Be Your Own Pet – Get Awkward

Garage-Punk Chick-Thrash.  And they aren’t even 21 yet.   Songs have so much attitude that you might get slapped in the face and then wake up hungover in a hotel bathtub in Century City by the end of the album.  The most rockin new album I’ve heard in a while.  And they have two more.

Bomb The Music Industry – Get Warmer

If you like Rancid, Nintendo Music, and summer backyard bbq all mixed together, then this is for you.  Really an eclectic mix of punk styles, and each song on the album is a treat (well, maybe the title track being the exception).  Keyboards, horns, backup vocals, and overall really well-written melodies.  One of my new faves.

The Phenomenauts – For All Mankind

The Phenomenauts are what you’d get if you mixed Devo and The Cramps, and then cyrogenically froze the resulting cocktail until the year 3000.  It’s sci-fi themed rock with elements of rockabilly and new wave.  Infectiously campy, and they put on a helluva live show.  My favorite of their three albums.

Go buy all three!

Anyway, that rant aside, I like to spread the word about some of the good music I find. Especially because it’s often from bands that would shit their pants if one of their records ever went gold. Or even silver. So they need your money a whole lot more than Kanye West or Carrie Underwood does. So here’s the latest installment of suggestions of something you can fill your iPod with:

Bad Brains – Bad Brains

Okay, so this isn’t a new record by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s still solid. One of the pioneers of hardcore, Bad Brains manages to mix frenzied tempo’ed thrashes in with just straight up dub and reggae. Listening to the album is a bit like mixing vodka and Red Bull – pulls you in both directions at once, but lovingly so. And when it’s full speed ahead, man does it fly.

Streetlight Manifesto – Somewhere In The Between

I make no secret about being a Streetlight fan. Loved the first album. Love the second one. You could call it ska, but you’d be wrong… the band has four (exceptionally talented) horn players, and it’s definitely horn-driven music, but Tomas’s songwriting has the horns filing the sonic space usually reserved for guitar solos and piano riffs. The resulting sound is full and complex, and not the kind of thing you usually find in uptempo, hard-hitting, punk-influenced rock. Plus the songs themselves weave their way in and out of memorable melodies, with just enough structure to hold them together, while avoiding the pop-trap of clubbing you over the head with verse-chorus-verse. Anyway, I’ll stop waxing poetic. Just go buy the damned album. And write your local music mag and tell them to review it already. It’s a travesty when the Romero-esque corpses of Led Zeppelin are on the cover of Rolling Stone (fucking retire already!) and bands like this fly completely under the radar.

(On a side note, we saw them play in Fullerton last month, at a tiny little club, and I get goosebumps every time I see them play. No fancy stage show. No backup dancers. No fireworks, video walls, hydraulic platforms or costume changes. Just seven guys playing the fuck out of their instruments, and a bunch of rabid, sweaty fans singing every last word back at them. Bliss for me, anyway… One of the few bands I know of for whom the music is just plain enough, and anything more would be superfluous and crass.)

Zolof The Rock And Roll Destroyer – Schemantics

Despite the name, they’re not a nordic speed-metal band that dresses like ogres and eats live rats at their shows. In fact, the singer / songwriter is a chick (excuse me – lady), and they play poppy, retro synth-rock. I liked their first two albums (well, and EP and an LP, to the best of my knowledge), but I think the music and lyrics have grown up a bit on this one, and I have a hard time getting sick of it. It’s still self-consciously young, moderately geeky / cheeky, but I think that’s one of the things that makes the music in this case. Yeah, it’s catchy, and yeah, it would even fit right in on MTV. But even then, I think it would escape being obnoxious (well, if I start hearing it at the local Albertsons, ala No Doubt, then I might have to declare Jihad on them, too… but until then…)

The Loved Ones – Keep Your Heart

They were the opening band at a show we saw a while back, and we missed all but the last minute of the last song. No problem, we thought… we’ll just buy their album and check them out later (I like to support the bands whenever I can by buying all their shit at shows). Turns out all they had was their EP… on vinyl. I’m not cool enough to own a record player… mostly because I can’t find a model that fits in the stereo slot on my car (seems these days they only make them wide enough to accomodate CDs, if you can imagine that). So I bought the album anyway, with a vow to either buy or find a record player to listen to it on (which nearly became a $100 purchase to listen to an EP in an archaic format from a band I never even knew I liked)… fast forward a few months, and I still haven’t listened to the record. But I DID hear a track I liked on one of the radio stations in the game “Saint’s Row,” wherein you can tune in to fictional radio stations while committing virtual felonies in your imaginary stolen car. Bitchin, I said… I wanna find out who that band is. Well, I was too lazy to look at the liner notes and find out.

