Teenage Bottlerocket - Freak Out

As member of the third, at the very least, wave of Ramone clone bands, it's particularly interesting to me that my inner hater hasn't driven a gi-normous wedge between me and Laramie, WY awesome purveyors of said same Teenage Bottlerocket. There is the bizarre eventuality of their playing the infamous Chixdiggit show at the Leonard St. Knit a million years ago and my being totally bored, and my having missed their sets at a couple Insubordination Fests in a row, but luckily I have come to my senses in more recent years and signed on heavy. Freak Out is record number five for the foursome, and their second for Fat. All parties involved can rest assured that if you like(d) yourself some Teenage Bottlerocket, there is nothing here to bring the love affair to a screeching halt. Still sounds like they fell for Screeching Weasel before they found about The Ramones, but that ain't the worst thing in the world, especially as the gents are some youngsters and all.

Fourteen songs on Freak Out, but still things wrap tidily in under a half-hour. It's not without its cheesiness (I give to the court: Necrocomicon and Punk House Of Horror) and the swagger on tracks like Cruising For Chicks does not exist without the heady air of nerdiness, but Freak Out is far from a bad time, and if you are lacking enough in taste that you don't like it, things are over in short enough order that you'll have ample time to get on with your lesser musical selections. TBR are touring, so step lively and look out for JS-NYC to be very much in the house next month when they hit Santos.

In the interim, keep track of Teenage Bottlerocket here and get Freak Out here from your buddies over at the Fat.

R

The Copyrights - Crutches 7"

Well it's about time we got something new from the Carbondale killers. Despite the rumored bidding war with higher-profile indies, both this 7" and the new record North Sentinel Island will drop courtesy of the good folk of Red Scare.

Four tracks here, the title track and three demos of tracks that evidently won't be on the full-length when it drops 8/9. Fans can rest assured that Crutches sounds like a polished Copyrights track and the other three sound like Copyrights demos, so lets cut to the chase and snap this up with the quickness.

Here's a link.

R

Brendan Kelly and Joe McMahon - Wasted Potential

This digital age we live in allows for a lot of releases that maybe should have stayed in the realm of one-off tapes passed amongst friends and prospective paramours. This split release pairs one Joe McMahon of RVA transplants Smoke and Fire with Mr. Brendan Kelly of The Lawrence Arms and adheres to the time-honored 'acoustic versions and some covers' format. It's ok, but far from anything that anyone should go out of their way to pick up.

Smoke and Fire were always kinda sorta ok for me. I had seen them at least once when they were Jericho and from Boston and definitely saw them on a couple of the last Fifth Hour Hero shows, but they never really caught on for me. McMahon fares the best here, revisiting a couple tracks and doing a Johnny Cash cover. Kelly sounds like he got shit-housed and dashed off the seven tracks in the time that it took to sing them. It's that attention to detail that has kept me out of Lawrence Arms shows in recent years. There's a fine line between being shit-housed and non giving a shit and I'm finding Kelly more and more over the line. Wasted Potential, indeed. That said, I'm sure that Kelly is not losing a moment of sleep over the lack of JS-NYC advocacy and truth be told, his blog Bad Sandwich Chronicles is one of the best on the interwebs. Here's hoping he musters up an appreciable level of enthusiasm for his next release. Superfans and stalkers can get Wasted Potential here from Red Scare or as, it is a co-release with Anchorless here from them.

R