Radio Free ABQ, Lambrini Girls, Perennial, and RIP Japandroids

It’s been a few weeks for the 6OGs, as we have settled into Fall and atoned for many sins. But with an incredible slate of new records out in recent weeks and a tremendous calendar of live shows coming here in DC, we hope to be back in the rhythm again. For this edition, we feature a new record from a favorite fellow Substack-er, honor two bands we didn’t know well before they reminded us that some punk bands still put on shows, and pay tribute to a now-defunct 6OGs favorite, in an effort to remind everyone that they made more than one great record.

New album: Destination by Radio Free ABQ. I think there’s a reason I was the one who wrote about this album. To start, I’m the 6OGs’ resident Zevon-head. I enjoy a good spaghetti Western (sometimes to my family’s collective chagrin) and desert noir fiction in the mold of Cormac McCarthy or Ross Thomas (give me enough mezcal, and I’ll even argue that El Mariachi and From Dusk ’Til Dawn represent cinema at its finest). I continue to defend the movies and quirky characters of Wes Anderson. And while my relationship to genres like alt-country, roots rock, Americana, and Southwestern rock has gone through peaks (a double-bill of Lucinda Williams and The Jayhawks at the 9:30 Club remains one of the best shows I’ve ever seen) and valleys (Son Volt at the same venue touring to support their fourth album remains one of the absolute worst), I still have great affection for bands like R.E.M., Uncle Tupelo, Calexico, Los Lobos, Drive-By Truckers, as well as the late great Stevie Ray Vaughan. All of these influences – from the musical styles to the interesting character-driven lyrics - can be heard on “Destination,” the thoroughly enjoyable, skillfully crafted latest release from Radio Free ABQ.

Radio Free ABQ is the latest project from longtime singer-songwriter, drummer, and guitarist Dave Purcell (follow him here @

Dave Purcell

). Before relocating to Albuquerque, Purcell led the Cincinnati-based band Pike 27, which was heavily influenced by the Athens, Georgia sound of bands like R.E.M. and Guadalcanal Diary. On “Destination” - due to be released on November 1 - Purcell builds on his previous work by adding a Southwestern-inspired element to his existing indie rock framework.

“Tito (Far Away, Not Lonely)” is the album’s opener and lead single, and gives the listener a sense of what’s to come, both in terms of musical style and the character-driven lyrics. Over guitars both jangly and twangy, with Attractions-type keyboards, Purcell sings about the title character who, from his backyard in New Mexico late at night, ponders not just the outside world but the rest of the universe. “Tito sees so many things / You can’t find in Corona / The magic of the universe / All that he can dream.” It’s a song for anyone who ever dreamed of something bigger, even if it didn’t include “passing satellites,” but also understands the simple pleasure of coming back to earth to find your dog happy to see you.

The second single, “Figure It Out,” is another character study but more of a straight-up bar-rocker, one that musically reminds me of Wilco’s “Casino Queen.” Almost in contrast to the music, the lyrics are an opaque fever dream in which the unnamed subject searches for some sort of meaning. His journey involves “listen[ing] to Sun Ra at midnight” with “a glass of bourbon for your sins” while “ghosts are riding on subways” and “witches passing by in cars.” One of the few songs on the album that lifts the listener out of the desert, it’s like crossing After Hours with Twin Peaks.

On “Playing for Keeps,” the album’s third single, Purcell reflects on his time working in academia, which he describes as a mixed bag while embracing the present and what the future might bring. The song opens with jaunty keyboards, but the spine of the song is its Southwestern guitars and roots-rock beat that transitions into indie rock chords over the chorus. “I got it tattooed on my sleeve / All the ones who don’t believe / All the stars that I will find / Playing for keeps this time.”

“Far Away From Everything” brings to mind “Fables of the Reconstruction”-era R.E.M. and describes another unnamed character, in this case one who, after “forty-two years down the drain,” decides to disappear and start over somewhere else. “I don’t know if the chances are good enough for long enough / But there ain’t no sin in wishing you were gone.”

