygardenfilm.com)

"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend:" That line from John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance might make great westerns, but it's problematic with documentaries. If your goal is to tell the story of a New Jersey concert venue and the dedicated maniac who made it all happen, do you stay true to history and lay it all out, warts and all, or include only the parts that people want to remember? That's my problem with Riot On The Dance Floor; it's a nostalgic look back at Trenton's City Gardens and a love letter to its promoter, Randy "Now" Ellis, who's portrayed as the victim of his own obsessive love for bringing live music to Trenton.

Director Steve Tozzi intercuts found Super-8 footage and early VHS video from the club with talking head interviews of former staffers, fans, and artists, using Randy Now's current circumstances as a framing device. (Nearly broke and without any savings, Randy is seen scraping out a meager living promoting small shows in his native Bordentown.) It's a theme that's returned to a few too many times, so that admirtation for this remarkable man nearly turns to pity. I wonder if that's the tone Steve Tozzi wanted to project?

The documentary does do a great job at illuminating City Gardens' role as a major East Coast hub for the burgeoning hardcore scene of the Eighties, as well as its role in nurturing homegrown talent like Ween (a City Gardens favorite,) Vision, and the Bouncing Souls. City Gardens also became a favorite tour stop for bands like Black Flag, the Dead Kennedys, GWAR, and the Butthole Surfers, and the documentary includes interviews with Henry Rollins and Jello Biafra, who explicate that history. It's a shame the filmmakers couldn't include more documentation of some of the "college rock" superstars who stopped at City Gardens too, from the Replacements and Husker Du to the Violent Femmes and X. It wasn't all hardcore, all the time.

Randy Now, now.

After Randy and City Gardens, the third major player here is the city of Trenton itself, and I was glad to see the filmmakers take the time to talk a bit about the city, its history, and its decline, and how an unused warehouse in a scarily sketchy part of a decaying urban ghetto managed to attract so many rabid fans and eager musicians.

The documentary does a less complete job in explicating City Garden's huge influence in the industrial dance music boom of the Nineties (where's Nine Inch Nails? Peter Murphy? ) and the film barely mentions the club's long run of successful DJ-driven dance nights. You can also argue (and I will) that there's way too much Ween (and only Mickey Melchiondo, at that, no Aaron or Dave or Claude or Kirk) and not nearly enough mention of bands like Shades Apart, Adrenalin OD, Ben Vaughn. and other Jersey/Philly staples of the scene. Fugazi only played City Gardens twice, but the ubiquitous Ian MacKaye gets loads of screen time; yet the doctumentary barely mentions the Ramones, who hold the record for the most City Gardens gigs (22!)

There are a few fun anecdotes- like how Randy solved his all-ages problem after the drinking age in NJ went up by installing a hot dog machine and getting a restaurant license - but the documentary skips over the (to me, interesting) factoid that John Stewart worked as a CG bartender before his career took off, or that after Black Flag, Henry Rollins recruited his Rollins Band from the South Jersey musicians he met at City Gardens. The documentary also skips over Green Day's two soldout shows, which convinced the band it was time to leave Lookout! and sign to a major label.

The City Gardens building today

The best way to enjoy Riot On The Dance Floor is as a companion piece to Steven DiLodovico and Amy Yates Wuelfing's oral history, No Slam Dancing, No Stage Diving, No Spikes. Together, you get it all - the sights and the sounds as well as the kind of in-depth reporting that just wasn't possible in a 100-minute film. Kudos to Tozzi for making ample use of Ken Salerno's concert photography (some of which appeared in Jersey Beat back in the day,) and the soundtrack - compiled by CG alum Toby Record - will provide attentive listeners with a potpourri of Jersey bands from the era who didn't make it into the film proper. (If licensing can be worked out, I'd love to see the soundtrack released as a standalone compilation album.)

If you're old enough to remember City Gardens, this documentary will bring back nostalgic memories (and possibly some night terrors, if you were ever caught in one of the venue's ferocious mosh pits;) and if you missed the whole thing, then Riot On The Dance Floor will give you a peek at a remarkable piece of New Jersey musical history, The DVD (which includes a bonus disc of outtakes that I haven't seen yet) is available for pre-order from citygardensfilm.com.

