VA - Make Mine Mondo! (2018)

Lew Bedell was the best kind of record man: the kind who knew that the business was exploitative at its core, so why not keep things cheap, quick, and sleazy? That's precisely what Bedell did with Dore, the label he could call his own after parting ways with Herb Newman in 1959. On his own, Bedell recorded all manner of teen rockers, fuzz merchants, Hollywood wannabes, and R&B renegades, cutting them swiftly in hopes of a hit but never investing enough money to guarantee that these 45s would hit the charts. For Bedell, hits were a matter of blind luck and rock & roll was an inherently transient form, so why not cut any hungry musician on the make? This intentional disposability is why Make Mine Mondo!, a 28-track compilation of highlights from the Dore vaults, such a gas. Every one of these songs is a desperate attempt to chase some trend, but there's a ton of personality within these generic songs by faceless artists. "Yes, Master!" by the Whips flirts with S&M, the Zanies make zonked-out Halloween rock, Los Corvett spit out a Spanish version of the Stones' "Satisfaction," Spencer's Van Dykes' "I'll Blow My Mind" is frenzied garage-skronk, and even Johnny Z.'s wobbly instrumental "Midnight Beach Party" feels like a transmission piped in from a B-movie. All these cheap thrills were designed for nothing more than the moment, but that's why they're so potent: this is bottled lightning, feeling as exciting and tawdry as when it was recorded back in the '60s.~Make Mine Mondo! Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine