Hozac HHV Records 10 Items

Available on vinyl for the first time anywhere, THE Revelons are known to punk prevaricators one of best “lost bands” of the Cbgb era who simply released one earth-moving 7” single on Ork Records in 1979, didn’t get signed to a major, and shuffled back into the shadows of an ever-growing scene. Fronted by Gregory LEE Pickard, the band dug into the trenches of New York City’s seedy Bowery life and were frequent players alongside most of the top-tier punk bands of the time, becoming mainstays at not only Cbgb but Mudd Club, Danceteria, Hurrah’s and Max’s as well as incorporating a rotating cast of members that, at times featured Richard Lloyd of Television and JAY DEE Dougherty of THE Patti Smith Group in the lineup. Incorporating a brash and aggressive pop sound with a vicious edge, The Revelons teetered between Television-like sparkling minimal artistic flourishes, but with more raw & primitive delivery. To which, they solidified their street-level prowess with a tenderized toughness not many other bands could match. The Revelons also were pretty hard to pigeonhole sound-wise then as they are now, with Talking Heads comparisons generally falling short, but there were some genuine Doo Wop moments that sneak in as well, showing their deeper roots to the NYC of days long past. But the real crime here is that this previously unreleased collection of recordings has never appeared in the vinyl LP format, as it surely would have escalated The Revelons’ profile much higher in the timeline of New York Punk, and in the minds of rock’n roll historians across the globe. Its a fully-realized album overloaded with massive cuts that’s sadly been forgotten for far too long, so of course, we felt like it was our responsibility to make that happen, and we hope you enjoy this instant-classic album of 1977-82 material from one of New York City’s overlooked gems.

When Tim from Dagger Zine approached us about his book idea covering long-loved "spaces" held sacred for countless music fans, we knew it was a great project to get behind, Similar in its community effort to our last book release (The White Label Promo Preservation Society), Hinely organized an incredible list of contributors from all stripes of the underground music spectrum, each waxing their own warm recollections of wild nights seeing life-changing bands and/or terrible bathroom experiences. Chock full of photos, original newspaper ads, flyers, and long-lost monthly calendars of the pre-Internet age, Where The Wild Gigs Were illustrates how important these sacred spaces really are, and how much it's noticeable when we can't actually be AT these homes-away-from-home, spread all across the USA. From Stache's in Columbus, OH to Flynn's Ocean 71 in Miami, FL (the 'CBGB's on the beach'), back to The Brewery in Lansing MI (complete with previously unpublished Stooges photos!), to City Gardens in Trenton, NJ (staffed by Comedy Dentral's Jon Stewart) to Peter Aaron's sordid details on the mob-run Jockey Club in Newport, KY, you won't find many dull moments as each page bleeds into the next, oozing with recollections of blurry good times and endless excitement before the world changed, as we know it. Includes a foreword by Byron Coley and an afterword by Tesco VEE. 235 pages, paperback. First edition of 500 copies.

Cincinnati quintet the Dents were “early American pioneers of what would retroactively be termed synth punk: a scorching fusion of futuristic synthesizers and grinding, garage-y guitars. Too tough for the synth pop lightweights and too contemporary for the brutes who dared not deviate from the guitars-only Ramones/Pistols template. In 1988, I started gathering material for the compilation that would ultimately become 2019’s We Were Living in Cincinnati on HoZac/Shake It. Keyboardist Doug Hallet made me a tape of some choice cuts, and I loved what I heard: squealing synths, growling vocals, chunky guitars, propulsive bass, and four-on-the-floor drums, the collective machine driving a clutch of great, super-catchy tunes. That tape got lost during the intervening decades, but Doug, Vivien, and I connected via Facebook when I resumed work on the comp and they sent some more tracks. The music sounded even better than I’d remembered it. In fact, ‘Sleeping Around,’ a defiant, ahead-of-its time (or, perhaps, right-on-time) anthem of female sexual independence, in particular, proved to be a total revelation—an instant-but-overdue classic that had blown-away listeners asking one question, loudly: 'When can we hear more Dents?' The answer: Right now. Right here. This cache of cool originals and sagely selected covers culled from two riotous gigs by the band offers ample evidence that the Dents were truly one of Midwestern American punk’s top undocumented acts. If they’d been in, say, San Francisco or L.A. circa ’79/’80, instead of, yeah that’s right, Cincinnati, Ohio, it’s not hard to imagine them being snapped up by some seminal label to cut a solitary single whose sound would be emulated by young bands around the globe 40-plus years later. Once upon a time, geography was a bitch. Not anymore, though. Here ya go, kids.”—Peter Aaron, 2021

