Roach Squad - Roach Squad LP - Orange Vinyl

Little Rocket / Sounds of Subterrania / Waterslide / Rad Girlfriend (2025)

Roach Squad is a band made of Hugo Mudie from The Sainte Catherines, Alex Keane from City Mouse, Sim Robson from nowhere else that Discogs is aware of and Graeme Philliskirk and Frankie Stubbs from Leatherface.  Graeme and Hugo were also in Medictations with the late Dickie Hammond, and that group is what I see the most similarities to when it comes to the sounds of Roach Squad.  And that's a good thing.

When you have two members of Leatherface in your group, with Frankie being one of them, the odds are really stacked that I'm going to be interested in your band.  And Roach Squad does not disappoint, serving up the sort of gritty, melodic punk that in many ways is my absolute favorite kind of music to listen to.  It has that 90s UK vibe, with gruff, but melodic vocals courtesy of Hugo Mudie on 12 of the 13 tracks.  Now, while there is a definitely a part of me that's thinking to myself, "self, why is Frankie only singing on one of these songs," Hugo carries the vocal duties exceptionally well, just as he did with Medictations.

Frankie does step in on "I Wonder," which is a treat.  But the rest of the time he and Graeme are holding down the band with excellent guitar interplay, with those trademark riffs and dynamics that have made me a fan of this sort of thing for 30 years now.  It's a super consistent record from start to finish and while I wouldn't say that there's a specific song or two that stands above the pack, the pack of songs as a whole is pretty stellar.  An easy recommendation as one of the best albums of 2025 so far.  If you read this website even somewhat regularly, I cannot fathom you not digging this.

Roach Squad - Roach Squad:
https://roachsquad.bandcamp.com/album/roach-squad

Jesse - Complete Discography 2xLP - 3 Versions (UK/US, Germany & Japan)

Little Rocket / Sounds Of Subterrania / Waterslide / Rad Girlfriend (2024, Reissue)

Jesse is the Frankie Stubbs band that released records for a brief moment in time between 1995 and 1998.  It was after the initial incarnation of Leatherface and the band Pope, before Leatherface eventually started playing again.  They released three 7"s, a Japanese tour split 7" with Hooton 3 Car and a full length album that capped things off in '98.  This new double LP discography compiles everything from those releases plus a previously unreleased bonus song.

Let's start out with the music, it's flawless.  The songs album is in rarified air for me as I absolutely love it and have been pretty obsessed with everything the band was doing since those 7"s first started coming out.  It's very much a band that makes sense as being a Frankie Stubbs band, it's not dissimilar to Leatherface or Pope enough to not appeal to fans of those bands.  But at the same time, I always felt there was something a little smoother about the Jesse songs.  

Maybe it's just that they are a touch slower and more melodic than some of the more aggressive Leatherface recordings that proceeded it.  But if you had heard The Last or the Pope record, if made a lot of sense that this is where Frankie was going next.  Just flawless songs and the only complaints I ever had is that I wish the LP didn't also have all of the 7" songs on it. and we had gotten 14 brand new ones instead of just seven.

OK, let's get to the variations.  First up is the standard version on grey swirl vinyl.  It was also available on orange, blue and white vinyl.  Not sure of the pressing information on each of the individual colors, but I'm not aware of any one of them being rarer or pressed in different numbers than any of the others.

Second, we have the Sounds of Subterrania version from Germany.  This one was pressed on good old fashioned black vinyl, but has alternate, screened artwork that is just spectacular.  The picture doesn't do justice to the flap, tuck in thing that closes up the whole package.  The cover art is taken from the Indestructible 7", which also happens to be my favorite Jesse song.

Finally is the Waterslide version from Japan.  This one is on clear vinyl, that is described on the Waterslide website as being "coke blue."  It also comes with a sharp looking obi that I'm a big fan of.

I don't buy as many duplicate copies of albums as I used to.  The variant game is a game I've decided is just too expensive these days.  But for an album as important to me as this one is and the three distinct versions that were made, I just couldn't pass them up.  But hey, I'm showing some restraint.  I didn't get all four different colors of the standard version.

Jesse - Complete Discography:
https://jesselrr.bandcamp.com/album/jesse-complete-discography

Frankie Stubbs - Heart Is Home 7"

Sounds of Subterrania (2018)

Before I begin writing about this record specifically, I want to very quickly mention that I found out this weekend about the passing of Marc Maitland (Mates to some).  Known to me as the drummer of fantastic bands like Blocko and The No Marks.  I only knew Marc a little bit and had only ever interacted with him on the internet, but he was such a nice, genuine guy who was always so excited that someone liked his bands.  The world will miss him terribly and I hope he knew that the records he made had a big affect on some guy all the way out in New Jersey.

Mentioning this at the beginning of a Frankie Stubbs review seams appropriate.  Snuff, Chopper, Broccoli and Leatherface were my gateways into the mid 90s UK punk scene, arguably my favorite time in the history of the earth for music.  Those bands lead me to Blocko and that lead me to Marc.  Frankie Stubbs is one of the grandfathers of that scene.  Though my path to Leatherface was different than most (Snuff to Chopper to Broccoli to Leatherface), I still ended up very quickly realizing what an incredibly important and influential band they were.  They still rank in my top three bands of all time and there's not a single Frankie Stubbs related record that I don't love with all of my heart.

The 7" contains a different version of "Heart Is Home" than is found on the severely underrated Leatherface album Dog Disco.  The version on this 7" is Frankie's voice accompanied only by piano and violin.  It makes an already beautiful song that much more impactful.  I really love this version of the song and am happy to add it to the other solo Frankie Stubbs releases I've acquired over the years.  I wish he put out records more frequently, but I will take what I can get.

This 7" also has a gimmick called Vinyl Video.  Supposedly if you purchase a converter, you can play one side of this record and a video to the song is encoded into the grooves.  It's a pretty neat concept, though I personally can't fathom buying the converter necessary to view this.  It makes the record more expensive than your typical 7" and makes it so it's essentially one sided, but to be fair, the artwork is quite incredible.  Regardless of the cost, there is no way that there would ever be a Frankie Stubbs record not in my collection.  I couldn't have it any other way.

Frankie Stubbs - "Heart Is Home":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95hYuhGY1fY