Common Rider: Last Wave Rockers

Common Rider: Last Wave Rockers

1999

Lookout! Records/Panic Button

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Classics of Love  2. Castaways  3. Signal Signal  4. Carry On  5. Rise or Fall  6. True Rulers  7. Conscious Burning  8. On Broadway  9. Heatseekers  10. A Place Where We Can Stay  11. Walk Down the River  12. Rough Redemption  13. Deep Spring  14. Angels at Play  15. Dixie Roadrash




 I love Kamen Rider!!

 I also love Common Rider!!

 

And why wouldn't I? It was Jesse Michaels' first new release since the demise of  Ska-Punk legends Operation Ivy...

...and the short lived Big Rig... 

I remember there being a lot of anticipation in the punk scene for the Common Rider album...After all it had been 5 years since Big Rig, and that was only a 7-inch, which means he hadn't released a full length album since Op Ivy's  one-and-only album, 1989's  "Energy."  I pretty much ordered every album Panic Button/Lookout! released, so there was certainly no way I was going to miss this one...

After the usual excruciating three week wait, I finally got that package in the mail!  Here it was at long last...

Three-Hole Sally!!!!

...and then about a week after that I got my Common Rider Cd...

Popping it into my ten foot tall 6 Disc Changer CD Player/Dual Cassette High Speed Dubbing Stereo, I heard that acoustic strum and Jesse's flat toast:

"At one, I was sitting and thinking of all the

beautiful things he could have become,
Instead of a lyrical oracle and I'm a most appreciative one,
'cause I'm in a world of my own
when I'm into it I don't want anything else,
and nothing can bother me when I'm inside of it
cause I'm outside of myself..."

Wait! This wasn't gritty ska-punk! Still, it was undeniably awesome...There was no way this was going to live up to the  anticipation, I knew that...And what's here is very fine indeedy...Lots of boppy pop rock with sunshiny choruses with a little reggae here and a few acoustic ditties there...I whittled away countless hours during that summer of '99, driving around while blaring the sweet sounds of "Walk Down the River" and "Classics of Love." God, I used to play the hell out of the wistful, Buddy Holly-esque "Deep Spring." 

Really the only song on here that I've never warmed to is "Angels at Play." Although a lot of the album has a welcome, good time feel, this one has a chorus that seems to take the joyfulness a step too far, into the realm of a forced smile,  if that makes sense...   

Still, it's a small hiccup, and all in all I find the unguarded optimism very charming. Oh yea,  I should mention the band on this contains Dan Lumley and Mass Giorgini of Squirtgun/Screeching Weasel fame...

I haven't listened to Squirtgun in at least a decade and a half now, but I used to play them pretty regularly...I still listen to Screeching Weasel all the time, though...I almost forgot I worked with Mass Giorgini once...He did the mastering on our cover of "Peppermint Girl" that we did for the "God Save the Queers" tribute album...

Here's the inside cover...You can see our little TA-80 robot logo in the lower right hand corner...We pretty much worked via email, so I don't have any great insight into the guy's character or anything...All I can say is that his emails were firm, yet masculine...Never had the heart to tell him the song had already been mastered by our friend Randy, so it ended up getting mastered twice, which resulted in a loud-ass "CLICK!" during the intro...Oh my God, I'm seriously laughing so hard thinking back on all this stuff...I didn't care though, cos I desperately wanted Mass' name on one of our recordings.  After all, his name was all over the old albums I had loved, so it was worth it...And getting to see the TA-80 logo next to the iconic logos of  all of my old faves (Screeching Weasel, the Nobodys, New Bomb Turks,  and the Parasites) was a real thrill...This was also where I was introduced to Johnny Love and his amazing band Le Volume Était Au Maximum, who's mastered every TA-80 album since...Oh yea, it also forced me to remember the band The Hard-Ons and the "Dickcheese" album that I used to own...

Wow, did I ever get off subject today...I better start this post over....

 ...ahem...

Common Rider: Last Wave Rockers

1999

Lookout! Records/Panic Button

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Classics of Love  2. Castaways  3. Signal Signal  4. Carry On  5. Rise or Fall  6. True Rulers  7. Conscious Burning  8. On Broadway  9. Heatseekers  10. A Place Where We Can Stay  11. Walk Down the River  12. Rough Redemption  13. Deep Spring  14. Angels at Play  15. Dixie Roadrash

Thiz recurd iZ verra god...

Lissin....