Hepcat - Scientific

Spring has sprung, and an aging punk's fancy turns to the sounds of the Caribbean, no matter how bastardized or temporally removed they may be.

That's right, it's ska season. There's something about the temperature turning 60 that immediately leads me to load my 30 favorite third wave records onto my phone and make them my walking/driving soundtrack. Foremost amongst them is this, Hepcat's second of four LPs, 1996's "Scientific".

I played the ever-loving shit out of this and the promo single "Bobby & Joe b/w Dollar Dance" in the summer and fall of 1996. It slotted nicely alongside the Slackers' "Better Late Than Never" and the Stubborn All-Stars' "Open Season"; a trio of contemporary records from either coast that could have just as easily come out on Trojan in 1968. It was a very good summer to make friends and meet girls and stay up all night and raise the slightest bit of hell. There wasn't a need for anything much stronger than a Mickey's wide-mouth and a pack of Marlboros, and it was mighty easy to find a few bucks to pay for both.

Yeah, this evokes a fair amount of nostalgia for me. But it still feels lively and fresh and the sort of thing I want to play for my nieces this summer. This, of all the Hepcat records, appears to be out of print (sadly), so enjoy with a free conscience...at least until Jump Up puts in for a reissue.

Discogs

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Pope - JohnPaulGeorgeRingo

Like a lot of great bands, I discovered Leatherface just after they broke up. It was Jack Rabid and The Big Takeover (now in its 40th year!!!) that had banged that drum and served as John the Baptist to Frankie Stubbs' Jesus. So, of course, as soon as the impressionable 16-year-old Ape Mummy reads about Sunderland's finest, he goes looking for Leatherface records. Of which there are none available in mid-90s southwestern Virginia. Because small town record stores just don't carry the early Domino catalog.

And so it happened that it'd take another two years until I'd even hear the melodious tones of Mr. Stubbs, and that was via Pope, the band he started with bassist Andy Crighton after Leatherface. The 12" originally released by Rugger Bugger in the UK during Pope's short life-span would get a reissue on CD via the then-embyronic Tokyo label Snuffy Smile in 1996. By then, Frankie had moved on to his next trio, Jesse. But I found the CD during an early visit to Reptilian, and discovered that, even though it wasn't Leatherface, this absolutely lived up to the hype.

I kind of wish I still had that CD; it sells for a pretty penny these days on the secondary market. I believe this rip comes from BYO's 2001 reissue of "The Last" 12" on CD; the Pope songs were tacked onto the back end of that CD. It's the sort of passionate punk rock, in the vein of Stiff Little Fingers, that has inspired so many kids, myself included, to write from the heart, proficiency be damned.

Discogs

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