TS: Lone Justice or Cruzados or Drivin' & Cryin' or Green On Red or Del Fuegos or Jason & The Scorchers or Long Ryders or Bodeans?

Front man/vocalist Tito Larriva would go on to form his own band "Tito and Tarantula" where original Cruzados guitarist Steve Hufsteter would join him as part of his touring band

Man, I loved the Plugz,back when they used to show up on New Wave Theatre, where I first encountered several groups on this and related threads--wiki: New Wave Theatre was a television program broadcast locally in the Los Angeles area on UHF channel 18 and eventually on the USA Network as part of the late night variety show Night Flight during the early 1980s...It was noted for showcasing rising punk and new wave acts, including Bad Religion, Fear, the Dead Kennedys, 45 Grave, The Angry Samoans and The Circle Jerks...he format was extremely loose, owing partly to the desire to maintain the raw energy of the live performances and partly to the limited production budget. The program was presented in a format dubbed "live taped", in which the action was shot live and the video was then interspliced with video clips, photos, and graphics of everything from an exploding atomic bomb to a woman wringing a chicken's neck.
The Plugz were one of the first, if not the first, DIY L.A. punk bands. But I also remember being frustrated by the Cruzados albums, on Arista, although they were on some show, maybe Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, and very hot, with a Link Wray-style guitarist who I think left pretty soon. I couldn't emjoy Tito & Tarantula in From Dusk To Dawn because it was such a bad movie, but Desperado would have to be better, and its soundtrack looks pretty promising.

So, since we've got Gun Club and Dream Syndicate on here (Thread Police don't talk about me when I'm gone):

Savage Republic

Meteora

Mobilization Recordings

20 May 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LOWuMFaXSE

Savage Republic will release their album Meteora out May 20 in North America via Mobilization Recordings.

Hailing from the Los Angeles underground of the 1980’s, Savage Republic forged an astonishing reputation for themselves as art-post punk-industrial pioneers. Throughout the 1980s, their five albums combined with their legendary live performances blurred and distorted the boundaries of post-punk, industrial, and soundtrack music – all wrapped up beautifully in Bruce Licher’s innovative graphic design.

After 1989, the Republic went quiet. 13 years passed before they would briefly resurface for a US reunion tour in support of the reissue of their five studio albums and related singles on CD. Thom Fuhrmann, Ethan Port, and Greg Grunke revived the band in 2005, and in 2006 they added drummer extraordinaire Alan Waddington to the fold. This lineup released the full length 1938 LP on Neurot Recordings (2007) and a pounding tribal cover of The Cure’s “Hanging Garden” on a compilation CD included in the French magazine Fear Drop #14 (2008).

In 2009, Savage Republic decided to raise their game. With the departure of Greg Grunke, multi-instrumentalist and recording engineer Kerry Dowling joined the band and they’ve never looked back since! The current four-piece line up (Thom Fuhrmann, Ethan Port, Kerry Dowling, and Alan Waddington) has taken the band’s discography to a whole new level with their bombastic live performances. Touring Europe regularly, they have created a live set that never lets the audience catch a breath – four musicians in their 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s playing with the passion and energy of bands 1/3 their ages.

This longest running lineup of the band have released the full length albums Varvakios (2012) and Aegean (2014), and singles “1938”/”Taranto” – on Italian label “A Silent Place” (2009), “God and Guns”/”Tranquilo” (2018), and “1938”/”Siam” (2019) – recorded by Steve Albini at Electrical Audio during their Midwest Trek tour and capturing more of the raw energy this lineup unleashes in the live setting.

Meteora features some of Savage Republic's best work yet. Self-recorded in a secret cavernous location, their mix of tribal textures, political anthems and Morricone-esque surf instrumentals once again transport the listener to faraway lands at turns both haunting and beautiful. One of many highlights of Meteora is the pandemic inspired piece “Unprecedented” (gifted to the band by Wire’s Graham Lewis) that is sure to become a staple in their set list. This longest-lasting lineup of Savage Republic have infused all the power of their legendary live performances into a cinematic sonic dreamscape.

