Archive Review: Various Artists - CBGB’s and the Birth of Punk (2002)

A fleabit Bowery dive every bit as filthy as its reputation makes it out to be, CBGB’s has earned its place in history as the nursery school of punk rock. The Reverend made his pilgrimage to this rock ‘n’ roll mecca back in ‘82, hitting the club with some friends after a long night drinking pitchers of Rolling Rock at the Village’s Rooftop Tavern with the ghost of Jackson Pollock. The bands were largely unknown (tho’ the Dancin’ Hoods did subsequently make a couple good albums), the beer was warm and CBGB’s bathroom was worse than any Southern truckstop I’d ever thrown up in.

To top it all off, I left behind the umbrella I had bought on the street from a Korean grocer earlier that day. ‘Course, by 1982, Joey, Stiv, Debbie and Richard had shuffled off to greener pastures and even Lester had left this mortal coil. CBGB’s was still the coolest place on the planet to be at that moment and if we experienced even a little of the club’s famed vibe, it was worth the sojourn.   
   

CBGB’s and the Birth of Punk

The club’s legend, of course, is not based on its ambiance (dark and smelly) or even its shithole bathrooms (proudly pictured on a CBGB’s T-shirt available on the club’s web site). The many talented bands that graced the stage at CBGB’s in the early-to-late seventies is what earned the club and its proprietor Hilly Krystal a place in rock ‘n’ roll history. As outlined in British music journalist Johnny Chandler’s liner notes for CBGB’s and the Birth of U.S. Punk, Krystal originally opened the club in 1973 in New York’s run-down Bowery district as a venue for “Country, Bluegrass and Blues” (CBGB). Crowds weren’t exactly queuing up to buy tickets for the club so when Television’s Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell approached Krystal in early ‘74 about becoming a sort of house band, playing the same night every week, he agreed. Soon folks like the Ramones, Debbie Harry, and Patti Smith were hanging out, performing, and creating a music scene that would have worldwide impact. Krystal was never afraid to book unsigned bands, thus opening the club up to the best and the brightest talents from across the country.

Compiled by Chandler, the U.K. CD release of CBGB’s and the Birth of U.S. Punk offers up a dozen and a half tracks, ranging from important punk antecedents like the Velvet Underground and the Stooges to 1960s-era garage bands like the Seeds and the Sonics. A fair representation of homegrown N.Y.C. talent is included, such as the New York Dolls (who frequently performed at the Mercer rather than CBGB), Suicide, Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers, and the Ramones. Some of the big names associated with the club are included, such as Blondie, the Dead Boys, and Television, represented here by an unreleased live version of “Friction” actually recorded in New Jersey.

Licensing difficulties obviously influenced the track selection, since there’s nothing here from the Talking Heads or Patti Smith, both important CBGB’s attractions back in the day. Cleveland’s Electric Eels and Pere Ubu merit inclusion, both bands having made an important trek to New York to perform at the club. Chandler’s odd choice of a Dead Kennedys’ song – certainly better suited to a West Coast punk rock compilation – stands out quite starkly. CBGB’s and the Birth of U.S. Punk is meant to provide an audio history of both the NYC scene and its impact on what would later become known as “punk rock.” Chandler has done a fairly admirable job in assembling the compilation, tracing the evolution of punk’s first generation from its ‘60s roots to its inevitable early 1980s conclusion as it crashed-and-burned under the weight of its own ambitions.

Touchstones In Rock ‘n’ Roll History

However, do we really a document such as this? Of the artists included on the CD that actually haunted the CBGB’s stage at some time, only a handful of them made it into the 1980s intact, and only the Ramones and Pere Ubu stretched a career into the ‘90s. Although nearly every band featured here had some small degree of influence on modern music, most are merely the favorites of aging and overwrought critics and record collectors with too much time on their hands. Likewise, the dubious influence of bands such as the Velvet Underground, the New York Dolls, the 13th Floor Elevators, and Television is overstated – none experienced a significant enough commercial presence to influence listeners beyond their inner circle. They are touchstones in rock ‘n’ roll history – more people are familiar with their names than with their music.   

Ask the average fan of, say, Down By Law or Pennywise about CBGB’s and they might mumble something about the Ramones and not much else. Although still offering live bands seven days a week, I’d bet the farm that Krystal makes more money hawking CBGB’s T-shirts online than he does from the club’s take at the door. CBGB is a symbol of a long-passed era, an aberration in time rather than a thriving creative venue. The legendary Cantrell’s club in Nashville provides as much the same sort of looking glass into the past for Music City scenesters. The club featured national acts like the Replacements alongside local talents like Jason & the Scorchers and the White Animals during the 1980s. In both cases, the long-term influence of either CBGB or Cantrell’s on their city’s local music scenes is inconsequential beyond their status as brief historical curiosities.  

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

The British fascination with the roots of punk (or sixties garage rock, for that matter) is admirable, especially considering American fast-food culture that ignores the past in favor of a bright, shining present. There comes a time, however, when we have to stop obsessing with the past. I like the New York Dolls, the Stooges, Television, and the Ramones every bit as much as the next fellow, but it is unlikely that yet another compilation featuring these artists is going to change the world, much less attract many new listeners.

CBGB’s, the club, and the punk rock era that it ushered in has been documented to death. Being the consummate record geek, the Reverend bought a copy of CBGB’s and the Birth of U.S. Punk just like many of you. However, from my seat, the compilation smells like a rotting corpse, Chandler’s erstwhile efforts akin to necrophilia. Your money is better spent on a White Stripes CD or perhaps a Ramones reissue. (Ocho Records, released April 8th, 2002)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™

CD Review: Blank Generation: A Story of U.S./Canadian Punk & Its Aftershocks 1975-1981 (2024)

Multi-disc punk rock compilations are a dime-a-dozen these days, and I’m lookin’ for the guy supplying the coin. England’s Cherry Red Records has done yeoman’s work in digging up and offering long-lost punk obscurities with a seemingly endless stream of chronological clam-shelled box sets that are all worthy of your patronage. However, with the label’s recently released Blank Generation: A Story of U.S./Canadian Punk & Its Aftershocks 1975-1981, they’ve outdone themselves. A deluxe five-CD box set packaged in a 5.5”x7.5” hardbound book, Blank Generation offers up succinct liner notes with plenty of B&W and color photos, making it as much a historical document as it is a collection of great music.

