Beatniks - Beatniks EP

 

Artist: Beatniks
Title: Beatniks
Year: 2016
Label: Goodbye Boozy Records
Tracks: 1.) Heat Creatures, 2.) Friends = Enemies, 3.) Dreamless, 4.) Too Many People

Andy "Human" Jordan has been around a long time. He first surfaced with The Cuts in 1999, who were kind of miscast among the late era Lookout! Records but then moved into more familiar surrounds with Mark Murrmann's Rock N Roll Blitzkrieg Records and the short-lived In The Red sublabel Birdman Records. 

After The Cuts, Andy would continue to collaborate with many of the same other artists in bands like The Time Flys, Buzzer, The World, and Andy Human and The Reptoids. Some bands has longer runs and some were kind of one-offs. Beatniks were basically a one-off band. They did this release and then one more on Neck Chop Records the next year. For whatever reason, this band connected with me more than almost all his other stuff. 

"Too Many People" is a garage classic by The Leaves from 1965.  

Sample: here

The Distractors - Shake It Up!!!

 

Artist: The Distractors
Title: Shake It Up!!!
Year: 1999
Label: Big Neck Records
Tracks: 1.) Rock And Roll Fox, 2.) Let You Go, 3.) Bury Her Tonite, 4.) Roller Derby Queen, 5.) Johnny, 6.) Bang! Bang! 

This is the final Distractors 7". This one got a little better distribution thanks to the great reputation of Bart Hart's long-running Big Neck label. The Distractors still had an earlier 7" than these two, which I don't own, but will probably end up with one day. 

Sample: here

The Distractors - Shithouse Crazy

 

Artist: The Distractors
Title: Shithouse Crazy
Year: 1998
Label: Cheap Date Records
Tracks: 1.) Fall Again, 2.) Let's Get Sick, 3.) Fucked Up (Beyond Repair), 4.) Cockroach Stomp

 I've had this record forever. It's a remnant of the old says of pre-internet where if a record got a couple good mentions in Maximum Rocknroll or the Underground Medicine catalog, you just bought it without hearing it. I've always overall liked this but it never quite totally grabbed me where I listened to it a lot. 

At the time I had no idea who any of the members were but now the band is most notable to being the first recorded output of Austin rocker Trey Roblez. Trey played guitar and sang most of these songs and then went on to the fairly similar Young Losers. After that he played drums for a while with the John Schooley-led Hard Feelings. They put out a lot of records and toured and all that. He was less active after that, mostly popping up here or there with other old timers before passing away in 2021. The drummer here was Allan Nelson, who similarly switched between guitar and drums in other bands and recorded with Teen Cool, The Ends, Richie Whites, and others. The bass player is a girl named Jennifer I don't know anything about. 

Sample: here

The Fells - Fun Date

 

Artist: The Fells
Title: Fun Date
Year: 1992
Label: Third World Underground
Tracks: 1.) Fun Date, 2.) Easy Rider

I'm not much of an expert on The Fells but they probably deserve more credit than they get. Their first records came out in 1991. That's the same year as Supercharger. One year later than The Humpers. Two years before The Rip Offs. The Fells were legitimately one of the first modern bands playing raw straight forward rock 'n' roll inspired punk. They held down the state of Arizona in the 1990s and along with The Drags in New Mexico made the southwest USA just as important as southern California at the time. 

The Fells had some heavy hitters in their lineup, too. The central core was Jeff Glave and Heath Heemsbergen who shared duties on vocals, guitar, and songwriting. Jeff eventually moved to the Bay Area and played in a lot of bands including Radio Reelers and Control Freaks with Greg Lowery. Heath moved to Michigan and was a longtime member of the all mighty Tyvek. The Fells went through a number of bassists and drummers, with the most notable of them being bass player Rob Yazzie, who has played in a bunch of Austin bands.

This is one of their earlier records. Third World Underground seems to have been a general Tucson indie label. "Fun Date" is a Heath song with a fairly standard punchy punk rock sound, heavy on the guitar effects. To me, "Easy Rider" is the winner, a Jeff song with a very spacy groove. It kind of reminds me of Tyvek, even though it's not credited to Heath.   

Sample: here

The Tweezers - Love Kills

 

Artist: The Tweezers
Title: Love Kills
Year: 2017
Label: Time Bomb
Tracks: 1.) Love Kills, 2.) Someday, 3.) Teen Machinery

It's fairly well know that when Teengenerate broke up at the end of 1995, brothers Fink and Fifi immediately formed new power pop bands. Fink did The Raydios and Fifi with The Tweezers. The Raydios made their way to Western audiences with the LP on Sweden's [edit] Germany's Screaming Apple label and later a second LP on Dirtnap but The Tweezers were much more elusive, releasing all their records on Japanese labels. 

The Tweezers were rounded out by Koji of Samantha's Favourite on guitar, Tomoko from Supersnazz on bass, and Uganda from Jet Boys and also Samantha's Favourite on drums. Their sole LP was released in 1997. To celebrate the 20 year anniversary, original label Time Bomb remastered and re-released the album and also did this 7" as a bonus. "Love Kills" was an unreleased song from the original sessions. "Someday" is a cover by The Kids, but this is a different version than what was on the album. "Teen Machinery" is another alternate version of a LP track. The updated CD included all these songs, and others, but they were also released separately here for vinyl fans. 

The Tweezers never recorded any more but kept on playing live forever. At some point Fifi stopped playing guitar and they added a fifth member. 

Sample: here

Razz - Pleasantries

 

Artist: Razz
Title: Pleasantries
Year: 2016
Label: Warm Wet Records
Tracks: 1.) No Time, 2.) Pleasantries, 3.) We Complain, 4.) Wish You Well (Ballad Of J + B)

Razz might be best known for featuring bass player Andy "Human" Jordan, and his bass playing is tight, but the direction of band comes from singer and guitarist Dan Wood. Dan has been around since the early 1990s with Flathead, but really came into his own with The Pets in the mid-2000s.

Razz continues along the same lines as The Pets but arguably has a more mature vibe. They have a LP from 2017 that is really good, too. 

Sample: here

The Silverkings - Warning: 100% Shit!

 

Artist: The Silverkings
Title: Warning: 100% Shit! 
Year: 1997
Label: G.I. Productions
Tracks: 1.) Class Trash, 2.) Bomb Threat, 3.) Turpentine, 4.) Don't Tread On Me

I remember G.I. Productions being pretty active during this stretch of the mid-90's but I didn't pay them much attention. I felt like they seemed like a lower tier label and with limited money and no internet to listen to things, I focused on other labels and records. 

I only just got hip to this. As far as I know this is the first record featuring Joe Pestilence. Joe would go on to play in 10-4 Backdoor with King Louie Bankston, had a run playing keyboard with The Spits, and then upon moving back south played bass on perhaps the best Buck Biloxi & The Fucks records. 

This record stands up with everything he did after. It's just really good, catchy, heavily rock 'n' roll influenced trash rock. They did one other 7" on the Swedish label Ken Rock. I still need to get that. 

Sample: here