WHITE ZOMBIE
ASTRO-CREEP: 2000 – SONGS OF LOVE, DESTRUCTION AND OTHER SYNTHETIC DELUSIONS OF THE ELECTRIC HEAD
1995 – GEFFEN
Produced By TERRY DATE
1. Electric Head Pt. 1 (The Agony)
2. Super-Charger Heaven
3. Real Solution #9
4. Creature Of The Wheel
5. Electric Head Pt. 2 (The Ecstasy)
6. Grease Paint And Monkey Brains
7. I, Zombie
8. More Human Than Human
9. El Phantasmo And The Chicken-Run Blast-O-Rama
10. Blur The Technicolor
11. Blood, Milk And Sky
Because there are so many of them, there are several pockets of rock music that I simply missed out on while they were happening. A perfect example of that is White Zombie. This band spent just over a decade evolving into a deeply heavy and dark hard rock and metal band with industrial leanings and a love of horror movies. That didn’t quite jive with my much mellower singer songwriter leanings in the late eighties and nineties. I was always aware of White Zombie…I just never paid them much attention. It’s always strange discovering a band later in life that you never gave the time of day to as a younger man. But here we are. Astro-Creep: 2000 is the fourth and final White Zombie album. It’s the final settlement of their sound, which was once aptly described as “white trash on acid metal”. In other words, this is not music for the masses. But if you like it heavy and dark, it might just be for you.
Astro-Creep: 2000 is dark indeed. The down-tuned guitars are anything but happy, and the songs about pleasantries like Satan, murder, zombies and the like make this music you will not want to play while making sweet love down by the fire. But that doesn’t equate to bad. “More Human Than Human” is the band’s best song, with “Super-Charger Heaven” and “Electric Head Pt. 2” not far behind. The movie dialogue snippets between songs don’t hurt, either. What we have here is a band that seemed to have finally found their sound at the same moment they were over. And then they simply toured themselves to death. White Zombie broke up in 1998, and they have never been even remotely close to reuniting. This band is over, and we’re left with Zombie’s not as satisfying solo career. This is the best album of White Zombie’s career.
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THE POGUES
RUM SODOMY & THE LASH
1985 – STIFF / MCA
Produced By ELVIS COSTELLO
1. The Sick Bed Of Cuchulainn
2. The Old Main Drag
3. Wild Cats Of Kilkenny
4. I’m A Man You Don’t Meet Every Day
5. A Pair Of Brown Eyes
6. Sally MacLennane
7. A Pistol For Paddy Garcia
8. Dirty Old Town
9. Jesse James
10. Navigator
11. Billy’s Bones
12. The Gentleman Soldier
13. The Band Played Waltzing Matilda
It’s The Pogues. This Irish folk punk band is actually from London, where they enjoyed their biggest successes in the late eighties and early nineties. But before that, they released their best album, Rum Sodomy & The Lash, in 1985. This is where Shane MacGowan became a great songwriter, and this is where the most fun moments of The Pogues live. This is their most memorable lineup, their best set of songs, and their best work. They were good on their debut (Red Roses For Me), but here, they fully come into their own. This is music to drink to, and music to celebrate to…even when the songs are sad. Mostly, if you want to turn someone on to The Pogues, it’s this album you’ll play for them. Produced by Elvis Costello, his idea was to let the band be themselves and not overproduce anything…and it works like a charm.
The album starts strong, but really hits its stride in the middle. Two MacGowan originals, “A Pair Of Brown Eyes” and “Sally MacLennane” are excellent. (“A Pistol For Paddy Garcia” is a strangely placed bonus track on my later version…it was a single B-side.) A fine cover of Ewan MacColl’s 1949 song “Dirty Old Town” is next. “Jesse James” was written in 1887. Finally, the 1971 Eric Bogle war song “And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda” is a perfect closer, running just over eight minutes. The band almost fell apart after this, then they came back to achieve their biggest commercial successes before MacGowan’s drinking became a problem, and the revolving door of band members became too much. The Pogues split up in 1996 after a bad final album. There have been a couple of reunions, but no new music in 30 years. Rum Sodomy & The Lash remains their best work.
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RAMONES
ROCKET TO RUSSIA
1977 – SIRE
Produced By TONY BONGIOVI & T. ERDELYI
1. Cretin Hop
2. Rockaway Beach
3. Here Today, Gione Tomorrow
4. Locket Love
5. I Don’t Care
6. Sheena Is A Punk Rocker
7. We’re A Happy Family
8. Teenage Lobotomy
9. Do You Wanna Dance?
10. I Wanna Be Well
11. I Can’t Give You Anything
12. Ramona
13. Surfin’ Bird
14. Why Is It Always This Way?
Never mind the Sex Pistols. Ramones were playing punk shows in America as early as 1974. While the first wave of British punk albums were just coming out in 1977, Ramones were releasing their third disc. Rocket To Russia is a blast, and had it not been for the surge in popularity of the Pistols and The Clash, this would have probably been THE punk album of the seventies. The British bands were all about being pissed off and looking overtly dangerous. And yeah…there was a place for that in the seventies. What Ramones brought was a dark take on The Beatles, heavier and yet almost as catchy. With the thing the UK acts really missed out on…a sense of humor. The band’s first two albums were cheap affairs, rushed to release with almost no budget. Here, the band had some money and some time, and a desire to make music better than what the Pistols were doing. And it worked.
