BAZOOKA JOE RETIRES PERMANENTLY FROM SLOVENLY

It seems our April 1st social media post had just a few of you fooled! Truth is, label owner Pete Menchetti is not hanging his hat anytime soon, but there *is* big news: after around 15 years with Slovenly, “Bazooka” Joe Almeida is turning the page for good. He’s been off & on for the past year or three, and we’ve mutually agreed that it’s time to call it and go back to being just pals.

Joe has been the voice of Slovenly almost since the beginning of the label in 2002. He wrote or helped write a vast majority of the descriptions for our releases. It ain’t hard to figure out which ones he did write — the smelliest & juiciest ones were definitely his doing. A random sampling from our Bandcamp page reveals some standout moments (there are many more! slovenly.bandcamp.com)

On Subsonics “self-titled” LP in 2023:
“A Subsonics mention in the same breath as the era’s most revered luminaries is crucial to the garage-rock conversation due to their unique take and attack on the teenbeat tongue, whether they consider themselves to be a component of the scene, or as outsiders making catchy and clever bang-shang-a-lang for their own inside kicks…”

On Podium self-titled LP in 2020:
“…Pulsating with the epic aggression of hardcore, the impersonal and perverse tone of industrial metal, and fully balanced with the liveliness of the authentic surf scene… The combination of speed, skill and abrasiveness here converts every track into a 2 minute descent into the kind of hell you’ve been dying to enter.”

On CR Dicks “Dick Moves” LP in 2019:
“Not to sound like Ben Wallers singing “Black Change,” or anything, but in the year 2000 a young band of suavely attired fellas from Cedar Rapids, Iowa called THE HORRORS rolled through Las Vegas for a show. They’d recently signed to In The Red and were touring on the strength of their newly released debut LP, and proceeded to scalp the crowd clean to the bone with an obliterating racket, and primitive movements that looked like something out of a sci-fi clonus nightmare, so naturally I was quick to invite them over for a home-cooked meal of fried chicken and mashed potatoes the next day.”

On TH’ LOSIN STREAKS “This Band Will Self-Destruct In T-Minus” LP in 2018:
“Let’s be frank for a moment here: what this ain’t is the simplistic and primitive ‘Streaks garage stomp of yore. This band has stumbled upon a sophisticated formula that relies far less on the 1-4-5, as the new “Order of the Day” finds our veteran hipsters in all-out mod-mode, propelled by ace-face Mike Farrell’s freshest and most inspiring melodic tattoo to date – you’ll swear it’s the searing cacophony of shagged-out Limey teens dosed on a fistfull of vitamin E, kicking out a wall of twistable scree front and center at a liquid light show in early 90s Madchester.”

On TOMMY AND THE COMMIES “Here Come…” LP in 2018:
“In a perfect modern world, songs like “Devices,” and “Suckin’ In Your 20’s” would be massive chart smashes on the level of “Teenage Kicks.” Those days are long gone, but here we are in 2018, giving YOU what you need, and what THEY don’t deserve.”

On ΝΟΜΟΣ 751 self-titled LP in 2018:
“Having previously rotted our minds in the mid-aughts with his Thessaloniki budget rocker crew KOMODINA 3, Mr. Fotopoulos has developed and perfected a seizure inducing sonic smorgasbord of complicated and hilarious racket and punk rock polyrhythms that sounds like your favorite Stranglers LP played at 45rpm, or perhaps backwards, or at least in Greek. In fact, the tongue is so twisted that it’s barely recognizable as humanoid…”

On HELLSHOVEL “Hated by the Sun” LP in 2012:
“The Slovenly posse is trying to wrap our brains around this warped debut LP… Led by Demon’s Claws frontman Jeff Clarke, and featuring Dox Grillo sharing the strings / vox duties, with Bloodshot Bill (swarthy one man band LEGEND who makes an effortless transition on the drums from his [un]usual wild man rockabilly fare)… “Hated By The Sun” is the sound of Johnny Cash drowning in a pool of cough syrup – a gooey reminder of the most irradiated moments of Demon’s Claws poisonous choo-choo train shamble.”

On THE SPITS II 12inch in 2002:
“Drunk, misogynistic, and stupid… classic street punk sans politics meets early 80s arcade game psychedelia. A destined classic for garage snobs, crusties, and rock & roll visionaries.”

Joe also founded Black Gladiator, his own label which functioned as an imprint of Slovenly until around 2020, when he (finally) busted the “He’s Bad” Bo Diddley box set, after half a decade or so of backs and forths with all the bands. BG is no longer an imprint, so cross your fingers & toes that he cranks something out soon on his own.

We here at Slovenly are supremely grateful to Joe for all of his efforts over the years, and I’m sure all of the bands we’ve worked with are too. Even the ones he pissed off (probably because they weren’t getting his snide-ass humor). If you’ve appreciated what he/we have done over the last nearly 25 years as a label, please join us in thanking him for pouring his heart and soul into it for so long.