Teenage Shutdown: No Tease

The 12th volume in the Teenage Shutdown series offers a delightful potpourri of ultra-rare recordings that should appeal to connoisseurs of '60s garage rock primitivism. These low-fi recordings feature out-of-tune teen combos describing life's joys and travails, most of which involve women in some capacity. The songs demonstrate the influence of the Beatles, Kingsmen, and Animals ("Let's Go" borrows the riff from "I'm Crying"), but the musicians establish their own creative voices through their unique relationship with key and tempo. Unfortunately, the musicianship is still too orthodox to rival the originality of the Shaggs, for example, and most of the songs aren't memorable enough to satisfy casual garage rock fans with more conventional expectations. However, there are some catchy numbers on this album -- e.g., the Coachmen's ode to "Draumbuie" -- and the "primi-teen pounders" on this compilation deliver the crude enthusiasm that archivists crave from field (or, in this case, basement studio) recordings.