The Dirtbombs: Party Store

Label: In the Red

What people don't know about the Dirtbombs' frontman/big brain/baddest mutha Mick Collins is that he is a freakin' wildman. This band will be forever confined to the garage-rock ghetto, but a survey of the band's entire career -- they got rolling in the mid-'90s -- shows a mind-blowing wealth of influences and interests: bubblegum-pop to hardcore soul with pretty much every stop in between. Now the Dirtbombs legacy stretches even wider with Party Store, their homage to another classic Detroit sound: techno. Before you say "heck no!", trust that this is live rock & roll versions of some of the Motor City's mechanized hits, including a 20-minute-plus take on Carl Craig's legendary jam "Bug in the Bass Bin" (Craig pitches in some synth work on it to boot). You don't need to know who people like Derrick May, Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson are; all you need to know is this is straight-up Dirtbombs rawk with an added emphasis on that put-your-head-down-and-groove thing. Truly a sound to behold!