Various - No More of Your Fairy Stories - an indiepop tribute to Ramones (Precordial Catch Records)

... or Stuff What I Bought at Indietracks, part one'.

I really don't like Ramones for some reason. There is no substance in my dislike of them at all, and like the sleevenotes on this album say, maybe I should look past the long hair and leather jackets and just embrace the pop a bit more.

It doesn't help when Helen Love are first up. I don't get Helen Love either, but after that things get immeasurably better. I decided upon listening to this album that I would pretend the songs were the artists' own, and then that might, subconciously make me get The Ramones. Well, it might work...

It certainly works on Liechtenstein's reworking of 'Danny Says', which is characteristically fucking awesome and reminds me again that here's a band that has yet to record a crap song. On a similar fragile theme is Summer Cats' version of 'Pinhead', which makes me forget I'm listening to a Ramones song for a couple of minutes.

Pocketbooks contribute a typically perky 'Don't Come Close', which sounds like it might all fall down at any second, but is desperately cute (in a GREAT way), whilst my urge to just give in to The Just Joans is brought even closer to reality with their 'Questioningly' - perhaps the best cover here.

Much credit to Pete and Marianthi for getting the Pains of Being Pure at Heart to contribute a track to the album. And to the band, for that matter. The mutual love-in continues apace.

As does mine with Horowitz and Allo Darlin'. The former's 'Judy is a Punk' is how I think The Ramones should've sounded, whislt Allo Darlin''s 'I Wanna Be Sedated' gives me the shivers, it's so beautiful.

The album ends with Vom Vorton's 'Pet Semetary', which starts off like 'Echo Beach', and the goes on to turn the song into some kind of maudlin opus. Alarmingly good stuff. And then there's Pete Green's comatose 'Blitzkrieg Pop', which I've even admitted TO HIS FACE that I really like. It's the perfect song for those post-Indietracks blues.

You can buy 'No More of Your Fairy Stories' here. Even if you're not a Ramones fan...