While the set certainly ain’t cheap – I paid $50 and change for my copy – it works out to roughly a sawbuck per CD (or less than 42-cents per song). Considering the rarity of some of tracks here, any one of which you’d pay double-dollar collector’s prices to acquire on a 45rpm slab, Blank Generation is a steal for the dedicated punk rawk fan. It’s the music that we’re all here for, and Blank Generation features 130 tracks from North American punk, post-punk, and punk-adjacent bands and their various progeny. Some of the bands included verge on being household names – Blondie, Devo, and Patti Smith come to mind – while others would still be familiar to anybody that followed music rags like Creem, Bomp!, or Trouser Press back in the day.

So, let’s get the niceties out of the way, shall we? Yes, Blank Generation includes well-worn punk “classics” that have become ubiquitous and tediously familiar for nursing home residents after nearly five decades. Scratch the obvious Richard Hell & the Voidoids’ title track off your bingo card; ditto for the Heartbreakers (“Chinese Rocks”), Pere Ubu (“Final Solution”), the Avengers (“We Are the One”), the Weirdos (“We Got the Neutron Bomb”), the Germs (“Lexicon Devil”), X (“White Girl”), Minor Threat (“Minor Threat”), the Ramones (“Rockaway Beach”), Dead Boys (“Sonic Reducer”), and the Dead Kennedys (“Holiday In Cambodia”). Sure, these are all great songs, but even the most half-assed punk fan is sick to death of hearing them by now.  

Blank Generation: A Story of U.S./Canadian Punk & Its Aftershocks 1975-1981

However, even for those bands you probably know, Blank Generation digs a little deeper into the punk bag and plucks out plums that qualify as “deep cuts” by any standard of measurement. Take Blondie, for instance…you might expect to hear hits like the disco-punk “Heart of Glass” or the new wavish “One Way Or Another.” Instead, the producers/compilers chose “Rip Her To Shreds,” an original track from the band’s indie label debut. Framing singer Debbie Harry in less of a 1960s-styled pop style, her lyrical delivery here is snotty, punkish, and insulting to the nth degree, Harry’s snarl accompanied by dense instrumental clouds that evoke both previous-decade garage rock (especially the chiming organ) as well as looking forward to the dawning of the “new wave” 1980s   

The Modern Lovers’ “Someone I Care About” is a wonderfully ramshackle and somewhat angular garage rock-adjacent track with instruments that are seemingly working at cross-purposes in a valiant sacrifice for the musical greater good. Jonathan Richman’s vox are off-kilter and wailed above the consistent din of the soundtrack, which makes for an exciting and invigorating performance (plus, it’s not the often-compiled “Road Runner,” no matter how great it may be…). An almost-forgotten track from 1976’s Radio Ethiopia, the Patti Smith Group’s “Pissing In A River” later fit comfortably onto the 1980 Times Square movie soundtrack. It’s a damn fine slab o’ estrogen-fueled heartbreak, punkish in intensity and cinematic in delivery with a lofty, art-rock soundtrack with haunting keyboards and slashing guitars to paint a painfully dark portrait. But it’s Smith’s emotionally-tortured vocal performance that raises the song above the punk rock ghetto.   

Q: Are Devo a “punk rock” band? A: They are Devo! Falling off the evolutionary ladder somewhere along the line, the beloved band from Akron, Ohio were alternately punk, new wave, art-rock, and surreal unlike any we’d ever heard before. Hailing from their 1978 debut album, Devo’s “Come Back Jonee” was produced by the definitely “not punk” Brian Eno (who also worked with the new wavish Talking Heads). An oblique song with nearly-buried vocals barely rising above the pogoing backing instrumentation (which incorporates guitar, synths, drums, and other noises), it’s punkish in spirit if not execution. By contrast, Wall of Voodoo’s “Call Box 1-2-3” sounds more like Devo than “Come Back Jonee,” the song evincing the same sort of ‘odd bodkins’ ambiance; bouncy, semi-irritating instrumentation; and strangely-phrased Stan Ridgeway vocals that come close, but still miles away from their college radio hit “Mexican Radio.”

Exciting, Supersonic Sounds

The box includes a lot of truly obscure tracks as well, many only originally available on 45rpm slabs and a tad bit pricey to acquire via Discogs or eBay these days. Cherry Red seems to have front-loaded the most familiar songs and artists on the first two discs, ‘cause the tracklists get weirder, funkier, and punkier with CDs three through five. That’s not to say that the first couple o’ flapjacks are lacking in obscurities, though…take Destroy All Monsters’ “Bored,” a band and song that barely crept beyond the borders of Wayne County, Michigan in 1978. A Motor City “supergroup” of sorts, featuring Ron Asheton of the Stooges and Michael Davis of MC5, and fronted by the gorgeous femme fatale Niagara (née Lynn Rovner), they were a great live band and “Bored,” their first single, established the template for much of what would follow. Niagara’s voice barely floats above the clashing guitars and cascading drumbeats, but the effect is otherworldly and enchanting in its ennui.

Long before legends like the Replacements and Hüsker Dü emerged from a thriving Minneapolis music scene, the Suicide Commandos were rockin’ stages with their loud ‘n’ fast punk rock sound. Signed to Mercury Records’ Blank label (along with Pere Ubu), they only released a single studio album, but their Make A Record album is well worth tracking down. The band’s “Match/Mismatch” is a good example of this unduly-obscure band’s range, displaying just a bit of the art-rock noise their friends and labelmates Pere Ubu pursued, but mostly just cranking up the amps and cranking out three-chord, supersonic rock ‘n’ roll with turbocharged instrumentation and passable – not laughable – vocal harmonies, that blazed a trail for other Minnesota bands to follow…artists like Curtiss A, whose “I Don’t Want To Be President” hits your eardrums like an earthbound meteor. The self-professed “Dean of Scream,” Curtiss Almsted kicked around the Twin Cities for years in a number of bands, but never recorded anything as potent as this 1979 Twin/Tone Records single.

Crime’s “Hot Wire My Heart” provides another electrifying jolt of high-voltage punk rock, the San Francisco band early adopters of the aesthetic, releasing the song as a single in 1976. Produced in glorious lo-fi with a veritable wall of noise behind the vocals, the band’s amateurish first effort is nevertheless incredibly effective, with ringing guitars and shouted vocals delivered with more ‘joie de vivre’ than better-produced, bigger-budget label releases. On the other side of the country, Pure Hell was terrorizing Philadelphia audiences with “Noise Addiction,” the first African-American Afropunk outfit every bit as young, loud, and snotty as any band working the ‘bucket o’ blood’ club circuit and one worth your time to discover. They’ve been a lot of things over the years – punks, power-pop, alt-rockers, bluesmen – but Red Kross was, perhaps, never punkier and prouder than on the slash ‘n’ burn “Clorox Girls,” from their self-titled 1981 debut EP on Posh Boy Records, which needs less than a single frantic minute to burn itself into your medulla oblongata.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

There are a lot of other exciting sounds to be found on Blank Generation; too many to ramble on about here, to be sure. But if your musical tastes run towards the punk, post-punk, and power-pop oeuvre, you’ll probably dig tracks by Television (the wiry “Friction”), the Dictators (the mondo “I Live For Cars and Girls”), the Residents (their mutant cover of the Stones’ classic “Satisfaction”), the Dils (the jaunty “Mr. Big”), the Bags (the high-octane “Survive”), Pagans (the amped-up garage rock gem “Street Where Nobody Lives”), Chrome (the syncopated electro-punk of “New Age,”), Non Compos Mentis (the power-pop/hardcore mashup “Ultimate Orgasm”), and DMZ (the Boston-bred “Bad Attitude”) who, in turn, begat the Lyres (the‘60s-styled proto-punk “Buried Alive”).