Over the decades, Savage Republic has performed with or collaborated with similar like-minded artists including Blaine L. Reininger of Tuxedomoon, Einstürzende Neubauten, Flipper, David Yow, Camper Van Beethoven, The Dream Syndicate, Psi-Com, 100 Flowers, Kommunity FK, Christian Death, Sonic Youth, Live Skull, members of Big Black, The Minutemen, Fugazi, the Buzzcocks, and Graham Lewis of Wire.

If you have any questions, contact caroline at clarioncallmedia.com.

Maybe the Paisley Underground thread would work too.

Search and Destroy: Paisley Underground

Some really nasty behind the scenes business with the BoDeans from a few years ago I recently learned about via a friend's blog.

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/2018/06/11/bodeans-kurt-neumann-stepdaughter-accuse-former-band-member-sam-llanas-molestation/362436002/

Holy crap

FWIW Omnivore has a "back to school" sale that ends today - 50% off everything except pre-orders and new releases, so now's a good time to scoop up all of those Lone Justice reissues.

Have we mentioned the Bottle Rockets here? Def. indie, their own kind of border music, despite and during this one major label shot---From Real Gone Music:

We just have one new release for you this week, but it’s a good ‘un! Bottle Rockets leader Brian Henneman worked as Uncle Tupelo’s guitar tech for a couple of years before forming an alt-country band that rivalled his former bosses. Released in Atlantic in 1997, 24 Hours a Day represented The Bottle Rockets’ chance at the big time; it’s their sole major label release, and they pulled out all the stops for this one, hiring former Blackheart and Del Lord Eric “Roscoe” Ambel to produce and revisiting “Indianapolis,” the song that got Henneman a record deal back in the early ‘90s. Alas, the record failed to break through commercially; but there will always be a place in our hearts for this kind of hard-driving, honest, tuneful rock and roll, best exemplified by “Perfect Far Away” and “When I Was Dumb.” For its LP debut, we’re pressing this underappreciated classic in coke bottle (natch) clear vinyl housed inside an album jacket with inner sleeve…limited to 1000 copies!

24 Hours a Day [Atlantic, 1997]
Like Wilco, only not so generically or formalistically, this is a rock band. They love Lynyrd Skynyrd; they love the Ramones. Their country leanings merely ground their commitment to content--Brian Henneman's savory sense of character and place, the every-word-counts delivery that lends his singing its specific gravity. Going for simple, they pay a price in detail this time out. But the likes of "Smokin' 100's Alone" and "Perfect Far Away" would be pretty damn rough for Nashville. And "Indianapolis" is the sequel all us "1000 Dollar Car" fans were waiting for even if it was written first. A-

Although the first one I heard might make a better gateway--

xgau again:

The Brooklyn Side [ESD, 1994]
More raucous and pointed than such fellow Midwestern alternacountry-rockers as the Jayhawks, Uncle Tupelo, and Blood Oranges, these citizens of Festus, Missouri will hit you where you live when they lay out other people's pains and foibles--the welfare mom on Saturday night, the Sunday sports abuser, the constable with his radar gun, the local Dinosaur Jr. fan. They also speak plain truth when they criticize their car. And if they seem to relive cliches when they confess their many romantic errors, how do you think cliches get that way? (Including this one.) A-

Never had any of their albums myself, but they were pretty big with the Uncle Tupelo/Wilco/Jayhawks loving crowd in college, which makes sense since they were from not terribly far away.

Glad those bands' fans liked 'em, though actual sound/taste on record more like proto-Drive By Truckers, also kinda Great Plains (and later OH band Two Cow Garage).

Oh yeah, wasn't meant to connect them to those others necessarily, just kind of always filed them away in that whole group even if sonically they weren't that close.

I still have a CD of The Brooklyn Side (in a box in the basement where my CDs live these days). Good album iirc, tho I haven't listened to it in forever. "Welfare Music" is one I remember.

"RADAR GUN"!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpqTcGbn9r4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLMJl-ry314