Looking back at the '60s, it seemed like any kid with a garage and a guitar was able to record and release a disc. As a result, the dusty bins of rock & roll history contain too many bands to keep tabs on. Among the avalanche of Nuggets and Pebbles collections, there are passing notices paid to the
Swamp Rats, but unlike many of the one-off bands included in those collections, the
Swamp Rats are worth revisiting. Hailing from the Pittsburgh, PA suburb of McKeesport, the
Swamp Rats emerged in 1966 and gained some degree of renown with their surprisingly wild take on the ubiquitous garage rocker, "Louie Louie." Their reputation was further fueled by a string of raucous singles offering solid versions of tracks by
the Beatles ("Here, There and Everywhere"),
the Kinks ("She's Got Everything"), and what would become the group's most recognizable song,
the Rolling Stones' "It's Not Easy." A thoughtful reissue unleashed by Get Hip in 2003,
Disco Still Sucks! does a solid job of gathering up the band's finest moments. With a string of songs originally released from 1966 and 1967, the band made quite an impression among garage rock fans. Graced with extensive liner notes, the album details the band's career from beginning to end. The most immediately jarring thing about
Disco Still Sucks! is how brash and noisy the guitar were for 1966. Before kids were armed with digital effects and fancy studio tricks, the
Swamp Rats were pounding their instruments into fuzzy revolt with pure teenage fury -- and it sounds great. The CD also includes unlisted bonus tracks that seem to show leader
Bob Hocko wrestling with some psyched-out Vietnam-era demons. Whether the stories are fact or fiction, the trippy barrage of spoken word pieces and sound effects are an unsettling but offer an intriguing glimpse at the experimental direction the band might've taken had it survived a few more years. ~ Karen E. Graves