The Nervebreakers' "Face Up to Reality"

[This time it's personal. My second most anticipated release of the millennium (after the Peter Laughner box) is here. I'm not going to review it, because I wrote the liner notes, which are reproduced in full below, including the part that wouldn't fit on the jacket. To say these guys are important to me would be an understatement. If my drummer from college hadn't seen them open for the Sex Pistols, I might not have moved from New York to Texas. Between 1978 and 1981, I saw them more times than any other band besides the Juke Jumpers. Mike Haskins remains my guitar hero, and Barry Kooda my human being hero. Bob Childress once surprised me with a message on the RadioShack corporate net after I'd written something about them online. My wife and I once made a pilgrimage to Austin to see Tex Edwards play a bar gig. And I'm proud to say that Carl Giesecke once played sleighbells on "I Wanna Be Your Dog" with Stoogeaphilia. But enough about me. I've got to go listen to this again.]

Think of this record as a follow-up that took a while to emerge.

It was 1980, 40 years ago as I write this, when the Nervebreakers -- who’d bossed the nascent Dallas punk scene from its inception, opened for every punk/”new wave” touring act that passed through Big D (Ramones, Sex Pistols, Clash, Police, Boomtown Rats), and made the pages of Rolling Stone via the image of guitarist Barry Kooda with a fish in his mouth onstage at the Pistols show – recorded their sole long player, We Want Everything!, which then took 14 years to make it onto vinyl.

The Nervebreakers coalesced in 1975 when Kooda, a junior college theater major back from Army service in Korea, managed to insinuate himself into the “arty rock band” Mr. Nervous Breakdown, formed by his high school best friend, guitarist Mike Haskins, with fellow record store employee Thom “Tex” Edwards. Haskins and Edwards bonded over their mutual appreciation for the Raspberries’ combination of tuneful songcraft and rock crunch. Drummer Carl Giesecke was a moonlighting symphony percussionist, while bassist Bob Childress, who’d joined after the Ramones show, held the distinction of having seen both the Stooges and the New York Dolls every night for a week at Richard’s in Atlanta while attending Georgia Tech.

Onstage, they had a formidable presence, honed over years of four-set gigs, with frontman Edwards draped rakishly over the mic stand, Kooda in his Army helmet and pistol belt, Haskins looking like Donnie Osmond’s axe-slinging twin, Childress bouncing around like the Uberfan who got to join his favorite band, and Giesecke pounding out a solid pulse. Their repertoire included covers as diverse as We Five’s “You Were On My Mind,” George Jones’ “The Race Is On,” and the Troggs’ “Strange Movies.” More to the point, they penned potent originals: “Hijack the Radio,” “Girls Girls Girls Girls Girls,” “My Girlfriend Is a Rock.” Haskins and Edwards were the main writers, with occasional contributions from Kooda, but drummer Giesecke claims credit for their best known song.

When the sessions for We Want Everything! were complete, Haskins and Childress left to form Bag O’ Wire, while the Nervebreakers recruited replacements for an East Coast tour, after which the band folded. Edwards and Kooda followed different musical directions, while Giesecke toured with Roky Erickson (whom the Nervebreakers had backed in 1979).

Fast forward to 2008, when the Nervebreakers reconvened in Haskins’ home studio to record some songs they’d never gotten around to documenting back when. The energy and excitement of the band in its heyday were still in ample supply, along with tunefulness, crunch, and sardonic wit. Highlights include the title track’s snaky rifferama, the leg-twitching rockabilly of “Just Yawn,” the splenetic snarl of “Don’t Wanna Be Used,” and the sprightly punk-country of “I Don’t Wanna Hold Your Hand.” Kooda penned the ennui anthem “Wake Me Up,” and co-wrote the dance-craze theme “They Were Doing the Pogo.” The closing triptych of “It’s Obvious,” “Breaking Down,” and “I’d Rather Die” provides a rousing conclusion to a rockin’ set of tunes that’s long overdue, but right on time.