I’ve been writing about this stuff since the beginning, decades “frittered” away banging my head against the proverbial wall, and the Blank Generation box still manages to offer up cool bands I’ve never heard before (Black Randy & The Metro Squad, the Young Canadians, the Dishrags, Crash Course In Science) or had only read about in dog-eared copies of Bomp! and Trouser Press (Cleveland punks Mirrors and Electric Eels, New Math, the Middle Class, Howard Werth, et al).    

For you young ‘uns who didn’t enter this metaphysical plane of existence until the changing of the millennium, a lot – a majority, maybe – of these tracks will be brand new to your hungry ears. As such, Blank Generation is either the only punk rock compilation set you’ll ever need, or a welcome catalyst for further investigation into the early history of the genre. For those of us who rode that hobby horse from the beginning, before the paint began to chip off and tarnish set in, Blank Generation is a reminder of how fresh, new, and exciting rock ‘n’ roll can be. Either way, this is a set worthy of inclusion in even the most comprehensive music library. (Cherry Red Records, released 2023)

Buy Blank Generation from Amazon

The Dirtiest Dozen: Punk's Most Important Bands (2023)

The Clash: The Only Band That Matters

In these troubled days and times, the first lesson learned by young music journalists is how to write lists. It doesn’t matter what you’re rating – albums, musicians, record labels – as long as it’s guaranteed to piss off half your readership and confirm the supremely good taste of the other half. Most importantly, lists of, say, “the top two thousand chord-crunching guitar gods” are certain to grab eyeballs, which placates bored and jaded advertisers who might take their filthy lucre elsewhere...

The Reverend certainly isn’t above such hijinks and, during my six-year-plus stint as the About.com “Blues Expert” circa 2008-2014, I was required to create numerous lists and slideshows (‘memba them?), often utilizing corporate-approved, SEO-friendly “key words” like “lacrosse,” “Obama,” or “head cheese,” largely because the bosses had already paid big bucks for some dodgy roster of Google-guaranteed dictionary entries from some grifty company touting their ninja-like search-engine prowess.

In this spirit, I found inspiration in a recent Facebook discussion in which I was informed by one tender young soul that she was 64 years old and was “there” and, therefore, she knew more about the subject than I – a rockcrit who has been writing about punk-rock since it was in diapers – and that, contrary to my opinion, the Dead Kennedys weren’t a punk band, dammit! That debatable position got my cerebellum a quivering, so I figured that I’d scribble my own list of the twelve most important punk-rock bands.

As much as I love pre-punk rockers like the Dictators, the Flamin’ Groovies, and the New York Dolls, I haven’t included them below no matter how significant their influence on the genre may have been. If the list seems tilted towards American bands, that’s my experience, and although Britania ruled the waves from 1976-78, by ’79 the Yanks had clearly picked up the punk-rock torch and ran with it. One last caveat – your list is probably different, so you can bitch at me in the comments below…  

Godfather of Punk: Johnny Thunders
An exception, of sorts, to my ‘no NY Dolls’ comment above, Thunders’ solo career was clearly a major influence on punk and other raucous-based sleaze-rock lifeforms. After the Dolls, the guitarist formed the Heartbreakers, who shipped off to Merry Ole England to take part of the “Anarchy Tour” with the Clash and the Damned. The Heartbreakers’ only LP, 1977’s L.A.M.F., remains a punk-rock textbook to this day while Thunders’ proper solo debut, 1978’s So Alone, bridged the gap between old-school rock and the new wave. Recorded with Heartbreakers Walter Lure and Billy Rath and with studio contributors like Phil Lynott (Thin Lizzy), Steve Marriott (Humble Pie), Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders), Peter Perrett (the Only Ones), and Steve Jones and Paul Cook (Sex Pistols), So Alone is a bona fide punk classic and Thunder’s best album.      

12. Green Day
A lot of people might argue about Green Day being included on this list, but I’d contend that no single band did more to revive a moribund mid-‘90s punk-rock scene than the trio of Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tré Cool. The Bay area band made its bones playing 924 Gilman and coming up through the indie label ranks but when their sophomore album, Kerplunk, sold better than 50k copies for Lookout! Records, the major labels took notice.

Green Day’s Reprise Records debut, Dookie, has sold better than 20 million copies worldwide to date and opened the door for bands like Bad Religion, Rancid, NoFX, Descendents, and Pennywise to walk through and achieve varying levels of success. Subsequent multi-Platinum™ albums like Insomniac, Nimrod, and the classic American Idiot have seen Green Day evolve beyond their punk roots to become a solid rock ‘n’ roll outfit. In the meantime, they are arguably the best-selling punk band of all time.  

11. The Saints
Although Australia’s Radio Birdman could easily be included in this position, their Motor City-styled musical mayhem didn’t reach U.S. audiences until Deniz Tek and Rob Younger had moved onto other dalliances. Still, Radios Appear is a great rock ‘n’ roll album. The Saints, on the other hand, successfully made the leap from the minor league Australian punk scene to the bright lights of London and, over the course of three critically-acclaimed albums, forged a unique identity based on a faster-louder sound fueled by chainsaw guitars and relentless tempos. Formed in 1973 by singer Chris Bailey, guitarist Ed Kuepper, and drummer Ivor Hay, they released their classic 1976 single “(I’m) Stranded” before the Damned or the Sex Pistols could get their rage cemented onto vinyl, and their 1977 single “This Perfect Day” hit #34 on the U.K. charts.

Albums like 1977’s (I’m) Stranded and 1978’s Eternally Yours (impressively produced by Bailey and Kuepper rather than some label hack) saw the band pursuing its own muse, refusing to become EMI’s idea of a cookie-cutter punk band. The band’s critically-acclaimed but commercially-unsuccessful third album, Prehistoric Sounds, further expanded the Saints’ musical vista, but after they were dropped by EMI, Kuepper left the band to Bailey, who carried on with new musicians for a handful of albums throughout the 1980s that failed to capture their early magic.   

