Третья ман реиздала на виниле альбомы Redd Kross, доказав их вечную актуальность

In a 1993 feature on his band Redd Kross, singer/bassist Steve McDonald bemoaned the fate of the group he started with his older brother Jeff in the late 1970s. “We’ve always been ahead of our time,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “We make records, and five years later another band has success with the sounds we’d already done.” At the time, that probably felt like the case, as some of the band’s most vocal fans, like Stone Temple Pilots’ Scott Weiland, were scoring multi-platinum sales by applying the same formula—’70s glam meets underground rock—that Redd Kross nailed on their second full-length, 1987’s Neurotica. But listening to the work that Redd Kross did in the ’90s, the truth is much simpler. That’s particularly true of Phaseshifter and Show World, the two fine albums they cut for Mercury Records that were recently reissued on vinyl by Third Man Records. To paraphrase a song by Brian Wilson, another songwriter that hailed from the McDonalds’ hometown of Hawthorne, California, Redd Kross weren’t made for that time. They have always looked and sounded like a throwback to a bygone era of rock, no matter what the calendar said at the time. No score yet, be the first to add. That wasn’t always the case. When the McDonald brothers started making music together, they were caught up in the swell of punk rock, cadging rides from their folks to see X and the Dickies, and making a three-chord racket in their garage. They were enterprising enough to look up the phone numbers belonging to members of their favorite groups and bug them for a shot. Only one band took the bait, and before they knew it Red Cross, as they were known at the time, had their first gig opening up for Black Flag. Steve was all of 12 years old. This is the period captured in another Redd Kross reissue: an expanded edition on Merge Records, their current label, of the group’s 1980 debut EP. The vinyl/CD re-release adds on a handful of demos and a live track recorded at the former Baptist church where Black Flag rehearsed. It’s capped off by some fantastic photos of the fresh-faced group—which at the time included Greg Hetson (Circle Jerks, Bad Religion) on guitar and early Flag vocalist Ron Reyes on drums—in all their precocious glory. Heard some four decades on, the cookie-cutter punk of Red Cross sounds downright adorable. All six songs are wobbly and sloppy and fast—only two tracks are over a minute long—but played with undeniable enthusiasm. True to their tender age, the McDonalds sing silly screeds about spoiled rich kids, jocks, and cover bands. The brothers’ punk inclinations on this EP masked their fondness for pop. Lyrical gripes about Kiss and the Knack in “Cover Band” belied the truth that the McDonalds were actually big fans of both, and the titles of “Annette’s Got the Hits” and “Fun With Connie,” the overblown live track that closes this reissue, are references to ’60s pop icons Annette Funicello and Connie Francis. Fast forward just a few years and the veil would be completely removed. The McDonalds and their bandmates played up their influences, dressing in loud thrift-store duds and recording covers of the Partridge Family, Bowie, and Charles Manson.