8 FOOT TENDER

Chicken Shakes

Long Beach Records

Tender comrades: The Humpers, The Weaklings, domestic beer

8 Foot Tender, Crack City Rockers, Roy Tinsel Band
Ash Street Saloon
225 SW Ash St., 226-0430
10 pm Friday,
Jan. 26
$5

8 Foot Tender is one of those bands you see at parties, at bars, at clubs whose stage has the same size and hygiene requirements as a state park outhouse. In other words, they pack about as much pretension into their three-minute fuzz-rock raveups as a sixer of Bud does at a Pearl District wine tasting. And that's their charm. You can imagine killing time (and a cold keg) with them on their front porch, or cruising for chicks with them on a sweltering
summer day, or swapping garage-punk singles with them as you each tried to complete your respective collections of lo-fi rock'n'roll records.

Noting this amiable personality, it seems fully appropriate that their first official (i.e., label-sanctioned and subsidized) full-length is being released by Long Beach Records, old acquaintances from the band's past California days. Everything about Chicken Shakes speaks to good times with good buddies: "Lay Down" attempts seduction with smoove-talkin' lyrics counterbalanced by chunky Midwest rock riffs; "Guess I'm Fallin'" fights off the Heartbreakers' born-to-lose breakdowns with bouncing energy; "Candy" revels in goofy sweet-toothed shoutouts to favorite brands; "Glen's Pants" is about exactly what you think; and "Havin' Fun"...hell, it's pretty self-explanatory, ain't it? All 12 tracks speed through Ramones-simple chords tarted up with just enough hammer-ons to give it that swagger which transforms punk into rock'n'roll--a subtle difference, but one the ladies notice. And if they don't? By all indications, 8 Foot Tender'll have plenty of friends to pal around with regardless. John Graham

THE BRIEFS

Hit After Hit

Dirtnap

Get with it: The [West Coast] Stitches, The Weirdos, The Spits

The Briefs, The Spits, The Bedpans, The Prime Evils
Berbati's Pan
231 SW Ankeny St., 248-4579
9:30 pm Friday,
Jan. 26
$4

The Briefs: four spiky peroxide-blonde guys from Seattle who share an early New Wave sartorial sense for outrageous suit-and-tie combinations, along with a jet-powered drive to prove themselves practitioners of prime (broadly speaking) end-of-the-'70s West Coast punk. Hit After Hit is their ramrod debut. With songs built on charging guitars inflected with a bit of that skinny-tie twitch, these geeky street toughs explode gnashing sing-alongs that cover such hot-button issues as venereal crabs, Bob Seger's necessary murder (he's not dead?) and stupid fashion elitists. Cutting sarcasm abounds on this recording, but nothing is quite as well-executed as "New Shoes," with the line "I've got a new pair of shoes and I'm better than you," followed later by, "I've got a new pair of socks and they go with my shoes." Fun-eee stuff. It is the opening track, "Poor and Weird" (previously released by Dirtnap as a 7-inch single), that is without question the CD's biggest bruiser. A pounding anthem mixing snot and brutality, "Poor and Weird" seems to masquerade as an ode to out-and-out loserdom with its rousing refrain of "I'm poor and I'm weird, baby / You got no time for me," while actually sucker-punching dumb-ass "real" punk posturing. See? I'm poor and weird; the implicit, forced, impossible self-righteousness of it. No? