1313 Mockingbird Lane - Have Hearse Will Travel

Inspired by Back from the Grave-style compilations of ’60s garage rock and the ’77-era punk bands they’d grown up loving, Have Hearse Will Travel finds 1313 Mockingbird Lane at their rawest and most powerfully innocent. Original copies of this LP now sell for big bucks, if you can find one. Much more than a set of “neo-garage,” “retro-rock” tracks that attempt to musically ape the ’60s sound, Have Hearse Will Travel is more ground-breaking than it was given credit for in 1990, sounding like the future of garage rock rather than its past. As lead singer and guitarist Haunted Hausmann told music-zine Buzz, “We’re inspired by all those bands, but 90 percent of our material is original music… Back in the ’60s, that’s what punk was, long hair and rebellion. We’re punk but I think the paisley and long hair scares people away.”

Sure, I know this genre of music has been done before, but how many times (aside from The Cramps and Lyres) have you heard it done this well? — Buzz Magazine, 1990