Unsung Heroes: Naked Raygun

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All Rise --

All Rise finds the boys growing up a little bit. A significant line up change and one of the better songs written by a former collaborator might lead one to expect a lessor effort, but that is not the case here. I remember seeing the band live and vibing heavily to the new tracks that hadn't been released. I bought it the day it arrived in our town. I have to admit that at first listen I was taken aback, but this soon became my favroite record of theirs. Maybe it was because my goofy band (McWilson) made it's live debut opening for Raygun on their local stop of this "tour", who knows. All Rise is a bit of a change up, but it's easy to knock it out of the park. The writing collaborations seem largely replaced by Pezzati efforts. They weren't playing songs from "Basement Screams" live for some time now. The one song that has the strongest link back to the first clan is "New Dreams" as written by Santiago. "Peacemaker" would have been equally at home on a Big Black record, which isn't suprising since the two bands formed from a mixed gene pool in the beginnings. Knock Me Down is a cool punk love song, which is really hard to do in a genre that originally wanted to destroy stupid songs about girls. A band has to evolve or stagnate, and this record is definitely evolution. The album cover is comical, whether intended or not, but the material was still there, and the band was still rocking harder than ever. Albini gets credit for the not-so-special special photo effects on the cover. Maybe that is one detail that should have remained shrowded in mystery. The extra tracks are Slim and Rocks of Sweden. Technically, "Slim" is not an extra track since it already appeared as an extra track on the first Homestead CD release. Slim is a funny but very repeatable b-side of the Vanilla Blue single. I think Rocks of Sweden was a single too, because although I never saw it, I had heard it somewhere before.

5 stars. Though not as perfect or succinct as Basement Screams, I couldn't justify giving it less than all thumbs up. Perhaps Basement Screams should get an eleven added to it's amp, a la Spinal Tap.

Jettison--

At the time a lot of indy faves were leaving the small labels for larger ones. The Replacements left Bigtime for Sire, and that was cause for consternation for many a farmboy. When Raygun switched to Caroline there may have been a few murmurs, but the cover art on their first release was the first tip off that they hadn't sold out. They continued their decidedly low-tech trend past the cover art to the material inside. In fact, Jettison has the look, sound and feel that they actually spent less money on production than ever before. I can't vouch for the facts, but that's what it sounds like. The lyrics are more literary and the sound is more muddled. At this point Raygun is selling out huge shows in Chicago venues that hold a couple of thousand people and are usually reserved for more respectable artists and up and comers. They certainly weren't dumbing things down for their new large audience. Try and write a serious punk rock song about an Isaac Asimov character in a psyhcological sci-fi novel and you'll understand right away. "The Mule" tackles "Foundation" and "Coldbringer" evokes the Dark Knight of MArvel Comics fame. "Jettison" may well be based on some other story. Pezzati must have been doing a lot of reading. The new songs weren't as urgent as the previous work, but they still played well live. It's a good record, but it's a different type of listening than the others provide. The only real sense of immediacy is provided by "Ghetto Mechanic", which stands out as one of the more catchy tunes. The extra tracks on this cd are more Thrrob Throb live cuts plus a Stiff Little Fingers cover of Suspect Device, and the Vanilla Blue a-side that originally were an extra track on the Caroline CD release.

3.5 Stars. It's not that the record is bad, it's just not as good as what preceded it. with time it grows into regular rotation with the rest of the collection.

Next Page: Understand and Raygun... Naked Raygun

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