A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Smell The Magic 12” reissue by L7. As a critic, I am not often given to crossing music with politics (unless, of course, I’m reviewing something like an album which has a political slant about it – like a Bob Dylan album or perhaps one by Rise Against) – but sometimes the moment just feels right – and listening to L7’s Smell The Magic EP inspires that sensation handily. “How could...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Fortieth Anniversary, Record Store Day 2017-released, limited edition 2LP reissue of Blank Generation by Richard Hell and the Voidoids. Not so very long ago, I was muddling through the stacks at my favorite record store when the sight of something surprising gave me pause. There, on a reasonably cool spring day, I found a copy of the Record Store Day reissue of Blank Generation by Richard Hell and the Voidoids, originally...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the LP + 7” reissue of Peculiar by The Slackers. I remember the first time The Slackers released Peculiar in 2006 (back then, it came our on Hellcat Records). At that time, I was only a few years into working in the music press. I had a pretty good relationship with Epitaph, and they sent me a CD copy of Peculiar for review. Back then, I wasn’t too into ska – I...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Fat Possum’s vinyl reissue of Wild Gift by X. As good as Los Angeles was and as important as that album would ultimately prove to be in the presentation of X, the band’s debut album will ultimately always play a supporting role to the band’s sophomore long-player, Wild Gift. Now, it’s important to note that Wild Gift would not, could not have happened had the groundwork not been laid by Los Angeles,...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Fat Possum reissued pressing of the Los Angeles LP by X. It might not be the first thing that fans think of when they’re looking at punk rock and trying to decode how the genre has evolved, but the fact is that the breed which was borne of Los Angeles in the late Seventies and early Eighties drew from a very deep well of inspiration – arguably a deeper one than...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Hawaii EP 12” reissue by Young Canadians. Punk bands have been called dangerous and have been accused of challenging every establishment with which they come into contact, but the truth is that such claims are often pretty overstated. Really think about it, reader – as rough and tumble as The Ramones, Richard Hell and the Voidoids and Television may have looked, there wasn’t much in the way of content in any...
Elliott SmithXO(Bong Load 25th Anniversary)photo: turntablelab.com I thought I had closed the book on Elliott Smith in my life. He was thrust upon me by an ex girlfriend who was from Oregon. As you can imagine, you can’t be in high school in Oregon in the 90s and not be consumed by Elliott Smith’s music. And when you date someone like that, some of that stuff is going to rub off on you. I absorbed his last album From a...
Run-DMCRun-DMC(Get On Down Records reissue)photo: turntablelab.com Whenever we get a chance we like to keep it local here on Ground Control. We do it with our bands and we do it with our labels. I’m Boston based and how Get on Down has escaped me for all these years, I’ll never know. The best part is that I found out about them through word of mouth from my local record store in Somerville called Index Records. Well, my record (no...
Buzzcocks Singles Going Steady (2019 Remaster – Domino Records)photo: turntablelab.com The Buzzcocks belong up there with the Clash and the Sex Pistols for contributing the most to the punk rock of the 70s. Sure the Damned belong there also, but they were never Buzzcocks-calibur in my book. And the Sex Pistols are the Sex Pistols but there’s no denying what a similarly overrated and underrated album Nevermind the Bollocks is. And the Clash? They’re just untouchable. There can be no...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Bela Sessions 12” reissue by Bauhaus. In order to really appreciate just exactly how radical Bauhaus was in the early stages of their career, one must recognize what they did seemingly as a matter of course – how different it was from everything else, and how boldly the band did it from day one. The group’s first release, the “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” single, is an ideal illustration of that difference; in...