This album was originally my introduction to RFTC back in the early ‘90s, and it’s the standard that I’ve held all of their later albums up to. As far as I’m concerned, RFTC didn’t release anything as good as Circa Now! until last year’s Live from Camp X-Ray. I don’t know if it’s just sentimental on my part, or if this album is really as great as I think it is. I will say this, though: I taped this off of a friend in 1993. When the tape wore out, I bought the CD. That CD was stolen from me sometime around ’96, and a year later, I bought a new copy. So this reissue is the fourth time I’ve gone out of my way to obtain a copy of this album. It has been in my car, in my wife’s car, or in heavy rotation at home for the majority of the last twelve years. I can’t think of many other albums that I can say that about. Originally, Interscope released this album, and there’s an interesting story all about how RFTC got signed and recorded this in L.A. during the L.A. riots in 1992, and how John Reis got the rights back and re-released it himself (it’s all in the liner notes, I’m not gonna rehash it here). Press releases aside, though, this is one of my all-time favorites and it’s essential listening. There are four extra songs on this re-issue. They’re really good songs, but I can understand why they didn’t make the original cut. They just don’t have the same intensity and feel of the rest of the album. They’d fit better with RFTC’s Scream Dracula Scream (which is a pretty good album, too).
–sean (Swami)