The Donnas “The Donnas” 1997/2023. Reissue, “natural w/black swirl” vinyl, Real Gone Music. The Donnas is the all-girl punk band’s debut LP, very much in the spirit of the Ramones: 60’s pop inspired, short and snappy with occasional overt references to juvenile drug use (“Huff All Night” and “Everybody’s Smoking Cheeba“) and simple counting (on “We Don’t Go” they count to two vs the Ramones more complex counting to four). Add in a hearty dose of The Runaways and you get an album that is fun, a bit silly but super-hard rocking. I believe The Donnas were all still in or just finishing high school when they recorded the album; according to Wiki they took off a week their senior year to tour in Japan. My top tracks off The Donnas are the opener “Hey, I’m Gonna Be Your Girl, the aforementioned “Huff All Night,” “Teenage Runaway,” “Friday Fun” and the sole cover on the record, “Drive In,” written by Beach Boys’ Ben Wilson. While it’s a must-have in the evolution of punk, especially for all-women bands, the LP does get repetitive, with a lot of the songs sounding almost identical.

Flat Duo Jets “White Trees” 1993/2024. Limited edition “white tree” colored vinyl, Propeller Sound Recordings, first ever vinyl pressing of the duo’s fourth album, originally released only on CD. White Trees is also their first of all original material, written by the late Dex Romweber (plus one track – one of my favorites, “Where Are You Now,” written by drummer Crow; it’s very drum-forward and hard-rocking psychobilly). Sparse, garagey neo-rockabilly meets punk blues, the Flat Duo Jets quietly (though very very loudly if you ever saw them play live, which we were lucky enough to have on a couple of occasions in the 90’s) set the stage for the garage rock duo of guitars/vocals + drums explosion of the mid-to-late 90’s/early 2000’s (White Stripes, Black Keys, etc.) and White Trees is considered one of their best releases. Romweber’s scratchy vocals pair perfectly with Crow’s brushy stomps: both  “Michelle” and “How Long” are great neo-rockabilly example from White Tree, with “How Long” also channeling Depression-era deep southern blues. Also great are the opener “Daughter of the Jungle,” (Dexter’s sister, the late Sara Romweber plays drums on this track), the haunting “You Don’t Love Me Anymore” and the bonkers “Radioactive Man.”

The Witches “A Haunted Person’s Guide To” 2011. Limited edition clear yellow (but looks orange) vinyl, Alive Records. Detroit psychedelic garage rock. A Haunted Person’s Guide is a comp of the band’s catalog from 1996 to 2007. It’s on the jangle end of garage, not much in the way of dark hypnotic sounds as some psych garage can be. There’s some strong blues inspiration, especially on one of my top tracks “Why Do U Make Me Feel Like That” which has some excellent slide guitar and an ass-meets-tambourine shaking beat. That track first appeared on The Witches’ 2002 album On Parade. The 60’s organ garage sound makes a little cameo on the fun and mildly funky “She Got Some Kinda Thing” (off the 2001 album Universal Mall). There’s some spooky shit, too, as both their name and the comp record’s title suggest like “The Haunted Regulars” (from the 2007 Thriller!) and the monster-mashy “Creepin’ Thru Yer Galaxy” which I think is unique to this comp.