In retrospect it’s hard for me to get overly excited about TEENGENERATE, a mid-90s Japanese garage punk band who were a hit with the kidz at the time. They did everything right and yet almost never strayed from an unerring template of fast, buzzsaw-raw, distorted ’77-meets-’81 splatter-punk, with harshly barked vocals and way, way too many covers. Sort of like a whiplash version of early RADIO BIRDMAN or first-LP RAMONES. In the end they won a few hearts, taught a few youngsters how to pogo, and then splintered up into a couple new, similarly laser-focused bands. There is one 45 of theirs that lords mightily over the rest of their catalog, as well as over their likewise unimaginative peers. It’s a 1-sided, two song 45 that came out in 1995 on Rip Off records called “Out of Sight/Pushin’ Me Around”. An absolutely note-perfect, louder-than-loud blast of punk rock blur, with both songs clocking in well under two minutes. A perfect candidate for the “tonearm repeat” feature on your 1970s-era turntable. Or in the digital age, downloading ‘em right here.Play or Download TEENGENERATE – “Out of Sight”
Play or Download TEENGENERATE – “Pushin’ Me Around”
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5 comments:
yup ,"outta sight" was always my Teengenrate fave 45, pure joy, and rock an roll fever to burn, pretty much perfect in every way.....
found a copy of this 45 for like two bucks when i was 15. didn't know the band, didn't know what the term "garage" meant, and i was probably still stuck on nofx or some shit like that. i just thought it looked cool and bought it. i don't even think i owned a turntable back then and i had to barrow my mom's boyfriend's old record player. needless to say, this 7 inch helped fix my ears. anyways, despite the fact they never branched out musically, they were still one of those rare garage punk bands that wrote tons of great songs with HOOKS galore.
Hmmmm...covers or not, that "Plays the Kids" 45 was pretty much the single best single of the '90's.
Seriously man, you can push just-as-"generic" stuff like the Humpers all day long and then give Teengenerate the brush-off for the very same thing? Very odd. Especially since Teengenerate blew the Humpers (and every punk band of the era) off the stage with ease. Their records were good, some pretty damn great, but no one touched them live. In fact, I've never seen a better punk band, and I'm old & stuff.
-trickke
oh boy, i saw teengenrate once in the mid-90's at the kilowatt club in s.f. ...and i must say, they were amazing.
but about mid-set i turn to my pal and i say, "yo, who is that old guy skankin' in the pit?"
he looks at me and says, "THAT'S tim yohannon.
worth the price of admission in itself...xo hinely
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