Monthly Archives: May 2020

May 30 2020
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book

John Doe with Tom DeSavia • More Fun in the New World: The Unmaking and Legacy of LA Punk [Book]

If this kind of music biography/memoir was food I’d never go hungry. (I read a lot of ’em.) JOHN DOE and TOM DeSAVIA’s More Fun in the New World is the second of their pair of books on the Los Angeles punk scene of the late ’70s/early ’80s, and it’s full of the kind of anecdotes that at once astound and beg-to-be-believed that made their first book so good.

Credited to Doe, DeSavia “and Friends,” More Fun contains chapters by scenesters as varied as Doe and Billy Zoom (both of the awesome band, X), Henry Rollins (Black Flag and solo), Mike Ness (Social Distortion) and Jane Wiedlin and Charlotte Caffey (The Go-Go’s). All of these folks’ stories – as well as many more in the book – are worth reading and definitely highlight just what a wild and wonderful world was L.A. punk. Then there are chapters by non-musicians like actors and filmmakers Tim Robbins, W.T. Morgan and Allison Anders, and even people influenced by the scene like graphic artist Shepard Fairey and skateboarder Tony Hawk. You may ask, “What do these people have to do with L.A. punk?” and really, no one can blame you. I wondered the same thing upon picking up the book. Doe & DeSavia’s first book, Under the Big Black Sun (2016), featured a number of the same musicians but none of the “influenced-bys” that appear here in volume two. I guess they’re here to lend legitimacy to how influential the scene was but I really don’t think they’re necessary. That’s not to say they aren’t interesting – they are – but L.A.’s punk scene was populated by so many notable bands and characters that are still listened to and talked about that the scene’s legitimacy shouldn’t be in question. That, actually, may be why we do hear from musicians who weren’t exactly punk but who did contribute to the breadth of the scene (such as Fishbone and The Long Ryders).

Ultimately I think More Fun in the New World would have benefited from the stories of more of the town’s punk rockers. There’s no word from any of the Weirdos, The Dickies, Phast Phreddie & Thee Precisions, Top Jimmy & The Rhythm Pigs, The Screamers, or the Germs, or any of the lesser-known bands that populated all those gigs at the Masque, Madame Wong’s, Club Lingerie or any of the other dives that gave the scene places to happen. It is nice to hear some of the narrators update (in More Fun) what they were doing a few years earlier (as they detailed in Big Black Sun), so it’s not catastrophic that some of the characters make encore appearances here. It’s still a fantastic and quick read so it ought to satisfy your punk rock nutritional needs during this live music blackout.  — Marsh Gooch

3/5 (DaCapo Press, 2019)

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May 27 2020
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box set, CD, compilation, punk

Buzzcocks • Sell You Everything 1991-2014 [8CD]

Is 8 CDs too much for a one-artist box set? It depends. 8 CDs of who? How about BUZZCOCKS? If that’s a resounding “Not at all,” then you’re gonna want Sell You Everything 1991-2014, an all encompassing set of (I’m pretty sure) every last minute Manchester’s finest punk band ever recorded up until then. Though this set starts after the legendary group’s heyday, there’s a lot to recommend it.

Sell You Everything’s first disc is called The 1991 Demo Album and is just that: thirteen demos the band recorded prior to their reunion album (and Disc 2 of this set), 1993’s Trade Test Transmissions. These demos sound really rockin’ and it’s surprising that they actually went and re-recorded them. (This disc has also been released as a standalone vinyl album.) Some of the demos were featured on a preceding EP (’91’s Alive Tonight) and the rest turn up on the ’93 album mentioned above. That album is a great one and was a welcome addition to the band’s oeuvre. The next few discs are all of varying quality – and that is, good to great – and include 1996’s All Set, ’99’s Modern, 2003’s eponymous Buzzcocks, and 2006’s Flat-Pack Philosophy. All of the albums themselves feature some beefy, bang-up Buzzcocks material, and all of these discs contain bonus tracks culled from various singles and other sources.

