The first mental images to come to the brain of the average Joe or Jane when mentioning Omaha, Nebraska, would likely be cornfields as far as the eye can see, Johnny Carson, steaks, a world zoo, Mutual of Omaha Insurance or tortured songsmith Conor Oberst. Now, if you happen upon a fan of the whacked out sub-genre of rock that I like to call surf Billy garage rock, Omaha conjures one prominent spector: the band that is Brimstone Howl.

With one of the many severe thunderstorms to shit on Missouri in the last few weeks raging outside my office window, I felt it was the opportune time to stay up into the wee hours of the morning, risk electrocution at my computer and review Brimstone Howl’s latest We Came In Peace. Actually, the conditions are perfect for a critique of this record; the weather is violent and unrelenting, reminiscent of those old Hammer Studios horror flicks from the 1950s and 1960s, add to that the creepy Jim Diamond of Detroit garage gods The Dirt Bombs production (Peace sounds a bit like it was recorded at the bottom of a metal trash can in a well at the very back of an immense cavern) and Peace, though ironically named, could easily be its soundtrack.

There are many moments of eerie greatness to be found here. The songwriting, delivery, setup and all around raw slickness of the songs are not unlike the gems on the classic Nuggets compilation. Every track has flashes of this, all made nearly perfect by the manically fantastic lead guitar savagery of Nick Waggoner. His wicked slide and effects drenched flamethrower is especially prominent on the track “Child Of Perdition”, a roadhouse jam that bows to Chuck Berry as much as it does X’s Billy Zoom. In fact, it could quite possibly be some of the best playing in rock and “They Call Me Hopeless Destroyer” is open nerve blues like Jack White used to play before he spread himself thin jamming in 47 different bands. Complimenting the guitar chops is vocalist/ guitarist John Ziegler. What stands out most for me about Zeigler on this record is not his playing, though it is topnotch, is his vocals. He is a strange alien creature mix of the late Lux Interior, John Doe and the swagger of a juvenile delinquent from The Blackboard Jungle if said delinquent would have had access to LSD and William S. Burroughs novels.

Perhaps the best thing about Peace is that, with it, Brimstone Howl are at the very least attempting to bring rock back to its blues, rebellious and bare boots, raw roots. Just like The Ramones did in the 1970’s, Howl borrowing from 1960’s groups like The Shirelles, The Shangri-Las and The Ronettes to hone a sound that is as much a tribute as it is original. Goddamn, there’s even a song on the disc named “Shangri La”. If that isn’t a apparent case of fandom I don’t know what is.

The only crystal clear ape of any bands on this disc is the track “Easy to Dream”. If they could have gotten Sweet Lou Reed to do (I won’t say sing) the lines, it could have been sold as a companion piece to “Venus In Furs” and The Doors exorcism that is “The World Will Never Know.” But is that a crime? Borrowing from your heroes? Burying you enemies in flattery? Brimstone Howl are one of the best of the new crop of garage punks that loot and pillage music history like so many guitar wielding Vikings. It’s clear that they walk in the footsteps of their forefathers but luckily they don’t seem content to merely be a cover band like some others that shall remain nameless here.

The drumming of Calvin Retzlaff is pounding, stick splintering playing at it’s finest. He is Dick Dale with a drum set instead of a Strat. The first sound the listener hears on Peace is the steady, lightning fast, flaw free time and it only gets more aggressive with every progressive track thereafter. The bass of Chauncey Patton is as dense as a trucker’s midnight cup of coffee. In short, the band is in top form, showing an improved confidence since 2007 Guts of Steel. They mix the different elements within the band expertly. There’s slower tracks (“Easy To Dream”), speedy blues numbers (“Catamite Blues”, “They Call Me Hopeless Destroyer”) and the just plan weird random tune (“The World Will Never Know”).

Brimstone Howl are like the strange friend that lives in his mom’s basement and talks at length about UFOs, The Twilight Zone, going to Buenos Aires and government conspiracies. As you sit there listening you think to yourself, “this cat is totally fucked in the head. I should split.” But you don’t. You sit there, you listen, you get sucked in because, after awhile, it starts making sense. That’s what it’s like listening to We Came in Peace. This Omaha band is the crop circles, Bigfoot, ghosts and alien abductions of rock; a far out phenomenon that gathers steam and a flock of new believers the more their name is whispered. Brimstone Howl… Brimstone Howl…… Brimstone Howl……..

Our favorite online music store, Insound made a great announcement today. The indie music retailer has said that they will be bringing back out-of-print, post-punk and indie 7″ singles for users to purchase, and what better way to kick off the new initiative than to have The Ramones, California Sun EP, and The Replacements, I’ll Be You, as the two premiere re-issues?

Insound has been in talks with labels and distributors to try and get the idea rolling, and Rhino Entertainmenthas been the first to bite, letting the music retailer re-release the classic 7″ records. Both records, accompanied by their original artwork and pressed on premium vinyl, have been unavailable to fans for decades, but now there will be 1,000 copies of each exclusively released by Insound.

