Middle-aged guys who haven’t made a career in the music biz aren’t supposed to make terrific, authentic, original rock and roll. It’s just not done. That’s the conventional wisdom, anyway. Mike & the Ravens defy that conventional wisdom. Reuniting after forty-five-plus years of doing other things, the five guys got together to release their debut, 2007’s Noisy Boys! The Saxony Sessions. Now in 2009 they follow that release up with No Place for Pretty, on which they up the ante.

Beefy bass guitar and buzzing guitar strings are the order of the day on No Place for Pretty. The focus is squarely on straight-ahead rock and roll. It’s shocking, frankly, to hear such power coming out of guys who had straight careers (some of ‘em are lawyers, as it turns out). And the back-story — too convoluted and complicated to recount here — is the stuff films are made of. By all rights, these recordings should have never happened; the odds were truly stacked against the band. That it in fact did happen is a testament to the single-mindedness of all involved.

But here it is nonetheless, and the world’s a slightly better place for it. Listeners won’t find a boatload of nuance on the aptly-titled No Time for Pretty; the sounds turned out owe more to the Sonics, Wailers and Monks. This isn’t trad-rock; it’s blistering sixties punk, played convincingly by guys in their sixties themselves. Played, no kidding, like their very lives depend on it.

There are no production frills on the all-originals No Place for Pretty. The mix captures the live-in-the-studio vibe. Lyrics are often shouted; the chanting on “Dum Doovi” seems designed to bring the spirit of hard rock back from the grave, and its “Munsters Theme” derived arrangement adds a subtle twinge of dry-eyed nostalgia. “Shame, Shame, Shame, Shame, Shame” mines a Bo Beat and even throws in some harmonies, all nailed down to a martial beat. The last minute of “Broken Boy” is as frenzied as any rock and roll ever committed to wax. The neck-scraping on “I’ve Taken All I Can” suggests what Rick Nielsen might have sounded like onstage pre-Cheap Trick.

While lead vocalist Mike Brassard’s story is compelling almost beyond belief, musically the heroes of the project are the rhythm section: crackerjack drumming and punchy bass lines operate like a perfectly tuned engine. Crazed guitar lines — played, like everything on No Place for Pretty, on vintage instruments — fly atop this rock-solid foundation. The stunning “One of These Days” sounds more like the Monks than any other band you could think of. There are (unconscious) hints of Guadalcanal Diary, the Godfathers and the Blasters, but the connection is probably due more to the fact that Dave Alvin and Murray Attaway (where’d he go?) drank from the same wellspring of real rock as did these guys.

A look inside the sleeve will leave the listener with a strong sense of cognitive dissonance: these guys look like they’re on their way to a Rotary Club meeting at the local church basement. But the sounds on No Place for Pretty put the lie to that misconception. No Place for Pretty won’t change the world, and it likely won’t light the charts on fire, but it does embody the true spirit of rock and roll: players pouring their hearts out, doing what they love. At any age. Thank goodness for Mike & the Ravens. Loud fast rules indeed, and this record provides ample evidence to back up that slogan.

Initially I had reservations about even spinning my review copy of Rockin’ at Ground Zero. While I wasn’t familiar with The Gears, I do know enough about the L.A. punk scene of the late 70s and early 80s. And that era of punk doesn’t really do much for me. The L.A. variant seemed musically angrier and less melodic than stuff coming out of other locales (like NYC). Speed was king, and finesse mattered less. Eventually I popped the disc in, and was pleasantly surprised.

The first thing that struck me was the immediacy of the songs. The dry, almost effects-free production aesthetic presents The Gears in a manner that (I imagine) isn’t too far removed from their live set. Of course the needles aren’t all in the red, and the balance and mix are as they should be. But the energy’s all here.

“Baby Runaround” kicks off sound a bit like a slowed-down Ramones, but there’s — believe it or not — a subtlety to the playing. “Let’s Go to the Beach” updates surf music for the era, while providing a catchier take on that genre than, say, the Surf Punks. “Elks Lodge Blues” marries blues and punk in an effective method, turning in a performance that has as much in common with the tracks on Rhino’s Loud, Fast and Out of Control (an essential box set compilation of 50’s rock) as it does with, say, the Sex Pistols. Axxel G. Reese’s yelps are particularly effective, and the playing tighter than one might have a right to expect from L.A. punk scenesters.

Overall, the songs on Rockin’ at Ground Zero traffic in teenage rebellion and fun-at-the-beach themes rather than nihilistic, atavistic hardcore messages. And musically, the Gears manage the feat of providing variety while working solidly within the punk genre (something the Ramones decidedly did not do that same year: they recorded End of the Century with Phil Spector at the boards). The Gears weren’t adherents of the faster-is-better aesthetic so prevalent in L.A., and that’s ultimately to their credit. These tracks hold up well nearly thirty years later, and don’t really sound dated at all.

Well, except “Darlin’ Baby.” The song starts as a 50s throwback tune and then (ahem) shifts gears for the chorus into a pogo-worthy rocker. The presence of such dynamics throughout Rockin’ at Ground Zero makes listening to the album a rewarding experience; unlike some records of the era, the shifts in tone, style and delivery keep the listener on their toes, and sidestep the numbing attack of lesser punk acts. One guesses the Gears were an incendiary live act; hearing these songs, it’s impossible not to imagine a club full of pogoers. The Gears seemed to understand what was valuable about early rock and roll, and incorporated that into their then-modern songs. The spirits of Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent…and Sid Vicious are breathed back to life on Rockin’ at Ground Zero.

Bonus tracks include the original 45s of “Let’s Go to the Beach” and “Don’t Be Afraid to Pogo.” Both versions are (naturally) rawer than their album counterparts, in both performance and production. Five demos from 1979 (in surprisingly good fidelity) show that the Gears’ approach was pretty fully developed before they entered the studio. The exception is “Heartbeat Baby”, which underwent a radical reinvention that improved the song exponentially. In the end, most the self-produced demos don’t sound that different from the polished versions. And that’s to the credit of Rockin’ at Ground Zero producer Gary Hirstius and all involved in that album.