Teenage Head - Frantic City

 

I learned about Teenage Head fairly late, as I recall - although I might have heard/seen the name earlier cuz, of course, I knew they swiped it from the Flamin' Groovies, but I believe I didn't heard their sounds until much later (and I just learned that I missed seeing them play in LA when I lived there! Damn!). Their early punk'n'roll numbers are as much garage and rockabilly as they are Ramones - although the bruthas were certainly an influence, as well - and, as such, I dug that they were not slavishly imitating anything and just grooving, as the Flamin' ones did. The only record I had until now was their earlier one , so was curious to hear how they progressed.

While there were some production issues with their previous recordings, this record also sounds pretty clean overall, although that is not necessarily a bad thing, other than maybe wishing the guitars had a bit more grit. The drums are also mixed down further than I would prefer, but that's just nitpicking at this point...

The band is augmented on this record with some piano'n'sax interspersed throughout, as in the opening number, a high energy take on Johnny O'Keefe's 50's rocker, "Wild One", showing that they definitely had some rockabilly roots, even as they rock this through the stratosphere with some strafing guitar leads and a fun arrangement. Sax adds an early 60's element to the mid-tempo "Somethin' On My Mind", which is also a bit reminiscent of their own "Picture My Face" as well as the Who's "The Kids Are Alright"! Nice influences! They kick it up again for "Total Love" with great melodies, sing-along "heys" and "ohs" and cool harmonies and some more poundin' piano for the outro. "Let's Shake" is a hoppin' 60's garage-styled rocker that again is not dissimilar to some of their earlier numbers, "Infected" is a mid-tempo rocker that is not overly memorable, but certainly nothing bad about it, and I dig the breakdown and the ending guitar solo really takes it up a notch. 

They once again show their rockabilly roots in "Those Things You Do", right down to singer Frankie imitating Elvis and a 50's styled sax solo, which leads into their take on Eddie Cochran's "Somethin' Else", before changing gears for another mid-tempo punkish chunkin' number "Take It", followed by a cool take on "Brand New Cadillac" (dunno if they did this and "Somethin' Else" before or after the Clash and Sid, but does it matter?). I love the title "Disgusteen" (reminds me of "Teengenerate" - they were Dictator fans, I believe) and the song is pretty damn hip, as well - kinda just a good rock'n'roller with great lead guitar work and a silly breakdown that doesn't take away from the song, too much anyway! 

This CD includes another version of their happenin' "Let's Shake" and a live version of "I Wanna Love You", a song I'm not familiar with, but it's a keeper - nicely upbeat, good melody and just another cool rock'n'roller!

Again, I think that there could be a bit more grit in these recordings, but damn if this isn't a swingin' rock'n'roll record! Get the earlier one first, but this is certainly worth it as a follow up!