The Barracudas
Drop Out With the Barracudas

THE REVIEW

On the beach with umbrellas

There are no more

It's the usual ritual

But now you're missing

Michael and Johnson taught me that even summer has two sides, the one bursting with fun and carefreeness from every pore and the one tinged with melancholy and sighs, and that until mid-August it's one story, afterwards a completely different one begins.

The Barracudas were also aware of this matter. However, I got to know the Barracudas only a few years after meeting Michael and Johnson. And while Michael and Johnson wrote a song about it, the Barracudas served up an entire album, almost a concept, on the two-sided summer.

«Drop Out With The Barracudas», of course, with its downside (the melancholic and thoughtful side) and its upside (the side full of antics and jests). And the strange thing is that side A is the downside, B is the upside, as if thoughts first ran to the cloudy yesterday and then to the serene the day before yesterday. Or maybe someone mistakenly pressed the downside on side A instead of B, like the person who passed me an inverted «Closer».

But no, that's how it is, the Barracudas start telling us about their last summer from the end, almost the beginnings of autumn, they want it that way and so it will be.

So downside it is. Meaning the garage side, because the Barracudas were a garage band and if it weren't for Greg Shaw and Bomp! and then Voxx, who knows if the Barracudas would have ever had a chance.

Then, one must understand calling the Barracudas a garage band. I gave them a chance because someone introduced them to me as a garage band when I was a garage fanatic (Outta Place, Miracle Workers, Gravedigger V, and other cavernous amenities), so I bought «Mean Time» – trust me, their best, someone else told me – and I almost threw it out the window like a frisbee. Because those Barracudas had little or nothing to do with garage: no fuzz, no Farfisa, no skulls. Then, that today «Mean Time» is one of the indispensable albums of the '80s for me, is another matter.

The fact is, if the Barracudas were ever a garage band, they were so according to the Bomp! style rather than Voxx, because at Bomp! they were housing the Flamin' Groovies, the 20/20, Paul Collins, and the Plimsouls, in addition to a handful of garage-punksters in the strictest sense (Iggy, the Zeros, the Weirdos). Just saying, if the Flamin' Groovies didn't end up forgotten after «Teenage Head» and reached «Shake Some Action», it's thanks exclusively to Greg Shaw and Bomp! And if so much power-pop resonated in the '70s and continues to do so today, it's largely due to Greg Shaw and Bomp! And if today there's still some mad person listening to and sharing the Barracudas, it's only thanks to Greg Shaw and Bomp!

Even though «Drop Out with The Barracudas» is an album with the Voxx logo on the cover, the graphic designers got it wrong because, in attitude and sound, the Barracudas are a Bomp! band.

Garage in their own way, lots of power-pop, lots of surf.

Stuff that hits you instantly as soon as the needle touches the first groove because a piece like «I Can't Pretend» is just that: electrifying. Electrifying riff, electrifying chorus, electrifying solo. In essence, an amphetaminic and exalted version of the Flamin' Groovies' «Shake Some Action».

Scintillating power-pop, in short, as it repeats in «Somewhere Outside». In hindsight, maybe it’s even more (not to say better but) "important" than «I Can't Pretend», because it foretells the Barracudas of «Mean Time» and shows a band that already at the debut has a clear idea of the path to follow.

And the garage? That's the material from which the rampant «This Ain't My Time» and «Somebody» and also those little gems of folk and psychedelia, «Violent Times» and «I Saw My Death In A Dream Last Night», are made.

The downside closes with the remake of Buffy Sainte-Marie's «Codeine», utterly surprising in every sense.

So ends the downside, the needle has no more grooves to play, and all that remains is to get up, go to the turntable, flip the vinyl, and lay the B-side, the upside, on the platter.

And from this moment on, until the end, it's pure frenzy: surf, surf, and more surf. Beach Boys (not the boring ones of «Pet Sounds», no, the ones before, the real ones), Jan & Dean, Surfaris, and Ventures as if there were no tomorrow.

The titles already tell you everything: the amazing «Summer Fun» – the one with the Plymouth babararacucudada and a crazy '66 jingle I discovered a few days ago, those things so senseless that they invariably plaster a goofy smile on my face – «His Last Summer», the seagulls up there and the ocean in front, the organ hammering, the wonderful chorus and the story of the surfer Richie, the anthemic «Surfers Are Back», COWABUNGAAAAA and off with a guitar riff many punk bands still dream of today, «Don't Let Go», power-pop-surfadelic that stuck to me thirty years ago and doesn’t come off, «On The Strip» and «California Lament», to recover and reach the end.

In the end, there's «I Wish It Could Be 1965 Again», which is everything and everything together: garage, power-pop, surf, an immeasurable declaration of love for certain '60s music, nuggets, and pebbles, «Louie Louie» and «Psychotic Reaction», Remains and Seeds.

The Barracudas will play even more beautiful albums than this – «Mean Time», of course – but never as fun as «Drop Out». So, pick up a surfboard even just for show, pick up this album, take it to the beach and play it at a furious volume. And if someone complains, smash the tambourine over their head.