Rediscoveries

Artists I discovered when I was younger but listened to when I got older.

There are three bands that I discovered when I was younger but didn’t listen to until I was older. I discovered all three of these bands by seeing an album cover or hearing their music.

Star Star

I discovered Star Star because of my dad’s promo flat collection. I loved the cover of “The Love Drag Years” and I wanted to check out their music. I never knew what shelf my dad had their CD on and that was why I took so long to check them out.

One day in 2023, I posted a photo of my promo flat of The Love Drag Years album cover and an account called @scream.idol liked my photo and that was how I discovered Scream Idol and met Johnnie Holliday. I checked out the Star Star website and I saw that there was a free download of their album, “The Love Drag Years” with two bonus tracks.

I downloaded it and I finally got to listen to The Love Drag Years after years of knowing about Star Star. I loved what I heard and I decided to check out Johnnie and Weeds’ new band “Scream Idol”. Their debut album is called “Movie Mary” and it blew my mind.

Star Star was one of many bands who wasn’t promoted because they weren’t like the other artists that Roadrunner had signed, so time wasn’t put into them to help promote what they were doing. No label should sign an act that they aren’t going to promote. Many labels choose who they want to promote rather than promoting every artist they sign.

Sadly, the other two members from The Love Drag Years era, Deon Molyneux and Jay Hening passed away. Johnnie and Weeds had a decision to make. Do we keep the name and be afraid of starting over, or do we start fresh? Unlike most artists who are worried about how well known a name is, Johnnie and Weeds chose to start fresh and they formed Scream Idol. Their debut is one of the best debut albums I’ve heard in a long time.

The Godz

I discovered The Godz in 2012 after my dad gave me his cassette version of “Mongolians”.

When I got older, I listened to their debut album on vinyl with my dad. I remember loving “Guaranteed” and I have it on one of my mixtapes.

In 2023, when I was helping my dad organize records, he let me pick the music. I chose the debut album by The Godz because I wanted to relisten to it. I had listened to one song from it so much that I wanted to give the full album another listen.

I was astounded and I couldn’t believe I didn’t see how good it was in the past. It’s worth mentioning that when I was in college, I was listening to a lot of stuff so I would pick songs by multiple artists to listen to so I could check everything out. I wanted to relisten to the artists that I was only listening to certain songs by. I wanted to relisten to old discoveries and listen to new discoveries.

The Godz are a band that kept going. They could’ve given up numerous times, but they didn’t. It’s a reminder to everyone with a dream that you have to keep going. It’s not going to always be easy and it’s not always going to be hard. You have to experience both, that’s how it works. From what I’ve been told, success isn’t about how much money you make. Success is when you’re doing what you want to do. Many people don’t follow their dreams because they can’t make money doing it. If you love it, do it.

L.A. Guns

My earliest memories of L.A. Guns include seeing the 20th Century Masters digipak on one of my dad’s CD shelves when I was a teenager.

I remember listening to Hollywood Forever when it was released.

I rediscovered L.A. Guns when I was reading my dad’s back issues of Hit Parader from 1987/1988 and I saw an ad for their debut album. I later told my dad that I was surprised that they were in so many of those issues because the only bands I remember seeing in almost every issue was Guns N’ Roses and Bon Jovi.

To me, L.A. Guns was better than the bands they featured in every issue because they weren’t like those bands. They dressed different. Their music sounded different. They were one of a kind, but they were never the band on the cover. If a band is unique, then they should be on the cover, instead of putting the same band on the cover every month.

These are three bands that always had my interest, even when I didn’t listen to them. These are the bands that I would get excited about finding in a record store because it meant that someone else had a chance to discover them.