Mermen "In God We Trust"

(KMA) The longer compositions on this record can get a tad jammy (and not in the delicious Smuckers way), but there are always parts that remind me of the late, great Raybeats (which can be tastier than Smuckers).  Psychedelic surf instrumentals with cowboy undertones and a touch of Morricone is good stuff, I just would have been a bit stronger with some with editing. 

Sons of Hercules "A Different Kind of Ugly"

(Saustex) GUEST REVIEW BY GENTLEMAN JOHN BATTLES

Antone......The Alamo, The River Walk, Baylor U, Aquarena Springs, Pig Stands, Taco Land (R.I.P.), Riverside Mall.....Juimonos! Let's Went!!!  Hard to believe, it's been more than 15 years since I first saw Sons of Hercules. We even did a show together once. The venue provided us with a pizza...just a few months before having their kitchen shut down for the ubiquitous rat turds.

The band hasn't changed. Oh, they've shuffled the deck around a bit over the years, just enough to keep the game interesting, but the hard shell taco remains chock full of hot 'n'greasy 60s AND 70s Punk sounds. They just happen to straddle that line better than most. On "Ugly" the band comes on stronger and more hard-hitting than before. Lead singer Frank Pugliese, veteran of The Mystery Dates (whose "Easy Action" appears here.) and The Vamps (they opened for The Sex Pistols' notorious "Randy's Rodeo" gig) is just as full of bile and the rage that won't age as ever.  Guitarists Dale Hollon (the other remaining founding member) and Dave "Bone " Pederson form a double guitar attack that brings to mind Radio Birdman, while their stripped down melodicism recalls The Saints (whose "I'm Misunderstood," a staple in their set since the early 90s, appears on a S.O.H. release for the first time here). But they're not aping anyone, which could explain why they were largely ignored by the 90s Garage revival. The Sons of Hercules didn't even wait around for the 70s Punk Revival, they just went in there and DID it. And , they're still doing it.

Snowbyrd "Diosdado"

(Saustex) Snowbyrd, theirs is a taco that's neither fish nor fowl. They go from basic 70's Hard Rock sounds to Punk and Psych , and deliver it in so many ever-changing chord progressions that it's almost like Jazz. I said "almost," but  I think you'll understand my convoluted logic when you hear it for yourself. The songs contained herein frequently change direction, turning on their heads, stopping on a dime. This album begins on a tragic note, lead drummer (you read me right) Manuel Diosdado Castillo died from complications related to Cancer. Not having known the man, I think I can still safely say that this album is a celebration of his life and his musical career. He had a vision and like his friends in The Sons of Hercules he really didn't give a damn where, or if, it fit in his beloved San Antonio, in Austin, or wherever it was heard . He did play the drums as a lead instrument, and while the drums were frequently to the fore (like Krupa, like Rich, like Jazz, don't bitch), his bandmates and Brothers, Scotty Allen Lutz and Chris Dor Lutz (late of The Dropouts, faves of Sons of Hercules AND of Joe "King" Carrasco!) had to be called upon to deliver the same kinds of dynamics, and they do. Snowbyrd carries on today, though, or because, their good buddy is gone, and have been seen recently sharing the stage with the likes of Sons of Hercules, T. Tex Edwards and Out On Parole.

Parade of Humanity by Michael Comeau

 (Koyama Press) GUEST REVIEW BY ROBERT DAYTON

Koyama Press is a new publisher of provocative comic art-related material out of Toronto. Check this title: “Parade Of Humanity.” Let’s boil humanity down to its’ bare essentials: the cover logo for this large fold-out newspaper  is rendered as a giant turd. It’s plopped down on top of a red multi-bursting over-lapping zip-a-dee-doo-da toned cover. Collaged nekked ladies prance about and co-mingle with hand-drawn nekked ladies, some clothed like they are on a sci-fi superhero team. Open it up and we get full-page art tableau symmetry of collaged and bloated bikers, nekked ladies, guns, hand-drawn homemade porno that desperately aims to please but keeps woefully cartoony, ads for such fake porno books as “ESP Orgy: Based on the real life fantasies of hypnotists everywhere”, sexy nuns and other religious ephemera, bits of nasty business in the jungle and more stirring the pot of life and its’ troubled representations drenched in sweat. Porn mystified into art (koyamapress.com).

BREAKAWAYS "Walking Out On Love"

(Alive) These are the long-lost tapes of the project Peter Case and Paul Collins pursued for a bit after the amazing Nerves broke up and before the two went their separate ways in Paul Collins Beat and the Plimsouls.  Some of the best power-pop ever made is in these grooves, no lie!  Along with the recent Nerves releases an absolutely essential document of yet another ‘70s L.A. pop band that (with all due respect to Doug Fieger, R.I.P.) blew away the Knack in everything but record sales.