HAVE MOICY 2: The Hoodoo Bash (Red Newt Records)

Back in 1976, Robert Christgau proclaimed Have Moicy! "the greatest folk album of the rock era" and Rolling Stone listed it in their Top 20 albums of the year. The compilation featured Peter Stampfel and the Unholy Modal Rounders, Jeffrey Fredericks & The Clamtones, and Michael Hurley, and its mishmash of traditional acoustic instrumentation and druggy lyrics set the template for the freak-folk and anti-folk movements that would follow.

Nearly 40 years later (in 2012, to be exact,) Peter Stampfel recruited a new batch of freaks, folkies, and friends, and in slapdash recording sessions over a few days in Portland, Oregon, finally managed to record a sequel. Fredericks died years ago and Hurley was invited to the sessions but declined, so Have Moicy 2 features a mostly new cast of characters and is very much a Stampfel family affair: Daughter Zoe, NYC's Jeffrey Lewis, and Seattle legend Baby Gramps have all made albums with Peter, and Brooklyn's Down Hill Strugglers (which includes onetime Holy Modal Rounder Sam Shepard's son Walker) provide backup on banjo, fiddle, guitar, bass, and harmonica. The Northwest contingent of the ensemble also includes Brooklyn singer/songwriter Kristin Andreassen (who hit it off so well with Jeffrey Lewis that she wound up moving to Brooklyn and touring for a few years in his band,) as well as folksinger (and former Rounder) Robin Remaily, who along with Stampfel appeared on the first Have Moicy!

Have Moicy 2 is much more of a collaborative effort than its predecessor, with many of the songs co-written by the album's stars; on several tracks, a different artist will sing each verse. (Happily, unlike the original, this Have Moicy - the CD version, at least - comes with extensive liner notes that let the listener suss who's singing what.) Not that Stampfel, Lewis, and Baby Gramps (who croaks like Max Schneider's Popeye) have voices that could be mistaken for anyone else. The Cd booklet provides a fascinating look at how some of these songs came togethe, and the recording process, which involved all the musicians standing in a circle with a single set of earphones for the engineer, was anything but ideal. But as the first Have Moicy proved, and as Jeff Lewis suggests in his liner notes, if you gather a few great creative folks in one studio, each one only has to bring in a small number of great tunes and you've got a classic album pretty easily. Nothing about making Have Moicy 2 went easily though, and that includes the three years the tapes sat in a studio waiting to be mixed and mastered. Now that it's here though, it's well worth the wait.

If you're a fan of the two Lewis/Stampfel albums, you'll enjoy their collaborations here, including "Nonsense," the creationist-bashing "Intelligent Design," and the lost-in-the-woods lament "The Call." Kristin and Peter team up for the silly but very fun "Butt's On Fire," and Baby Gramps' "Nailers Consumption" makes for the perfect introduction to this Northwest oddball. "Eat That Roadkill" has Stampfel updating an old minstrel song from the 1880's with comic effect (another version appeared on his Don Giovanni album with the Brooklyn & Lower Manhattan Banjo Squadron.) But while Stampfel, Lewis, and Baby Gramps stand out, like the first Have Moicy, HM2 is very much a showcase for everyone involved, so Remaily and several members of the Down Hill Strugglers get their own tunes, and none disappoint. The tracks by Elli Smith, Craig Judelman, and Walker Shepard, shorn of Stampfel and Lewis' goofy wit, nonetheless share the same warm, campfire vibe, with fiddles and banjo, jew's harp and harmonica, like something that might have drifted in on the AM band from some hillbilly radio station back in the Twenties or Thirties. And it's fitting that Robin Remaily's "All My Friends" closes the album, since it's the track that sounds most as if it might have come from the first Have Moicy sessions.

Peter Stampfel discussed the making of Have Moicy 2 in the Jersey Beat interview we did in 2014, which you can read here or listen to here.

