“A Fistful of Rock N’Roll Vol. 4″

“A Fistful of Rock N’Roll Vol. 4″ Tee Pee Records, 2000. A comp of 90′s garage punks including some of my favorites like Murder City Devils, Tricky Woo and Quadrajets culled from a variety of indie labels like Estrus, Sub Pop and Get Hip Recordings, plus some previously unreleased tracks.

Side A starts off with the always awesome Quadrajets playing “Fireball” (from When the World’s on Fire!) followed by the best-of-the-garage-punks Murder City Devils’ “I Want A Lot Now” (from Empty Bottles Broken Hearts). The next track is pretty good, Pulpit Red’s “Zero Nights” (from Lurk). “The Ballad of Rachel & Candi” by Three Years Down (previously unreleased) is just OK and while I generally like Black Halos (I’m pretty sure we saw them open for Murder City Devils in ‘99 at a show in Madison), I’m not crazy about “For You” (from The Black Halos). American Heartbreak’s “White Girl” (from Postcards From Hell) is hard-rocking emopunk played by ex-members of Bay City Rollers, Jet Boy and Exodus followed by a punked-up rockabilly goes girl-group track by Graveyard School, “Life’s Crazy” (previously unreleased).

Side B starts off with the heavily Stooges/MC5 influenced “Mr. White” by Lovemasters (from Pusherman of Love). Next up is Spitfires’ “Something For Nothing” (unreleased) which is very Murder City Devilish and excellent followed by hardcore punk-speed DGeneration’s “Prohibition” (also previously unreleased). Then comes one of my all-time favorite songs of the 90′s by Canada’s Tricky Woo “Fly the Orient”  (from Sometimes I Cry). We literally had to go to Canada to find that CD by those guys back in the early 2000′s (not sure if vinyl was ever available). I’m not familiar with the next two bands on the comp, High School Sweethearts (crunchy and melodic girl punk) with “She’s Something” (from Passing Notes) and Stilleto Boys’ “Rockets & Bombs” (Rockets & Bombs) which is snotty punk à la The Ramones. Concluding the comp are Texas punks The Reds on “Zero” (from the 7″ single) and Canada’s Von Zippers’ “Bad Generation” (Bad Generation).