The fact is, Rocket To Russia was never a big seller. The Ramones never were, period. But this album’s importance is bigger than the word platinum. Fourteen songs, and not one of them is as long as three minutes. They gleefully bash their way through the classics “Rockaway Beach” and “We’re A Happy Family” and “Teenage Lobotomy”, and especially “Sheena Is A Punk Rocker”. At the height of America’s obsession with what is now classic rock, Ramones were presenting a true alternative. It’s not mentioned as often as it should be, but this is truly one of the greatest rock records of the seventies. This is a good as they ever got, as this was the last record with the original lineup. Sad to think that the four guys who made this album have all been gone for more than a decade. It’s punk, man. Live fast, die young. Gabba Gabba Hey.
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THE COMMITMENTS
THE COMMITMENTS (ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK)
1991 – MCA
Produced By PAUL BUSHNELL, KEVIN KILLEN & ALAN PARKER
1. Mustang Sally
2. Take Me To The River
3. Chain Of Fools
4. The Dark End Of The Street
5. Destination Anywhere
6. I Can’t Stand The Rain
7. Try A Little Tenderness
8. Treat Her Right
9. Do Right Woman, Do Right Man
10. Mr. Pitiful
11. I Never Loved A Man
12. In The Midnight Hour
13. Bye Bye Baby
14. Slip Away
I believe I may have hoarding tendencies. I refuse to get rid of albums. This one, in particular. Welcome to The Commitments. Someone actually made a movie about life in a cover band. This cover band is from Dublin, and they are actually a white tribute band playing songs from 1960’s African American soul. They are a ten piece cover band (the money came from WHERE?) of less than interesting kids (kinda like Fame) that somehow squeezes a decade worth of drama into a small handful of shows. We’re supposed to believe that this unknown group misses singing onstage with Wilson Picket by a whisker, then breaks up over it. Cool. Movies that glamorize things like life at the very bottom of the musical food chain are movies I do not need. But, The Commitments became a big thing. And the soundtrack sold a gazillion copies, giving us the likes of Andrew Strong (the “breakout” star who seems to think he’s Joe Cocker) and The Corrs.
The Commitments set the tone by turning “Mustang Sally” into a song that musicians worldwide dread playing. They gleefully tear through unnecessary versions of songs by everyone from Aretha to Otis to Al Green and a bunch more. Of course, these tracks are well produced and sound nothing like a bottom rung cover band that would have needed years to sound this polished. The singers are competent enough, but in the end, this is nothing more than an album that no real cover band would ever make, used to tell a story that makes zero sense in the real world. In the film, the performance of Pickett’s “In The Midnight Hour” silences a bigger crowd than this band would have been able to get on, what, their fifth gig? I get that some found the film entertaining. That’s cool. But millions in sales for the soundtrack? A simple yikes will do. Even worse...a year later, they released a second volume that thankfully fell as flat as the first one should have. Bleah.
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COOLIO
GANGSTA’S PARADISE
1995 – TOMMY BOY
Produced By COOLIO. CHRISTOPHER HAMABE, DEVON DAVIS, DOUG RASHEED & BRYAN “THE WINO” DOBBS
1. That’s How It Is
2. Geto Highlites
3. Gangsta’s Paradise
4. Too Hot
5. Cruisin’
6. Exercise Yo’ Game
7. 1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin’ New)
8. Smilin’
9. Fucc Coolio
10. Kinda High Kinda Drunk
11. For My Sistas
12. Is This Me?
13. A Thing Goin’ On
14. Bright As The Sun
15. Recoup This
16. The Revolution
17. Get Up, Get Down
The song “Gangsta’s Paradise” remains as one of the greatest hip hop tracks ever made. It’s also pretty much the only real reason anyone ever heard of Coolio. His first album, It Takes A Thief, had a hit with “Fantastic Voyage”, but it was the second release that made him huge. The title track is a monster. It’s built around the Stevie Wonder song “Pastime Paradise”, and it played a big part in the popularization of hip hop. It graced the film Dangerous Minds, and was in heavy rotation on MTV. The song won Coolio a Grammy and a bunch of other awards. The song also opened the door to another pair of hits from the album: “1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin’ New)” and “Too Hot” made it look like Coolio was here to stay. But the truth was, hiding behind all of those heavy samples was a long and sometimes tedious set of songs that, unfortunately, was a foreshadow of what was to come.
