Friday, July 28, 2006
Twinkeyz Tribute
Mike Rep & the Quotas / Screamin' Mee-Mees Twinkeyz Tribute 7"
(New World of Sound, 1996)
No, I'm not gonna show you my membership card from the Sacramento Chamber of Commerce, booster though I may be. Besides this record's subject band is Sacramento. It's participants come from elsewhere. Blah Blah Blah.
Ask most Sacramentans what the top three Sacto bands are and they are gonna tell you Tesla, Cake, & the Deftones. Some joker might say Night Ranger or Timex Social Club, but for the majority of the morons here the big three are T, C, & D. Fuck that. The top three Sacramento bands are Public Nuisance, Tales of Terror, and the Twinkeyz (if we wanna get technical I could claim Blue Cheer for Sacramento, though that would start a border war with Davis and these days peace is what we need).
The Twinkeyz were pretty much two guys - Donnie Jupiter and Tom Darling. Donnie was the song writer and the brains behind it. Tom was the acid casualty/guitarist who drew some terrific guitar lines. An important part of the band who wasn't a band member was David Houston, formerly of the aforementioned Public Nuisance. David recorded all the Twinkeyz stuff. They also had a drummer who hates to be reminded that he drummed for "that stupid band," so fuck mentioning his name. And there was some dude who was in the band for a bit and got thrown out because he was an asshole, but not before he penned and recorded their worst song. The Twinkeyz only played a few times but they record enough to release 2.5 7"s and an LP, all compiled (and remastered) on a great CD collection (now out of print) put out by Karl Ikola.
The Twinkeyz sound is lazy proto-punk rock informed by glam, psych, freak rock, and 100+ degree Sacramento summers, as well as old comic books and a helping of dope. In other words, perfect territory for Mike Rep & the Quotas and the Screamin' Mee-Mees to cover. If you were to ask me to come up with two bands to make a Twinkeyz tribute record, I might not have picked these two (just cuz they don't pop into my head immediately), but I can see why NWOS did. What a great idea!
So here you get one of two songs. The Screamin Mee-Mees doing the Twinkeyz' Cartoonland. Cartoonland is the b-side of the Twinkeyz second (and a half) 7" and the Mee-Mees do it mighty justice. (We will do a proper Mike Rep & Mee-Mees entry in the future.) -Scott S.
// posted by W/S @ 3:08 PM 
