Analytically, this should be a pretty easy review, the crown jewels in LESS THAN JAKE’s major label catalog. I don’t think there’s been much done to them in terms of cleaning them up, sonically. I’m not sure there’s a need. The recordings were clean, as major label releases go, and much more than a bit of collagen would be gilding the lily.

Talking about their value is simple: Every ska-punk band within the last fifteen years owes some debt to Losing Streak and Hello Rockview. Period. But this verges very, very close to being a profile.

It might be easier to start with what’s wrong. Hello Rockview (at least in the mp3s) I got to review, has some brutal repeating of the first five seconds of the music in “Al’s War” and “Richard Allen George”. It’s infuriating and takes me out of the experience. (This problem also pops up on “Theme Song For H Street” and a couple other tracks but the first five seconds only repeats once). I’m told this is a problem with the review rip of the audio and not the disc. I hope that’s true. (If this is a disc problem, Sleep It Off should be speaking in no uncertain terms with their pressing plant and you ought to stay away from the purchase).

All of the live version of Hello Rockview has the the five second skip, but when the song starts again, it goes easily.

There aren’t any b-sides or previously unreleased tracks to bolster the initial tracklist, but a DVD of the records being performed live, which, given LESS THAN JAKE’s tremendous live gigs, is a wise choice. (I get the feeling most of the b-sides were collected on Goodbye Blue and White anyway, or maybe that other b-sides collective the band has…) Some of the banter is a little embarrassing, but that’s to be expected: They recorded Losing Streak and Hello Rockview 15 years ago.

Some of it’s cringeworthy.

As far as I can tell, the music still holds up. I got just as excited listening to “Theme Song From H Street” and “Big Crash” when I came back from Milan, exhausted after a 7 hour train ride that I’d charitably describe as a discarded Agatha Christie plotline, as I did when I would listen to the record non-stop in high school. Ditto for Losing Streak. The sense of speed and sheer abandon specific to Losing Streak has not been lost. “Dopeman” and “Jen Doesn’t Like Me Anymore”, unsurprisingly, do not age well (I beg to differ – Jordan), but “Shindo”, “Sugar In Your Gas Tank”, “How’s My Driving” and “Automatic” sure do.

Hello Rockview remains, well, one of those records that changes lives and defines careers. Saying much more is superfluous.

Justin Brannan of MOST PRECIOUS BLOOD said something about BLACK FLAG’s Damaged on a tribute record, that the first time he heard Damaged he was 11 years old and stole it from a record store. Now, he’s in a band and still listening to that record. I feel the same way about Losing Streak and …Rockview. These records helped define me and even if I’ve grown away from the style, going back to these discs still yields emotional profits.

I think Hello Rockview is the better record between it and Losing Streak, mostly because the songs are sharper and more fully fleshed out, while also keeping that same infectious sense of energy that permeates Losing Streak. Without looking at the new art (that whole digital promo thing again…), I can’t tell you if the reissue is worth your money, since I’ll venture most of you probably own this material in some way, shape or form. But if you’ve fallen away from the band after moving on, I think revisiting the material will not just make you smile but cement something crucial: Yeah, these records, were, in fact, really fucking good.

They remain so today.