“Before It’s Gone,” one of the most overtly desert noir song on the album (along with “Peligro En La Demora”) is about the novelist Robert Lowry who, despite experiencing mental health issues and homelessness, continued to write until his death. “How did I get so helpless? - I want to know before it’s gone … Try to write one more chapter - I want to know before it’s gone.”

“Destination” features a handful of instrumentals, with two of the most notable being “Wolves, Louder” and “Chapala, Quizas.” The former is an excerpt of a rollicking, driving jam, while the latter brings the spirit of the Mexican town for which it is named. The album also closes out on a largely instrumental song (aside from a spoken word piece) called “Mojave Phone Booth” that encapsulates “Destination”’s themes and transports the listener into a desert soundscape.

I don’t come across albums like “Destination” very often. Peruse my favorite indie rock albums of the past few years, and you’ll find a lot of power pop, jangle pop, new shoegaze, post-Turnstile hardcore, and (of course) MJ Lenderman, along with other smatterings of alt-country here and there. But as of late, there have not been many indie records that evoke desert noir and the American Southwest as well as Radio Free ABQ’s “Destination.” The music is fresh and, with each song, the lyrics drop the listener in the middle of a story. If the idea of blending R.E.M. with Calexico sounds appealing, then Radio Free ABQ’s “Destination” is absolutely worth checking out. Now… who’s up for a mezcal? (Brian)

Album from an upcoming/recent live show(s): God’s Country b/w Body of Mine by Lambrini Girls and Art History by Perennial. I’ve been in DC for more than 20 years by now, and there has been a consistently incredible music scene here throughout. But I remain a bit wistful for the DC punk scene of the 80s that I missed out on (I was just a few hours up the road in PA but busy listening to Jethro Tull; we will discuss that another time…). Mostly for the music itself but also for the intensity and energy the bands always seem to be bringing when you see old videos from the era. The bands left everything on the stage, or on the floor, or in the basketball hoop – the energy is infectious.

And sadly, I hardly ever experience that kind of energy at shows. It's true that I watch more shows from the back of the room than I used to and see fewer hardcore shows than I might have in my teens, but I’ve had plenty of chances in recent years to see bands that play loud and exciting music…then spend most of their sets standing in one place. Or maybe ambling over to rock next to their bandmates, but not much more than that. And forget about the lost art of banter. The shows are often great musically – but, sometimes, you want an actual show.

IDLES stands out as an exception, but they’re now too big. So imagine my cranky, old guy delight in recent months when two smaller bands I had not known blew me away with their actual shows. First was Lambrini Girls, who I went to see in July because of my current obsession with DC band Ekko Astral. Lambrini Girls is a punk band that is as punk as punk gets. Forget about DC in the 80s; this is London in the 70s.

From the start, they were brash and clear, and it was thrilling. They came out by stating, “We’re a fun band, but we’re political. So you get both.” The songs are indeed both. On “Body of Mine,” they open by referencing “Short Shorts” of 1950s girl group and 1980s Nair commercial fame. But then they take on the patriarchy and standards and expectations, “If my gender is so radical/I'd rather be invisible/If I can never fit the mold.”

If you wonder what X-Ray Spex would sound like and sing about today, then Lambrini Girls are for you (and to be clear, they are for me). The songs are barely two minutes of energy, of screaming, of directness. “Great Britain/Are you sure?” is the chorus to “God’s Country” and if that’s not clear enough, there are verses like this, “All hail God's country/I'm sorry bestie, but it's giving austerity/Three Lions, close the borders/State is lawless/But ‘God Save the King.’"

So when you are pouring out everything you have to screed against the state in full punk throttle, you surely can’t stay still. Lambrini Girls spent much of the show in the crowd – playing, yelling, climbing and stomping on the bar, crawling along the rafters of DC9 (which thankfully has a low ceiling, as you can see below) and singing while above everyone, demanding everyone join in. They didn’t have to worry too much; just about everyone was in the pit already (or, like me, shoving people back in).

Plenty of bands can stir up mosh pits; few will get in themselves and clearly have more energy than the fans. Fewer still will explain to the crowd what it is they should be mad about, or where they should direct that energy once they go back home. The combination was exhilarating. I can’t wait for the new Lambrini Girls album — “Who Let the Dogs Out” - expected in January.

Then, in September, it was Massachusetts band Perennial, opening for, yet again, Ekko Astral (told you I was obsessed) and fellow DC band Bad Moves. After a long work week, I showed up a bit later than usual, admittedly hoping that this band I had never heard of or had time to sample was finished. I sighed when I saw they had not played yet.

And shortly after they started, I exhaled with relief and joy that I had not missed them after all. The band came out in matching, striped blue and white t-shirts. As they took the stage, they introduced themselves with “Perennial, hit them one time.” And the band slammed out one loud note. Then “Perennial, hit them two times.” And on until at least six or seven.

The main singer, guitarist Chad Jewett, refers to the band in third person as “Perennial.” Throughout the show, he buttered up the crowd by telling us how much they’d missed DC since playing here last five years ago. Like Lambrini Girls, they were in the crowd multiple times, leading singalongs (the highlight being during “Up-tight,” where Chad could hop back in the crowd to lead a singalong with keyboardist Chelsea Hahn doing most of the vocals onstage), and fans were with them every second. When on the stage, there was constant motion, energy, and most importantly of all, exuberance. Perennial enjoyed every second of the show, and you could tell they probably had a blast packing the van and driving down to DC.

I would be shocked if more than 10 people knew Perennial before the show, and they had hundreds singing and yelling along with them in minutes, mainly to their new record. As an album, “Art History” is solid, if frenetic, with 12 songs clocking in at just over 21 minutes. Guitars, drums, and keyboards driving songs with titles like “A is For Abstract,” “How the Ivy Crawls,” and “Action Painting.” The song structures are fairly similar throughout – opening riff, banging keyboard section, and thundering drums. Jewett and Hahn singing with everything they have. As you might expect from the album title, the lyrics circle around art and artists, for the most part, and at times are fairly abstract in their own right.

The songs are solid, but honestly I have listened to them entirely through the lens of seeing them live. And rather than go back to the record to learn more about art, I’ll put on videos like this one of their live set and hope they start teaching classes soon to young bands on the art of the show. (Brad)

Album being rediscovered (at least 10 years old): Post-Nothing by Japandroids. “Japandroids is a band that was made to make “Celebration Rock.” So said Steven Hyden in the Indeicast postmortem on indie rockers Japandroids. The Vancouver duo released its final album, “Fate + Alcohol,” last week and will not do any kind of farewell tour (at least not until they need to pay bills in a few years). But rather than spend time debating the decision-making on an album cycle I will surely never come back to (I am proud I got through the whole thing once), I want to spend a bit of time giving love to the other great album Japandroids made.

“Two guys who make a lot of noise” is how my boys and I used to describe Japandroids. That dynamic is what drove people to love 2012’s “Celebration Rock,” which had big hooks, a clean sound, and an anthemic feel, all by careful design. It deservedly earned the band enormous praise and expectations, and honestly, they never quite recovered.

But the record before, 2009’s Post-Nothing, is the one I still go back to. It’s rawer, a little messier, and at moments, it rocks just that much harder. That starts on the opening track, “The Boys Are Leaving Town,” which opens with the classic Brian King guitar sound – big, layered, and fuzzy. The initial riff turns into more of a cacophony, when Dave Prowse’s rhythmic drum sound come booming in. Like the best Japandroids songs, the lyrics are sparse and repetitive, and of course, the title and concept are tongue-in-cheek. At their best, Japandroids were having fun without being overly cynical or earnest; it comes through in the album title, and indeed, becoming too earnest is what started to undo them on their last two records. But who can’t appreciate a guitar-laden tribute to and send-up of the Thin Lizzy classic?

