It’s vacation time already? Awesome! Time to kick back, relax, and…oh, wait, I forgot: this is only a part-time writing gig, and I still have to keep doing my full-time writing gig. Oh, well, at least this means I get a bit of a break from going completely insane on Monday afternoons as I try to finish up my column on time (and inevitably fail miserably at it).

Our commander in chief, Mr. Giles, has told me on several occasions that I shouldn’t feel bad about skipping a week here and there with “Hooks ‘N’ You,” since he knows how much I have to do for Bullz-Eye. Thing is, I enjoy writing this column for the same reason all of us here at Popdose offer our contributions to the site: not because we have to, but because we want to. It’s one big ol’ labor of love, folks. Plus, really, where else on the ‘net could I have the flexibility to write a column that spotlights albums ranging from George Burns to Kylie Minogue?

What it’s also given me, however, is the opportunity to have conversations with several of the artists whose records have provided me with a lot of great spins over the years. I realize that the beauty of having a regular column on a website is that people can just click on the appropriate tag and pull up every single one of your previous works, but when I looked back myself, I realized that A) I’ve talked to a lot of great artists since kicking off this column in January ‘08, and B) even *I* got bored clicking through a year’s worth of columns. So for your easy access, here’s a quick list of the folks who were kind enough to talk with me either by phone or E-mail for “Hooks ‘N’ You” in 2008:

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Let it never be said that we here at Popdose don’t unabashedly cannibalize each other’s ideas…and our readership’s ideas, too!

After I posted my all-covers edition of Mix Disc Friday, which included the Judybats’ take on Gary Numan’s “Cars,” Reader Rich observed that “someone should do a ‘Why You Should Like’ on them,” and our man John Hughes…sorry, John C. Hughes…accepted the gauntlet that Reader Rich had thrown down. In less than a week’s time, Mr. Hughes had indeed produced such a column, providing an exemplary look back at the band’s major-label work. I was crestfallen, however, when he offered almost no mention of the band’s last recorded effort, Judybats ‘00. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like he ignored it altogether, but he simply said this:

The Judybats dissolved after Full-Empty, only to half-heartedly reunite for a final album under the Judybats name in 2000 (this version only featured Heiskell and guitarist Johnny Sughrue).

Actually, it doesn’t even include Sughrue…or, at least, he’s not mentioned in the credits. In Mr. Hughes’ defense, however, the album is out of print and almost impossible to come by, its independent release occurring so far under the radar that it’s not referenced in either their AllMusic.com profile or their Wikipedia entry, so maybe he was just going from a word-of-mouth report. But according to my copy of the disc, Heiskell was the only original member of the band to carry over, with the new line-up featuring Rob Bell (bass), Doug Hairrell (guitar), Mike Hairrell (drums), and Reed Pendleton (guitar). In fact, I remember noting this at the time, finding myself torn between being totally psyched about a new Judybats album and thinking it was a little misleading to release what essentially a Jeff Heiskell solo album under the Judybats moniker. If you’re in the same camp, you’ll leave this piece with considerably more understanding about why things went down the way they did with Judybats ‘00…but, first, let’s check out the album itself.

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