The Funhouse Comp Thing
Various Artists
My Fat Ass
Garage punk lives in Seattle. To heck with those depressing ’90s grunge-aholics in their torn jeans and Pendletons. The Funhouse gang hosts old school punk and you can tell the difference because these punks dress in torn jeans and Pendletons, but they wear LEATHER Pendletons. There’s enough action in this club to justifying pooling the beer money and recording a compendium of what’s hot this week. With 32 bands involved, it’s good most of them get their songs pared down to less than two minutes. Short songs = lots of songs, and you get a full measure of variety here.
Like the Pebbles and Boulders compilations, most of these tunes are pretty forgettable, but occasionally something shiny appears with a sonic link to the old days. “Smash your Radio” by The Primates 5 reminds me of The Standells, The Fall Outs gets a nice nuevo-surf sound with “Haunted House,” Dead Vampires captures a no-nonsense straight ahead rock sound with “Come Out and Play” and there’s country flavor to “Freedom Rock” by Girl Trouble. If there’s a hit here, it’s “10 Penny” by Repeat Offenders – it’s nothing new, but it’s clean and exciting.
There’s a lot to be said for live music and I’m sure these bands would fill a room with energy, given a crowd and cheap beer. For bands all calling themselves punk, they cover a lot of ground, and while it’s not new ground, it’s where rock and roll resides.
The Funhouse: http://www.thefunhouseseattle.com
