VARIOUS ARTISTS
Gimme Indie Rock
(K-Tel Records)
***1/2
Compilations that try to encapsulate a genre or a cultural moment are almost always a portrait of limitations, either in available source material, sequencing, or vision. Gimme Indie Rock is a complete surprise, which adds a layer of respect to its success. K-Tel Records has been releasing compilations of emo, goth, industrial, and metal that are distinguished by the care of the selections. K-Tel makes no attempt at being definitive or all-encompassing, which is its greatest strength. Instead, the label takes the high road by offering a modest array of artists that seem to have been chosen with care and a personal affinity--like making beloved mix tapes, which is the highest praise for this kind of project. Gimme Indie Rock offers two discs of punk-inspired guitar bands whose individualism marginalized them while they created some of the most idiosyncratic and influential rock of the last 15 years. Included are Hüsker Dü, the Fall, the Meat Puppets, Mudhoney, Galaxie 500, and Yo La Tengo. More surprising and heartening are the lesser-knowns that flesh out this compilation. Eleventh Dream Day, Squirrel Bait, and Scrawl each make the case for an altogether different style of heartland rock. The Feelies, the Wipers and the Vaselines deliver the promise and the thrill of rock when it had an elastic expressiveness that seemed to know no boundaries. The Minutemen, the Pastels, the Mekons, and Spacemen 3 demonstrate the diversity under the revival tent of the indie rock label. While one is likely to think of many oversights and exclusions that should have been added, it is enough that this compilation breathes with the energy and possibility of the music that came from creative artists on tiny labels. Though indie rock may have eventually turned into something very different, it is vital here at its square root and square-peg best-- outsiderdom brought to you by K-Tel that is a measure of how much everything has changed. NATE LIPPENS
PAUL REVERE & THE RAIDERS
Mojo Workout (2CD)
(Sundazed)
***
Uh... as I ain't able to better say it, I'll quote Mark Lindsay, the Raiders' sax/voxman: "What you're getting is this bunch of white-bread kids from the Northwest doing their best to sound black." AMEN! This particular part of the Raiders' history begins '64-ish, after they'd signed to Columbia Records, and is comprised of sessions (live on stage à la the Wailers' Castle LP, and live in the studio) plus their first six Columbia sides. Cool? Hell YES, and I was excited to slip this in, like I figgered I knew what was gonna get goin' on... then 'bout after a minute into the first track... I was face up ass down FLOORED! Um, so YOU might wanna lay down some pillows first. Now, this collection ain't ONLY stunning, but proves what committed SOUL workhorses these fellas were as it puts to SHAME their first two piecemeal Columbia LPs. Christ, if we'd only known THEN, what Mojo proves NOW, I bet we'd be sayin', "Hmmm, the Rolling WHO?" MIKE NIPPER
THE ETERNALS
The Eternals
(Desota Records)
***
Formerly of the underappreciated Trenchmouth, Wayne Montana and Damon Locks are two-thirds of Chicago's power-dub trio the Eternals. They are joined by drummer extraordinaire Dan Fliegel, who has worked with Tortoise and Brazilian surrealist wild card Tom Ze. The guitar bluster of Trenchmouth has been replaced with a heavy dub flavor that is playfully experimental. Montana's noisome keyboard parts recall the squall and angularity of early Pere Ubu. Locks' chanted vocals are the centerpiece and perhaps the stumbling block for some. They may at first bring to mind Cake drained of the glibness, but their antecedents are more diverse than that: Tackhead, and King Tubby. The Eternals do not buckle under the weight of their influences, but instead flourish and press on. This is lean, hungry music with its own fractured sensibility and a penchant for genre-cide. It is the sound of a band digging in, creating a niche where there was none, and pushing forward. Tom Ze would be proud. NATE LIPPENS
MARACA FIVE-O
Headin' South at 110 Per
(Smooch Records)
***
To me, there are two types of surf music: the kind that makes me want to surf, and the kind that makes me want to drive. By the former I mean the crisp, edgy sound that gets the adrenaline going and prompts the desire to go to the beach. But for the latter, I mean a transcendent, surreal experience that manifests itself on a deserted highway in the dead of night, nary a sign of life outside, the yellow dashes in the center of the road blurring into one, with an echoing, serpentine guitar providing the soundtrack. Coming upon Headin' South at 110 Per from landlocked Colorado foursome Maraca Five-O, who actually describe their sound as "Road Surfing" music, I was expecting to be transported to some nameless highway in the middle of nowhere. But instead I found myself blazing down the freeway on a hot afternoon, boards strapped to the roof, foot thumping the floorboard, while my friend mooned old ladies in the next lane. This is not a bad thing. Maraca Five-O are a genuine, bona fide surf band. It's just that instead of closing my eyes and imagining that lonely, sublime place where I can't see past the realm of my headlights, I looked at my car and cursed the distance between the beach and where I was at. KRIS ADAMS