Boogie Chitz

Hard work and tireless genital thematics kept Poison consistently near the crest of Hair Hunx Mountain - but they reached the actual peak with their second album - Open Up and Say...Ahh! It capped off Poison's incredible 1988 - one of the best individual band years in the entire Hair Hunx Dynasty. A pair of American classics are on Poison number two and you'd be surprised to learn they actually picked-up some indie cred along the way.

The tireless Cheap Trick’s second album In Color is loved by classic rock fans, critics and music historians alike - but hated by the band. They thought the producer Tom Werman did them dirty - polishing up their sound behind their back - which he did. But too bad - it worked. Underrated classic released a year before this pairing of two oddballs and two hunks became big in Japan.

Zebby Tembo was the drummer for Zamrock legends Ngozi Family - very true - but he also wrote his own songs. My Ancestors was the first of two known Zebby solo albums - recorded in 1976 during the same time his main band was crushing faces and melting underpanties all over Lusaka. A bare bones stoner Zamrock classic.

The Damned were at the forefront of British punk - a party band providing dark comedic relief to a scene often fueled by inner rage. But two years in and they were done - burned out and looking to do something else. So The Damned broke up - for like a minute. With names like 'Rat Scabies' and 'Captain Sensible' what else could they do but rock and roll? Nothing. The re-energized band reformed in 1979, dropped Machine Gun Etiquette and never stopped knockin' socks off. Absolute classic.

It took a traumatic event for young Robin Pecknold to realize he possessed the gift of the Mangina Majestica. Only a few years later he turned that haunting memory into an unforgettable mangina band. Shore is Fleet Foxes at their catchiest and most tightly-tucked.

The Mac Attack's Mirage Tour concluded in October 1982 and the cranky gentle-rockers were clearly ready for a hiatus. While grandma-haired Lindsey Buckingham and the rest of the Mac sulked, Stevie Nicks made new friends and cranked out The Wild Heart - the energetic follow-up to Bella Donna. Stevie Nicks at her peak here - right before she quit coke and started wearing the Mrs. Doubtfire outfits.

By the time the Isolar Tour ended in May 1976 David Bowie was sick of his family and friends (yuck) hassling him to stop snorting his beloved Raoul. Get out of my face. His plan was simple: tell everyone he was gonna clean out in Germany to throw them off his trail and then escape to Paris - where he can continue to snort drizzugs, bang black women, wear Nazi World War II regalia and just be David Bowie in peace. He would need some assistance in completing his mission though - so the first move was to call The Idiot.

The Who at their beautifully shambolic live peak. Pete Townshend had one goal as the new decade began - release a live Who album capturing all those new Tommy songs in their superior raw form. Well Pete threw a temper tantrum when he discovered that everything recorded from the previous year was unusable. After his fit, composure was found - and The Who booked two shows in February for the sole purpose of getting a live LP out of them. The magnificent Live At Leeds was the result - and there is not one Tommy song in the original track list. Go figure.

Pega Monstro are Portuguese sisters Júlia and Maria Reis - and that's it. Unless you count Rodrigo Rodizio as an actual member. The Reis girls quickly became leaders of the Lisbon rock scene fifteen years ago - especially after founding Cafetra Records and providing an outlet for their friends' groups to release music. But friends don't matter when a masterpiece needs to be made - and in 2015 Pega Monstro left Portugal for London to unleash the Alfarroba. And we thank them for that.

The Bushman of Limpopo was an awesome Pop Africanus singer who cranked out over forty records during his lifetime. This while also earning three college degrees and a career in labour law that rivals his success in the music game. With Modjadji the Rain Queen helping assist his destiny Steve Kekana overcame blindness, nasty Belgian monks and other assorted obstacles to live a life of black radiance. Nomsa Ntombi Yami was the Kekana's second album - classic Mbaqanga - released a few years before South African music blew up on a global scale.

An overlooked chestnut from 1970s New York City fixture Garland Jeffreys. Good guy and relentless overachiever facing challenges like - having a fanbase more famous than him and - the constant bullying from his best friend's older brother Roy. A solid neck-to-nut worth the time.

The Paisley Underground bands of Los Angeles were keeping garage rock revivalism on full blast out west in 1984. But on the east coast Monoman and Lyres were doing it alone in Boston. Heavy on passion, lite on precision - Lyres' debut LP On Fyre is a skipless stomper that was recorded in a flurry of single takes into one microphone - let us bask in the oneness of Monoman.

Not the brightest bulbs in the offseason tanning bed - but Jacksonville's 38 Special stumbled into genius by polishing up their southern rock frame for 1980s MTV consumption with album four - Wild-Eyed Southern Boys - butt rock for the BEDAZZLED jean short.

Tireless synth-funklordz Chromeo had one goal in mind as they crafted Business Casual, their most presentable LP - make keyboard songs so infectious that even Michael Jackson would guest sing the hooks if heard - Follow the Rockwell Aesthetic. Never happened - but Chromeo are still awesome and the most reliable summer music festival late-night set artist in the game. When it's 2am in the Legionnaire Tent and you're putting glow sticks in your mouth and doing bumps of K off the backside of a frisbee, Chromeo is probably on that stage.

Two roughs boys escape the high school tyranny of panty-masked Principal Montoya and form overachieving garage rock band Twin Peaks. Wild Onion is one of a handful of solid LPs they put out in a half-decade span before disappearing.

During June of 1973 - the year the Grateful Dead got really good at being the Grateful Dead - the band played a weekend run at the gigantic RFK Stadium in the nation's capital. On day two the Dead went for nearly five hours - exploratory jams out the wazoo - including a third set sit-in by a couple of Allman Bros. The show was recorded by famed LSD manufacturer and group benefactor Owsley 'Bear' Stanley - and then dusted off fifty years later for official release by the musical gravediggers at Rhino Records.

Barely out of their teens Carmelo and Michelangelo La Bionda of Milan established themselves as competent ballad authors for other Italian singers. But after a trip to Munich in 1977 the boys took their action to the dance floor and became pioneers of the emerging Italo-Disco scene. The ★ Collection is a fifteen track German compilation documenting the La Bionda brother's time spent under the glitter ball during the turn of the decade. Viva la Bionda!

During the 1970s the Doobs were everyone's older brother's THIRD favorite band with their sassy motorcycle riffs and church-ready harmonies. First five LPs with the core original lineup before Michael McMuffin joined are all decent - none are stank. The second one - Toulouse Street - is my overall favorite but we'll nip from the rest of the pack as well.

Reckless crowned young denim dandy Bryan Adams the surest thing in rock and roll in 1984. Ten flawlessly-constructed and produced songs void of experimentation but full of heart. Adams was at the top of his game - but SOMEONE was watching closely from three-thousand miles southeast of Vancouver.

We got a fresh one on site tonight - only a few months old. Twisted Teens make infectious New Orleans garage rock and have a pedal steel guitar player named Razor Ramone - with an e. Be cool Chico. Nuff said. Blame the Clown is their second album and you must hear.