Micah Schnabel - When The Stage Lights Grow Dim

How great is this record? I picked up When The Stage Lights Grow Dim at Micah's show the other night without thinking that I was going to fall for it as hard I did. There were a fair amount of covers in his solo set, so I was pretty sure it was for lack of solo material. Color this idiot wrong, as the whole kit and caboodle is pretty damn fabulous, even the song I was pretty sure was a Tim Easton cover. Micah self-released this late last year, but I understand Virgil and the kids from Suburban Home are re-releasing this soon, if not already. Check here for the details, but don't think for a moment that you don't want this. Buy it, love it and look out for a new Two Cow record this summer from Suburban Home.

R

Free Record From Suburban Home!

In honor of their 14 years as a label, the men and women of America's Finest Label, that being Suburban Home Records, is giving away one free record of your choosing from their exceedingly awesome catalog. I opted for the Josh Small record, but know that there are delights from the mighty Two Cow Garage, Austin Lucas, Drag The River and a host of other awesome releases for your enjoyment. You'll have to pony up your e-mail address, but trust me, it's well worth your while.

Here's a link

R

PS: Office Space still sucks.

Live: Jon Snodgrass, Austin Lucas and Two Cow Garage @ Mercury Lounge 8.16.9

I had been waiting for this day for a long time. Save for the Copyrights / Unlovables / Dear Landlord show earlier this year, there are few shows that even come close to comparing to this Suburban Home curated tour.

Through the good graces of Tony Weinbender and Mr. Jon Snodgrass, I arrived to find my name on the list, along with a partially filled room. Two Cow Garage started the proceedings soon after the arrival of the Bros. Johnson, sometime around the 8:30 hour. The band was touring in their four-piece incarnation with keys. Reports from the Albany shows at Valentines were that the boys weren't fucking around, but even I was surprised about how hard the Buckeyes were bringing it. Micah seems to have embraced an Against Me! fashion sense, but sartorial elan aside, there are few roots rockers that can bring that level of energy to a not-especially-full room. I'm not sure when Two Cow are going to catch on here in town, but it can't come soon enough. There are no bands that even come close in this burgh.

Two Cow left after 40 minutes or so, warning that they'd be back later on in the set. Austin and Jon took the stage in short order, swapping songs back and forth for about an hour. Snodgrass had flown in straight from a wedding, but was his usual infatiguably pleasant self. The mutual admiration session was in full effect. If there is a more gracious, humble duo of drink-cadging singers, I've yet to see them. The vibe was infectious. I'm sure the free-flowing alcohol helped, but there was no shortage of smiles in the room after the set.

Two Cow returned after a short break to back up Austin for a couple songs. While I love both parties, I'm not sure it was the best musical combo. The Spartan Lucas arrangements need a little more subtlety from where I was drinking, but the combination was far from a bad one. We were treated to some classic Snodgrass heckling, as well. Jon joined the crew soon enough and bashed out a handful of tunes. Bizarrely, the cover of The Schemers classic Remember My Name that Two Cow and Jon recorded for Visitor's Band did not make an appearance, but it was the first night the bands were together, so I guess people in parts North and West will be the only ones that get that pleasure. While the omission was a mild disappointment, you couldn't have gotten the smile off my face with a crowbar afterward. Kudos to Suburban Home for supporting great bands like Two Cow Garage as well as Austin Lucas and Jon Snodgrass. The rest of the dates are below. Frankly (Mr./Ms. Shankly) you would be an idiot if you missed them.

R

8/18/2009 Pittsburgh, PA @ Club Cafe w/ Two Cow Garage and Austin Lucas Buy Tickets
8/19/2009 Buffalo, NY @ Mohawk Place w/ Two Cow Garage and Austin Lucas
8/20/2009 Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom (Small) w/ Two Cow Garage and Austin Lucas Buy Tickets
8/21/2009 Fort Wayne, IN @ The Brass Rail w/ Two Cow Garage and Austin Lucas
8/22/2009 Lansing, MI @ Mac’s Bar (Bermuda Mohawk Festival) w/ Two Cow Garage and Austin Lucas
8/23/2009 Chicago, IL @ Schubas Tavern w/ Two Cow Garage and Austin Lucas Buy Tickets
8/24/2009 Minneapolis, MN @ Triple Rock Social Club w/ Two Cow Garage and Austin Lucas Buy Tickets
8/25/2009 Madison, WI @ High Noon w/ Two Cow Garage and Austin Lucas Buy Tickets

Yesterday's Ring review at PopMatters

Hey Kids:

A small review of the fabulous new Yesterday's Ring record (called Diamonds In The Ditch, for the uninitiated...) is up now at PopMatters. Here's a link. Now will you guys come South of the border?

