Dog's Life: Dog's Life
Let's see... according to the papers I have in front of me, Dog's Life formed in the latter part of 1986 and recorded/put out their first album (the one being reviewed) in 1987. Charles Blum played bass, Lee Chabowski played guitar, Dave Snyder sang, and Dan Snyder played drums on this release. They played mainly college gigs and released their second (and last) album, "Queenie Gots a Pinworm" in the early 90's. Amy Brown played bass on this, and the band's sound was harder than that of the debut album. Once again, more college gigs followed, as did breakup. Dog's Life played their last show on July 16, 1994 at the Horizontal Boogie Bar. (That's Water Street for those of you who don't know your local history). Now for the review. I am actually impartial to this album- I can't get on the like or don't like side. This has never really happened before, but I do favor my opinion because I'm not bashing it heavily, and I'm not raving over it either. I found this album to be straight up 80's pop/ska type music that brings back all kinds of bad dressing memories. This does make the album sound dated, but many songs are very strong and stand well alone. The only song I don't really care for is "Arguing over Art"- it's somewhat weak in the musical writing aspect of things and tends to drag. I do like the echo-y vocals though. "Genius Like You" has pretty cool weird synth thing going on for it- it's hard to explain- and a catchy chorus, which is always good, if I do say so myself. "Practical Girl", "Creature from the Black Lagoon" (which has a cool guitar solo/interlude thingie), and "Tandy Leather Boots" all have heavy Jamacian sounds in the guitar line, and it sort of carries into the vocal line... "Practical Girl" is one of my favourites, although I didn't really like it at first. The lyrics are different- all of them are though- but everything in this song is solid. "Eddy" is another of mine. It's a nice, fast, upbeat little ditty that is basically good all round. It also has some good drum stuff in it. Overall, this album is worth checking out, so what are you waiting for?

The Chesterfield Kings: Don't Open Till Doosmday

One of the other bands I tried to get information from. It never came. I have been able to find a little bit from their site, which can be accessed in my links section. The Chesterfield Kings are: Jeff, Mike, Ted, Greg, and Andy. Their first single, "I Ain't no Miracle Worker", was released in 1979, and recalled garage rock of the 1960's, and was followed by their first full length record, "Here are the Chesterfield Kings" in 1982. The Chesterfield King's current release "Where the Action Is" came out on 4/27/99, and they played Milestones on Sept.18th to support this- a first local show in a couple years! "Don't Open Till Doomsday" was the Kings' 1988 release, and it is very well written, with put together songs, strong instruments, and good vocals/harmony. Dee Dee King / Ramone-whichever you prefer- worked on "Baby Doll", which is a great, catchy song with clean jangly stuff all around, with them. "Selfish Little Girl" opens up the album, and suitably so; there is some mighty fine harmonica, as well as jangly guitars in the background and cool vocals on this track. "Time Will Tell" is a nice mix of guitar and vocal sounds. The vocals are very swanky and teasing sounding- almost Brit-like. Good stuff. "Some Day Girl", "On Top of the World", and the extra tape track, "Doin' Me Wrong"(sounds like a wonderfully fun song) are all very punchy and punky. The screams are pretty darn cool. "Some Day Girl" also has some cool "hey"'s and bass stuff going for it. I do have some songs to complain about: "Ain't no Use" and "No Mind, No Soul" both seem to drag a lot, and thus, they get pretty boring pretty fast. "I'll Go" and "Look Around" have both good and bad aspects, but in both I noticed that they were mainly weak in areas, and that caused disruption to the rest of the song. The good in this album does beat out the bad, and I would highly recommend it.

I know little about this band except that they were an all girl punk band, and all of the members- Betsy, Gigi, Kiy, and Gedyn- had the "last name" Raunchette. One of the Dead Boys produced this particular release (from 1987), which is a 33 rpm with 5 songs and very hard to find. I do like this release though, it's cool. "Tell Me Why" has good vocals that are kinda screamy-kinda not, crunchy guitars, and hard hitting drums. It is the catchy one of the bunch. "Yes Yes" has a weird vocal thing going on. It is very low and not the best. The drum is also very prominent. This song is okay, but not the best. Anyone who's seen White Cotton Panties (they rock!) has heard "What 'scuz Me?!", and personally, I like the Panties' version better. The Raunchettes' version is too cute for my tastes, although the opening "What??!!!!" is awesome. Great guitars in this one. And the last song I decided to write about: "The Party's Over". The instrumentation of this one sounds kind of sloppy in the beginning, and once again, It has the weird vocal thing going on. There is some really good bass in this one though, and The instruments build nicely.