Lose #2 by Michael Deforge

(Koyama Press) Guest Review by Robert Dayton

More props to Koyama Press, feisty Canuck comic upstart publisher. Here’s another one of theirs. Michael Deforge is a talent to watch. He’s even advanced by leaps and bounds between issues one and two of his comic book Lose, he’s coming into his own. With the first ish he had to work out some alt comic tropes such as self-defeating Brunettis and meta- taking on mainstream superhero yuks, he’s still got a couple of kinks to work out, but it’s really coming on. The guy has skill. Everything about this comic book is cartoony gloss right down to the paper it’s printed on. He has an effective ability to give everything a total big foot funny book look and be intricately detailed at the same time; it’s cohesive. Here’s the ripper: as slick as Lose looks, the subject matter enters troubled fever dream turf as two boys stumble across a horse carcass filled with carnivourous spider parasites that eventually infect all the schoolyard bullies. Water and ink occasionally fill the panel grids with pure inky blackness submerging us further into the funny and neck hair bristling subconscious. Deforge also has a way of depicting mysterious festering sores on big headed boys. It’s nice to see an actual nicely packaged independent comic book in these days where the now standard graphic novel formats are supposed to merit some brass ring of respectability.

Deforge has also done a Cold Heat special for PictureBox that is an experimental departure- aren’t all the Cold Heat Specials tho? This is more of a photocopied tract where he takes the various names of characters and such from the comic book and designs them as logos. 16 pages of pure hand drawn LOGOS. Elaborate, occasionally semi-readable, some in death metal font, one depicted as landscape standing like trees against the night sky, another as a name rendered in blood splattering from a fist to the reader’s face. Does this further the Cold Heat plot? Are we Gods? This gives Cold Heat iconic status.

The Aimless Never Miss "Tran"

(500 Records) More emo-ish sounds from a local staple of the Bay Area scene.  Saved from wallowing in the usual angst by some snappy melodies and unusual arrangements.  Could actually be be a hit (as, I suppose, their name implies), but not in an annoying way.  

Binky Brown meets The Holy Virgin Mary by Justin Green

(McSweeney’s) Guest Review by Robert Dayton

At last, the hard cover treatment for Binky Brown meets The Holy Virgin Mary.

Not only is this the Daddy of the autobiographical comic book, it is also the greatest and most unique (still after forty years). This comic book is a personal confession of Catholic sexual repression that blends reality with symbiology in ways that had never before been expressed, dark and deep yuks of substance in the funny book form. The reproductions of this particular edition take pains to show every single cut-and-paste and streak of white-out. It’s like we are literally reading the paste-up copy before it goes to print. I’ve never seen anyone do this before and I’m not entirely sure of their reasoning. Perhaps this was done to take it away from the world of art reproduction, to make it feel closer to the real thing, yet I found looking at all the blue pencil marks and covered-up glitches to be distracting and distancing when I was reading it for enjoyment. This version seems aimed at people more interested in the working methods. Included is a lengthy and insightful essay by Justin Green himself of how Binky Brown Meets The Virgin Mary came to be in terms of his own personal and psychological history, style development, and the slow growth of its’ eventual influence.

Wages by John Armstrong

(New Star Books) (Guest Review by Robert Dayton)

Work is Hell. Work is Hell. John Armstrong’s previous book “Guilty of Everything”, an unflinchingly honest account of his time as Buck Cherry of the legendary Vancouver punk group The Modernettes (soon to be a motion picture), presented a semi-un-glamourous picture of the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. The follow-up “Wages” has not so much as a touch of glamour.The last time I saw John was a few years ago, he was in job-hunt sports coat attire, pounding the pavement, looking none too pleased to do so. For me, that was a foreshadowing of this book. “Wages” is a first-hand account of every job that he’s ever had. And it is entertaining! The cynicism densely drips and seeps off the pages, yet is tempered by being writerly and laugh-out-loud funny! He hones his pen with the most cutting and ascerbic of methods, facing such blinding realities head on with shirt-sleeves rolled up. Whether he’s shoveling shit out of chicken coops , hosing down the mysterious balcony seats of a skid row theatre, boxing up VHS porn, or desperately facing mortality as a newspaperman, all the while with bosses that are always out to screw everyone over, it makes for a compelling personal treatise on why not to work. He has funneled these years of utter drudge for our pleasure. What a drag that the book itself looks like the very concept of labour itself:  totally unappealing. Why did the Publisher hire a graphic designer who makes everything look like CDs for late 90s Nickelback wannabe bands? And I can’t think of a worse pull-quote for the back cover of a book than “Enter-fucking-tainment.” Let the punishment fit the crime: we must subject this book designer to all of the miserable jobs that John Armstrong himself went through and if they wind up half as inspired as “Wages” is then those jobs will have done their job.

Polkaholics "Wally! A Polka-Rock Opera"

(Polkaholics Records) Chicago’s Polkaholics have been destroying polka music in a loving way for well over a decade, and here they pay homage to one of their heroes (who I saw them be the back-up band for in 2000) Li'l Wally.  If you’re a thrift store junkie like me you might have a couple of Wally's records in your collection for those times when goofy but authentic polka music hits the spot.  This CD doesn’t sound anything like its subject matter, but tells the story with some pretty well-crafted pop/punk songs delivered with a distinctive 3/4 beat.  Great fun for all ages!