Thanks to Sarah Zupko at PopMatters!

R

Suburban Home 14th Year Extravaganza

All:

The best label in the West, Suburban Home, is having a 14th birthday extravaganza in September out in the wilds of Colorado. Peep that stellar lineup to the left and tell me that SH isn't totally killing it with their signings.

Financially, it looks like JS-NYC won't be making it to the shows, but parties interested in sending me for promotional purposes should contact me ASAP.

R

Austin Lucas and Takers split 7" widget

How about these widgets, huh? Tony and the Suburban Home kids have a new one that will allow you to enjoy the new split 7" with Austin Lucas and The Takers. Have your way with it below.

xo
R

Cory Branan and Jon Snodgrass split cd

Before I get off track, let me first say that this Cory Branan/Jon Snodgrass split record is something you should pickup immediately. Both Cory and Jon are great guys and ridiculously talented singer / songwriters and Virgil and the rest of the kids at Suburban Home should be lauded heavily for all the ridiculously great records they release on the regular.

That said, what the fuck is the deal with all this animal iconography lately?!!? I'm all for totems and/or spirit animals and thought those shirts were pretty funny last century when I used to tour, but really kids? Do we need a fucking ironic eagle or cobra on the cover? I would argue no. Vociferously.

Were Snodgrass and Branan not to be the artists on this little slab of delight, I would rain bile on it ad infinitum. Wonderfully, the songs more than make up for the exceedingly ridiculous artwork. There are a couple covers and three originals from each of the gents. I'd say Branan edges out Snodgrass by a hair, but it's damn close. I think it's really only the fact that Jon dropped a solo record recently that gives him the edge. All the songs are pretty top-notch, with Branan's Yeah, So what! topping the list. That boy is trouble, personally and professionally. I wouldn't introduce him to my girlfriend, but I'd travel a real long distance to see him (or Jon) play live.

Bizarrely, this is only available on vinyl and cassette. I guess wax cylinders were unavailable, but I would venture that there must be some digital approximation of this stuff to be had. Pick up the record here and find Snodgrass and Branan through the highlighted links.

R

Ninja Gun Tour Dates!

Hey Kids:

New info from Ninja Gun HQ. Peep the skinny below:

R

Ninja Gun recently got a taste of life off the Valdosta farm and have already been asked to take it on the road again. This time theyll be heading out to support their critically acclaimed album Restless Rubes alongside their long time buddies from Florida, Fake Problems. Ninja Gun recently recorded a new track entitled Time and a Half with Lee Dyess at Earthsound Studio in their hometown of Valdosta, GA. Dyess was also the mastermind behind the wonderful production of Restless Rubes. The new song will appear on a split tour 7 with Fake Problems courtesy of Sabot Productions.

The band has also released a split 7 with Whiskey & Co. for Vinyl Collectives Under the Influence series. The label just launched an Under the Influence podcast featuring interviews with both bands about why they chose the songs they covered and what their respective futures hold. You can listen to the bands versions of classics by The Pogues and The Kinks, as well as the interviews, on the main page of the Suburban Home site.

