So It Goes

The Fleshtones: “I’ve Gotta Change My Life”

Ten Reasons You Should Dig on The Fleshtones:

1) Not satisfied to classify themselves as garage rock or surf rock, they called themselves SUPER ROCK.  In all capital letters.  Hell, they still file themselves under ROCK, SUPER.

2) They were on I.R.S. Records, which is one of the all-time coolest record labels ever. The dude who discovered ‘em? Miles Copeland, the brother of that Stuart guy who played drums for the Police.

3) Lead vocalist Peter Zaremba was the host of MTV’s The Cutting Edge, an all-video show that was, like, the babydaddy to 120 Minutes.

4) They recorded the title song for I Was a Teenage Zombie and also had a track (“American Beat”) on the Bachelor Party soundtrack.  That’s major B-movie cred, yo.

5) They were the first band to play at Maxwell’s, Irving Plaza, and D.C.’s 9:30 Club.

6) They were the last band to play on Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes.

7) Wigstock, the East Village’s annual drag queen festival, got its start when several drag queens and a few unnamed Fleshtones got hammered and decided to put on a parade in Tompkins Square Park.

8) Did I mention SUPER ROCK? And the best farfisa organ on this side of ? and the Mysterians? Um.  I mean, assuming that’s a selling point for someone else.

9) Because they’re scrappy underdogs whose best chart position ever was somewhere close to #200.  That was in 1982.  They’ve released over twenty albums since then.

10) They’re currently signed to Yep Roc records—my personal fave label—so their albums rub labels with the likes of Nick Lowe and Robyn Hitchcock and The Minus 5 and the Young Fresh Fellows and Peter Case and Chuck Prophet and…