Lost Gem: Smoking Popes - Born To Quit

Born to Quit is a marvellous power-pop record lost to bargain bins and 1p eBay sales. The Smoking Popes formed in Crystal Lake, Illinois, in 1990. Led by Josh Caterer, the band fused a Ramones powered indie rock sound with Josh’s Caterer’s unique vocals, which lay somewhere between Morrissey and a 1940s big band crooner.

After a clumsy indie debut Get Fried, the Smoking Popes graduated to the big league with their 1995 Capitol release Born To Quit. Capitol were looking for a new Weezer but unfortunately the Smoking Popes never got a Buddy Holly style break and only lasted another record past Born To Quit.

At just twenty eight minutes long Born To Quit is a brief cuddly collection of buzz pop gems. Lyrically the songs are basic (Just Broke Up lives up to its name), and sometimes even clumsy (Can’t Help the Teardrops (from Getting Cried)), but that really isn’t a fault considering how indebted the Popes are to the Ramones. Musically Born To Quit really is not a mixed bag, the record split between peppy punk and more measured material. Of the racing rockers the radio single Need You Around is a magnificent Ramones charge with a giant chorus. Just Broke Up and Rubella mine similar buzzsaw tempos, Rubella especially memorable with its opening Cheap Trick solo. Gotta Know Right Now is slower and hazier but explodes on the chorus with a punchy cry and guitar squawls, bristling with an anger absent elsewhere on the album.

Mrs. You and Me and Can’t Help The Teardrops find Josh Caterer doing a damn fine lounge act style over some melancholic music that’s been beamed in from an 80s London bed-sit. On the Shoulder is a slow torch song worthy of Red House Painters, its slow picked guitars and soft drums fitting the sad sigh of Caterer’s voice ending the album on a fine note.

Born To Quit might be a bit sloppy, a bit silly and might lack the spit n’ polish of a Weezer or a Sloan album but it is a charming collection of fizzy tunes just dying to be heard.

The Smoking Popes Born To Quit is easily found cheap in record shops, I got mine for four squid in Paisley of all places, and online and is even available for download on Napster.

[¡Punk!]

You not think The Smoking Popes are one of those bands that everytime you hear a song you're sure it's a cover of an old song?

[Charlie Parker]

I do when I listen to their covers album

[¡Punk!]

Boom boom.