2011’s A Different Compilation, despite the excellent songs themselves, is a mixed bag. Buzzcocks had already released two albums on Cooking Vinyl and someone had the bright idea at this point to have them re-record some of their greatest tunes. Maybe it was a case of the band wanting to have control of their classic material for use in other media (movies, television, etc.), maybe it was, “if this sells we’ll be willing to let them record all new material for the next album,” maybe it was any number of other semi-plausible ideas. Whatever the case, it’s another example of interpretations (basically, cover versions) that are too much like the originals to warrant their existence for all but the band’s biggest fans. I mean, it’s not like you can’t get the original recordings on any number of compilations that are still available if you don’t already have them. Hearing the band thirty-something years later doing “Boredom” or “Why Can’t I Touch It?” for instance, is jarring because though they’re trying to sound like they did back then, their voices just don’t sound like what they once did and so the songs end up sounding like inferior versions of classic tunes. And who wants to listen to that? (For the record, I’ve heard bands like Blondie, Squeeze and Cracker cover their own material and I’ve not been impressed by any of them, either.)

Thankfully, for the band’s final album represented here, 2014’s The Way, Buzzcocks are back to doing new music. It’s another fairly solid album; “Keep on Believing” is a good song with trademark razor sharp guitars, but “People Are Strange Machines” is a bit on the pedantic side. In other words, there’s some good stuff here and some okay stuff, too.

Buzzcocks’ Sell You Everything is a twenty-five year survey that gives you all of the studio material from the second half of their lifetime and it’s eight discs of some damn good punk rock from one of the top British punk bands. Yes, it might be easier to sift through, say, a 3CD compilation of the best of that material, but as usual Cherry Red gives you so much value for the money that you might as well get the complete albums and their singles’ b-sides in one handy box set. After all, one person’s “best of” choices aren’t everybody’s so you may as well decide for yourself what’s great and what’s just good.  — Marsh Gooch

3.5/5 (Cherry Red CRCDBOX93, 2020)

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May 25 2020
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CD, compilation, live, punk, reissue

Phast Phreddie & Thee Precisions • Limbo [2CD]

Every city’s punk scene has bands that made it and are renowned the world over, and every city has local legends who never made it beyond the confines of their own particular scene. Los Angeles, being a big city that spawned many legendary bands (X, Weirdos, The Blasters, et. al.) had its share, and one of them has finally had its day in the reissue ring. PHAST PHREDDIE & THEE PRECISIONS’ entire discography is now available as Limbo, a 2CD set named after one of their records and containing much, much more.

The first disc of this set is made up of Phast Phreddie’s debut, the 1982 live EP West Hollywood Freeze-Out, and their lone album, 1984’s Limbo. These are twenty songs of souped up, angular jump blues/R&B played by some of L.A.’s finest alternative musicians, recorded cheaply and quickly (“live to two-track, no remixes, no overdubs, what you get is what went down”) and with a decidedly punk feel. That’s partly thanks to the velocity of the songs, and partly to the attitude. The Phreddies were actually part of L.A.’s punk scene, so even though they don’t sound “punk” they were part of that world. In fact, read any book on any of the punk bands already named here – and many that aren’t – and Thee Precisions will not only be namechecked but held in high esteem. So, imagine my surprise when I finally heard the band (I was already familiar with their name) and couldn’t decide whether I liked them or not! Maybe it’s one of those cases where, if you were there at the time, you get it, and if you weren’t, you don’t, or maybe it’s just that I can’t get past Phast Phreddie’s singing voice. I’m not sure how to describe it… he sounded like the kind of smart ass who might have instigated more than his share of bar fights, someone who probably lost more of ’em than he won. Regardless, my first spin (through disc one only) left me questioning what all the fuss was/is about. Yes, the band is good. Yes, the band’s saxophonist is Steve Berlin, whom you’d know from both The Blasters and Los Lobos (though his name pops up on a zillion L.A.-based bands’ records). And yes, the guest list is also notable (D.J. Bonebrake, Peter Case, Marty Jourard of The Motels)(and that’s just the guests on Disc One!). But so far something was lacking… and then I put on Disc 2.

It’s got to be Phast Phreddie & Thee Precisions’ live shows that made their reputation, because the live stuff (recorded at different live shows and band rehearsals) is what makes this set worth checking out. The sound quality isn’t all that great (what we would have called “a good audience tape” back in the day) but the performances sure are. I’ll bet if I could find some video of them performing it would all make sense. I really like “Only Lovers Left Alive,” their covers of “Peaches En Regalia” and “Hungry Freaks Daddy” (Zappa/The Mothers) and “Stone Free” (Hendrix), and one called “Empty Feeling.” With another twenty songs on the second disc, it’d be easy to get lost among Phreddie’s snotty-soundin’ vocals and the slightly dissonant saxes – not to mention the killer guitar of Harlan Hollander. But after a few listens to this compilation I can tell that those who praise this group aren’t wrong: these guys had to have put on one helluva show.