Where this finally comes full circle was a couple weeks ago, when I was shopping for some new music on Amazon. I knew I wanted to hear more of this band (they’re also on the Fat Wreck Chords label, which is usually a good thing). I listen to some of the tracks, and lo and behold! They’re the same band with the tune I liked from the video game where you get to be tremendously evil. Cool! So I bought the album. Long story short, it’s pretty darned solid. Can’t get some of the songs out of my head, but in a good way. So if you’re not into horns, synthesizers, or dub, this might be your piece of pie. And it you’re into all of those things, hell, give this one a listen, too.

Anyway, so as I was saying… great show, but not nearly enough people there, given how good the bill was, and how cheap the tickets were (except the fees). Suburban Legends is an OC band that’s been around for a while, and I hadn’t even heard of them until last Halloween, when they played with Reel Big Fish and Streetlight Manifesto. They killed it. So now we’re fans. Even though the new album is a little too poppy for my tastes. They still rock. Sort of like what ska would sound like if you mixed it with disco. Patent Pending I discovered via the bargain bin at a record store in Austin or Berkeley or something… once in a while I’ll pick up a couple disks just based on intuition, and sometimes I discover something awesome that I otherwise wouldn’t have ever known about. Patent Pending is one of those bands. I bought their disk again at the show even though I already have it. Gotta support the little bands. Zolof I had heard of, but never paid much attention to… bought a couple of their albums, and I’ll give em a listen over the next couple days… hopefully once the ringing in my ears stops :)

Oh, and on a similar note, I recently got a new Honda Element, which is cool and all, but apropos here more because it came equipped with XM radio. I was ironically introduced to the joys of satellite radio when my last car was getting fixed and I had some crappy rental Kia, which had XM in it. Anyway, they have a station that plays nothing but punk/ska/hardcore – Fungus 53. It’s sort of like the universe’s way of telling me that I’m not the ONLY person that listens to some of this crap.

Beatallica – Sgt. Hetfield’s Motorbreath Pub Band

What can I say except that it’s basically what Metallica would sound like if they did an album of Beatles covers. Weird. But it works for me in a strange way. The lyrics, arrangements, and even the style are sort of a weird gene-spicing experiment of sorts. Even the song titles are all mashed up… like “…And Justice For All My Loving”. If you like the Beatles, and you like Metallica… it’s a no-brainer.

Big D And The Kids Table – Strictly Rude

Just started listening to Big D and the Kids Table… really like them. They’re a Boston-based ska-punk band that’s been around for a while, and this is their latest. Little more of a reggae influence on some of the tracks (like the title track), than previous LPs. “Noise Complaint,” which is a kickass song, has been getting some play on Fungus 53. Just catchy, upbeat music with an attitude. Can’t mess with that.

The Streets – A Grand Don’t Come For Free

Okay, so I dig this album, if only because it’s really not like anything I’ve ever heard before. Basically it’s British hip-hop. But the thing that makes it so darned great is, first, that the lyrical content really doesn’t once tread into the cliche territory of bitches, hoes, glocks, hennesy, rocking mics, 22″ rims, basketball, or selling crack. Second, it’s basically a concept album… each track tells a part of the story of a day gone wrong, then right again. Might as well be spoken word over a drum machine, but mundane tales of sitting on the couch have never been so compelling.

I hope that some of the talented hip-hop artists over here get the message and follow suit, because I just can’t listen to more than about 10 minutes of the stuff at a time. I really like hip hop when it’s done well, but I can only take so much talk of rollin to da club and gangsta’s life and all that shit before is starts to sound insincere and even a little offensive. And not offensive because I’m g-rated… more because an industry that constantly turns out #1 singles, and has made many people into millionaires should probably find a new act. It ain’t street anymore… maybe to the people shelling out their money for the album, but not for the Benz-driving, personal-wardrobe-stylist-havin, $10M mansion-livin, latte-drinking posers whose biggest concern in life is whether their agent in Century City has heard back about the new sneakers they’re endorsing. Please. Move on.

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East Star All Stars - Radiodread

Well, this is another genre-bending album of covers, but still, works brilliantly. The short story is that this is an excellent reggae / dub cover of Radiohead’s OK Computer. This is a follow up to the first album by the All Stars – Dub Side Of The Moon, which, you guessed it, is a reggae cover of the Pink Floyd classic. Anyway, the point is that good songwriting tends to defy genres, and a well-done cover in a different style can really richen music that you already like anyway. Proof positive that good songs, like good movies, go deeper than anything as superficial as style. Again, if you like Radiohead, and/or you like music from Jamaica, pick it up. It’s even more psychedelic than the original, which isn’t good or bad, it just is.

Anyone heard of any of this stuff? Do you like it? Do you think hip-hop will destroy itself, too?