Words by Jim Testa
Jim Testa founded the highly influential zine, Jersey Beat in 1982 which he continues to edit to this day. Through writing for his own publication and a number of other outlets, including as a staff writer for Hudson County’s Jersey Journal, he has championed local, regional and national up-and-coming bands. Punk has always shunned credentials, but rest assured that Jim won’t lead you astray.
GRAND SLAM
WYLDLIFE – Sorted (Wicked Cool)
On their first album in five years, Wyldlife more than prove they haven’t lost a step. Fronted by Jersey City mainstay “Dangerous” Dave Feldman, the quartet (guitarist Sam Allen, bassist Spencer Alexander, and drummer Rusty Barnett) consistently knock ‘em out of the park – from “Fast Dreams,” a rock’n’roll anthem about being in a rock’n’roll band, to the emphatic gut punch of “Shadows” to the Britpop revery of “Dizzy.” The band mixes it up from track to track – punky speed, Westerbergian pathos, even barstool wisdom (“Terminal Blue”). Ten songs and not one I’d skip. Get yourself sorted and into this band today.
HOME RUN
7 SECONDS – Change In My Head/New Wind (Trust Records Company)
In 1986, the Reno, NV band of brothers 7 Seconds shocked the punk world with New Wind, which moved away from the “loud, fast rules” style of throttling hardcore of the day to a softer, more melodic style. I loved it; Tim Yohannon of Maximum Rock N Roll despised it; battle sides were drawn (I wound up getting an interview with frontman Kevin Seconds printed in MRR so he could defend his band’s new approach). Goodbye Straight-edge Youth Crew, hello Indie Rock. That much is history.
Now, almost 40 years later, the album’s original producer and engineer, Ian MacKaye and Inner Ear Studio’s Don Zientara, have produced a remixed version of New Wind titled Change In My Head, with new sequencing and two previously unreleased tracks from those sessions. The project is being released by Trust Records Company along with the original New Wind in a deluxe vinyl package.
Listening to the original New Wind for the first time in decades, it holds up surprisingly well. Songs like “The Night Away,” “The Inside,” and “Opinion of Feelings” feature soaring melodies, sung not shouted vocals, and a softer guitar sound, while other tracks show an obvious debt to the “left of the dial” heroes of the day like Soul Asylum, Husker Du, and the Replacements. The album still gave fans a good deal of hyper-speed guitar, bass and vocals – but clearly, a page had been turned.
The MacKaye/Zientara “Change In My Head,” remixed from the original tapes, puts the hardcore back in the recordings. “The Night Away,” originally the first track and now last, sounds more like Stiff Little Fingers than U2. The guitars are louder, dirtier, more driving; the rhythm section gets the same treatment. The vocal melody still soars, but now it’s floating over a corrosive industrial bed of nails. The band spits out “New Wind” like they’re caught in a Minor Threat moshpit, and while “Man Enough To Care” still boasts those Soul Asylum descending chords, everything else comes at you a lot faster and harder. As for the previously unreleased tracks, “Compro” thunders like steel barrels rolling down a flight of stone steps and “Change In My Head” sounds like Ray Cappo and Harley Flanagan having a nervous breakdown.
If you haven’t heard New Wind in a while, give it a listen; the new “Trust Version” re-sequences the tracks and (happily) eliminates “Colour Blind Jam,” the horrendous 8-minute psychedelic/noise/art-rock jam that closed the original version. As for the Ian MacKaye remixed “Change In My Head” version, it’s fascinating to hear how noisy and brutal this album could have been, a potential butterfly effect that might have changed the course of indie music in America. I will say this: going back in time and substituting this version would end about as well as Biff Tannen getting his hands on that sports almanac in Back To The Future II.
TWO-BASE HITS
AGORA SCI-FI – “Finding It Hard to Explain Something So Obvious” EP (self-released)
This dreamy, spacey, and occasionally rocking 5-song EP showcases the sultry vocals of NYC’s Nathania Rubin, but it’s actually a concept record along the lines of Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust. There’s definitely a sci-fi feel to the proceedings – beepy boopy sfx and layered synths, swirling psychedelic cotton-candy melodies, Rubin’s sensuous vocals – but the group throws down on a throbbing rock track on “for jandek,” with fuzzed-out guitars, a heavy beat, and flamboyant theatricality – like an outtake from The Rocky Horror Show. The atmospheric finale, “to be free,” with its booming organ, peeling flute, and a choir of angelic voices, feels like your spaceship has landed in a church on whatever planet you’ve reached.
SINGLES
RICKY ROCHELLE – “The Rose Window” (Rochelles Records)
After catchy but sentimental paeans to Joey and Dee Dee Ramone, prolific pop-punk songster Ricky Rochelle graces us on June 6 with another single leading up to his next full-length, this one a curveball that eschews his usual Ramonescore for an evocative romantic ballad. The track starts with a slow, dramatic, spoken intro, then breaks into an uptempo chorus that’s quite unlike what we’ve come to expect from Mr. Rochelle. Psychedelic? Almost, which means Ricky’s trying some new drugs or he’s found his dad’s old Syd Barrett records. Either way, it’s a brave change of pace from ultra-catchy pop-punk and has me even more curious about the album to follow.
THE METHADONES – “Love On Layaway” b/w “My Insanity Plea” (Red Scare/Stardumb)
Dan “Vapid” Schaefer’s been keeping busy in lots of other projects, but we haven’t heard anything new from The Methadones in a good ten years. This single was originally intended as a giveaway for Stardumb Records’ 25th anniversary concert but is now being released commercially. Not sure what this means as far as future Methadones music, but at least we get two tracks from these Chicago veterans! “Love On Layaway” offers a typically punchy rocker with a New Wave-y hook about the travails of living on a budget (“layaway” is how we bought things on credit before credit cards). The song delivers a nice chunky punch with a wall of distorted guitars, Vapid’s straining vocal pretty much buried in the mix, and a short guitar solo in the outro. “My Insanity Plea” grabs the listener by the throat, though; its heavier, darker, faster, shorter, and more muscular, in the tradition of Chicago punk legends like Raygun, Effigies, and Bollweevils. For aficionados of Vapid’s post-Weasel work, or simply if you like 90s Chicago punk rock, the single should be available on vinyl or digitally.