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The gravity-defying Fleshtones are back with
Take
A Good Look, their third long-player for Yep Roc. Buy It Now!
....
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Three
decades ago in Queens, New York, Keith
Streng and Marek Pakulski found some guitars in a basement in a house they
were renting. They didn’t know how to
tune strings or finger a chord, but they dug the rock & roll and R&B
leaping from the 1950s and 1960s—most of it drowned out by the mid-1970s
pabulum on Top 40—so they picked up those guitars, found some amps, and started
banging out basement noise with a local drummer. One day Peter Zaremba, an art student friend with a harmonica, long bangs,
and a manic vision, dropped by the house, lined up at the keg, and named the
band The Fleshtones.....
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They
debuted at CBGB in 1976, found a rock/performance-art home at Club 57 on St.
Mark’s Place, and signed with I.R.S. Records in 1980, adding Bill Milhizer on drums and releasing
the garage rock classics Roman Gods
and Hexbreaker. They survived Punk Rock, New Wave, No Wave,
Neo Garage, Post-Punk, Grunge, and more Neo Garage, never succumbing to
temporary trendiness, scornful laughter, or non-alcoholic beer. ....
.. ..
Throughout
the 1980s and 1990s the Fleshtones released plenty of records, toured regularly
from packed clubs to large festivals, anchored the infamous Pyramid Club in the
East Village, and anointed nonbelievers worldwide in bar-treading,
conga-line-snaking Super Rock: a
greasy ball of sonic and cultural influences ranging in feel from R&B,
Disco, and Lost In Space to Garage,
Frat Rock, and Mexican horror flicks.....
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In
1990, Ken Fox joined the goofy
mayhem on bass. Fast forward to 2008: the
awe-inspiring Fleshtones are the only band that regularly played CBGB and Max’s
Kansas City in the mid-1970s that are still around without a single inactive
year. Countless amazing live shows, 20
albums, and a bunch of singles, EP’s, and compilation appearances later, the
jet-set Fleshtones are back again, and take a good look! ‘Cause Super Rock is never gonna go away.....
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Zaremba explains the new album’s title: “Take a good look! was one of Gordon
Spaeth’s favorite tag lines whenever the Fleshtones were attracting unwanted
(but usually warranted) attention, which was often!” Spaeth played in the band for years and is
now sadly departed, but his mock-serious, cocksure attitude is alive and well
in the 21st century, as the Fleshtones offer a dozen all-original
tunes testifying to pride, perseverance, and sweaty good times. ....
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Recorded
in Detroit at Jim Diamond’s Ghetto Recorder and in the Lower East Side of New
York City at legend Ivan Julian’s N.Y. Hed studio, Take A Good Look wears those two cities’ muscled strength and sonic
bravado well. Diamond, who in addition
to the Fleshtones has worked with the White Stripes and the Mooney Suzuki, raves: “The Fleshtones do
it again, blast into my studio and crank out half a record’s worth—in 5
days!—of kicking, rocking, thought-provoking rock & roll! Long live
The Fleshtones!” Julian, a long-time NYC
star who played with Richard
Hell and the Voidoids as well as Isley Brothers, Matthew Sweet, and Shriekback
says, “I
knew the Fleshtones from the early days of CBGB; when they were and are a
testament to the fact that not all bands that played there were doing what has
become known as ‘punk rock.’ In fact,
most weren’t, but we were all playing garage!
And they are still playing it and on a whole new level.” ....
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Continues
Julian: “It was such a pleasure working with them because they came in and did
their shit, well-rehearsed and they had SONGS.
When you hear the opening bass line of ‘Going Back To School’ or the
poetic artistry of ‘This Time Josephine’ you’ll know that these guys are
serious. Very serious. Still not afraid to make music that the
neighbors will complain about and the little, itsy, bitsy iPod can’t handle. And yes, all recorded on tape...phat,
two-inch.”....
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The
autobiographical songs on Take A Good
Look feature the gritty mix of raw guitars, kitschy-cool organ, and full
throat sing-alongs that the Fleshtones have long-championed and mastered. And they’re COMMUNICATING, baby: anthems
about joys and frustrations, about their beloved NYC from Brooklyn to Coney
Island; about never growin’ up but maybe goin’ back to school; about simply
feeling good feeling. The Fleshtones
take a good look out of their own windows and sing about what they see, for
better or for worse: the beloved skyline, the roaming hipsters, and the friends
and loved ones everywhere. ....
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If
New York City was an engine it would sound a lot like the Fleshtones: vintage,
well-oiled, loose, junky, and confident.
“Take A Good Look is our most
focused record ever, both on who we are and on the world we live in,” Zaremba
says. Look out, they’re on their way!....
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— Joe Bonomo....
Author of Sweat: The Story
of the Fleshtones, America’s Garage Band....
(Continuum Books, 2007). Available at fine bookstores, Amazon.com,
and continuumbooks.com....