Gangsta’s Paradise, as an album, isn’t bad, but it’s also a bit typical of the short shelf lived rappers of the nineties. One huge hit, a pair of okay ones, and fourteen songs that rode in on the coattails of the better songs. In all, this album scores as slightly above average…and that’s in large part due to its one great song. And predictably, Coolio’s next album didn’t come close to this, after which he fell into a long career of musical obscurity. It didn’t help matters when he blasted “Weird Al” Yankovic for doing a parody of his biggest hit. He ended his career with five straight albums that went nowhere, recorded for five different labels. Thank God he had an eye for TV, which kept his name in the news and his face out there up until his death in 2022. This is worth having, but it’s mostly for that one really great song.
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THE RED JUMPSUIT APPARATUS
DON’T YOU FAKE IT
2006 – VIRGIN
Produced By DAVID BENDETH
1. In Fate’s Hands
2. Waiting
3. False Pretense
4. Face Down
5. Misery Loves Its Company
6. Cat And Mouse
7. Damn Regret
8. Atrophy
9. Seventeen Ain’t So Sweet
10. Justify
11. Your Guardian Angel
12. The Grimm Goodbye
It was twenty years ago when The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus came into our lives. Hailing from the small town of Middleburg, Florida, this band made a decent enough splash on Myspace to earn a record deal with Virgin Records. Don’t You Fake It is their debut album, and it’s as good as this band ever got. This band, led by their only continuous member in singer Ronnie Winter, plays a brand of alternative rock that lies firmly in between pop punk and hardcore. Throw in the element of Christian influence that they bring to their music, and you have a band that has the recipe for being something truly different. But unfortunately, aside from the hit “Face Down”, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus simply didn’t have the songs. Don’t You Fake It sold a gang of copies, made the band stars, and since that time, it’s been all downhill.
“Face Down” remains their biggest hit, and it’s probably their best song. Don’t You Fake It also is home to “Your Guardian Angel” and “False Pretense”, which are good, but the drop in song quality after that is sharp. The rest of the album is below average, and that’s being kind. They have somehow managed to keep going, through a whirlwind of personnel changes and poor albums. Their biggest successes have been on the Christian rock charts, where they have actually had seven number one hits. But sounding kind of like Jimmy Eat World and their lack of great songwriting have made them a band that doesn’t generate much excitement. They’ve released five more albums since this one, each a bit more invisible than the one before it. This is an album, and a band, that you can safely skip over.
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CHESAPEAKE
RISING TIDE
1994 – SUGAR HILL
Produced By CHESAPEAKE
1. Black Jack Davey
2. The Morning Blues
3. Columbus Stockade
4. Darcey Farrow
5. Dreamer Believer
6. High Sierras
7. Always On A Mountain
8. Cypress Grove
9. Genie In The Wine
10. 2:10 Train
11. Summer Wages
12. Shady Grove
13. Moondance
Chesapeake was formed in 1994 by members of the bluegrass band The Seldom Scene. Mike Auldridge (steel guitars & dobro), Moondi Klein (vocals & guitar) and T. Michael Coleman (bass) were joined by Jimmy Gaudreau (mandolin & guitar) from the Tony Rice Unit. They were wanting to be more of a full time band than The Seldom Scene had been. Chesapeake was only together for five years, but they did make a trio of studio albums. This group played a brand of progressive bluegrass that, despite the pedigree of its players, never quite made it over the top. Rising Tide is their debut album, coming out in 1994. The album features thirteen tracks…only one of which was written by a member of the band (“Genie In The Wine”, by Coleman). Five of the other twelve are traditional songs, including the opening three.
The most interesting thing here is the closer, “Moondance”, written by Van Morrison, who the band cited as a major influence. Rice makes a guest appearance on “Summer Wages”. There’s nothing bad here (aside from the album cover), but there’s also nothing that will jump out at you as essential. The next Chesapeake album, 1996’s Full Sail, was more of the same. Their final album, Pier Pressure, showed growth, but the band broke up afterwards, without a reunion since. Klein and Gaudreau now play as a duo. Auldridge has appeared on many albums as a guest performer. Coleman performs occasionally and is also a filmmaker. A fine but somewhat rare compilation of live recordings, Hook, Live And Sinker, was released in 2014. A talented group of bluegrass talents who could have done much better.
