Poppin' the Cherry Part II: The Bowery Boys (And Girls) Meet The Hounds

Okay, words pretty much fail me, ladies and germs, but I am not making this up: The Hounds, i.e. the 70s pop/rock band I toiled with for many years....

...have a song on a new 4 CD box set from Cherry Red Records, aka the World's Coolest Label.

From the promo material:

In December 1973 Hilly Kristal changed the name of his roots music bar from Hilly’s on the Bowery to CBGB and altered his musical policy to hire mostly rock bands. He was indifferent to many of them (“No one is going to like you guys, but I’ll have you back,” he told Joey Ramone), blissfully unaware of how important his scruffy little club would soon become.

In the span of only 15 months, the five groups that comprise the CBGB’s pantheon all debuted: Television in March 1974, followed by Ramones in August and Blondie in October, then Patti Smith in February 1975 and Talking Heads four months later.

Those five groups all quickly got record deals and became popular enough to outgrow CBGB’s. By the fall of 1977, Smith was the only one who was still playing there. What succeeded the Big Five was an array of new and retro styles, all of which feature here: No Wave (Sonic Youth, Mars, DNA, Bush Tetras), post-punk (Ritual Tension, Unknown Gender, Khmer Rouge), mutant funk and R&B (James Chance & The Contortions, Mink DeVille), art-rock bands (R.L. Crutchfield’s Dark Day, The Revelons, Erasers, Jeff and Jane Hudson) hardcore punk (Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Vatican Commandos, Beastie Boys), and lots of power pop (Sorrows, The dBs, The Rudies, The Miamis, The Paley Brothers) .

The club’s best-known bands are present on this compilation but we’ve also revived interest in dozens of unfairly forgotten acts that, for a moment in time, made an album, EP, 45, or even a demo that crackled with innovation, wit, and joy.

CBGB no longer exists, at least not in the physical plane, but what happened between those soot-filled, beer-stinking walls continues to reverberate around the world.

We're on disc one, between The Dictators and The Dead Boys.

The box set features over 100 songs, neatly alternating (as you will have gleaned from the above) between hits and deep cuts from a myriad of well known/stylistically varied NYC stalwarts (Patti Smith AND James Blood Ulmer) along with obscure not-even-cult-figures like us.

You can peruse the complete track listing -- and pre-order the thing, which will be available starting January 30th -- over at the Cherry Red website HERE.

I'm told there will be a booklet with extensive liner notes by ace rock critic Rob Tannenbaum and lotsa cool photos (I wrote the brief Hounds bio entry, and I'm informed that Rob quotes from an old Stereo Review column of mine when talking about Stuart's Hammer). I want to emphasize again, delightedly, that along with the scene's heavy hitters, like the ones previously mentioned, the set also includes lotsa stuff by unfairly forgotten weirdos, including a group I never got to see who had my favorite band name ever -- Chemicals Made From Dirt. 😎

Bottom line, I feel like I've died and gone to heaven. I mean -- first The Floor Models are on Cherry Red, and now The Hounds?

Oh, and because I love you all more than food, here's the song in question, which we released on our own P.O.J. label -- in stereo, the first non-mono disc by an indie NYC band -- back in 1976.

I'll keep you guys posted on new details about the set -- like if it's gonna be available for streaming at any point -- as they develop.

I'll also share a couple of hopefully amusing Hounds stories -- including our CBGBs debut, opening for a nascent international superstar -- when the set comes out next year.