10. Bad Religion
Although they were contemporaries of similar hardcore innovators as Minor Threat, the Germs, and Black Flag, Bad Religion didn’t really infect the rock mainstream with their erudite, literary lyrics and machine-gun instrumentation until the 1990s punk-rock revival. By the time that Bad Religion took their sound to the major leagues with 1994’s excellent Stranger Than Fiction, they’d already released seven albums through their own indie Epitaph Records imprint, from 1982’s How Could Hell Be Any Worse? through 1993’s Recipe For Hate. Although not as notorious or controversial as many of their contemporaries, Bad Religion’s sly social commentary and uncompromising political stance had a profound influence on bands like Green Day, Rise Against, Anti-Flag, and the Offspring.

When Bad Religion signed with Atlantic Records for Stranger Than Fiction, a lot of old fans cried “sell-out,” but I defy the average punter to legitimately argue that a performance like “21st Century (Digital Boy)” or “Better Off Dead” is weaker, musically or lyrically than, say, “Modern Man” or “American Jesus.” The Atlantic association resulted in four solid albums that inched their way into the upper reaches of the album chart and, as they were afforded a friendlier production budget, helped bring a score of new fans to the band’s later Epitaph releases like The Dissent of Man (2010) or True North (which actually charted Top 20 in 2013!). Additionally, Epitaph’s release of albums from bands like Rancid, the Offspring, Hot Water Music, and Pennywise helped fuel the flames of the ‘90s punk revival.      

9. The Germs
I could have just as easily included Richard Hell & the Voidoids at number eight, the band’s lone album, Blank Generation, providing both a cultural identity (“we’re the blank generation”) as well as a personal style (safety pins, etc) for punk-rock to anchor itself. But the Germs, equally-significant in their influence, had one thing that Mr. Myers, et al lacked – mythology. Specifically, that of singer Darby Crash (née Jan Paul Beahm), whose untimely death insured the short-lived band’s legacy. Crash wasn’t the first rocker to “live fast and die young” – Jim, Jimi, and Janis beat him to it by the better part of a decade – but he was one of the youngest, OD’ing on heroin at the barely-legal age of 22 years.

Still, Crash and the Germs rolled and roared through the nascent L.A. punk scene like a runaway bulldozer. Formed in 1976 by school chums Crash and guitarist Pat Smear, they added bassist Lorna Doom and drummer Don Bolles; this is the line-up that recorded the Joan Jett-produced 1979 album (GI) which, in and of itself, was as impressive a slab of white heat as any other U.S. punk band had released at the time. It was the Germs’ appearance in director Penelope Spheeris’s The Decline of Western Civilization documentary film that expanded the band’s reach beyond the insular L.A. punk scene, however, carrying Darby’s self-destructive antics to a welcoming audience of junior nihilists across the fruited plains. A 2007 biopic about the Germs, What We Do Is Secret, along with a tour by the re-formed band (with actor Shane West, who played Crash in the movie, on the microphone), brought the Germs’ high-voltage sound to the Warped Tour generation.  

8. Black Flag
The only constant in Black Flag is guitarist and songwriter Greg Ginn, who has helmed his jolly band of karmic misfits since the band’s forming in 1976 in Hermosa Beach CA. One of the first hardcore punk outfits in the U.S., Black Flag helped define the hardcore sound, then discarded it just as quickly when Ginn’s musical obsessions took him far afield into heavy metal and free jazz-styled instrumental wank-offs. Still, Ginn’s ever-changing Black Flag roster had an indelible influence on punk-rock not only musically, but visually through the debauched cover art and show flyers created by Raymond Pettibon (Ginn’s brother) and through the band’s independent SST Records label, which released influential (and entertaining) early albums by bands like the Meat Puppets, Dinosaur Jr, the Minutemen, Sonic Youth, Bad Brains, and Hüsker Dü, among others.

There were several distinct eras for Black Flag, but two were particularly significant to the band’s legacy and importance – the “Keith Morris era,” circa 1976-79 and the “Henry Rollins era,” from 1981-86. Morris only appeared on the band’s Nervous Breakdown EP and, subsequently, the Everything Went Black and The First Four Years compilation LPs before jetting from the Flag to form the Circle Jerks and, more recently, Off! By contrast, Rollins appeared on six of the band’s seven full-length studio albums, including classics like 1981’s Damaged and 1984’s My War, while his hyper-intense on-stage persona turbocharged the band’s sound. An appearance in The Decline of Western Civilization catapulted Black Flag beyond the confines of SoCal, carrying their infamy around the world. Much like the Sex Pistols in the U.K., Black Flag directly inspired the creation of bands like Slayer, Tool, and Nirvana here in the states.

7. Minor Threat / Fugazi
What the Dead Kennedys were to west coast hardcore, Minor Threat were to the eastern seaboard. Formed in 1980 by singer Ian MacKaye, drummer Jeff Nelson, bassist/guitarist Brian Baker, and guitarist Lyle Preslar, Minor Threat were only together for around three years, releasing a handful of 45s, a pair of EPs, and a single album, Out of Step, which defined “straight edge” punk for a generation to follow. More importantly, the band was at the forefront of the D.I.Y. indie rock scene, the Dischord Records label founded by MacKaye and Nelson keeping records cheap and gradually expanding beyond releasing hardcore punk records to include all styles of underground rock.

When Minor Threat ran its course, MacKaye formed post-punk outfit Fugazi with guitarist Guy Picciotto, bassist Joe Lally, and drummer Brendan Canty, the band releasing six influential albums of often-experimental rock that expanded the possibilities of hardcore punk into new creative territory. Fugazi were touring missionaries for the D.I.Y. lifestyle, playing over 1,000 shows in all 50 U.S. states and overseas, and with Dischord Records they walked it like they talked it, releasing important and influential albums by bands like Government Issue, Rites of Spring, Dag Nasty, and Jawbox.       

6. The Buzzcocks
Admittedly, the Buzzcocks’ enormous influence was initially limited to the U.K. but, as the band’s timeless and effervescent singles like “Orgasm Addict,” “What Do I Get?,” and “Ever Fallen In Love (With Somebody You Shouldn’t’ve)” meandered across the ocean as import vinyl, they picked up numerous fans stateside. Formed in 1976 by Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto as a musical outlet for their shared Velvet Underground obsession, the pair found inspiration in the Sex Pistols and, before long, were opening for the controversial band and rapidly building a following of their own. Fusing power-pop roots with the energy and zealousness of punk-rock, the band racked up eight chart singles in the U.K. through 1979. Devoto split shortly after “Orgasm Addict,” eventually forming the art-punk outfit Magazine. 