With Limbo you get, as the lead singer himself exaggerates in the liner notes, “more Phast Phreddie & Thee Precisions than anyone could ever want.” Phans of the L.A. punk scene ought to pick this up just to understand what all the phuss is about.

3/5 (Manifesto MFO 46701, 2020)

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May 21 2020
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CD, live, Skratchdisc, vinyl

Moby Grape • Moby Grape Live [CD, LP]

[This review was originally published 5/20/2010 on my old blog, Skratchdisc.]

The first official live release from the original lineup of San Francisco’s legendary, infamous, underrated, greatest rock band, MOBY GRAPE, is not the live album we’ve all been waiting for. Moby Grape Live is a collection of songs recorded before festival crowds and less between ’66 and ’69, and there are some incendiary performances here. But there’s something missing, something that would have given this release that little push over the cliff that would have made it a must-have classic. Maybe it’s context…

For one thing, the disc (or 2LP set) is made up of songs from four different shows, recorded mostly in mono (not that that matters) from soundboards and the like, so the sound quality’s decent but not great. The final cut, “Dark Magic,” is from New Year’s Eve 1966 at the Avalon Ballroom in San Fran, and is fabled for never having appeared on any of the Grape’s albums. It’s also a long one (that’s getting rather personal, isn’t it?), at 17+ minutes, but it’s a good jam and was probably quite awesome if you were on LSD or something when you heard it. I was on a Diet Pepsi, and I still got a kick out of it. There are also two versions of “Omaha,” one from the Monterey Pop Festival (’67) and one from a Netherlands broadcast in 1969 (and that one is KILLER). I also really dig “I Am Not Willing” (originally from the studio album ’69) with its heavy guitar attack and longer, more rockin’ arrangement. But as I said, something’s missing.

Is what’s missing a tuner for the one guitar on the Netherlands cuts that is nearly unbearably out of tune? Is it the not-quite-as-tight-as-I’d-have-it-ness of the playing? Is it just the lack of suitable drugs to make me understand what it was all about? (I was barely 4 years old in 1967…) Or is it all of the above? Well, that all being said [or asked –ed.], this is a live album worth having, especially if you already like Moby Grape. If you don’t know them yet and you’re trying to figure out where to start, this isn’t the place. Get Moby Grape, their debut from ’67, and then proceed to Wow and ’69. Sundazed’s The Place and The Time from last year is also a good one, a double album with lots of different flavors. And if you’re a vinyl lover, note: You can get this on 2LP black vinyl or ultra cool 2LP purple vinyl, but really, the cost doubles from CD to vinyl and doubles again from black to purple wax, so you’ll want to dip your toe in before you cannonball.

3/5 (Sundazed LP-5314, 2010)

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May 19 2020
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CD, reissue

Neil Innes • How Sweet to Be an Idiot [CD]

What do you call a guy who can’t seem to settle on a rock ’n’ roll style? Well, you could call that kinda guy NEIL INNES, except that name is already taken. It belongs to the British songwriter who fronted the ’60s comedy rock troupe The Bonzo Dog Band. You know, the guy who wrote many of Monty Python’s clever movie tunes (“Camelot,” “Sir Robin”) and was considered the “7th Python.” He’s the guitarist/pianist who created The Rutles, wrote all of their great music and portrayed John Lennon parody character Ron Nasty on television. His first solo album, 1973’s How Sweet to Be an Idiot, has just been reissued by Grapefruit and it’s a timely way to discover Innes’ wide spectrum of greatness.

This reissue was already in the works when Innes passed away in December, so it doesn’t feel like a record company cash grab. What is nice is that it captures on CD the album in its original running order and adds a number of singles-only tracks, marking the first time that the full-fledged Idiot has appeared in the digital age. In fact, the album is so scarce here in the USA that the only way I was familiar with any of its tracks was through an almost as obscure compilation album called Re-Cycled Vinyl Blues (the title track of that comp and one of the bonus songs on this release). By the time Neil Innes recorded Idiot he’d apparently decided to tame down the Bonzo humor and go for something a little more palatable to “normals” but his particularly peculiar way of looking at the world still exhibited a wry (or maybe an awry) vision. He was the classic case of a guy whose talents were so expansive that there was no genre or category that could possibly contain him and therefore consigned him to the sidelines. Too bad, too, because there is so much to enjoy in Neil’s work that you’re cheating yourself by ignoring his existence. (At least if you’re ignorant of his existence you’re a bit off the hook.)

