One of the most exciting things about being addicted to music is the joy of discovery. It's a ritual that we put ourselves through again and again: scouring the bargain bin for that lost treasure, countless magazines piling up in our rooms, sucked of their suggestive power, and lately, CD-Rs filled with obscurities from a friend's computer. The need for new sounds is as addictive as the music itself, and whether it's the attention paid to overlooked classics, or the apparent demise of the record industry (or both), we addicts are treated to legitimate rediscoveries from time to time.
Last year, former Go-Go's guitarist Charlotte Caffey and Anna Waronker, daughter of label guru Lenny Waronker and ex-frontwoman of That Dog, started up a record label dubbed Five Foot Two Records. So now, after releasing a solo album this summer, Anna's done the rock world a great service by reissuing Redd Kross' long out-of-print 1987 classic, Neurotica-- and, what with Anna and Charlotte being married to the brothers Steve and Jeff McDonald, the core members of Redd Kross, the reissue shines with the light of careful consideration.
The album was recorded with producer Tommy Ramone (listed in the liner notes under his birthname, Tommy Erdelyi), but when their label Big Time folded soon after, the record's promotion suffered, leaving it relatively unheard by the masses, and to later become cult classic. As with most overlooked records, its power was channeled through other artists; these days, Neurotica is regarded as a prime influence on the early 90s grunge movement: Sub Pop once contracted the Posies' Jon Auer to remix the album for a re-release during the Seattle boom, but the project was not meant to be.
Neurotica exuded a Janus quality found in the best pop music: it looked forward and equally embraced the past. It was the missing link between Big Star and the Pixies, a perfect blend of a 70s Saturday morning sugar rush and 80s California punk. Pop culture nostalgia was to Redd Kross what LSD was to the Butthole Surfers; their music was delivered with just as furious a passion, but their love for Beatles-esque pop harmony shone through as much as any punk sensibility, and their Kinks influences, entirely free of irony, served as lyrical substance over their powerful, hi-octane hooks.
Leading with its title track, lifted from the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)" and complete with Liverpudlian count-off; Neurotica is definitive Redd Kross, coupling undulating melody and a sweetly harmonized bridge (remember bridges?) with a screaming chorus, and the result is as abrasive as it is catchy. "Love Is You", the album's sole acoustic number, is as much a tribute to a girl as to love songs themselves; its tongue-in-cheek falsetto delivery sounds alternately comic and passionate. "Peach Kelli Pop", a Beatles-via-Badfinger rave-up, boasts the best swaggering vocals this side of Paul Westerberg, its lyrics illustrating just how far from the then ever-present Sunset Strip ethos Redd Kross were: "Everybody take a ride/ In your mama's car/ Let's go to the Troubadour/ Pretend we're seein' stars/ Man, we're cruisin' Hollywood/ Do you get the joke?/ Laughin' at all the assholes at the Rainbow/ Flyin' so high on coke/ What a joke."
There's an innate sense of joy at the heart of Neurotica. At times, the hardcore riffing teeters a bit too close to Hollywood hair metal, but when it's balanced by such undeniably fucking brilliant pop hooks and choruses, who's complaining? The McDonald brothers' sense of melody and song structure is solely responsible for the album's charm, and in this world of haircuts and target marketing, it's good to be reminded that, no matter the era, every metropolitan underground produces phenomenal records-- even 1987 L.A.