Ninja Gun Tour w/ Fake Problems
7/16 - St Louis, MO @ Off Broadway
7/17 - Lawrence, KS @ Jackpot Music Hall
7/18 - Denver, CO @ Larimer Lounge
7/20 - Salt Lake City, CO @ Burt's Tiki Lounge
7/21 - Reno, NV @ Tonic Lounge
7/23 - Ventura, CA @ Bombay Bar & Grill
7/24 - Hollywood, CA @ Knitting Factory
7/25 - Riverside, CA @ Back to the Grind
7/26 - Phoenix, AZ @ Modified Arts
7/29 - Austin, TX @ Emo's
7/30 - Denton, TX @ Rubber Gloves
7/31 - Little Rock, AR @ Vino's
8/2 - Birmingham, AL @ Bottletree
8/4 - Tallahassee, FL @ Big Daddy's
8/5 - Gainesville, FL @ 1982 Bar
8/6 - Orlando, FL @ The Backbooth

Yesterday's Ring live videos/MP3s + Canadian tour dates

Hey Kids:

The good folk of Suburban Home Records have been kind enough to share some live delights from JS-NYC north of the border favorites Yesterday's Ring. Here's a link. The version of Scrabble Strip Club is particularly awesome. You should buy a copy of their new record Diamonds In The Ditch from the good folk of Suburban Home stat. Peep the press release and Canadian tourdates below. Esteemed writing employers can feel free to send me North for review purposes.

It is a shame that Yesterday’s Ring haven’t already done a world tour in support of “Diamonds in the Ditch”. Luckily for us, someone recently filmed the band at their Divan Orange show. Check out the following videos and then please download the mp3s of the performance. 2 songs (Scrabble Strip Club and Moving Back to Florida) are featured on “Diamonds In the Ditch”. Thanks Ganael Dumontier for editing the videos and for sharing the mp3s.

For you lucky Canadians, you can see Yesterday’s Ring on tour starting this next week
june 14th- Ottawa @ Mavericks
june 15th- Hamilton @ Casbah
june 16th- St-Catherine @ 73
june 17th- PRESS DAY TORONTO
june 18th- Toronto @ The Kathedral
june 19th- London @ Call The Office
june 20th- Montebello @ Petite Nation Rock Fest
july 1st- Jonquière @ Jonquière En Musique - Parc de La Rivière au Sable
july 2nd- Lavaltrie @ Chasse-Galerie
july 11th- Alma @ Festivalma
august 15th- Rouyn Noranda @ Cabaret de La Dernière Chance

Austin Lucas review at PopMatters

Hey Kids:

The JS-NYC love affair with Austin Lucas continues.

Peep the review of Somebody Loves You here.

Thanks to Sarah Zupko at PopMatters

R

$5 Sale at Suburban Home

Hey Boys and Girls:

Cheap CDs aren't just for the kids over at Fat Wreck. Suburban Home is upping the ante and doing another $5 sale. Peep the skinny below and know that there is nary a bad record on that roster.

For the next 2 weeks, we will be selling the entire Suburban Home Catalog on CD for $5.00 each. Our CDs are pretty inexpensive to begin with (in most cases $8.99) and this is pretty much the deal you get when you purchase our 5 for $25 or 10 for $50 sales, but we figured that with the economy being where its at, some of you might be interested in just purchasing a couple of cds at this low price.

If you already own most of our catalog, use it to improve your friend’s crappy music collection. Tell them that you know you understand that for their money, they don’t know if it gets any better than when Michael Bolton sings “When a Man Loves a Woman”, but that there is more to music than that no talent assclown and then give them a few of our releases. Your friends’ lives will improve and they will have only you to thank for the dramatic improvement.

For 2 weeks, you can get pretty much our entire, available CD catalog for only $5.00 each. Stock up. To check out the full list if titles click HERE.

Live: Tim Barry, Austin Lucas and Josh Small @ The Knitting Factory 4.23.9

If you've been around JS-NYC in recent weeks, you are probably aware of my newfound obsession with all things Austin Lucas. Tony from Southern Lovin sent me Somebody Loves You a month or so ago and I promptly went bananas over it. As luck would have it, a bunch of places were looking for someone to write about it and Austin was coming through town with Tim Barry and Josh Small. Tony got Austin put me on the list and in the interim, I came to find out that Rut's lady Jamie knew him from Bloomington. Suffice to say, I was pretty stoked.

Josh Small opened up the night with a short set and a big rack of instruments, I only caught the last five or six songs of his set, but he's got a record out called Tall By Josh Small that I definitely want to hear. He's been playing a lot with Tim Barry and was the jack of all trades on last Summer's revival tour with Ben from Lucero and Chuck Ragan (Hot Water Music). Check out Josh here and get Tall here from Suburban Home.  