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BIC RUNGA
DRIVE
1997 – COLUMBIA
Produced By BIC RUNGA
1. Drive
2. Sway
3. Hey
4. Bursting Through
5. Swim
6. Roll Into One
7. Suddenly Strange
8. Sorry
9. Heal
10. Delight
11. Without You
Bic Runga (pronounced Bec) is a huge star in New Zealand…and not so much in the rest of the world. She was born to an indigenous New Zealander father and a Chinese Malaysian mother, and her two sisters are also active musicians. But it was Bic who had the most success. The key word with her seems to be drive…and not just her career trajectory. She recorded a demo, an extended play, two different songs, and this, her debut album, all with the title Drive. Mostly on the strength of the hit “Sway”, Drive (the album) reached number one in New Zealand, and went seven times platinum. It wasn’t a hit anywhere else, but her career has always been centered in her home country anyway. Her brand of folky pop rock has gotten small notice in places like Australia and Ireland, and really nowhere else. But hey. An A for effort.
As an album, Drive is a pleasant enough debut. Half of the songs here were released as singles, including “Suddenly Strange”, “Bursting Through” and “Roll Into One”. Runga handles most of the backup vocals, lots of guitars, some mellotron, drums, and xylophone, and the songs here are all hers. She also handled the production. It was five more years before her second album, the even bigger selling (and better in terms of songs) Beautiful Collision. In fact, her first three releases hit number one in New Zealand, and all six have been to the top fifteen, including her 2026 album Red Sunset. But she is what she is…a capable performer who has her niche: New Zealand. Drive is better than average, but not great, and she hasn’t really gotten much better since its release. Worth a listen or two, but it won’t stick with you for long.
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1. Hearts In Her Eyes
2. Switchboard Susan
3. Feeling Fine
4. This Kind Of Love Affair
5. Lost In Your Eyes
6. It’s Too Late
7. No Dancing
8. Coming From The Heart
9. Don’t Hang On
10. Love’s Gonna Be Strong
Liverpool was never just about The Beatles. Before John Lennon formed The Quarrymen, John McNally started The Army Generations, who then became The Searchers in 1959. The Searchers had a group of hits in the early to mid sixties, including three number ones and eleven top twenty singles between 1963 and 1966. They were originally as successful as The Beatles and Gerry & The Pacemakers, but a lack of strong songwriting and too many personnel changes led to them being all but forgotten by 1966. After the 1965 album Take Me For What I’m Worth, The Searchers released no albums of new material. Fourteen years later, they were suddenly back. After not having had a record deal for years, they had continued touring…and then, they were given a chance by Sire Records. Thus was born their self titled seventh album in 1979.
This record didn’t make them big stars again, but it did re-ignite their career. It’s surprisingly good. There are just two Searchers originals (“This Kind Of Love Affair” and “Don’t Hang On”), but there are also some notable covers. “Hearts In Her Eyes” was from The Records. Bob Dylan’s “Come From The Heart” is here, as is “Lost In Your Eyes”, written by Tom Petty. It was good enough to lead to a follow up album just two years later (Play For Today). The Searchers wasn’t a hit, but it was highly acclaimed, and stands today as a fine and pretty remarkable comeback for a band that had spent more than a decade outside of the public eye. On the strength of this, The Searchers kept at it until 2019, then they regrouped in 2023 until their final show in 2025. This album played an important part in keeping this early British rock band from falling into complete obscurity.
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SARAH SHOOK & THE DISARMERS
SIDELONG
2015 – SELF RELEASED
Produced By IAN SCHREIER
1. Keep The Home Fires Burnin’
2. The Nail
3. Heal Me
4. Sidelong
5. No Name
6. Dwight Yoakam
7. Misery Without Company
8. Solitary Confinement
9. Nothin’ Feels Right But Doin’ Wrong
10. Fuck Up
11. Make It Up To Mama
12. Road That Leads To You
Sarah Shook is whip smart, frighteningly deadpan, pretty damn hilarious and talented, with just the right amount of twang. Their albums are a blast (as are their live shows), and they have proven to be a huge breath of fresh air for country music. The Disarmers are an outlaw country outfit that merrily plows over traditional music and gives a new perspective on how country plays the best. Sidelong is their debut album. It was originally self-released in 2015, then re-issued in 2017 on Bloodshot Records. And yeah…it’s one hell of a great time. Sarah and their band rock throughout, with Shook’s always interesting vocals suggesting endless heartache, and the thought that they might just kick your ass if you looked at them sideways. This is all a recipe for one pretty terrific album of should-be classics.
What’s not to love? This band tears through these songs with obvious glee. From the opening chords of “Keep The Home Fires Burning”, the fun goes all the way to the end. Shook will win you over easily with excellent tracks like “Dwight Yoakam”, “The Nail”, “Fuck Up”, and especially “Nothin’ Feels Right But Doin’ Wrong”. It’s hard to believe that Shook is actually from New York, and that they grew up allowed to listen to only classical and Christian music. Sidelong is the perfect place to start with this band, and there are another three Disarmers discs so far…along with Shook’s side project Mightmare. Not traditional country by any means, but a very bright side of what is alternative country. Sarah Shook & The Disarmers should be heard. Heard, enjoyed, and much better known than what they are.
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