john

I remember when I first bought this album. It would have been around 1974 or '75 on my first visit to Sydney's famous Ashwoods Records in Pitt Street (RIP). Being a poor high school student, the idea of cheap second-hand albums was cool beyond words! For about $2-3 each I scored Slade "Slayed", "Black Sabbath Vol 4" and, of course, Buffalo’s debut LP "Dead Forever".

John Felice is one of rock’n’roll’s unsung heroes. A founding member of the Modern Lovers at the age of 15, he quit the band before the sessions that resulted in their classic album, and was subsequently written out of the history of one of the most influential bands of the ‘70s.

The band he left to form, the Kids, made some local waves but ultimately went nowhere, pretty much coming to an end when he went off to New York to audition for the Heartbreakers - a job he turned down.

Back in Boston, he formed the Real Kids, and finally wrote his own chapter in rock’n’roll history with an album for Marty Thau’s Red Star label that goes down as one of the greatest ever – a perfect blend of Eddie Cochran, the early Stones and the Velvet Underground, with killer tunes, energy and feel, and some of the most honest and affecting lyrics ever put to music.

Long overdue, this re-issue of an Aussie stone classic from 1993 gets the Rolls Royce treatment it deserves. Re-mastered, wrapped up in a generous set of liner notes and supplemented with two alternate live cuts and a rarely heard studio track, "Smashed On A Knee" shows why the late, great Powder Monkeys were worth the fuss.

Austin, Texas, resident  John Schooley was a substantial blip on the I-94 Bar radar in the mid-1990s when Australian label Dropkick put out one of his records (“ You Won't Like It... 'Cuz It's Rockn'Roll!”) with his band The Hard Feelings.

Here was a guy who crunched rootsy Americano with raucous garage grit in the most emphatic fashion. “You Won’t Like It...” even scored a write-up in Rolling Stone - but died a comercial death when the label head was struck down with cancer and couldn’t press up any more copies. Thankfully, he recovered - and Schooley, too, is still kicking. Like a mule.