How Sweet to Be an Idiot is an album from the early ’70s so it can tend to sound a bit soft but don’t let that put you off. There are blues/boogie tunes like “Momma B,” poignant ballads like album closer “Singing a Song Is Easy,” and of course humorous ditties like “Topless A-Go-Go” and bonus tracks like the genius and timeless “Lie Down and Be Counted” and “Fluff on the Needle.” My favorites (besides those) are the ones that have not only poignancy and humor but the musicianship displayed in “Dream,” a powerful yet curious tune that ends so abruptly that not only do you wish it wasn’t over but you actually write an email to the record company asking if there’s been some kind of mistake in the mastering process! (That you is me and yes, that is how the song’s supposed to end.) This CD reissue also features ten extra tracks, all of the singles sides from the period and includes the solo, single version of the title track and an oddball recitation called “The Age of Desperation.”

If you like your CD purchases to be multi-dimensional then How Sweet to Be an Idiot might be a good choice. If you also like some humor in your listening then Neil Innes’ unsung classic will likely more than fulfill your comedy needs. We’re talking comedy with a lowercase “c,” comedy that’s less of a pie in the face and more of a pie aimed at you that instead grazes your ear and leaves a little cream on the lobe for you to taste.  — Marsh Gooch

4/5 (Grapefruit/Cherry Red QCRSEG073, 2020)

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May 18 2020
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CD, deluxe edition, reissue, Skratchdisc, vinyl

The Rolling Stones • Exile on Main Street [CD, LP]

[This review was originally published 5/18/2010 on my old blog, Skratchdisc.]

Here’s a reissue I don’t mind picking up, if only because it’s one I haven’t already bought fifteen times in my life. A very rockin’ album by THE ROLLING STONES, Exile On Main Street was originally released in ’72 and is now out again in multiple formats. I just saw a guy at my local loaded up with all the versions they had in stock: 1CD, 2CD, 2LP and the Deluxe Edition that has 2CDs, 2LPs, a DVD, a book, and probably the deed to Keef’s French mansion. Well, it should, for $150!

Most people know this album as the one with “Tumblin’ Dice,” “Happy” and “All Down the Line,” but don’t forget there are many other good ones here, including “Just Wanna See His Face,” “Stop Breaking Down,” and the one that wins my award for best song title, “Turd on the Run.” What’s great about this record is that it’s not as excessive as you’d expect – double albums can be awfully long – and there aren’t any real clunkers, from “Rocks Off” to “Soul Survivor.” The band takes on some different styles and really comes into their own, no longer copying everything The Beatles did, but doing their own thing. Now, I can’t vouch for the bonus tracks on the 2CD version (except “Plundered My Soul,” which I previewed when it came out on Record Store Day as a 7″), so you’re on your own there. Let your conscience (or wallet) be your guide. But I can say that I like this album in its original form quite a bit. Maybe not as much as Sticky Fingers, personally, but hey hey, what can you do?* BTW, the double vinyl sounds sweet but doesn’t come with the original postcards.  — Marsh Gooch
[*Wrong band, dude. That’s Zeppelin.]

4/5 (Rolling Stones/UMe B0014203-01, 2010)

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May 14 2020
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colored vinyl, reissue, vinyl

Utopia • Deface the Music [LP]

My friend Steve once uttered, “You’re the only guy I know who, when he’s not listening to The Beatles, is listening to something that sounds just like The Beatles.” I don’t remember for sure what was playing in the car that day but it could very well have been UTOPIA’s Deface the Music. This 1980 album by Todd Rundgren’s rock group, an homage to the music of The Fab Four, sounds so much like Liverpool’s Finest that you could be forgiven for thinking it was some long lost long-player of theirs. Of course, it doesn’t sound exactly like them, but it’s an incredible simulation that’s close enough for many a Beatlemaniac to enjoy.

