The Cold, Three Chord City (Top Pop)

 

God only knows what synchronicitous events led to this point in history, but the end of 1997 has unleashed the independent, simultaneous release of career-spanning anthologies by two of New Orleans’ most popular and influential bands — both nearly 20 years old.

In 1978, the Normals invented punk rock in New Orleans. Two years later, the Cold, inspired by the punky energy of the Normals, smoothed off the rough edges of new wave and eclipsed the popularity of the Normals three times over.

Your Punk Heritage and Three Chord City document on CD that music, which still packs a wallop after all those years. Don’t get me wrong: Many of these 15-20-year-old recordings on both CDs sound like 15-20-year-old recordings, but even the most hardened critic would have to recognize its share of undiminished pop thrills.

The Normals — David Brewton, Charlie Hanson, Chris Luckette and Steve Walters — got together in 1977 to bring the noise and excitement of the Ramones and Sex Pistols to New Orleans. That might have carried foreboding baggage back then, but by today’s standards the Normals’ repertoire is just fast, catchy and melodic. It’s proto-power pop.

Your Punk Heritage starts off with a bang. “Almost Ready,” the Normals’ one and only single, raves like the Damned’s “New Rose.” Songs like “Jump Back,” “Around the Downtown,” “38-36” and “No Cigars” are pop songs in punk clothing, which was the nasty little secret behind much of the first wave from England. If there’s anything dated about the songs, it’s the faux British accents, which makes Brewton sound like Paul Weller.

Brewton’s knack for songwriting turns out to be remarkable. The guitarist and vocalist possessed an infinite vocabulary of catchy riffs, melodies and hooks, and almost every cut boasts a hook or chorus that cements it in your mind. It’s loaded with hits.

Guitarist Hanson, meanwhile, proves that the Normals were no amateurs. “Got You Running” and “My Hardcore” feature fretboard fireworks that attracted the metal crowd as well as the punks. Walters maintains the pulse on bass, and Luckette’s thunderous beat keeps time. These tracks may be structurally simple, but the Normals knew how to put together a song.

The CD was pieced together primarily through old demo tapes and live recordings, so the sound quality varies from good to okay. Throw in a few radio ads from the era for context, and you’ve got instant nostalgia or cultural history, depending on your age.

If the Normals were the Ramones of New Orleans, then the Cold were Blondie. Less interested in loud and fast than tight and upbeat, the Cold — Vance DeGeneres, Chris Luckette, Barbara Menendez, Kevin Radecker and Bert Smith — started gigging just as the Normals broke up, quickly becoming a clean cut alternative to the safety-pin scene. Instead of stripping down and speeding up the garage rock of the ’60s, the Cold updated the Top 40 pop of the ’60s — girl groups, surf music, the Beatles and the Monkees. They were more apt to cover Petulia Clark’s “Downtown,” which they did and do here, than the Adverts’ menacing “Gary Gilmore’s Eyes,” which the Normals did. And don’t underestimate the charisma of vocalist Menendez, whose high energy and short skirts made her as much a focal point of the Cold as Deborah Harry in Blondie. The net result was younger fans and a broader audience.

Three Chord City follows the Cold’s recording career in chronological order, starting with “You,” the rousing 1980 single that landed them on B-97. That’s still an audacious achievement.

The titles that follow remain just as melodic and memorable as they were at Jimmy’s or on the President: the obsessive “Mesmerized,” the dark “Thanks A Lot,” the Go-Go’s beat of “Do the Dance,” the wistful “Seems Like Forever,” and the preppy new wave of “Three Chord City.”

Later tracks pulled from the 1984 album Major Minor slow the tempos and excitement a notch, but a few tracks, notably “What Went Wrong Today” and “Take All The Time,” sound as vibrant as any alternative pop in the mid-’80s.

Three Chord City sounds a lot better than Your Punk Heritage, mostly because most of the 26 songs presented here were previously released. Compiling each of their five singles, tracks from their two LPs, 16 Songs… and Major Minor, two songs previously available only in live versions, and two previously unreleased songs, Three Chord City is as close as you’re going to get to a comprehensive collection.

It would be nice if Your Punk Heritage and Three Chord City found their way into the hands of listeners previously unaware of the significance of both bands, but most of these CDs will wind up in the hands of the 30-something (and 40-something) scenesters, whose only reminders of their salad days were memories. They’re the ones most likely to snap up these shiny plastic mementos of youth — days when alternative music really meant something.