The Coolest Songs In The World - Vol 1

The Pulse - Chattanooga's Weekly Alternative

05/09/07

Grumbling over the current state of rock radio and the need to find something worthy of blowing a few woofers and tweeters over? Stand up, raise up, and beg not, my friend, as the coolest mutha in the room, Steven Van Zandt, has laid hands on two swaggering CD collections due this coming Tuesday from his new Wicked Cool Record Co. imprint, near religious, revival tent extravaganzas that dust the weak and electrify the willing. Fueled by the playlists of his syndicated radio program, Little Steven’s Underground Garage, the 15 personally selected tracks in The Coolest Songs In the World: Vol. 1 are each monsters in their own right - vibrating, nuts off, lost in the poppies fuzz nirvana to melt the heart of any lost, disenchanted soul who lost “the rock” many moons ago. 
    Blasting off with cosmic power-poppers The Shazam, Cincinnati’s favorite sons The Greenhornes and the wigged-out frenzy of The Forty Fives, everything the doctor ordered keeps on coming, with snarling Ellie Vie fronting The Charms from Boston, a Mooney Suzuki rouser from 2002, and the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s prophetic “Whatever Happened To My Rock and Roll.” The sweaty, dangerous fun continues in CBGB OMFUG FOREVER, a tribute to the shuttered, iconic club with liner notes by Lenny Kaye. Sixteen tracks made the cut, with hits like Blondie “Hanging On the Telephone” from 1978 and The Damned’s “New Rose” from 1977, and a few rare tracks including Japanese bonus tracks from Green Day and U2 (who cover The Ramones’ “Beat On the Brat.” The spirit of self-described “punk rock warlord” Joe Summer lives on, recently to rave reviews at Sundance in the documentary Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten, and next week in the soundtrack CD from Sony’s Legacy label.