Killed By Volume: Five

The Moondogs (Gerry McCandless - guitar/vocals, Jackie Hamilton - bass/vocals, Austin Barrett - drums) were a late 70's Irish band signed to Good Vibrations Records, so you can expect retro-fitted pop songs played with punk bobble. On their MySpace they narrow down their influences to the Ramones, the Beatles and the Bay City Rollers, which encapsualtes their sound nicely. More history is available but the least you should know is that the Moondogs had their own TV show, Moondog Matinee, which kinda crossed the Monkees with Friday Night Videos (of course that's the view of the uninitiated) . As with their fellow Undertone-wanna-be's, Protex, there is no available collection of these singles, though the band has reformed and recorded some excellent new material.


"She's 19" and "Ya Don't Do Ya", from their debut single of 1979 are punk-pop-glam concoctions of a high order.


1980's follow-up single, "Who's Gonna Tell Mary" b/w "Overcaring Parents" are even catchier odes to the boys' yearning for those Teenage Kicks.


1981's "Talking in the Canteen" has more layered vocals and jungle drumming to recommend it on top of those great songs.


Their final single (also from 1981) "Impostor" b/w "Baby Snatcher" was produced by Ray Davies, which didn't make the band sound any more like the Kinks. However, thanks to the trade-off vocals and Barrett's big beats it does sound like the band was jonesing to work with 70's bubblegum god Mike Chapman.

Download Singles (1979-1981)


Supposedly the band didn't even know their lone album, the Todd Rundgren produced That's What Friends are For (1981), was actually released until someone showed them a German pressing years later. The album does sound unfinished, not like demos, but like an abandoned ambitious project, comparable to the Ramones dalliance with their own celebrity producer on End of the Century. There's another great pop single on here, (say, "Schoolgirl Crush" b/w "I Wanna be a Popstar") but without a vision beyond punked-up bubble-pop the band hit the wall that was the thin-and spacey-sounding 1980's. So, for a long time, they laid low awaiting a more fitting time to return.

Download That's What Friends are For