1313 Mockingbird Lane — 'Have Hearse Will Travel'
26th Anniversary DELUXE edition of this gloriously raucous, seriously demented, organ-fueled garage punk gem!
The story of 1313 Mockingbird Lane isn’t much different from other circa-1990 garage punk contemporaries such as the Mummies or Gories… After discovering Back from the Grave-style compilations of ’60s garage rock, three friends decided to form a band, two of them having never even played instruments before. After finding a drummer — one with more experience than any of them, having toured with Link Wray and appearing on Link’s Live in ’85 LP — they crank out two seven-inchers and this here long-player within roughly a year’s time, all inspired by an amalgam of the ’60s garage sounds they’d discovered anew, surf music, and the ’77-era punk bands they’d grown up loving.
Hailing from New York’s capital city, Albany, they’d go on to share the stage with East Coast luminaries of the genre like the Cynics, Chesterfield Kings, and Lyres, and win accolades from all. But, prior to any of that, Have Hearse Will Travel finds the band at their rawest and most powerfully innocent. Original copies of this LP now sell for mucho dinero, if you can find one. So why isn’t Have Hearse Will Travel spoken about as are other pebbles of hardened garage punk lore?
Well, this 26th Anniversary deluxe edition seeks to fix that conundrum and restore this thrill-filled piece of history to its rightful place in the garage punk pantheon. This is the first time the LP has been repressed since an initial small run in 1990, as well as the album’s premiere appearance on compact disc and cassette. On beautiful colored vinyl, the LP is packaged in a posh gatefold jacket. It features a restored cover that matches the band’s original vision and greatly improves upon the murky original, newly added liner notes, personal memoirs from each band member, never-before-seen photos, memorabilia, and more — including six bonus tracks on the CD and digital download editions, three of which have never been heard before.
Filled with crude caterwauling, slithering Farfisa, blasts of fuzz, and a bit of rock’n’roll alchemy, 1313 Mockingbird Lane’s Have Hearse Will Travel is a primal, lo-fi, bloodcurdling blast of darkly whimsical rock’n’roll trash, à la bands like the Cramps, Scientists and Deadbolt, with some ? & the Mysterians organ thrown in for extra kicks. It’s a must have for any garage punk fan unafraid to explore the deep dark caves of rock’n’roll and the (as of yet) unheralded but deserving ghosts of garage punk past.
“...gut wrenching fuzz punk in the tradition of The Avengers, Unrelated Segments and the Seeds. Tough punk with powerful keyboards, fuzz guitar, pounding bass and drums and vocals with enough snarl and snot that you have to clear your throat after each tune. In other words, prime slime...” — What Wave #18
“Sure, I know this genre of music has been done before, but how many times (aside from The Cramps and Lyres) have you heard it done this well?” — Buzz Magazine
Use the link below to grab yerself a copy...
Get it on Bandcamp