HoZac Books is proud to announce the publication of Rebel Soul: Musings, Music and Magic by the one and only Bebe Buell. Rebel Soul isn’t so much a “sequel” to Bebe Buell’s 2001 New York Times best-selling memoir Rebel Heart, but more of an impressionistic scrapbook about becoming and being Bebe Buell, tracing her trajectory from being a rock “It Girl” to a pop culture icon, through a collection of essays that explore what it was like to be at the center of the pop universe during a golden era, and how she invented herself as a muse and a musician. In this book, Bebe recollects, in vivid and previously unexplored detail, the people and places of her past, from her well-known romances with members of rock royalty, to her influences and friendships, her family and her career (and how they came into conflict), her reflections and observations of the cultural and sexual climate of the ‘70s. Two decades after the publication of Rebel Heart, Bebe looks back from a different perspective, with candor, humor, and wisdom. Rebel Soul isn’t a straight-forward autobiographical narrative: it’s as though Bebe has taken a large box off her shelf, filled with ticket stubs, backstage passes, magazine covers and clippings, and gig flyers, each one triggering memories of who she was at the time. The book is illustrated with dozens of rare or unseen photos from Bebe’s personal archives, going back to her early days as a top fashion model, through her whirlwind years in New York and Los Angeles, times spent in London, Woodstock and now Nashville, where she makes her home.

Jeff Drake has led an extraordinary life... and believe me, that’s a vast understatement. I say this with confidence, because we’ve known each other for four decades. His band the Joneses, co-founded with skateboard champion Steve Olson, was the shining light of the 1980’s Southern California underground rock scene, ages before the term ‘alternative music’ was bandied about by MTV and rock critics. The Joneses were the damn bomb. A louche, sloppy, outlaw amalgam of punk, pop and Don’t Give A Fuck attitude, they played thrashy, trashy rock’n roll that owed as much to The New York Dolls as it did to the Rolling Stones. Jeff’s songwriting was pure, catchy pop, even though the lyrics were riddled with sex and drug references. It was as though he mixed up a potion from the blood and brain cells of Little Richard and The Ramones, came up with a perfect formula, ingested it, and made his own unique creation. The Joneses’ live shows were off the hook, as were their off-stage antics. Though neither of us can remember the exact moment we met, we became fast friends in 1983. We hung out constantly back then and he was a regular at my infamous punk rock crash pad, Disgraceland. Hollywood in the 1980’s was an ungentrified wasteland; the streets were ruled by delinquent twenty-somethings, most of whom were in bands. My own band The Screaming Sirens played numerous times with the Joneses. During the time, the Joneses were being courted by a number of major labels, though the record execs were absolutely clueless and cautious back then. If one of them would’ve taken a gamble, Jeff would’ve become a huge star. Instead, living out his own song ‘Criminals,’ he robbed a bank to feed his heroin habit. On a personal note: in the course of my life I’ve somehow known seven bank robbers, but hands down, Jeff is my favorite.There’s so much more to his story though, as you’ll see in the following pages. It’s a confessional told in a direct, honest, engaging way, in his own words with a touch of dark humor; it’s exactly the way he speaks in real life. You, dear reader, will be extremely happy that Jeff didn’t join the 27 Club, the coterie of rock stars who passed away at that young age. Luckily, he’s still with us to tell his own personal story of sin and redemption. After all, what could possibly be more subversively rock’n roll than living to tell all the salacious details?”—Pleasant Gehman, March, 2022.

Oh how we’ve missed THE Rubs, let us count the ways! One of the finest of Chicago’s last wave of rock’n roll resuscitation of the late 2010s, who uprooted the whole project for greener pastures in Kansas City, MO, yet still continues to churn forth incredible hooks by the bucketload, no matter where they land. Here we have the anxiously awaited third long-player, still entirely written, composed, and performed by the one-man-army that is Joey Rubbish, and still creating those invigorating waves of euphoria you’ve come to know and love from this essential hit-machine. After settling into a new living situation in a new city, the hits just kept pouring out, and as the dust settled after several reconfigurations over the next years, the Dust LP finally took its final, gleaming form, as the LP you have here. Another knockout collection of pristine pop bangers laced with mesmerizing guitar and/or sizzling mellotron solos, woven into impossibly contagious harmonies that should effectively put the CDC on high alert.

