Condo Fucks -‘Fuckbook’ (Matador)

There have been many boring stickers on albums over the years. Prices, parental advisory stickers (‘what’s the point in wasting money on music that won’t upset your parents?’ as Bart Simpson once quipped), and the info that it includes the recent hit single that the album shares its’ name with. Guns ‘n’ Roses’ Lose The Plot, sorry, Use Your Illusion I and II boasted the information that ‘This album contains langauge that some people may find offensive. They can f@?! [sic] off and buy something from the new Age section.’ The Condo Fucks’ album boasts the information that ‘This is not the new Yo La Tengo album.’

Right.

What it is, though, is a hugely enjoyable romp through a selection of songs written by the likes of Slade (‘Gudbuy T’Jane’), The Beach Boys (‘Shut Down’) and the Kinks (‘This Is Where I Belong’) in a sixties garage punk stylee. It shows that perhaps there is a line that links the sixties surf sound to the sixties garage punk sound at the time. Produced by Robert ‘Mutt’ Lange and mixed by Bob Clearmountain (at least, that’s what the sleeve says), this legendary Connecticut band whose back catalogue is extremely hard to get hold of tear through eleven songs in thirty minutes.

It’s loud, it’s raw, it’s fun and doesn’t matter remotely that it’s not particularly original. The name of the band may stop them getting much daytime airplay, though I suspect their world will continue to spin on its’ axis.

Oh, and it sounds nothing like a Yo La Tengo record I’ve ever heard, either.

***1/2

Condo Fucks -‘What’cha Gonna Do About it?’ mp3

Fuckbook is released on March 23 on Matador.

After last year’s painfully cool cluster of releases on the Matador-4AD-Beggars Banquet group (Cave Singers, Mogwai, Times New Viking, Fucked Up, Stephen Malkmus, Jay Reatard, Cat Power, Stereolab etc..), and the news that they have signed Sonic Youth, I have kept an eye on the Matador site. One band caught my eye…The Condo Fucks.

“Legendary New London, CT trio the Condo Fucks returned to the stage last March after a long absence from the Tri-State Area’s concert circuit. A secretive Hoboken rehearsal was recorded and is being released March 24, 2009 by Matador as the LP/CD, Fuckbook. Eschewing such Condo Fucks originals as ?Fuckin? Gary Sandy? and ?Let?s Get Rid Of New Haven?, the trio ? Georgia Condo (drums), Kid Condo (guitar), and James McNew (bass) ? instead tear through covers of The Small Faces, Richard Hell, Beach Boys, Electric Eels, Troggs, Flaming Groovies and Slade classics in the style that previously won them so much acclaim from the Nutmeg State?s music journalists and radio programmers all those years ago. In the go-go 1990s, the Condo Fucks released 4 titles on the Matador label (see right), some of which were prominently advertised on the inner sleeve of Yo La Tengo?s I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One. Sadly, these titles are long out of print and we are unable to provide the media with copies. With Fuckbook, a full tour of major Connecticut nightspots is planned upon release. Also though the band are somewhat ?old-school? about the modern social networking phenomena, there?s an unofficial MySpace page launching very soon. ”

The name rang a bell and I smelt a rat…the same rat I smelt when I’d read the names on the sleeve of Yo La tengo’s I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One LP, about these seminal bands who’d released records on Matador.

So I googled it …and Wiki came up…and it transpires it’s Yo La Tengo! Perverse buggers. The references to Hoboken should have alerted me.

Their album as the Condo Fucks, entitled Fuck Book, will be released on either March 10 or 24 (the website says both, rather unhelpfully). This is from it. This probably won’t be getting much play on daytime Radio 1…oh hang on, they’ve been going for twenty years and I suspect they’re not bothered about it in the slightest.

I rather like this…

Condo Fucks -‘Whatcha Gonna Do About It?’