Last week I FINALLY, and gleefully, bought the LP reissue of the Hackamore Brick album, One Kiss Leads To Another, but the more I listen to it, the less I WANT to listen to it. Honestly, I've been on the fence about this album since I first heard it in the early '90s. I wasn't a fan then because I thought they were TOO Velvet Underground-y. Thing is, One Kiss Leads To Another is highly rated as an important record—it gets lip service as a "bridge" from the Velvet Underground to NYC punk. Uh, I guess. Hackamore, in places, does SOUND a lot like the Velvets, but it ain't EXACLTY filled with soon to be punk cliche—it's instead song-writer smart. Hearing the record now I think the group was prolly more rooted in folk and (ahem, I'm stretching here) prog; I hear the Youngbloods AND Canturbury in the track "And I Wonder." The only other track I dig, which might cross over as uh, punk, is the '60s garage pop killer "Zip Gun Woman."

Obviously they had SOMETHING basic and primal for 1971. And I hear it! Being dialed into the Velvets it's evident they were city boys, not wanna-be rural long hairs. I just don't know why it doesn't affect me! Maybe it's their occasional boner wilting happy good timin' pop which bugs me? GAH!! I'm a RECORD NERD so these are the kind of albums I LIVE to hear, but, save for a couple tracks, One Kiss Leads To Another leaves me ice cold.