Rocket Heart (2024, Reissue)
In 1999 I was the music director of a college radio station in New Jersey. Every day we'd get packages in the mail of CDs that labels and promotions companies wanted us to play. It should come as no surprise that the vast, vast majority of these were completely terrible. Particularly when it came to bands you probably never heard of before.
Back in my music director days I had a very strict formula to try to get through all of the albums that were arriving every day. I had to make quick decisions about what should get played and what should go in the garbage. There just wasn't time to listen to every note of every CD. That amount of time was only given to ones that were definitely going into rotation - which were reviewed, scanned for curses and had recommended tracks picked.
How does an album end up in that pile? By passing a test that originated hanging out with my buddy Alan at the record store. You get the first 30-60 seconds of the first three songs. If you don't show something interesting in that time, you were in the garbage pile.
One day, in one of these constantly arriving packages, A CD from a band called Ultimate Fakebook appeared. It had a roughly drawn cartoon monkey on the cover and lots of weird high school yearbook style artwork. It seemed kind of charming, but I can't say I expected much of anything from the album. I pressed play on the Ultimate Fakebook CD. "She Don't Even Know My Name" came ripping through my speakers and knocked my socks off. Holy crap, I was not expecting a perfect guitar pop band.
Let's try the next song. "Tell Me What You Want (I'll Be Anything)" comes on and it's another absolute hit. Great chord progressions, killer drumming and the vocal melody is a total earworm. At this point I already know that this record is going into rotation, but I'll move on to track three just because that's what I always do. "Of Course We Will" isn't as immediate as the other two. It has a slower pace but hits in a similar way as something like "Say It Ain't So" does. Maybe not as angsty, but in the way that a slower song can fit into the context of an album and not drag things down, even ending up as a highlight.
After those first three minutes I was instantly an Ultimate Fakebook fan. I played the CD to everyone I possibly could, trying to get DJs and friends to hear a band that was very obviously flying way too far under the radar at this time. That record has been with me ever since, one of my favorites from that era and most likely the best new band I ever discovered during my time working as the music director of the radio station.
The band would go on and get picked up by Epic records, who would rerelease the album, but with different, slicker artwork. It's that artwork that adorns the cover of the first vinyl pressing of this wonderful album. And it's the only complaint about this release that I have. I just wish they used the original monkey art, because that was the art on the copy that I fell in love with 25 years ago. That's a minor complaint though, now that I finally, FINALLY have this record on vinyl. It was one of a handful of CD only releases I had that was still waiting for an LP. One down, a hundred or so more to go.
Ultimate Fakebook – This Will Be Laughing Week:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mhddJ5KECXwRAG3k0eEWstb0LEz9fcweY