ICED INK - "Willie Nelson Prince" EP (icedink.bandcamp.com)

MAN NAMED PEARL - -Quietus Make - (mannamedpearl.bandcamp.com)

Jersey-bred, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter Jesse Turits has reinvented himself as Man Named Pearl, leaving behind the "aw shucks" backporch folk of his earlier recordings for ethereal dub-based soundscapes as otherworldly as the Himalayas. Droning harmonium combines with Turits' moaning vocals and minimalist drum beats on the meditative "When You Woke," while "Quietly And Slow" bravely strips away all instrumentation for a soulful a cappella blues. On tracks like "Insomniac's Lullaby" and "Atlas," the seductive "Coo" and the gently rocking "Blue Blue Sea," Turits' folk roots reveal themselves with strummed acoustic guitars and beguiling melodies, but it's all recorded with a psychedelic sense of space that's simultaneously disorienting and comforting.

THE UNLOVABLES / DIRT BIKE ANNIE - REUNION SHOW (Whoa Oh Records)

SHELLSHAG - WHY’D I HAVE TO GET SO HIGH? (Don Giovanni)

BIG FIGMENT - CHIMAERICS (Bigfigment.bandcamp.com)

From the freaky sandbox that is Mama Coco's Funky Kitchen comes the new album from Brooklyn's Big Figment, whose horn driven funk combines with Jennae Santos' sultry vocals to conjure up a mix of Seventies jazz fusion and funky prog-rock. These cats can do three and a half minute pop songs or jam forever, but either way you're going on a trippy journey where Miles vibes with Maria Muldaur and everybody at the party gets really stoned. From the nearly 6-minute "Cut Knuckle," with its anxious, undulating bass riff, to the 7-minute lysergic mindtrip of "Bug Zapper," to the smoky jambalaya of the 11-minute "Cookin'," Big Figment will keep your head spinning and your ears entranced.

LAURA STEVENSON - COCKSURE (Don Giovanni)

KINKY FRIENDMAN - The Loneliest Man I Ever Met (Avenue A)

DOCTOR BARBER - "Sick Sad World" EP (edonway.wix.com)

THE DEAFENING COLORS -
Carousel Season (thedeafeningcolors.bandcamp.com)

MINIBOONE - Bad Sports (Ernest Jenning)

A double apology is due here, to Miniboone for taking so long to review this release, and to my readers for keeping them in the dark so long about this terrific collection of pop-rock gems. While they toil in near obscurity in Jersey and NYC clubs, Miniboone shares much of the same DNA as chartbusters like Arcade Fire and Vampire Weekend. Bad Sports overflows with big catchy hooks and singalong melodies, intelligent lyrics and a couple of killer song titles ("I Know You Would Do Anything For Love But What Would You Do For Me," for starters.) The songwriting ranges from trenchant and bitter ("IRL") to Nick Lowe-like pop ("Basic Song," "Erasure") to wistful ("Any Other City") to quirky new-wave ("No Fun In The Funhouse.") Need a pick-me-up? Pick up a copy of Bad Sports.

THE PLANES - "Evacuation Kit" EP (theplanesnyc.bancamp.com)

THE ANTICS - "Emily Jones" EP (wearetheantics.com)

THE PAPER JETS - "Almost Fine" EP (The FDR Label)

Are The Paper Jets the best rock band to come out of Princeton since Saves The Day? On the strength of this sophomore EP, they're certainly heading in that direction. On the first three tracks here, the power trio echoes Cheap Trick, combustible glam rock, Fountains of Wayne's urbane cynicism, and Ted Leo's rallying dynamism. "Jo Don't Let Me" (and bonus track "As Long As I Can See The Light") are the obligatory ballads that earns extra points for sounding way more Paul McCartney than the might-be-expected Bon Jovi or Springsteen influences. The Paper Jets have brains, chops, hook, and soul. And as should be obvious, a very bright future.

THE DAN McLANE FAMILY BAND - "Passion Of The Christ/Love Me" EP (thedanmclanefamilyband.bandcamp.com)

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