This week in reunions... Sugar Ray

* Jane's Addiction's tour with Nine Inch Nails only just started, and already the band is feuding with bassist Eric Avery, who stayed away from the previous two reunions. Oh, and Perry Farrell tore a calf muscle in his leg and will have to perform on crutches.

* Sugar Ray are back together; you may remember that lead singer Mark McGrath took some time out to host Extra, host a Pussycat Dolls-themed reality show, and appear on an episode of Law and Order: SVU. Their new album Music for Cougars comes out July 21, and they'll be on tour most of the summer. Listen to the first single, "Boardwalk," here.

* The Wallflowers will indeed have something to promote on their summer tour: a greatest hits album with two "previously unreleased" tracks.

* Rancid have a new album, out June 2, though I'm not sure if it counts as a reunion. Their last album was in 2003, and since then they've done a variety of side projects and solo albums. But they toured in '06. So... regardless, the new album's called Let the Dominoes Fall.

* The dates from the Blink-182 reunion tour have been released, and it starts July 24. Weezer, the All-American Rejects, and Fall Out Boy are opening on various dates.

The Pantheon 1: Punk revival bands

After this post on Less than Jake set off a wide-ranging discussion on the merits and ranks of various bands, it seems like a new series is needed. So here's the Pantheon: the great bands of the '90s. It's been long enough to get some critical perspective. As always, discuss and argue below:

First up, the great punk revival of 1994 and beyond:

First-tier
Green Day - uncontested champions. If Dookie's not enough, consider their triumphant return to form with American Idiot. They've collaborated with U2, covered John Lennon (with Yoko's blessing), had countless hits, and sold millions of albums while influencing every Warped Tour band that came after. Plus, I still really like "Redundant."


The Offspring - forever the Rolling Stones to Green Day's Beatles, they'll never have the same critical success even as they approach the same level of commercial success. Get extra points for Dexter Holland's tight braids back in the day, his impossible-to-imitate voice, and his Ph.D. in microbiology.

Blink-182 - Had less of an impact in the '90s than the above bands, though "Dammit" was a good single and Enema of the State did come out in '99. And now they're back.

Bad Religion - one of our posters was adamant about including this band here. I loved Recipe for Hate and Stranger than Fiction, and you have to give them props for founding Epitaph Records, which was responsible for Offspring, Rancid, etc. But I only tolerated The Gray Race, and their material after that has been fairly weak. It seems obvious that the band needed Brett Gurewitz, who ditched in '95 and came back in '02. Still, last time I was in LA, I heard them on the radio four or five times and they can still play large venues on the West Coast whenever they want.

Rancid - ...And Out Come the Wolves was a masterpiece, but our posters are right, they really didn't do that much either before or after that (I'm not counting Operation Ivy).
Man, "Ruby Soho" is a great song, though:


Second-tier
Face to Face... MxPx... NOFX ... Rocket from the Crypt (a lot more popular than you would think in the UK, to this day)... Pennywise (never quite got over the hump)... Social Distortion

Third-tier
FenixTX... Unwritten Law... (who knew they had an album on Epic in '96?)... Sprung Monkey... No Use for a Name (love their punk cover of "Fairytale of New York")...

New this week... Spin Doctors

Another light week in the shops, and it doesn't look like a great release week January 20, either. But here's what's new in stores:

* (hed) p.e., New World Orphans- new album from one of the last rap-metal bands still standing.

*Playlist: The Very Best of the Spin Doctors- amazingly, this is the FOURTH greatest hits album from the Spin Doctors, and all of them contain the same mix of tracks off the band's first three albums for Epic (and nothing from their fourth or fifth albums). The most recent greatest hits, Super Hits: Spin Doctors(which appears to be aimed at the truck stop market) only came out in November. This new one's got 14 tracks, most of them off the first album, but including the semi-hits "Cleopatra's Cat" and "You Let Your Heart Go Too Fast," off the second album.

* Hotel for Dogsoriginal soundtrack - contains a solo track from Rancid's Tim Armstrong (and two tracks by Lisa Kudrow)

* Underworld: Rise of the Lycansoriginal soundtrack - features remixes of songs by the Cure, Perry Farrell, Puscifer (Tool singer Maynard James Keenan's side project) and Deftones, among others.