Southern California punk icons the Vandals stir up the ideal live experience for fans with Live at the House of Blues. Packaged as a CD with a free DVD (or as a DVD with a free CD), this dual release (complete with "Freesecam") asserts what acts like A Perfect Circle to Paul Westerberg already know -- Josh Freese is easily the strongest drummer in modern rock music. While the visuals are shot on eight cameras and find the group joyfully tearing through classics like "Soccer Mom," {&...   [ read more ]

CD $15.18

Sixteen years ago, these greater-L.A. punks released an EP everyone laughed along with (the first non-Bad Religion record on the mighty Epitaph), with its novelty underground radio hit "Urban Struggle (I Want to be a Cowboy)." Who'd have thought the Vandals would still be around, making the same herky-jerky punk, with the same sense of humor? There have been times over their LPs that they've gotten a bit coarse (but remained funny, like the sexual double-entendre here of "Cafe 405"), but ...   [ read more ]

CD $13.28

L.A.'s Vandals have more or less parlayed a novelty hit on the early-'80s version of "modern rock" radio, off their first LP (on then-fledgling Epitaph Records), into a sporadic decade-long career, much like a more punk, less-metal Suicidal Tendencies (their L.A. scene contemporaries), only the Vandals' record was better. That song, "Urban Struggle" -- better known by the tag line "I want to be a cowboy" -- is here, as well as the other good songs on that punk/comedy record...   [ read more ]

CD $13.28