After Devoto’s departure, talented bassist Steve Diggle switched over to guitar and shared songwriting duties with Shelley, which brought a diversity to their sound that led to the aforementioned string of hit singles. Meanwhile, in the U.S., listeners primed by the import 45s eagerly anticipated albums like Another Music In A Different Kitchen and Love Bites (both 1978) and A Different Kind of Tension (1979), which would all later be reissued domestically by I.R.S. Records, which had released the Singles Going Steady compilation to some fanfare in 1980. The band underwent its first of many break-ups in 1980, reuniting several times throughout the years and, after Shelley’s unexpected death in 2018, Diggle carried on the Buzzcocks name, acquitting himself nicely with 2022’s Sonics In the Soul album. A Buzzcocks influence can be heard in bands like the Smiths, Radiohead, and Superchunk, among many others.     

5. The Dead Kennedys
Jon Young, writing for The Trouser Press Record Guide (4th edition, 1991), said that “in the Dead Kennedys, America finally produced a powerful, self-righteously moral band to match the fury of the Sex Pistols,” considering them “as prime pioneers of American hardcore, the Kennedys have been influential, not only by setting a style, sensibility and commendable standards, but with their productive Alternative Tentacles label and active support for grassroots rock activity.” Featuring the manic vocals and socially-charged lyrics of frontman Jello Biafra, the DKs – guitarist East Bay Ray, bassist Klaus Floride, and drummer D.H. Peligro – skewered American traditions and ethics with albums like 1980’s Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables and 1985’s Frankenchrist.

The DKs weren’t without controversy, not only for their incendiary name but also for an uncompromisingly leftist political stance. The turmoil embroiling the band culminated in a 1986 obscenity trial that eventually saw the trumped-up charges dropped, but censorship had already taken its toll and, along with the band’s collective disillusionment with an increasingly-violent hardcore scene, led to their break-up. Although the other DKs got back together and moved on without Biafra as some sort of twisted covers band, Biafra continues to support underground and left-of-the-dial styled bands through Alternative Tentacles. The band shot across the punk rock firmament like a comet, influencing followers like Bad Religion, Green Day, the Minutemen, and Rage Against the Machine.

4. The Damned
English punk rockers the Damned often don’t get the credit they deserve for their reach, innovation, and influence. They were the first U.K. punk band to release a single (1976’s blistering “New Rose”) and album (1977’s Nick Lowe-produced Damned Damned Damned), and they were the first to brave touring the U.S., sailing west across the Atlantic months ahead of the Pistols or the Clash. Although their second album, Music For Pleasure, was unfairly slagged by hometown critics, the Nick Mason (Pink Floyd) produced psych-punk LP has since received kinder reappraisal.

Subsequent album releases like 1979’s Machine Gun Etiquette (described as “T-Rex meets Motörhead”), 1980’s The Black Album, and 1985’s Phantasmagoria added elements of Goth and heavy metal to the band’s pioneering punk sound. The Damned are still rocking to this day, their 2023 album Darkadelic helping corrupt an entirely new generation of young punks. 

 

3. The Ramones
Forming in 1974, the four “brothers” from Forest Hills, Queens NYC – Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, and Tommy – would have a profound effect on the development of punk-rock in the U.S. Pursuing a stripped-down, no-frills style of guitar-rock that incorporated elements of pop and psychedelic-rock, the band’s fast ‘n’ loud delivery, Joey’s original vocals, and their junk culture lyrics quickly earned the Ramones a loyal local following circa 1975. Bridging the gap between proto-punkers like the Dictators and the New York Dolls and first-generation punk-rock outfits like the Dead Boys, Patti Smith, and Richard Hell & the Voidoids, the Ramones brought a unique sound and energy to rock ‘n’ roll that influenced scores of bands to follow. Signing with Sire Records, the Ramones notoriously recorded their self-titled 1976 album for a sparse budget of $6,400; the album would go on to sell hundreds of thousands of copies and eventually be certified for Gold™ Record status.

They would follow their critically-acclaimed debut with a pair of albums in ’77 – Leave Home and Rocket To Russia – which etched in stone the band’s reputation as punk pioneers. The total run time of those first three essential LPs was roughly 90-minutes which, with a total of 42 songs among them, worked out to slightly more than two minutes per song; the Ramones were clearly not working by the hour. Road To Ruin (1978) saw the band begin to expand their sound to incorporate guitar solos and pop melodies, and they worked with legendary producer Phil Spector for 1980’s underrated End of the Century. The band broke up in 1996 with fourteen studio albums under their belt that incorporated everything from punk and hard rock to pop and psychedelia. Influential far beyond their often-meager album sales, the Ramones left behind an undeniable legacy that influenced bands worldwide, from the Misfits, the Beastie Boys, Rancid, and Green Day stateside to the Clash, Sham 69, and the Damned in the U.K. and even Teenage Head in Canada and Shonen Knife in Japan.

2. Sex Pistols
It helps that the Sex Pistols’ legacy that they self-destructed after less than three years together, leaving the vultures to pick at the band’s decaying corpse for decades with scores of dodgy ‘odds ‘n’ sods’ and bootleg-quality live album releases. As for their single legit album, 1977’s Never Mind the Bollocks followed a trio of Top 10 U.K. hit singles – “God Save the Queen,” “Pretty Vacant,” and “Holidays In the Sun” – each seemingly more controversial than the previous.

The string played out through 1979 and the band’s demise, with non-LP singles like “No One Is Innocent,” “Something Else,” “Silly Thing,” and a cover of Eddie Cochran’s classic “C’mon Everybody” all charting Top 10. The Pistols directly inspired a generation of bands to follow, and we have Johnny Rotten and the gang to thank for the Buzzcocks, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Billy Idol, Joy Division, the Smiths, and many others. Outspoken, outrageous, and obscene, the Sex Pistols were a generational cultural phenomenon.

1. The Clash
“The Only Band That Matters” really was, the Clash following their own musical path for the better part of a decade, discarding the tiring cliches of British punk in favor of musical innovation that brought elements of reggae, funk, and rockabilly to their guitar-drenched and energetic sound. With roots in Britain’s pub-rock scene, the Clash were possibly the best band inspired by the Sex Pistols’ Sturm und Drang, and when Mick Jones and Joe Strummer were brought together, magic happened.