The Ramone’s California Sun EP was originally released in 1976 on Sire Records, and includes an exclusive live take of “I Don’t Want to Walk Around With You” from The Roxy in 1976. The Replacements 7″, I’ll Be You, was released in 1989, and features the song “Date To Church” with Tom Waits. Both records have been highly sought after by fans, and set the bar high for later re-releases Insound will issue.

Dedicated to those songs that I can’t stop playing, humming, or thinking about; the 4+ minutes you fall head-over-heels in love with. Past instances have included Weezer’s “El Scorcho,” Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time,” and New Order’s “Age of Consent.”

Christmas in Southern California is strange. Perhaps it’s my Midwestern mindset throwing everything off, but snow-based decorations placed in a non-snow environment freak me out a little. Just knowing a plastic glowing snowman will never be covered with anything resembling winter depresses me. With busy schedules, rising airline fees and a desire to stay near my own bed, this year will mark our first Christmas away from our parents and actual winter, giving my childhood another crushing blow. And while we’re expecting family visitors and many merry presents and fun by all, the actual absence of a “traditional” Christmas has me in something similar to a melancholy mood, only more antagonistic. I’m in a Stooges mood, and I need their caveman-simple riffs to support me. This is all it takes to make a song “perfect” for this moment. It only needs to fit as the appropriate score for how I’m feeling. And I’m feeling like Christmas isn’t so great, so I need something that agrees with me on some level.

No matter how much you may “love it,” “No Fun” remains a tough song. It’s a steady rock song and sounds like what you want, which means you’ll wish to share it with others. But if you do this, they might read too much into it. Are you trying to imply that your friend is no fun? Or that you’re currently upset about nothing in particular? Do you want to be left alone, or do you want people to know you’re alone and that they should want to visit you but won’t actually visit you? And then there’s the practicality of the song itself: It’s five minutes of the same perfect droning riff with minor inflections and changes thrown in. By sharing this song, will people question your ability to be bored? Will they think you should be more into techno than you are? From it’s “Hello,-I-Love-You”-esque drum opening, it seems like it should be an excellent opener for a show or movie, but the tone of its simple title contains no gray areas.

Regular readers will know I pretend I can play guitar, and some may even know that I taught myself to play by strumming a 5-string acoustic along with Ramones songs. And while this worked fine, I would have had an even more solid foundation in rock fundamentals if I had started with the Stooges — one of the bands the Ramones originally strummed along with. Only problem is I might have gotten bored with the Stooges and guitar playing if I’d done this. “No Fun” is like basketball dribbling drills for guitar. You dribble with the left, then the right, then back again, and back again and again and again. Got it? Let’s do it for the length of practice. “Droning” doesn’t begin to describe the Stooges’ style. It takes a certain kind of idiot to do the same thing endlessly in a loop, and it takes another kind of idiot to record it and call it music. And while “No Fun” may be the least fun song to play along no matter how loud my amp, it continues to be a great song to hum to myself. Perhaps “endearing droning” might be a better description.

It may be trite and cute to sum it up this way, but “No Fun” is fun because it’s intellectually no fun. “Simpsons” creator Matt Groening once said he loved animation because it was an artform that existed only in motion, that you couldn’t look at a single drawing and see “animation.” Rock ‘n’ roll has a similar quality where reading the sheet music or guitar tabs does no justice to the music being created. On paper, “No Fun” is A-E-A-A-A-E-A-A-D-A-D-A-D-A-E-A at it’s busiest. That’s just the early parts. For the last 75% of the song, it’s just the A-D riff with the flair in the middle. It’s not even a complicated strumming technique. If you’ve ever held a pick, you’ve made this strum. That’s because it’s entirely natural. Nothing about the Stooges is intellectual. Choices are more instinctual responses.

The vocals aren’t much different in their perfect stupidity. In karaoke, I’d bet the lyrics get massacred because the singers would just sing the words as is. This is entirely wrong. Iggy doesn’t sing. He grunts. And he doesn’t just grunt the words as they are, he starts every line with the tiniest half-beat “uh” transforming “No fun, my baby, no fun” into “Uhno fun, uhma’ baby, uhno fun,” and exchanging lifeless, pointless, flat ideas into dumb, fugly rock. This style of music festers and breeds with itself until it vomits itself onto some sort of microphone.

“No Fun” is primal. I could romanticize the Stooges and tell myself they couldn’t read music, and they just came up with riffs and they made noise as close to elemental neanderthal sounds as an electric guitar can get… so I will. Their image begs for it more than any other band I can imagine. Only “Louie Louie” approaches the level of heightened, sincere idiocy in which the Stooges wallow. Played in a loop, “No Fun” develops a kind of sonic gravity. It’s a black hole of music from which nothing can escape and everything gets broken down to its basic elements. After an hour or two of continual “No Fun”, time becomes insignificant. It’s just like Southern California: you could be here 5 months or 5 years, but you can’t tell because it always feels like the same season save for a few random irregularities.

Got a weird way to celebrate, avoid or disavow the holidays via music?