To quote Magnum P.I., “I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right…” other than the obvious point that this is a collection of covers, there’s something incredibly familiar about the material that comprises Have Another Ball. To be fair, I actually had to review this album twice because I thought it was a reissue; I have fond memories of blazing up the highway in a burned out, angelic blue Toyota Tercel to parts unknown with many of these Gimme Gimme-ized versions of the contempo–casual elite (including Paul Simon, John Denver, Billy Joel, Elton John, Carole King Neil Diamond and more) replete with a more sneering punk rock treatment as a soundtrack.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered that there was a grain of truth in the sales pitch that Have Another Ball is ‘the lost album’ from Me First And The Gimme Gimmes; while I had heard them before on CDR comps, none of these tracks had ever seen proper release on an album. On singles? Sure. Online? Of course – but never as an album. Recorded around the period of Me First And The Gimme Gimmes’ debut, Have A Ball, Have Another Ball is the definitive document for the band’s vision. The re–furbished versions of “The Boxer,” “Coming To America” and “Country Roads” now brim with the crunch of raucous, half–in–the–bag punk rockers out to cut loose and have a laugh; Jake Jackson and Joey Cape’s guitars – the things that have always punctuated and played straight man to the band’s arrangements – is crisp and jagged as a hyperactive buzz saw here. At the same time, the rhythm section manned by Dave (Just Dave) on drums and “Fat” Mike Burkett on bass really tries to make these covers sound like genuine attempts rather than tongue in cheek tomfoolery. That’s the single most appealing thing about Have Another Ball; if these covers didn’t have a sort of rubber–faced legitimacy, they’d come off as nothing more than a series of two–dimensional jokes that would have worn long thin by now. But they don’t. Have Another Ball is the punch line fully realized for a gag that never stops giving.
For more information, go to http://www.gimmegimmes.com/ and http://www.myspace.com/gimmegimmes
