Initially known as the American Soul Spiders, this Tokyo foursome (Fink, Fifi, Sammy and Suck, later replaced by Shoe) named after a Dictators song filters a love for traditional garage-punk through the lo-fi fast-and-hard aesthetic with exciting results. It’s significant that the band attacks songs by the Queers (“Kicked Out of the Webelos”) and Bill Haley (“Shake, Rattle & Roll”) with equal spirit on the seventeen-song recorded-in-one-day Get Action! Meanwhile, singer/guitarist Fink’s originals maintain a consistent level of enthusiasm. The same is true of Audio Recording: eleven numbers cut with Scott McCaughey in Seattle one Friday in June ’93. Covers include “Shake a Tail Feather,” Chuck Berry’s “Baby Doll” and Radio Birdman’s “Burn My Eye.”
The best bet for new converts would have to be Smash Hits!, a compilation drawn from Teengenerate’s prodigious catalogue of indie single releases: ace versions of songs by the Zeros, Nervous Eaters and Pretty Things stand alongside the band’s frantic originals.