Only In America CD

A 33-track collection loaded to the gills with really strange novelty and offbeat records galore. If you're into off-the-wall fare like Tony Burrello's "There's a New Sound" (aka "The Sound of Worms"), Terry Teene's "The Curse of the Hearse," the New Bangs' "Go Go Kitty," "the Okeh Laughing Record," and "Herter's Crow Calling Record" (part 1 and 2), then step right up to the plate because it doesn't get much more off the beaten path than this. Clocking in at a hefty 78 minutes, this disc brings together 33 examples of the most left-field recordings to make it to wax in the last few decades -- some like "the Okeh Laughing Record #1" -- with very long pedigrees going back to the 1920s and still in print as a 45 reissue some 30 years later. Great fun and wild-ass, provocative listening. ~ Cub Koda

If Nuggets represents the very best of American garage punk and pop from the '60s, and the Pebbles series is a step down from that, then this album is another couple of steps further down the ladder of accomplishment. Beginning with a "Wipe Out" rip-off and ending with a version of "Louie Louie," this set, lovingly compiled and annotated by Erik Lindgren, is amateur night from start to finish. We get lots of songs about dances, inviting us to do things like "The Jelly Belly," "The Rat Fink," "The Log" and "The Ostrich" (that last an early, and terrible, Lou Reed recording), along with weirdness, silliness and assorted covers. There is good fun to be had here, though, if you get into the album's party spirit. The TV theme song "Kiddie a Go Go" is especially winning, and a lot of the rest has an uncomplicated energy and innocence that can be charming. ~ Stephen Raiteri