CASSETTE REVIEW: The Sweets “Zing Zang” / Petey “Regis Philbin” (Bleeding Gold)

http://bleedinggoldrecords.bandcamp.com/album/bg072-regis-philbin-zing-zang

                The first note that I feel I must make about this cassette is that each side of the j-card has each side of the split info on it.   As it was sent to me, The Sweets are face out, but a simple switch would expose Petey.  It’s kind of like how all t-shirts or sweaters can be reversible.

                The Sweets have a sound that isn’t too much unlike the Replacements with more fuzz, though their songs are shorter it seems.   The first song is actually about the lead singer (assuming he wrote it) and his dog, which is just awesome to me.  I will never, ever grow tired of hearing people sing earnestly about their love of animals, whether they are their own or not.   There are pop rock qualities, hints of surf and even a little bit of Buddy Holly thrown in for good measure.  

                The last of the four songs by The Sweets is slower and reminds me of a home recording type version of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day”, which is a song I seem to reference a lot but never seem to mind.

                On the flip side, we have Petey, who comes off like The White Stripes at first but gradually moves into a role more suited to a less annoying version of Green Day.   Some of their guitar riffs do remind me quite a bit of Green Day, but they just don’t seem to have that same quality that would make me say they sound exactly like Green Day.

                When I was in high school, I had a kid in a few of my classes and he’d write band names on his backpack.  This would help me (believe it or not) to find out about a lot of the newer punk bands that were on Epitaph and Nitro that I didn’t know about before.   Granted, this was back when bands like NOFX and Pennywise were newer bands, but whatever, I’m old.  

                Petey reminds me of the type of band that he’d have scrawled across his backpack and I’d go out and buy their CD (because the internet wasn’t then what it is now, this is pre-Napster even, kids) and immediately fall in love.  Yet somehow, seemingly a lifetime later and they still remain relevant to me in a way that few of those bands from high school still can and a lot of them have just kind of faded into my past.

                So you have a band that loves their dog and a band that makes me wonder if Lou Dog is still 

alive, which is a great combination in my opinion of the old mixed with the new and the overall just modern vibe of rock and roll coming through on the great medium of cassette.