Vinyl with light scuffs and hairlines. Still in shrink but opened, with hype sticker. Inner sleeve with seam split.

It’s with extreme pleasure that we unleash the only true document from Adam ROTH’s underground music. Since discovering the endless joy that the 1981 film Down The Shore demonstrated we made it our mission to track down Adam and get this amazing LP back out into the world. Unfortunately Adam passed away far too young and left us in 2015, but before that tragic event, we got the wheels in motion for this project. Recorded as part of a DIY film soundtrack for the top-tier Down The Shore (aka Beach House), Adam Roth and his brother Charles formed a pickup band based around scenes from the amazing teen trash film. The resulting LP is one of the best of the era, a truly knockout album of pure Power Pop prowess, and until now, nearly impossible to find. Adam’s longtime pal and comedian/actor Denis Leary even co-wrote one of the tracks included here, and Adam later was the music director for his TV series Rescue Me. Adam also was known for working on the film To Die For, starring Matt Dillon…who Roth had taught to play guitar for his role in 1983’s classic Rumble Fish. So many crazy connections, and such an incredible album AND film! This year’s 40th anniversary remaster sounds crisp & deadly, and featured new liner notes on the insane film & LP project from Adam’s brother Charles Roth, detailing how their manager ended up dumping the majority of the original LPs in junk stores after a disagreement, where they disappeared quickly into the ether. RIP Adam Roth: 1958-2015

We’re excited to announce the debut LP from Glasgow’s Soursob this month, a viciously minimal 3-piece that does so much with so little, yet packs such a powerful punch you won’t soon forget. A bass-driven groove holds these songs in an awesome aggressive limbo between the lush, heavy-noise of the post C-86 sound and the brash early 90s invigoration of riot grrrl noise. Like nothing we’ve ever encountered, their anger toward simple modern pleasures is just short of breath-taking, dragging everything you hold sacred into their pit of resilience. Thick accents drizzle over thick blocks of drastic fuzz as each song bleeds effortlessly into the next, encompassing some of the catchiest choruses this side of Dolly Mixture, yet with a sinister darker underpinning, all tied into their increasingly hypnotic bass lines. With the three members of Soursob originating from Glasgow, Lithuania, and Australia, they are currently in limbo post-pandemic, but with the immediate impact of this crushingly infectious new LP, they hope to be bashing it out in front of live crowds again soon. Such an impressively confident collection of songs here, and your fleeting taste for craft beer, cocaine, mass transit, watching TV on a cell phone, and Berlin in general, is very much “on the line” with these sublime and profound revelations. One these teeth sink in, you won’t believe how you’ve lived this long without the prickling & sickening throb of Soursob!

I’m not living my life so good, tell me, how about you?’ What can we really say about 14th Wish, how did this band even exist? This record and band were Completely unknown up until the last couple of years, when we were approached by a notorious record fiend who was looking for more info after our official release of David Peel’s King of Punk LP. Here we have a band with no paper trail, zero online search results, and released in a tiny quantity on Orange Records in 1980, right alongside the first GG Allin and Eddie Criss Group LPs. But instead of a stylized gutter glam workout with a hot-shot studio guitarist, 14th Wish trip over themselves with a snotty/sloppy amateurism that veers farther into the beloved ‘Killed By Death’ arena, with it’s sweltering TAPEWORM-style lead guitar freak-outs.
Fronted by the mysterious figure known as Halo Peace, both 14th Wish tracks offer a refreshing mid-tempo crud-punk slop-take on the sounds swirling around the drain of the Lower East Side at the end of the 1970s. Although both tracks aren’t lightning fast, their instant ominous catchiness and absolutely sordid and squalorous guitar tone suggests a more murderous background, as well. Mention of this record just drew blanks across from the board, from all of the rare punk record dealers, to the most avid international collectors, and even NYC scene members from the time. Never even turned up in a Mike Bastarache Want List! And of course, the internet was no help either. Was this really one that Everyone missed? Recommended If You Like: Tapeworm, GG Allin & the Jabbers, Freestone, The Trend, Mentally Ill, The Gears, Killed By Death compilations.”