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