Jacuzzi Boys
“Harry,” people almost never ask me, “How do you find the exciting yet obscure bands that you used to play on the show (and no doubt still discover, without the thrill of being able to share their tunes with several thousand uninterested listeners)?”
Well, imaginary questioner, it can happen in many different ways… witness my current favourites Jacuzzi Boys, a swamp-psych-garage trio from Miami, Florida.
In September 2008 I attended the notorious, legendary Black Lips naked riot show at Heaven in London. It was a dream gig for me – the Black Lips are a storming live band, and support was from another favourite - King Khan & BBQ.
As ever, upon entering the venue I made a beeline for the merch stand. Aaah, the merch stand. How many badly thought out purchases have taken place at the merch stand? I have drawers full of unsightly, slightly ill-fitting t-shirts, bought out of loyalty and a perverse will to FREAK PEOPLE OUT with my mildly obscure band t-shirts. I could have bought a far greater amount of nice clothes with the money I’ve spent on awful band t-shirts. Maybe I’ll produce an exhibition of them one day. Hmmm.
Anyway, this was a particularly exciting merch stand, as there was a limited edition King Khan 7″ with the KK tune ‘Desert Mile’ split with ‘A Strange Hand’ by a band I’d not heard of - Jacuzzi Boys. Sweaty of palm and overcome with excitement, I handed over a damp fiver and placed the record in my special gig-going merch-purchase bag (I know, I know…)
The KK track was solid enough but the JBs track was a spectacular, spooky number, almost certainly about getting tugged off, and I rushed to play it on the next show (without outlining my thoughts on the potential subject matter to our producer).
And so my obsession began. A great young band, this was my chance to hoover up all of their previous releases – I became a slave to eBay and also to translating the websites of small German online record stores (there seem to be a lot of really good German online record stores - why is that?), desperately tracking down and paying absurd amounts of money for their old records. Last week that quest was finally completed with the purchase (for a bargain $6.50!) of their split with Woven Bones on Needless Records, which sold out in about 4 seconds on release.
It’s been a joy – albeit with some tough decisions to make along the way. Having defied the odds to get hold of a red vinyl copy of Island Ave, should I shell out for the green vinyl as well? (the answer, obviously, is yes, but there are many green copies out there – it can wait).
Whether to import a copy of Yeti magazine – an odd publication dedicated to obscure art, music and literature with a free CD featuring a 90 second JBs track? Where’s my credit card? WHAT ARE THE THREE NUMBERS ON THE BACK? QUICKLY!
So my Jacuzzi jigsaw is complete. It’s a pretty impressive body of work for such a young band – I’d encourage you to seek out some tunes (see below) and maybe take on the record-hunting task that has taken me a year to complete.
Their debut album ‘No Seasons’ is out on Florida’s Dying sometime in October, and it should be well worth the postage from the States. Now all I need is to see them live so I can pick up an unpleasant t-shirt…
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