STAR SPANGLED BANANA - 'PEBBLES 2000'

Formats

• AGIT025 - LP

• AGIT025CD - CD

  5060174956195

Details

Whoa! Daddy-o! Here's some 100% hi-octane grooviness!!! Agitated is pleased to announce release of the long awaited debut album from these pioneers of the happening sound soon to be known to the masses as BUBBLEGRUNGE! Yes, believe it! Dirty amps tweaked to a happenin’ rhythm and floorshaking beat, eviscerating the soul of your tired and over-referenced Nuggets comps and bustin’ you loose with some wild grunt and grind! The songs may be familiar, but you will be too furiously wigging out to even care who or what wrote them in the first place! It's an ever-lovin' tribute to the bubblegum greats of yore! The Beatles! The Monkees! Paul Revere! Tommy James! Flipper! And more! “Probably the Koolest thing that’s ever happened on this planet!” 500 Banana yellow vinyl LPs with a free CD of the musick.

Tracks

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DIRTBOMBS - 'OOEY GOOEY CHEWY KA-BLOOEY!'

Formats

• ITR248 - LP

  759718524819

• ITR248CD - CD

  759718524826

Details

For about a decade now, Dirtbombs frontman Mick Collins has threatened that the band’s next release would be their “bubblegum album.” After a couple of records of mostly originals, a compilation of singles and an album of Detroit techno covers, one might have suspected that the concept either fell by the wayside or was a farce to begin with. Well, at long last, here is Ooey Gooey Chewy Ka-Blooey. It’s understandable to assume that a bubblegum record by The Dirtbombs would be cover versions by groups like the 1910 Fruitgum Company, The Ohio Express and The Archies. After all, the band already has two albums of cover songs under their belt which salute specific genres. That is not the case in this instance. Mick Collins wrote ten new tracks which pay homage to the sound and style originally popularized in the late ’60s / early ’70s by producers / exploiters like Kasenetz-Katz and Don Kirschner. While the usual Dirtbombs’ double-drums, fuzzy guitars and soulful swagger are present, Ooey Gooey is sugary, sunshiny pop rock that recalls Josie & the Pussycats, the Banana Splits and Lancelot Link & the Evolution Revolution, to name but three. It’s all sing-along choruses, childlike themes and a contrived innocence— not the kind of record one would’ve predicted from a guy who once fronted The Gories. The original bubblegum music was a cash-in produced on an assemblyline using studio musicians and hired songwriters, who dashed out the stuff as quickly as possible and most likely forgot about it even quicker. While The Dirtbombs adhere to some of this original approach by using a list of guest musicians so long there wasn’t room to credit them on the album cover, Ooey Gooey Chewy Ka-Blooey is actually a carefully crafted work almost two years in the making. • Latest from Detroit veterans is their “bubblegum album” • Sugary, sunshiny pop rock that pays tribute to the sound and style popularized in the late ’60s / early ’70s • Vinyl includes digital download card

Tracks

1. Sugar on Top
2. Crazy for You
3. It?s Gonna Be Alright
4. Hot Sour Salty Sweet
5. Jump and Shout
6. The Girl on the Carousel
7. Hey! Cookie
8. Sunshine Girl
9. No More Rainy Days / Sun Sound
Interlude
10. We Come in the Sunshine

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RESIDUAL ECHOES - 'THE MIDDLE PATH'

Formats

• HOLY1995 - LP

  655035699516

Details

In the grand tradition of albums consisting of sidelong tracks, The Middle Path ranks among the best. How great is it? On the level of the latest opus by Decimus (NNCK’s Pat Murano), Tangerine Dream’s Zeit and Ash Ra Tempel’s first LP. Taking collage rock to college, band leader Adam Payne and drummer Matthew Clark present their loftiest contribution yet to the outrock canon. They let their freak flag fly high, but with a disciplined air. “Bush Pij / Sometimes” starts with a bulbous, stunt-rock charge that evokes first-four-albums Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy and the heaviest parts of Focus’s Hocus Pocus. After working the listener into a lather, Residual Echoes downshift into a bong-breaking interlude featuring Payne’s nonchalant, deep-voiced plaint: “Why does it seem so hard? … / Sometimes people make a fool out of me.” Such woe is swept away by headbanging passages full of torrid, florid guitar solos and the kind of explosive drumming that makes fans of Bill Ward and Keith Moon paradiddle all over themselves. Later, an ominous tolling redolent of Sonic Youth’s “Halloween” conjures a beautifully haunting, desolate comedown. What a trip. But this is mere warm-up for “A Marriage,” the pinnacle of Residual choes’ career and one of 2013’s most excellent and actionpacked tracks. It begins like the greatest facsimile of “Hallogallo” one has ever heard (and there have been many): motorik bliss boogie with flute gently fluctuating in the airstream, bolstered by burbling bass, gull-cry guitar and nipple gongs. Around six-and-a-half minutes in, things get incredibly anthemic in a Meat Puppets Up on the Sun way. Bonus: The guitar solo at the twelve-minute mark flares and curlicues like Wayne Rogers on the world’s best trucker speed. Near the end, a strangulated feedback concerto carries the listener bewilderedly to the runoff groove. The Middle Path turns out to be the righteous route.javascript:void(0)

Tracks

1. Bush Pij / Sometimes

2. A Marriage

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