I’m not sure what the impetus for creating and releasing something like Deface the Music was. Perhaps Todd & Co. were feeling nostalgic for the music they grew up on, or maybe it was that, when one of the group’s songs was turned down for a soundtrack because it sounded too much like The Beatles, they decided to do an entire album of soundalike music for fun. I’d guess the record company thought it was a mistake for Utopia to put it out but – it being the beginning of the anything goes ’80s – it might just catch on. It’s not like The Beatles’ popularity had waned at all even ten years after they’d called it quits, considering the success of compilations like Rock ’N’ Roll Music and the 1962-1966 and 1967-1970 best-ofs. Regardless of why they did it or why it was released, Utopia did Deface the Music and yet they actually didn’t deface it at all. From the opener “I Just Want to Touch You,” an “I Want to Hold Your Hand” parody, through “Take It Home” (a la “Day Tripper”), “Hoi Poloi,” the gentle “All Smiles” and closer “Everybody Else Is Wrong” (hello “Strawberry Fields Forever”), the album is a baker’s dozen of grin-inducing singles that may have even made the Mop Tops themselves smile. (Even if it was only with visions of suing for copyright infringement in their collective head.)

While Deface the Music is full of songs that sound like The Beatles, there are some clues that 100% homage wasn’t necessarily what Utopia had in mind. For one thing, the instrumentation that would have been strings in the ’60s is definitely played on late ’70s synths and so don’t sound authentic. Likewise, the production value (or what you could call the sound) is clearly of 1980 and not that warm but shimmery glimmer of Abbey Road circa ’66 or so. I always thought the mix was a bit murky and lacked some of that high end sizzle you’d expect, but this 2020 reissue, put out by Music On Vinyl from the Netherlands, nevertheless sounds really good. There’s no notation as to what the source material was for this limited edition vinyl pressing (MOV has never been clear about their sources), but Deface the Music sounds at least as good as an original US Bearsville/WB copy. If you’re a Beatles or Todd nut, you should have this one. Limited to 500 copies on silver vinyl (perhaps black wax will follow), this record is worth wrapping up and taking home. Or having delivered to your door by international courier. Or however the hell you can get it.

4/5 (Music On Vinyl MOVLP 2519, 2020)

 

 

 

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May 10 2020
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book, Skratchdisc

Juliana Hatfield • When I Grow Up – A Memoir [Book]

[This review was originally published 5/10/2010 on my old blog, Skratchdisc.]

JULIANA HATFIELD is best known as the wispy-voiced alternative rock gal who belted out “Spin the Bottle” and “My Sister” in the early ’90s. She’s been putting out records fairly steadily since then, but once her major label deal ran out of gas, she was on her own and her visibility lessened considerably. Still, she’s bravely released albums on various labels, including her own Ye Olde Records, and has consistently done her own thing. Yet Juliana had many demons to deal with over the years, and that’s what led her to pen When I Grow Up.

The memoir, published by Wiley last year, is a stark, unexaggerated look at her life touring to support her various solo releases (since her first band, Blake Babies), and details the issues she’s faced, from standard “boy issues” to deeper problems like anorexia and severe shyness. What’s best about this book is that Hatfield doesn’t hold anything back. One moment she’s supremely irritated by a pushy fan trying to get a picture, the next moment she’s lamenting a crappy hotel room, the next she’s trying to combat loneliness despite being surrounded by friends and fans. It’s not that she’s a bitch, it’s just that she’s only outgoing when she’s performing. So she doesn’t color anything overly rosy, and that doesn’t mean the book is a big downer, though about midway through I was starting to wonder when – or if – she was gonna find the light at the end of the tunnel. She does, finally, and by then you feel like you wish you knew her as just a person and not the woman sporting the SG onstage.

After not having heard any of her records for a decade or so, I felt like I really wanted to track down a few of her releases to pay a little more attention to what she’s actually saying. Though she does note somewhere in the book that words are just vehicles to drive the songs, as a songwriter myself, I can tell you that no matter how much the writer wants to chalk a song up to a silly idea or funny phrase someone spoke, there’s always something personal in there. When I Grow Up shows how a girl can become a woman without succumbing to the massive amount of BS thrown at her from birth.  — Marsh Gooch

4/5 (Wiley Books, 2010)

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May 09 2020
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book, Skratchdisc

David Kirby • Little Richard: The Birth of Rock ’N’ Roll [Book]

[RIP Little Richard, 1932-2020. This book review was originally published 1/23/2010 on Skratchdisc.]

I read way too many rock ’n’ roll biographies. I could be filling my head with interesting socio-political tomes (which I do read on occasion) or treatises on the latest thoughts on victims’ rights or whathaveyou, but instead I read typically badly-written stories of people who may or may not be remembered in another ten years for wielding their cigarette-burned axes all over the world with fellow drug-addled losers… Okay, maybe not all of them are that bad, but you know what I mean.

