30 Watts to Freedom (Independent)

The good news about Little Guitar Army’s 30 Watts to Freedom is that, after a long, hungry wait, it finally exists, and it kicks muthafuckin’ ass—you won’t find a single quibble with the content. The album accurately conveys the raucous, playful enthusiasm of LGA’s live shows, includes a .MOV file of the group’s Peckinpah-goes-to-East-Van “30 Watts to Freedom” video, and has most of their staples. That means you get “Can’t Fix Stupid”, “Shotgun Fishing”, and “The Jack Pike”, and two covers: the Supremes’ “My World Is Empty (Without You)” and what has to be the most convincing recording of “Kick Out the Jams” since the MC5 original. The only noteworthy missing tune is the band’s version of the Blue í–yster Cult’s “Godzilla”, which is so fun live it actually manages to rehabilitate that song.

The bad news is that 30 Watts to Freedom looks like a bazillion cheapie, self-released local CDs that one can now find in the 99-cent bin at Audiopile. There’s a flimsy single-sheet insert, no lyrics or notes, and a generally homemade-lookin’ presentation (though the photo of Sonny Dean’s hairy man-tits by Femke van Delft is priceless).

I’d kind of been hoping that, when 30 Watts to Freedom finally came out, it would look so cool it would somehow conquer the market, making everyone in North America aware that Little Guitar Army is the best fucking rock band anywhere at the moment, period. It looks, however, like the group is going to have to do it the hard way.