Austin came out and played on Josh's last song and Small repaid the favor by sticking around for the first song of way too short a set. I was pleased to find that Austin sings as well live as you would expect him to. The set was far too short, but feature most of the high points of Somebody Loves You, save for Shoulders. I would have like to have heard Kith and Kin, but the only disappointment in the set was that it passed far too quickly. Check out Austin here and buy a copy of Somebody Loves You here immediately.

Tim Barry was next up. He took the stage like a panther and immediately launched into Dog Bumped, a take of a man who has to deal with his sister's abusive husband. The crowd went pretty apeshit and for the life of me I can't see why. I have a ton of respect for what Tim has accomplished with Avail. He's worked damn hard at plying this folky troubadour route and seems totally sincere about it. Sadly, from where I'm sitting (read: far away from his wrath) it's pretty contrived and not especially good. He was playing in the crowd two songs into the set (and pretty excited to tell everyone how he was going there) to much adulation, but after three more songs, I bailed to the front bar. I have all the respect for the Coe and Paycheck set of populist, working man's music, but the problem lies in the genre being co-opted by the Toby Keiths of the industry. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to hear Lefty crap by punk bands (or Steve Earle) either. Something about Tim's solo songs and his crowd just don't resonate with me, especially after seeing Austin Lucas. Still, if you're into that sort of thing, you can get Tim's most recent record Manchester here from Suburban Home and keep tabs on his whereabouts here.

Thanks to Tony Weinbender at Southern Lovin for the hook-up, Austin for putting me on the list (good luck in Mexico!) and Rut and Jamie for the company.

R

Yesterday's Ring - Diamonds In The Ditch

Well, finally the day has come. The new Yesterday's Ring record has finally made it's way to Jaded Scenester HQ. And there was much rejoicing.

I reviewed the Sainte Catherines record Dancing For Decadence for Skyscraper a couple summers ago. I thought they were pretty decent, and as luck would have it, I ended up in Montreal a couple months later, days before The Sainte Catherines were to play a big show commemorating (I believe) their 500th show as a band. We just missed that show, but fate smiled on us as The Sainte Catherines countrified alter-egos Yesterday's Ring were playing shows that weekend to celebrate the release of their Back From El Rancho EP. The club was right down the street from out hotel, a small Brownies (RIP) sized place that put the six-piece band pretty much in the crowd for their set. It was a sweaty, raucous affair that won me over even though a lot of the set was in French. It didn't stop me from snapping up all of their records that I could find, and ordering the rest when I got back to NYC.

Fast forward a couple of years to Yesterday's Ring announcing a new record was in the works and then to a second announcement a month or so later from Virgil at Suburban Home that he was going to Chicago to try to get the boys to release the new record on Suburban Home. Luckily things worked out. I can't think of a better combination of artist and label. The record is called Diamonds In The Ditch and does little to dispel the notion that Yesterday's Ring are a French-Canadian version of The Pogues. All the ingredients to a good record are here: steel guitar, mariachi accordian, Telecasters. You really can't go wrong. 

The songs on Diamonds In The Ditch split the difference nicely between raucous rave-ups and dark tales of heartbreak and loss; sixteen tracks in total, all representing Montreal to the fullest. If Yesterday's Ring aren't shouting out the city outright, they are singing about missing it. Montreal is a pretty magical city, and the women are beautiful. Frankly, hearing Diamonds In The Ditch makes me want to move there now. Scrabble Strip Club and Moving Back (To Montreal) are two of the higher points, but truthfully there is very little in the way of low points. Saved By The Belle finds singer Hugo Mudie deviating from his normal Tim Armstrong school of elocution to sing in an oddly Jon Bon Jovi esque tone, but that isn't bad so much as weird. Trust me on this: you want to pick up Diamonds In The Ditch. Avail yourself of this handy link to preorder it from the good folk of Suburban Home, then go to their social networking engine and pester them to come Stateside for some shows. 