Well, anyway, I was given a nice gift certificate to a book store and I bought this here book, Little Richard: The Birth of Rock ’N’ Roll, by a real life professor of English, DAVID KIRBY. It’s a small thing, suitably decorated in a mid-2oth century pink cover design depicting our own Richard Penniman looking his straightest best, more than likely belting out “Tutti Frutti” or one of his other hits. In fact, Kirby’s main premise in this book is that that song is the most important in the history of rock, and based on his very erudite and quite humorous arguments, he may just be right. This book isn’t exactly a biography, though, because Kirby doesn’t present “just the facts, ma’m” like most do – he gives you basic facts ’n’ figures but he surrounds them with his very interesting anecdotes and observations of Macon, Georgia (where Richard was born), of the man’s bi/gay persuasion, of his lifelong swingin’ back ’n’ forth from absolutely primordial rock ’n’ roll screamer to good-boy churchgoer. Kirby, a prof at Florida State U., makes this such an entertaining and energizing read, you just gotta get out your 18 Greatest Hits CD (on Rhino) or any one of the other packages of Little Richard’s awesome songs and start boogieing right there on the floor in front of God and everybody.

And he doesn’t just pour on the fanboy kudos all over the place, either. Though Charles White’s bio on LR might be the one to get if you want a by-the-book biography (it ain’t a bad book either, I recall), David Kirby’s is the one to better show just what made this effeminate madman possibly the craziest, most outrageous shouter the world has ever known.  — Marsh Gooch

4/5 (Continuum Books, 2009)

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May 04 2020
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box set, CD

NRBQ • High Noon – A 50-Year Retrospective [5CD Box Set]

First released in 2016 and now freshly repressed, High Noon – A 50-Year Retrospective is the NRBQ collection to end all collections. Unlike numerous one- and two-disc packages that have tried to sum up the New Rhythm & Blues Quartet’s unique take on rock ’n’ roll, this set does the job nicely. The fact that it took five CDs to do it means that this was no easy feat. Trying to describe NRBQ in one review, likewise, ain’t gonna be easy. And yet, I’m gonna try.

NRBQ are like the tastiest stew you’ve ever had. With every spoonful you get a taste of something different. You might get something rockabilly inspired like “RC Cola and a Moon Pie,” you might get a country funk like “Flat Foot Flewzy,” you might get a power pop classic like “Me and the Boys,” or you might get a sweet little pop ballad like “This Love Is True,” or any other of the many different flavors NRBQ adds to the pot. They are one of the few bands who can play about any style you’d care to hear. They’re also hard to classify, genre-wise, because even when they’re doing “rockabilly” they’re adding something to make it seem like a whole new style. From song to song, album to album, and especially era to era, there are elements that are always there: musicianship, humor, exuberance and zeal. Whether it’s Terry Adams’ crazed clavinet or piano playing, Al Anderson’s killer guitar picking, or any of the other members’ talents (too many over 50 years to name here), NRBQ never fail to deliver… whatever it is they’re trying to deliver.

Curiously, Omnivore’s superb look at the 50 year old group starts somewhere toward the end (or present-day, I should say, since NRBQ is still together), goes back to the beginning (1966!) and then works its way back to where we started. Not so curiously, I began back in ’66 with Disc 2, being pretty familiar with the band’s early stuff, then through the ’70s and ’80s material – the ’Q I like the most – and up to where High Noon ends in the 20-teens. I’m still digesting the band’s last two decades (what with the multiple personnel changes, even more stylistic turns, etc.) and High Noon gives me a good way to do that, with Discs 1 and 5 covering the second half of their history (1989-2016). So far I really like the Buck Owens flavored “Fightin’ Back” and “21-50 to Headquarters.” With 116 tracks, you’d think this behemoth would be overkill. Not so. In a way, it just begins to tell the NRBQ story. I mean, there are classic cuts in their canon that aren’t even here (hello, “When Things Was Cheap” and their covers of “Wild Weekend” and “Tonight You Belong to Me”)!

Knowing that a 5 CD compilation might be too much commitment for some, the record label took the liberty of putting out High Noon in a two disc “highlights” version and a 2 LP set, too. The track list on both of those looks worthy of your time if you’re not sure you’re up to the task of digesting so much NRBQ, but seriously, if you go that route you’ll probably end up buying this package anyway. And maybe that was Omnivore’s idea all along.  — Marsh Gooch

4.5/5 (Omnivore Recordings OVCD-190, 2016/2020)

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