The band’s first two albums – 1977’s The Clash and 1978’s Give ‘Em Enough Rope – are critically-acclaimed, punk rock classics that crossed over to the pop charts, but their third, 1979’s London Calling, was a commercial blockbuster on both sides of the pond and the band’s U.S. breakthrough. The confusing and uneven three-disc Sandinista! (1980) was seen by many as a step backwards (it might have been better condensed to two LPs), but 1982’s Combat Rock –a Top 10 disc in both the U.K. and the U.S. – solidified the Clash’s position as the most important and influential bands from the “Class of ‘77” (the less said of Cut the Crap, the better…)     

Honorable Mention: The Avengers, Bad Brains, The Boomtown Rats, The Dead Boys, Richard Hell & the Voidoids, The Minutemen, The Misfits, Operation Ivy, Rancid, Stiff Little Fingers, X, and X-Ray Spex… 

The Sex Pistols

 

Green Day

 

 

 

 

 

The Germs

The Dead Kennedys

Minor Threat

Black Flag

The View On Pop Culture: The Waterboys, Scott Miller & the Commonwealth, Elvis Costello, Rock 'N' Roll High School DVD (2001)

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Not many recording artists can lay claim to creating a legitimate classic album, but Mike Scott and the Waterboys have done it twice. Fisherman’s Blues (1988) and This Is the Sea (1985) melded Celtic folk with British rock to create an entirely new sound that many since have tried to imitate, but nobody has equaled. The first proper Waterboys album since 1990, A Rock In the Weary Land (Razor & Tie) reunites creative frontman Mike Scott with original band members Anthony Thistlethwaite and Kevin Wilkinson for a marvelous collection of songs.

Although there is nothing here to match the band’s classic 1980s output, A Rock In The Weary Land is an invigorating and complex album nonetheless. Infusing their unique sound with traditional instrumentation and elements of blues and folk, the songs here are propelled by Scott’s wonderfully expressive and unforgettable voice. A finely crafted tapestry of spiritual and introspective imagery and skilled instrumentation, A Rock In the Weary Land is an impressive return to form for Mike Scott and the Waterboys.

Over the course of six years and three critically acclaimed and sadly ignored albums, Scott Miller led his band the V-Roys through their paces with energy and intelligence. When that band broke up, Miller took a little time to gather his thoughts and write some new songs. The result of this period of introspection is Thus Always To Tyrants (Sugar Hill Records), the first release by Scott Miller & the Commonwealth. Showcasing a whip-smart songwriting style that has aged gracefully, Thus Always To Tyrants throws together traditional Appalachian-inspired country and folk with 1960s-tinged pop and roots rock in the style of the V-Roys. Miller’s literary lyrics range from the Civil War tale “Highland Country Boy” to the gospel-tinged “Is There Room On the Cross For Me.” As shown by songs like “Across the Line” or “I Made A Mess of This Town,” a magnificent artistic tension is created between the conflict of a rural southern upbringing and the lure of the big city. With love and betrayal, hard times and harder promises around every corner, Thus Always To Tyrants is a fully realized artistic statement and a welcome musical reappearance of the talented Scott Miller.     

When Elvis Costello’s My Aim Was True album was released in 1977, the rock world generally didn’t know what to make of the angry young man behind the Buddy Holly glasses and pop sensibilities. Almost twenty-five years later, the disc is considered by most to be a true work of art, a blending of two decades of pop and rock history forged with punk attitude. The recent reissue of My Aim Is True (Rhino Records) places the album in perspective, the two-CD set pairing the sonically-remastered original album with a bonus disc of outtakes and demos for the price of a single CD. My Aim Is True is filled with street-tough rock ‘n’ roll tunes like “Less Than Zero,” “Miracle Man” and “Waiting For the End of the World” as well as the classic ballad “Alison.” Blistering in its passion and intensity, My Aim Is True sounds as powerful today as it did during the summer of ’77. The bonus disc includes material that originally appeared on the out-of-print Rykodisc reissue, including outtakes of “Radio Sweetheart” and “Stranger In The House” along with four previously unreleased songs.

My Aim Is True also includes a twenty-eight page CD booklet with rare photos, song lyrics and commentary from the artist. Rhino has also revisited Spike (1987), which features several songwriting collaborations with Paul McCartney, including the hit “Veronica,” and All This Useless Beauty (1996), a collection of Costello songs originally recorded by other artists. The next batch of Costello albums to be reissued includes This Year’s Model, Blood & Chocolate , and Brutal Youth, part of an eighteen title series featuring bonus tracks and ultra-cool CD booklets.

From Elvis Presley’s Jailhouse Rock to Prince’s Purple Rain to the recent Rock Star, there have been a lot of movies made with a rock ‘n’ roll theme. None can hold a candle, however, to the one and only Rock ‘N’ Roll High School (New Concorde), the trash-rock classic recently released on DVD. The movie stars the Ramones, the greatest punk rockers to ever learn three chords, in a tale of youth gone wild. It’s up to Ramones fan Riff Randle (teen queen P.J. Soles) to free the students of Vince Lombardi High School from the anti-rock tyranny imposed by evil principal Miss Togar (former Warhol ingenue Mary Waronov).

The result is hilarious, with plenty of sight gags, high school hijinx and a soundtrack that includes Alice Cooper, Chuck Barry, Brownsville Station and, of course, the Ramones. Produced by Roger Corman (who else?) and directed by Allan Arkush, Rock ‘N’ Roll High School is the best movie ever made about rock music. The new DVD release includes an interview with B-movie legend Corman, commentary by Arkush and audio outtakes from the Ramones concert at The Roxy in LA where the concert footage was filmed. (View From The Hill, September 2001)

The View On Pop Culture: Ian Hunter, Graham Parker, Joe Grushecky, The Ramones (2001)

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Forget all about your Creed, your Limp Bizkit, your Korn – the true heartbeat of rock ‘n’ roll isn’t going to be found on the top of the Billboard charts or on corporate radio; it may even be hard to find on the shelves of your local music retailer. Current releases from grizzled rock veterans like Graham Parker, Ian Hunter, and Joe Grushecky prove that giants still walk the earth and what the young pups don’t know, the old lions understand.

Although he’ll never shake off his status as the guiding light of Mott the Hoople – one of the greatest rock bands ever – Ian Hunter’s lengthy solo career is no chopped liver in its own right. From his early collaborations with Bowie axeman Mick Ronson to Rant (Fuel 2000 Records), his latest effort, Hunter has never fudged his legacy as a true son of rock ‘n’ roll. An eclectic and electric collection of songs, Rant lives up to every word of praise that Hunter has ever received. Combining personal reflections with a unique songwriting skill and guitar-driven roots rock, Hunter’s muse has mellowed only slightly during the passing years. “It ain’t my fault that I never grew up,” Hunter sings in “Still Love Rock and Roll”, “I got bitten by the bug,” something every artist mentioned below has in common.

