Me First and the Gimme Gimmes - Have Another Ball (Cover Artwork)

Me First and the Gimme Gimmes

Have Another Ball (2008)

Fat Wreck Chords


Is this a new album? Sort of. Is it a reissue? Sort of. All of these tracks were recorded at the time of the first album, Have a Balll, with the idea, apparently, that the first album would be a double album. Then they thought twice and it became a single album with a follow up of similar tracks released around 10 years later (to celebrate their 10 years of amazing rewriting).

Of course it's all good fun, with surprising moments of genuine quality. When they are, Me First are a great covers band with a zest for covering with wit and charm. There's a genius behind being able to take these songs and whittling them down to their most basic level, leaving them recognizable yet new and alive.

And if you take them seriously, you're a sick horse and should be taken outside shot and made into glue.

The real successes here are Hall & Oates' "Rick Girl," "I Write The Songs" (made famous by Barry Manilow, great heavy metal intro) and "Only The Good Die Young" (Billy Joel).

But there's some crap ones, all part of the game, really. They need the shit ones to make the good ones even better, maybe. But, it's all fun. The only real disappointment is in that the final song, Elton John's "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me," doesn't live up to expectation considering what they've done in the past ("Rocket Man," "Cabaret," etc.). It's a bit crap. Not good crap, but crap crap. Oh well.