The wonder of music retail (and everyone went record shopping on National Record Store Day, right?) is being surprised by joy. It's the joy of hearing a crisp, new noise pounding out over the speakers and asking, “What is this?”It happens just often enough to maintain your faith. I remember striding across the floor of the rock/pop room (on my way to fill out some Bob Seeger-dominated insurance claim) and being stopped dumb by the music. The album cover showed four dorks and a blue screen, the song mentioned Buddy Holly and Mary Tyler Moore and…well, you know the rest. No more on Rivers Cuomo and co; The blue Weezer album is beloved by millions and needs no further praise from me.
Instead, I’d like to offer you another, albeit much smaller, “What is this? moment. A reggae-infused disaffected anthem, named Suburbia was the culprit. It made me zip to the front of the store and grab the CD from the Now Playing stand.
Schleprock? Schleprock!? I muttered.
Schleprock were known as one of the many not-ready-for-prime-time pop-punks of the Dr. Strange label (great name, great sense of history, spotty talent-spotting). After a few pedestrian albums (and in the thick of the Great Green Day Panic) they got sucked up by some major label. Then they delivered, “America’s Dirty Little Secret” not a pat pop-punk record but an SLF-Ruts-Clash ‘79 punk rock shout-along album. The slicked-up production obscured the rough and tumbleness of it all– but not the songs; the nagging menace of “Suburbia”, the double-fist-pumping chorus of “Ain’t Got No Heroes” and of course the optimistically defiant “You Can’t Hold Me Down.” Just download and play it now.
Download
P.S. You can, regrettably, buy this album for one cent on Amazon or you can support the band members who have re-configured as The Generators.
2 comments:
good to see someone mentioning Record Store Day, haven't seen many blogs mentioning it (I haven't myself, either, though). Didn't go shopping on the day, but went during the week-long sale to show support...
Ironically, my local record shop is way to cool too have anything to with this kind of music - the kind I listened to before I discovered indie and when I listened to about 70% Epitaph artists.
It was only once I'd exhausted all the good stuff in the Tower records punk section that I turned to other genres (post-hardcore, generally) and thence to independent record stores.
sorry for the long story, I guess :)
Long stories are what we are all about here at MRML.
Finding the store that understands your questions (and you can really tell when they don't) is always a pleasure.
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