With a career that has spanned twenty-five years and nearly two-dozen acclaimed albums, Graham Parker has earned his place in rock ‘n’ roll history. It seems that nobody bothered to tell Parker, however. Deepcut To Nowhere (Razor & Tie) slashes and burns through twelve songs with the same intensity and electricity of the artist’s 1976 debut. Parker’s skill as a songwriter has always been in his caustic wit and biting sarcasm and an uncanny ability to turn a clever phrase, and these traits are in evidence here in abundance. If the once-angry young man has gotten older, powerful songs like “High Horse”, “Syphilis & Religion”, and the cryptic, hard rocking “I’ll Never Play Jacksonville Again” show that he’s lost none of his rage. Parker’s soulful vocals have softened a bit through the years, improving with age, while his guitar playing is as strong as a tightwire. A high-octane performance, Deepcut To Nowhere is the rock ‘n’ roll soundtrack for the summer of 2001.

Unfairly dismissed as the “poor man’s Bruce Springsteen” during his lengthy career, Joe Grushecky continues to rock with a fervor and passion unmatched by musicians half his age. With the Houserockers, an outfit tempered to a razor edge by more than a decade of playing together, Grushecky has earned a well-deserved reputation as a dynamic live performer and an underrated guitarist and songwriter. From Steeltown To London Town, available only from Grushecky’s web site (www.grushecky.com), offers no-frills packaging but contains seventy minutes of uncompromising rock ‘n’ roll in a live setting. Taken from performances in London and Sheffield in February 2000, the disc includes several of Grushecky’s better songs, including “No Strings Attached”, “Only Lovers Left Alive”, and “Dark And Bloody Ground”. The band also tackles covers like Springsteen’s “Light of Day,” the Clash’s “Brand New Cadillac”, and Southside Johnny’s “I Don’t Want To Go Home” with style and energy. Joe Grushecky is one of rock music’s more obscure talents, but I suspect that the day will come when his name is spoken with the same reverence as those of his better-known musical contemporaries.

From April 1976 to October 1978 – less time than many contemporary artists take to record a single bloated album – the Ramones released four classic collections of rock music. Combining the charm and brevity of the traditional three-minute pop song with the inspired amateurism of 1960s garage bands, the Ramones launched a musical revolution on the strength of three chords and an attitude. Rhino Records has reissued these four discs, appearing on CD for the first time, in deluxe packages with the original LP artwork, liner notes and bonus tracks.

For the uninitiated, the band’s self-titled debut is a good place to begin, offering a dozen fast-and-furious tracks that clock in just short of 29 minutes. Rhino has padded the album with the band’s original demos, including several unreleased songs. Their second album, Leave Home, features many of the Ramones’ signature tunes; the CD reissue includes the band’s first Los Angeles appearance, 16 songs from an August 1978 show at the Roxy. The next two CDs, Rocket To Russia and Road To Ruin, offer unreleased tracks and obscurities alongside the original tunes. All four albums are milestones of rock ‘n’ roll and perfect for summertime listening at the beach, by the pool or even in the back yard. (View From The Hill, May 2001)

New Music Monthly: September 2018 Releases

More musical goodness than one person can handle is coming your way in September, and if last month didn't bust yer bankroll, you just weren't trying! Take out a home loan or hit up your local neighborhood loan shark 'cause this month brings new albums by folks like Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Eric Lindell, Richard Thompson, Billy Gibbons, Joe Bonamassa, R&B legend Swamp Dogg, and the great Alejandro Escovedo that you know you're gonna want. Throw in CD and vinyl reissues and archive releases from talents like J.D. Souther, Moby Grape's Skip Spence, Bob Seger, Eric Burdon & the Animals, Tom Petty, and the Ramones and you'll be raiding your kid's college fund before the month is through...

If we wrote about it here on the site, there will be a link to it in the album title; if you want an album, hit the 'Buy!' link to get it from Amazon.com...it's just that damn easy! Your purchase puts money in the Reverend's pocket that he'll use to buy more music to write about in a never-ending loop of rock 'n' roll ecstasy!

SEPTEMBER 7
Clutch - Book of Bad Decisions   BUY!
Mike Farris - Silver and Stone   BUY!
JEFF the Brotherhood - Magick Songs   BUY!
Lenny Kravitz - Raise Vibration   BUY!
L7 - Hungry for Stink [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
Eric Lindell - Revolution In Your Heart   BUY!
Paul McCartney - Egypt Station   BUY!
Mirah - Understanding   BUY!
Pentangle - Sweet Child [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
Bob Seger & the Last Heard - Heavy Music: The Complete Cameo Recordings 1966-1967   BUY!
Paul Simon - In the Blue Light   BUY!
Spiritualized - And Nothing Hurt   BUY!
Swamp Dogg - Love, Loss and Auto-Tune   BUY!

SEPTEMBER 14
Eric Burdon & the Animals - Winds of Change [mono vinyl reissue]   BUY!
The Doors - Waiting For the Sun: 50th Anniversary Edition   BUY!
Alejandro Escovedo - The Crossing   BUY!
Hawkwind - Road To Utopia   BUY!
Malcolm Holcombe - Come Hell or High Water   BUY!
Low - Double Negative   BUY!
Monster Truck - True Rockers   BUY!
Jorge Santana - Love the Way: The Solo 70s Recordings   BUY!
Richard Thompson - 13 Rivers   BUY!
Uriah Heep - Living the Dream   BUY!
Various Artists - Chicago Plays the Stones   BUY!
We Were Promised Jetpacks - The More I Sleep The Less I Dream   BUY!
Paul Weller - True Meanings   BUY!
Ann Wilson - Immortal   BUY!

SEPTEMBER 21
Mandy Barnett - Strange Conversations   BUY!
Joe Bonamassa - Redemption   BUY!
Billy Gibbons - The Big Bad Blues   BUY!
Lenny Kravitz - 5   BUY!
Lenny Kravitz - Are You Gonna Go My Way   BUY!
Lenny Kravitz - Circus   BUY!
Lenny Kravitz - Mama Said   BUY!
Prince - Piano & A Microphone: 1983   BUY!
The Ramones - Road to Ruin: 40th Anniversary Edition   BUY!
Slash - Living the Dream   BUY!
JD Souther - Black Rose [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
JD Souther - Home By Dawn [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
JD Souther - John David Souther [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
Supersuckers - Suck It   BUY!
The Textones - Old Stone Gang   BUY!
Various Artists - Ska Authentic   BUY!
Voivod - The Wake   BUY!

SEPTEMBER 28
All Them Witches - ATW   BUY!
King Crimson - Meltdown In Mexico   BUY!
Mudhoney - Digital Garbage   BUY!
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers - An American Treasure [box set]   BUY!
Skip Spence - AndOarAgain [3-CD reissue]   BUY!
U2 - The Best of 1990-2000 [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
Tony Joe White - Bad Mouthin'   BUY!

