The Bottle Rockets’ first and second albums, Bottle Rockets and The Brooklyn Side, are widely revered as not only two of the band’s finest releases, but also two formative, flagship recordings in the nascent era of a now-broadly recognized genre. The band was unceremoniously birthed in 1992 and they very quickly became a forebearer for the new style alongside Uncle Tupelo, Old 97’s, and Whiskeytown.
The songs, stories and sentiments found on these groundbreaking albums sound just as fresh and relevant now as they did when they were first released. The Bottle Rockets never did it the easy way and never compromised their sound or themselves. Always too punk for country audiences, too genuine for the smug irony of the hipster scene, and too smart for the outdoor one-hitter rock festival crowd, The Bottle Rockets remained The Bottle Rockets, and this is a document of where it all started.
Bottle Rockets and The Brooklyn Side are collected here as a remastered two-CD deluxe reissue set of the long out-of-print albums, with an additional 19 previously unreleased tracks. The package consists of an extensive 40-page booklet detailing the band in full context of the ‘90s alt- scene, with editorial contributions from respected peers and fellow musicians such as Steve Earle, Patterson Hood, Lucinda Williams, and many others. Both reissued albums and bonus material have been meticulously remastered under the supervision of famed producer and musician Eric “Roscoe” Ambel.