R

Mike Hale - Lives Like Mine

You may (or should) remember Mike Hale from his time fronting the mighty Gainesville punk rock triple threat that is/was Gunmoll. They were sort of a Gainesville Jawbreaker and were no strangers to bringing the noise to a basement or house show. They broke up sort of acrimoniously a couple years ago. In the interim, Hale has moved out to California and formed a new band called In The Red that have a record called Volume 2 out courtesy of the good folk of Suburban Home. You can get it here. Look for a review soon on JS-NYC.

In The Red are still a band, but Hale has decided to quit his job and give up his lease to become a full-time musician. It ambitious, especially in this day and age, but he's got a decent record to springboard with.  Lives Like Mine is all Hale, with spartan guitar and/or piano backing. It's nice, if not especially engaging for me personally. Hale has a nice voice and the songs are all better than the average stuff you'll hear. Forgive me, but Austin Lucas has raised the bar improbably high for me as it concerns solo fare in this day and age. It's definitely worth checking out and, as luck would have it, Suburban Home and Vinyl Collective are giving away Lives Like Mine away for free here, so check it out yourself and spread the gospel, if you see fit. Hale has a running series of posts from the road at punknews.org that you can keep up on here. His social networking engine can be found here, if you do that sort of thing.

R

Austin Lucas - Somebody Loves You

Wow. That's pretty much all I can say about Somebody Loves You. Virgil from Suburban Home had mentioned that he was trying to put out a record for him, but I didn't go out of my way to check him out. There are so (perhaps too) many ex-hardcore dudes that think they are Johnny Cash in this day and age and I really can't say I was dying to hear another one.

Well, it looks like I owe Virgil a drink, as Somebody Loves You is one of the best records I've heard so far this year. I would have expected it to pop up on Bloodshot before Suburban Home, but Dickerson and the rest of the kids out Denver way are rapidly becoming one of the best all-around indie labels around today. They've got a solid roster in the roots and punk spectrums. It's been great record after great record recently, and as I find it hard to shut about it, let me reiterate another time that I couldn't be more excited that Suburban Home is releasing the new Yesterday's Ring record.

Austin is an Indiana boy, a former child vocal prodigy that did serious time in Indiana University Children's Choir, before veering off into a word of hardcore and grind for a number of years. Trust me, this is not a man unfamiliar with a basement show. He's from a musical family, with a Dad that has written for a gang of bluegrass groups including Alison Kraus. Said Lucas family patriarch (call him Bob) also recorded the songs that comprise Somebody Loves You at the family seat in Ohio. Much of the family guests as well. It's a spartan record, but it sounds wonderful. You don't need much more than his voice. Austin can sing like an angel, sounding like a young bluegrass Richard Buckner against the keening fiddles and sweet harmonies that dapple these song. Life I've Got and Precious Little Heart are particularly good, but there really isn't a bad song on Somebody Loves You. I couldn't recommend it more.

Oddly enough, Lucas splits his time between the Czech Republic and Indiana. I think that's what we call a dichotomy, but it gives him ample opportunities to tour on a couple continents. He'll be here in town a couple of weeks from now with Tim Barry for one of the last shows at the Manhattan incarnation of The Knitting Factory. Keep track of Austin's whereabouts here and buy two copies of Somebody Loves You from Suburban Home via this handy link. Might I point out that it's $8.99?!! All props due to Suburban Home for consistently putting out some of the best records you'll hear today.

R

Jon Snodgrass - Visitor's Band

Jon Snodgrass is one-half of the songwriting Cerberus that is Ft. Collins mainstay Drag The River, a band whose records you should purchase immediately. Visitor's Band is his first solo release, comprised of ten new songs and the time-honored bonus track in the DTR tradition that reprises the entire album as a single track. While Drag The River used this to ensure they could monopolize jukebox time, Jon breaks a little from tradition by reprising the entire record in a string of demo versions. 

As is becoming the norm for Suburban Home releases, Visitor's Band is a great singer-songwriter record. Snodgrass has a voice that is equal parts Don Rich and whiskey; warm yet ragged throughout, despite the fact that the record was recorded on the fly at various impromptu sessions across the US. Brave With Strangers and Long Way Found are two of the higher points of Visitor's Band, but all of the songs are top fucking notch. Buy it here from the good folk of Suburban Home. Jon's been hitting the road pretty hard as a solo artist, recently returning from a West Coast tour with Joey Cape. He's in Europe through the middle of next month, with an East Coast tour scheduled for May. Keep track of all things Snodgrassian here and look out for some Drag The River dates soon.