Release dates are subject to change, so don't blame us...

Album of the Month: The Textones' Old Stone Gang...after better than three decades, Textones' frontwoman Carla Olson put the original band together (sans Phil Seymour, R.I.P.) to record a few tracks and see if the old band magic still exists (hint: it does...). The result was Old Stone Gang, the Textones’ third official studio album and their first in 30+ years. If you were ever a fan of the band, you definitely need to hear this 'cause it's really like they never left! 

The Us Generation: The Making of the 1982 US Festival DVD

For those readers too young to remember, the first US Festival took place over Labor Day weekend in September 1982. Held in San Bernardino, California the event was sponsored by Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, with the music end of things handled by veteran promoter Bill Graham. Ever the visionary, Wozniak felt that if the 1970s was the “Me Generation” then the decade of the 1980s could be the “US Generation,” and the festival was conceived to combine music and technology and to encourage people to be more community-oriented.

Wozniak paid for the bulldozing and construction of a state-of-the-art venue for the event, which was held during some terribly hot weather and resulted in a loss of around $12 million. Graham lined up some heavy hitters for the festival, and the diverse group of artists performing included punks and new wavers like the Ramones, the Cars, the Talking Heads, and the Police as well as classic rockers like the Kinks, Santana, Fleetwood Mac, and Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers.

A second US Festival was held over the Memorial Day weekend in May 1983, with promoter Barry Fey taking the reins and Wozniak again paying the bills. The second festival featured some repeat performers from the first, including the English Beat, Oingo Boingo, and Stevie Nicks, performing solo. The Memorial Day event eventually conceived as a three-day festival, with performers on each day slotted under “New Wave Day,” “Heavy Metal Day,” and “Rock Day” but a fourth “Country Day” was added. Performers at US2 included the Pretenders, Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest, U2, Van Halen, David Bowie, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings, among others.

The second festival also lost a reported $12 million but, taken together, the two events proved to be enormously influential on a generation of rock fans. The festivals have been sliced and diced and released on home video in various formats, with individual performances by Triumph, Quiet Riot, the English Beat, and Willie Nelson released. The festivals evidently had a profound effect on award-winning filmmaker and rock ‘n’ roll documentarian Glenn Aveni, who had previously made An Ox’s Tale: The John Entwistle Story. Working with co-director Jay Cedarholm and producers Bruce Gibb and Rich Schmig, Aveni has created The Us Generation: The Making of the 1982 US Festival, an in-depth look behind the scenes at the influential rock festival.

Scheduled for August 10th, 2018 release on DVD and Blu-ray disc by MVD Entertainment, The Us Generation is the authorized (by ‘Woz’) story of the 1982 festival. The film features re-mastered live performances by artists like Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac, Santana, the Cars, the Police, Fleetwood Mac, the B-52s and others, and if that’s not enough to convince you to add check it out, the film also includes interview footage with Steve Wozniak, Mick Fleetwood, Eddie Money, Marky Ramone, Stewart Copeland (The Police), and Mickey Hart (The Grateful Dead), among others. The two-disc Blu-ray is going for less than $20 on Amazon so what are you waiting on – this is an essential addition to any fan’s collection of rock ‘n’ roll documentaries.

Buy the Blu-ray from Amazon.com: The Us Generation

New Music Monthly: July 2017 Releases

July is on the horizon and our New Music Monthly column of upcoming releases is heating up! There's lots of great new tunes coming from folks like Blind Guardian, the Melvins, Cheap Trick, Neil Young, the Chris Robinson Brotherhood, the Tangent, Steve Vai, and the Nighthawks, among others. Throw in CD reissues of classic, albeit overlooked albums from Arthur Alexander, former Uriah Heep frontman David Byron, Nick Lowe, Screaming Trees, and the Cars as well as lust-worthy vinyl reissues of LPs by Iron Maiden and we're all going to have to get a summer job to pay for all this cool music...
 

JULY 7
Blind Guardian - Live Beyond the Spheres   BUY!
Broken Social Scene - Hug of Thunder   BUY!
David Byron - Babyfaced Killer [reissue]   BUY!
Haim - Something To Tell You   BUY!
Melvins - A Walk With Love and Death   BUY!
Screaming Trees - Dust [deluxe reissue]   BUY!
Steve Vai - Modern Primitive   BUY!
 

JULY 14
Arthur Alexander - Arthur Alexander [reissue]   BUY!
Cheap Trick - We're All Alright!   BUY!
Lifehouse - Greatest Hits   BUY!
Nick Lowe - Nick the Knife   BUY!
Nick Lowe - The Abominable Showman   BUY!
Alan Vega - IT [vinyl]   BUY!

JULY 21
Chris Robinson Brotherhood - Barefoot In The Head   BUY!
Marillion - Misplaced Childhood [deluxe 4 CD/1 Blu-ray reissue]   BUY!
Mr. Big - Defying Gravity   BUY!
The Ramones - Leave Home [40th anniversary deluxe reissue]   BUY!
Violent Femmes - Two Mics & the Truth: Unplugged & Unhinged In America   BUY!

JULY 28
Alice Cooper - Paranormal   BUY!
Arcade Fire - Everything Now   BUY!
The Cars - Candy-O [expanded reissue]   BUY!
The Cars - Panorama [expanded reissue]   BUY!
Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Black Moon [expanded reissue]   BUY!
Iron Maiden - Flight 666 [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
Iron Maiden - The Final Frontier [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
Isley Brothers & Carlos Santana - Power of Peace   BUY!
The Nighthawks - All You Gotta Do   BUY!
Prong - Zero Days   BUY!
The Tangent - The Slow Rust of Forgotten Machinery   BUY!
Various Artists - Brown Acid: The Fourth Trip   BUY!

Album of the Month: The 40th anniversary reissue of the Ramones' Leave Home album follows the blueprint of the mucho successful deluxe reissue last year of the band's 1976 self-titled debut album. This 40th anniversary reprising of the band's sophomore effort, 1977's Leave Home, offers up three CDs and a vinyl LP as well as a swanky booklet. The first disc includes the remastered version of the original album's 14 songs as well as anniversary mixes; disc two offers up 33 unreleased alternative takes, remixes, and rarities; disc three documents a 1977 live show at New York City's notorious CBGB's club with 19 scorching tracks. As for the vinyl record, it looks like it features seven tracks comprised of the 40th anniversary mixes of tunes like "Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment," "Suzy Is A Headbanger," and "Pinhead." Gabba gabba hey, y'all!