The 1-4-5s

I love this band SO much. 5-stars - classic. Essential listening (if you're into this sort of thing). Hugely influential to me personally. File Under: Garage Rock, Trash Rock, Availabilism, Simple sweet fun...

Although I have absolutely everything this short-live Austin garage band ever put out, most of it is on vinyl. I burned some of my records into my digital library (back when I used to do that sort of thing), but was surprised to find their debut 7 inch Unsafe at Any RPM streaming - the record is definitely out of print. Their entire discography is probably around 40 songs, and they are largely forgotten, but dam they are wonderful kids. Almost all the songs are about themselves, or cars, or other ridiculous things. Almost every song uses the same 3 chords and a guitar-solo bridge. Fine!

Their one and probably only full-length release Rock Invasion came out on the Estrus label, before their warehouse burned down, but this band is mostly associated with the indie label Peek-a-Boo Records. In fact, one of the guys in this band is/was the founder and head of the label (he sent me personal post cards as I bought up everything he put out), and all the other band members have great Peek-a-Boo bands of their own (The Wontons, Big Red Poopie Eater, The Kiss Offs, etc.). They toured Japan(!) with The 5-6-7-8s, appropriately enough. The second side of Rock Invasion is pure awesomeness with wall-to-wall punk rock perfection. But the nicest possible punk rock. Punk in the loosest sense. Really it's straight up garage rock. Maybe even trash rock. The band certainly should also be connected to the bubble-core sub-genre along with Beatnik Termites.  The last two songs on the album are as close to pure-pop-bliss as anything I've ever heard on the radio. And the hidden bonus track, where they are trying to play a song live on the radio but keep messing it up, still makes me laugh so hard. 

I learned so much from this band: all great rock uses the same three chords. You don't have to be "good" to sing or play in a band- you just need to do it. Don't get too complicated! Simple drumming and occasional M/F vocals? YES, this is perfection. People who don't like this are ruining rock and roll.

And, I've told this story before, but after playing Rock Invasion at 45 RPM instead of 33 RPM I was inspired to form my own fast, poppy-punky-trashy-thrashy metal garage band, Perverse Osmosis.

Here's the official story - you won't find them on Wikipedia!

Here they are in their glorious, unpolished prime:

I <3 the 1-4-5s! May the legend of their perfect imperfection grow for all time.