The same energy and style carries through on “Young Hearts Spark Fire,” where the tempo picks up, and we get more of the signature choruses and “yeahs”s, “oh”s, “alright”s throughout the verses. The song again begins with a fuzzy and big guitar riff, soon driven by a frenetic drum line.

As I said above, the best Japandroids songs have limited and repetitive lyrics; it feels weir to situate Japandroids in the acoustic blues section of your mind or catalog, but at his core, Brian King writes lyrics like a 1920s bluesman. When you think about it, those solo blues guitar players also had to take up the space of full bands, and Japandroids spent its time as a duo doing the same. In this case, we go back and forth between “Oh we used to dream/now we worry about dying” and “I don’t want to worry about dying/I just want to worry about those sunshine girls.” With plenty of “ohhhh”s in between. You’re not getting Dylan or even Lenderman with any Japandroids track, but instead, you’re getting a balance of words that drives alongside and in service to the music.

We rinse and repeat with “Wet Hair” (sorry, couldn’t resist). Fuzzy and layered riff, driving drum lines that not only balance the guitar but add their own layering, and limited lyrics. The first third of the song repeats, “she had wet hair/say what you will/I don’t care/I couldn’t resist it,” moves to “these girls are bikini kill/we need a ride to bikini island” and then ends with “we run the gauntlet/must get to France/so we can French kiss some French girls.” That’s it. Not likely getting them a posthumous nomination to join REM in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, but yet again, the song simply rocks.

As with the nod to Thin Lizzy, the ode to Bikini Kill is both sincere and sly. Japandroids come across as dudes/bros on one hand and earnest punk rockers on the other. The balance of that combination is what made the Japandroids so uniquely infectious and energetic at their best. But it’s a tricky equilibrium, and when it fails, as it did on their last two records, it’s cringe-worthy.

The next track, “Rockers East Vancouver,” starts to drift a bit, but then leads to the core track of the album and, to my mind, the defining lyric and motto of Japandroids: “XOXOX/some hearts bleed; my heart sweats.” The song “Heart Sweats” starts with a drum line first, rather than the guitar riff, but then the two merge and respond to each other in the most synchronized and almost symphonic moment on the record. The vocals are buried further in the mix on the track, allowing you to ride the guitar and drum play that much more emphatically and energetically; there’s a reason it was the opening track on my running mix for many years.

“Crazy/Forever” slows down several beats and results in more of a 6-minute dirge around the lyrics “we’ll stay together forever/Stay sick together/Be crazy forever.” “Sovereignty” gets back to the energetic formula of music and combines it with the most heartfelt lyrics on the record, appealing to a woman to fly away with him, talk about having kids together, and find property by the water. Brian tells her that “I’ll sing the Beatles but you’ll sing them better, and they would leave their friends behind. The song ends with the repeating lines “It’s raining in Vancouver/But I don’t give a fuck/Because I’m far from home tonight.” Did they run away together? Did she leave him stranded? Was this all some kind of dream? I have never quite figured it out. That’s rare for a Japandroids song, as a band that wears its heart and thoughts on its sleeves, as we’ve seen in the lyrics throughout this piece, but they pull it off meaningfully and effectively. The final track, “I Quit Girls,” again buries the vocals way down in the mix and slows the music down, and I mostly wish the record had ended with “Sovereignty.” But that’s a minor quibble.

When “Celebration Rock” came out, many of the reviews said something along the lines of, “I didn’t see this band producing a record like this.” I was not really that surprised, as you could feel the elements of that record emerging in “Post-Nothing.” They had a choice, though, and I can’t help but wonder where the band would have ended up if they had stayed in the bluesier, punkier lane rather than where they landed. Maybe Hyden is right, and “Celebration Rock” is what they were meant to make, but I will always believe their fate would have ended up somewhere other than a bad final album title and bizarre fade away. (Brad)