It’s not very often that I review vinyl reissues of albums that came out 16 years ago. Then again, it’s not very often that I get second chances to review really great albums that came out between 2008 and 2010 — when I was doing lord knows what and not writing about music. Egghead. was/is unquestionably one of the all-time most influential bands in the dork rock neighborhood of the pop-punk universe. John Ross Bowie, Mike Faloon, and Johnny Reno contributed so much to this particular sub-genre in their original ’90s run that their place in history would have been cemented even if had they never again brought their superpowers together for the good of humankind. “Not Everything That Smells Good, Tastes Good” is some of the best life advice ever dispensed in song. “First Flight To The Moon” predicted space tourism decades in advance. Would The Ergs! have ever existed if “Cosmo & Vogue” hadn’t existed first? “Books” was the model for every successful romantic relationship I’ve ever had. But the music gods eventually gifted us with an Egghead. reunion record titled
Would Like A Few Words With You, which was recorded in 2009 and released on compact disc by Knock Knock Records in 2010. I don’t know how to put this, but this album was kind of a big deal. And it’s kind of a big deal that I’m reviewing Egghead. for the first time in nearly 27 years. For context, consider that I was not yet publishing online (or doing anything at all online) the last time I reviewed this band.
How do cult classic pop-punk albums from a decade and a half ago wind up getting vinyl releases in the digital age? In many cases, it’s because the fine folks at Mom’s Basement Records, who are pop-punk historians on a level that not even I could dream to attain, take notice of an injustice that needs to be corrected. You would have thought by now that there would have been a spirited Twitter campaign, well-circulated neighborhood petition, or cable access telethon designed to compel the proper authorities to give Would Like A Few Words With You its long-deserved vinyl release. But now our long ordeal has ended. The album has been remastered and made available on multiple colors of vinyl to longtime fans, record collectors, and a whole new generation of music geeks and geeks who love music. If there was any concern about Egghead. making a record in 2009, it was that perhaps, these gentlemen, now well into their 30s, would at this point be too mature and sophisticated to make a proper Egghead. record (and technically their first studio album). But come on: You know it was absurd for me to even entertain such concerns! Egghead., the sons of the Dickies and first cousins of Boris the Sprinkler, were not about to soil their legacy by writing serious songs.
What kind of band starts off a pop-punk album with a piano overture? Egghead. does! Over the course of 14 tracks, Would Like A Few Words With You finds Egghead. tearing into a brand of music it helped to perfect: goofy pop-punk with the smartest dumb lyrics you ever heard. If perhaps the band’s songwriting was now influenced by such things as marriage and parenthood, these influences were still going to be manifested in a distinctly Egghead. style. Hence we get “My Daughter Can Fuck Up Your Daughter,” now recognized on six continents as a certified classic. And “I’m Still Here,” a genuinely sweet ’60s-style pop song about enduring marital love, features this lyric for the ages: “Sometimes affections fade, I know/But every time I see you naked, it’s like I found my favorite song on the radio.” Elsewhere, songs ponder interesting topics such as digging mysterious objects out of the ground, excelling at the sport of luge, pondering the frustrations of falling in love with a stoic, and finding yourself stuck inside a Stuckey’s with Leonard Graves Phillips. The album also features something that wasn’t always a hallmark of Egghead.’s early output: straight-forward pop-punk love songs like “It’s All True,” “Slow News Day,” and “What the Hell Is She Thinking?”. This was, and still is, an album that cements Egghead.’s legacy as opposed to piggybacking off of it.
I’ve always considered Egghead. a band that I personally underrated back in the day — most likely because I fancied myself as more of a punk than a geek. But eventually a man grows up and realizes he had it backwards. Rebooting a band a decade and a half after its initial run can sometimes be a recipe for disappointment, but Would Like A Few Words With You was nothing short of a triumph for Egghead. And if it hadn’t been, Mom’s Basement wouldn’t be putting it out now. No fan of ’90s pop-punk will want to sleep on this release.