Drag The River - Bad At Breaking Up

Drag The River are from Ft. Collins, in the bucolic glen that is Colorado. They also kick some motherfucking ass, if I may wax so eloquent. Comprised of Jon Snodgrass from Armchair Martian with Chad Price of "World's On Heroin" period ALL and very often JJ from the Nobodys, backed with a rotating rogues gallery of drum and steel players. I like the trend of the punk guys playing roots music. God bless Jon Langford for making it cool enough that everybody wants to do it. It's fostered the expected bunch of y'allternative dick riders, but they are almost always so transparent that they pass in short order, unless they perhaps have a film career to fall back on, porn or otherwise.

Drag The River carried the alt-country torch in their corner of the Northwest for a good long time. They were definitely the big fish of that small pond, and found a pretty fair amount of success. I would expect everyone had a day job, but they seemed to be a bunch of guys in it for the right reasons: free drinks, purge a demon or two, or maybe even meet a lady. Jon and Chad are best friends whose songs and voices complement each other like Cooley does with Hood in the Drive By Truckers or Tweedy used to complement Farrar in the good old days. The band and their friendship have weathered the usual bumps in the road, the most significant of late being the break-up of Drag The River after the band toured as the opener and backing band for Rocky Votolato.

A week or so, as I recall, into the Votolato tour, just a few dates before the tour was to pass through NYC, word came down the pike that Jon was leaving the tour. It was kind of a bummer, I had never seen Drag The River live and hadn't recalled them coming through New York much, if at all. Snodgrass bailing meant that they arrived in town with half of their catalog unavailable, so with all respect to Chad, their opening slot was just ok. Votolato was decent, but seeing Drag The River relegated to a backing band wasn't a good look. Soon, the formal declaration that Drag The River were over "for now and perhaps forever" came down from Jon via Suburban Home, yet another of the inevitable breakups that always seem to come on the heels of my completing the acquisition of a band's entire back catalog. They played a string of final shows in Ft. Collins, released a million songs posthumously, played some solo shows and now we've got a reunion thing going on. Ah, the mercurial life of bands!

Bad At Breaking Up is a compilation of alternate and unreleased material from the Drag The River archives. I believe it was supposed to be a posthumous odds and sods compilation, but in the wake of their recent revitalization, it's a precursor to their new full-length. There's good stuff here. J.J's Driving makes an appearance along alternate versions of A Way With Women and Beautiful and Damned and seventeen other tracks that don't suck in the slightest. Plus, it's on Suburban Home, so you know Bad At Breaking Up will be cheap, have awesome packaging and your dollar will be going to support a bad-ass bunch of individuals, so avail yourself of this link and get yourself a copy of Bad At Breaking Up and/or the million other great bands Suburban Home has on their roster. Plus, Suburban Home is releasing the new Yesterday's Ring record, so you should spend money there just to say thanks. Keep track of what's going on with Drag The River here. Maybe even be their friend. 

R

Jr. Juggernaut - Ghost Poison

Jr. Juggernaut are one of the more recent signings by Virgil Dickerson and the Good Folk Of Suburban Home Records. I fell pretty hard for the tune Suburban Home put on their recent comp. Another Two Weeks was said tune and it got under my skin and on to my playlists until I managed to score a copy of Ghost Poison.I have to say that when I threw this on the first time I was a bit disappointed, but that must have been the holidaze weighing too heavily on the proceedings. I've played it two or three times in the last day or so and I'm prepared to commit to it being pretty awesome. There are couple 'jammy' moments that I could do without, but I bet I'd think differently a couple beers in at the live show.

Jr. Juggernaut are pretty representative of the stuff Suburban Home has been releasing of late. The LA based three-piece seems well informed of Mssrs. Young (Neil and Angus) and Westerberg; with Mike Williamson breaking strings and singing for the crew. He's a got a whiskey-rough voice that suits the band's Tom Petty through a tube screamer grit. Drummer Waleed Rashidi kicks it up a notch, chipping in on backing vocals sometimes, too. Their voices work well together and it fattens up the sound nicely. It's a good sound that probably gets them a good bit of notice in the fake wasteland of their LA home base. Think an L.A. Drag The River without so much of a punk pedigree. Trust me, it's a good thing. There has been a holiday sale over at Suburban Home that may well have passed. Check out here and see, and know that it's worth paying the dirt cheap $9 they are/were asking normally.

R

Useless I.D. - The Lost Broken Bones

Unless you're a native or Tim Krysko from Punk International, chances are that Useless I.D. are your favorite Israeli punk band. And probably your only. They've been around since the early 90s, releasing their records on their own Falafel Records before a fortuitous tour with the Ataris begat a split cd and dalliances with Kung-Fu Records and Fat Wreck.

2008 finds Useless on Suburban Home. Virgil puts in work, but lately he's really been knocking it out of the park internationally, too. Hopefully by this time tomorrow we'll hear that he's signed Yesterday's Ring and will be releasing the 20 or so songs I hear Hugo and the boys have recorded of late. If that happens, I may move to Denver. All digression aside, Useless ID play their trade in the SoCal Lagwagon/NUFAN end of the melodic punk spectrum. It's pretty smooth, with sung vocals, but fast enough to get you in trouble. They are another happy client of The Blasting Room, having recorded their last couple records there with Bill Stevenson. He's done his usual great job. Everything sounds bright and shiny. If there were still MTV and radio, I'd expect to hear stuff like The Lost Broken Bones on it.

Save for the song that sounds a little uncomfortably like the new-school neutered Alkaline Trio, The Lost Broken Bones is a great record, and I only point out the A3 thing because it seems a little bit of a stretch toward a sound that isn't exactly theirs (and very probably because I'm sort of a dick). Useless ID sound enough like their own band on the rest of The Lost Broken Bones that they really don't need to make concessions to win more Warped fans.

Virgil and Suburban Home have been displaying a Midas Touch for a while now. It's been twangier fare of late, but leave it to those kids to pull a punk band out of their hats just to remind you where they came from. What's next? A Gamits reunion record? I wouldn't put it past those kids. Keep up on the daily goings-on at Suburban Home here and Useless ID here. That said, someone really needs to get cracking on an all-female punk band called Useless I.U.D. Just a thought. Thank me later.

R

Joey Cape - Bridge

Perhaps you are familiar with Mr. Joey Cape? The proud son of Goleta has helmed Fat Wreck punk stalwarts Lagwagon since '89, in addition to playing guitar with Me First and The Gimme Gimmes. Recently, he had doing his more low-key Bad Astronaut project with the late Derrick Plourde and some dudes from The Ataris.

Bad Astronaut was put on blocks after Plourde's passing, but the more melancholic side that was introduced via BA has continued in Cape's solo work. Bridge is the portrait of an aging punk rocker coming to grips with death, marriage and fatherhood. It's a full plate, but luckily said lifestyle changes haven't scuttled his musical ship like it has for Jeff Ott.

I won't begrudge his domesticity, but that's not to say that I'm dying to hear snippets of his kid in-between songs or want to see kid art in the packaging. I guess that's between Joey and Virgil over at Suburban Home. That said, Cape's a pretty talented guy. The melancholia that permeates Bridge isn't so jarring that it makes for rapid track-skipping. In fact, it's actually really good.

Virgil and Suburban Home have always been good for taking a chance on an established artist that's investigating a new direction. It's worked with Tim Barry and Chuck Ragan and with the BA provenance, Bridge may very well serve as a literal avenue to a new fanbase. There are nods to his punk rock past, but most of them are lyrical, as evinced by songs like The Ramones Are Dead. If you're expecting the Fat-compliant rock of Cape's other franchises, you would do well to look elsewhere, although things kick up into a full-band racket to close the proceedings. Bridge is more Sundowner or Elliott Smith and the songs are toned accordingly, so maybe stay away from this Bridge if you're feeling poorly.

I'm not sure that this is a release that Joey will support by touring, but if you've been bitten by the Cape bug, keep tabs on him here. Virgil's got a holiday sale going on over at the Suburban Home, so pick up a copy of Bridge cheap here and see what else they've got on markdown.

R