I first heard Ultimate Fakebook in 1998 when my teenage band opened for them at New York's Coney Island High and they unleashed a ferocious set of fun, high-energy pop to the fifteen of us who happened to be in the room.

Soon after, the band from the Little Apple (Manhattan, KS) was picked up in the late-nineties indie-rock gold rush by Epic Records and then subsequently put through the early-2000's indie-band-on-major-label wringer of low prioritization and delayed album releases. Not one to be kept down, UFB released Open Up and Say Awesome on the small but influential Louisville label Initial Records in 2002, before calling it quits in '03.

This band will probably go down in history as an also-ran in Weezer-world, but their midwestern charm, clever and endearing lyrics, and the lack of transparent deliberateness that has poisoned Rivers Cuomo's outfit for the past 10 years should earn them a much bigger plaque in the power-pop pantheon. A man can dream...