1. The Bamboo Kids - Safe City Blues
2. J. Roddy Walston & the Business - Essential Tremors
3. The Computers - Love Triangles Hate Squares
4. Zachary James & the All-Seeing Eyes Space Case
5. Pat Todd & the Rankoutsiders - 14th & Nowhere
6. James Younger - Feelin' American
7. The Connection - Let It Rock
8. Black Joe Lewis - Electric Slave
9. Chris Wilson - It's Flamin' Groovy!
10. V/A - Rockin' Here Tonight: Songs for Slim (a Benefit for Slim Dunlap)
11. The Grapes of Wrath - High Road
12. The Yum Yums - Play Good Music
13. Barrence Whitfield & the Savages - Dig Thy Savage Soul
14. Glitz - It'z Glitz
15. Greg Pope - Pop Motion Animation
16. Attic Lights - Super De Luxe
17. The Cliks - Black Tie Elevator
18. The Suburbs - Si Sauvage
19. Red Jacket Mine - Someone Else's Cake
20. Modern Kicks - Rock 'n' Roll's Anti Hero
21. Missing Monuments - Missing Monuments
22. Bad Sports - Bras
23. Deer Tick - Negativity
24. Beach Day Trip Trap Attack
25. The Charlie Watts Riots A Break In The Weather
26. Wyatt Blair - Banana Cream Dream
27. Neko Case - The Worse Things Get...
28. Dirty Fences - Too High To Kross
29. The Crunch - Busy Making Noise
30. Night Marchers - Allez! Allez!
Honorable Mentions:
Grimm Generation - The Big Fame
Warm Soda - Someone For You
Ulysses - Kill You Again
Rich Hands - Dreamers
Primitive Hearts - High & Tight
Foxygen - We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic
Jungle - Pacific Oblivion
Wild Belle - Isles
The Bamboos - Fever in the Road
Nick Piunti - 13 In My Head
Oblivians - Desperation
Willis Earl Beal - Nobody Knows
No Tomorrow Boys - Bad Luck Baby Put The Jinx On Me
Vegas With Randolph - Rings Around The Sun
King Khan & the Shrines - Idle No More
Silver Seas - Alaska
The Julie Ruin - Run Fast
The Dirtbombs - Ooey Gooey Chewy Ka-blooey!
Back in 1973, when David Bowie introduced Ziggy Stardust to the world, Ziggy was a character, a persona that Bowie temporarily occupied like a role in a Drury Lane stageplay, and something easily discarded once audience expectations became too high. Since that time the world's seen all manner of similar tactics and pop chameleons, to the point that we barely expect our precious rock gods to be anything other than cracked actors biding their time until they can cash out. Which makes Zachary James and the All Seeing Eyes' new album seem as unlikely as it is thrilling, because exactly 40 years after Zig's rock & roll suicide, they've reanimated that alien critter's spangly corpse and dragged it mule-kicking and screaming into the new millennium.
Which isn't to say Space Case sounds like Bowie, because it doesn't. It sounds like the album the character Ziggy might make, with lyrics of sci-fi romance and more nods to T.Rex than Bowie (and more to the Stones than either). Subsequently, it also embraces the glam dichotomy, the inherent contradiction of an androgynous future utopianism juxtaposed with the music's desire to search and destroy (to wit: just check the distance traveled between "Soul Love" and "Suffragette City" on the original artifact). With Space Case, James makes those two opposing poles obvious and distinct. The entirety of Side A, for example, is a much more direct and guileless proclamation of romantic love than any of the authentic glitter dudes ever waxed. "My Planet is Red (Your Planet is Blue)." a duet with Alexandra Starlight, practically oozes domestic bliss, and "Little Girl From Mars" is, its title notwithstanding, a fairly straightforward love song. Only "I'm Not Alone," with James' Joey Ramone drawl grafted on to a T.Rex choogle, challenges the languid pace of the first four tracks.
Side B, on the other hand, mostly gives up the romance and gives in to the impulse to rock. It's the opposite side of the coin, and the Rolling Stones are all over this side. It's an interesting stylistic choice, not so much because of the influence - which has always been part of James' sound - but because of the thematic repercussions. Let's face it, the Stones have typically (at their best) been fueled by an unapologetic, almost malevolent, macho heterosexuality (along with a flirtation with misogyny), which collides face-first with the romantic idealism of Space Case. James seems to intrinsically understand the contradiction, allowing his stomper "Outta Space" to organically drift into the unmistakable riff from "Satisfaction" before zooming off into its own boogie orbit. Similarly, "Starpeople," a hook-filled rocker built on a solid Chuck Berry foundation and neo-hippy sentiments, blatantly steals its chorus from "Star Star" as if attempting to offer a spiritual apologia for the awesome petulance of that great Stones classic. The comparatively low-key slow burn of "That's Just Life" exists between those two tracks like a palate cleanser.
And then, at the end of it all comes "Runnin' Outta Tyme," a propulsive mid-tempo groover with a spectacularly seductive riff. More than any other song here, this track suggests James can have it both ways. It reconciles his desire for utopian positivity with his need to just kick out the jams (muthafugga), and subsumes those warring urges into a single tension-filled entity. It's pure pop drama, befitting the original concept of the Zigster himself. But Zachary James is no mere character. He's the living embodiment. The leper messiah
with glitter on his cheek. And maybe he takes it too far but (you know the drill), boy, can
he play guitar.
Four years after their last transmission (and seven since their last full-length), the Bamboo Kids show up with their very own London Calling. Twenty-one songs (with 9 bonus tracks accompanying the digital download), chockful of everything these guys can think of, which amounts to a glorious sprawl of punk
rock, Stones licks, pianos, horns, hooks and gutter wisdom. Songs like "Dumb for Life" power through on sheer adrenaline, while
"Batshit Crazy" chews on an Exploding Hearts bubblegum melody and "Privacy" jumps on top
of a 50s rock & roll strut. Singer/guitarist Dwight Weeks wields his guitar as if he's spent equal amounts of time listening to Keith Richards and Johnny Thunders (and moments like the muscular lead that explodes out of "The Most Important Rule" suggest a Mick Ronson influence as well). The various keyboards, from pounding 88s to droning roller rink organ, coupled with the wise-ass strain in Weeks' vocals conjure up the days when Mott the Hoople was attempting to draw a line between Dylan and Jerry Lee Lewis. This is seriously on that level. Safe City Blues presents a band with
all the right influences wearing those influences on their collective
sleeve, playing their hearts out, all while being fully aware of the
futility of taking a stance like this in 2013. I tell ya, it ain't nothing but heroic.
