Bobby Teens

The Bobbyteens are a San Francisco garage super-group featuring two ex-members of the legendary Trashwomen and ex-Mummies drummer Russell Quan. Recorded in what sounds to be true mono-aural sound, this lo-fi scrapper of an album sees the ‘Teens continuing their exploration of bubble-gum early ‘70s/’50s-revival glam rock. With a load of handclaps, lots of songs about kissing, dreamy guys and sweet nothings, the Bobbyteens actually sound a bit like the Demoliton Doll Rods at their most rocking with Tina Boom Boom’s über-raw voice coming across just as bad-ass as she looks. Highlight tracks are "Good Thing Going,” "Jenny" and "Be My Baby," which all have great catchy choruses and lots of hooks. It just seems like all the work of writing cool songs is almost in vain as the Walkman-quality production job just doesn’t really cut it for a whole album. In short, the Bobby teens are a fun band with "neat-o" songs and a hilarious drag/gender flip cover concept, but the exceptionally dull sound quality would prevent me from trying to turn anyone else on to this. Hey, I love Billy Childish too, but is using two or even three microphones to record an album really asking too much?