The Jags -Party Games /She's So Considerate

Why not kick off Wednesday with a little Power Pop and get this train rolling? I'm feeling surprisingly human today after actually getting a decent night's sleep. Of course, my brain has apparently decided to use all that extra rest to produce some truly bizarre dream programming over the last few days.

The party games started the other night when I dreamed I was back with a couple of my old grade-school schoolmates who bullied me. We were running in line somewhere and were way behind everybody else. When we caught up, we were directed to crawl under a building to do foundation work. As if this is something you do as an adult with childhood bullies. As if that wasn't weird enough, one of them and I were having a perfectly normal conversation about a supervisor whose primary management technique was yelling "Holy Balls!" at regular intervals.

I'm not much of a dream interpreter, but I did recently see a picture of one of those bullies. Back in school he was one of the popular kids who looked destined for greatness. Now, based on what I saw, his job seems pretty ordinary. Then again, who am I to critique anybody's career choices? I spend a non-zero percentage of my free time sorting old 45s and debating whether a pressing variation is worth an extra five bucks.

The foundation work part probably came from last year when I spent quality time crawling under our house pulling out debris before getting it encapsulated. And the "Holy Balls!" guy? That likely came from my old high school football coach, who treated that phrase as both punctuation and a management philosophy whenever things weren't going according to his carefully crafted plans.

Whether it's a profound message about life, a warning about unfinished business, or simply my brain cleaning out its junk drawer, I have no idea. My subconscious apparently operates like a late-night DJ, taking requests from old bullies, a house encapsulation project, and a football coach shouting "Holy Balls!" and decided those tracks belonged on the same compilation album. I can't explain it, but I'd probably buy the record.

The Jags - Woman's World/Dumb Blonde

Powerpop Wednesday. I’m caffeinated. I’m spinning powerpop. I’m boppin’ like a nutzo with scholarly intent. Hump day is basically the musical equivalent of a B‑side: sometimes great, sometimes weird, sometimes you just want to flip the record and get to the weekend already. The Jags are exactly the kind of mid‑week chaos I support. It’s the sonic equivalent of slapping the snooze button, chugging a questionable amount of coffee, and deciding—against all evidence—that today might actually work out.

And The Jags? They didn’t just write hooks. They engineered industrial‑strength pop snares designed to grab you by the collar and drag you onto the dance floor like a cartoon character being yanked offstage by a vaudeville cane.

Woman’s World and Dumb Blonde are exactly the kind of songs that make your brain flip and activates the ancient vinyl‑collector gene buried deep in your DNA. Suddenly you’re pacing the room like a deranged archivist muttering matrix numbers under your breath, clutching a 45 like it’s the Rosetta Stone of jangly pop.

Early ’80s bands like this were everywhere—everywhere—but somehow also invisible. It was a golden era of bands with one perfect single, albums that deserved better distribution, labels that couldn’t market their way out of a paper bag, and record store clerks who acted like gatekeepers to a secret society of hooks and harmonies.

Half of them got lost in the shuffle, buried under New Wave haircuts, MTV neon, and the rise of synths that sounded like malfunctioning microwaves. But The Jags? They were one of those groups who could’ve been huge if the universe had rolled the dice differently.

The Jags- Here Comes My Baby

Powerpop Heaven — the kind of bliss that hits like a sugar rush straight to the soul. The Jags don’t just cover this Cat Stevens classic; they kidnap it, give it an energy drink, and launch it into orbit. The second it starts, you’re bopping down the road like you’ve been personally chosen as Earth’s Ambassador of Cool.

This song takes over your entire nervous system. If I’m blasting it in the car, my head starts shaking so wildly that nearby drivers probably start rehearsing their “I witnessed everything” statements for the police. And honestly? I’ve never heard a version of this song that doesn’t absolutely melt my brain in the best possible way.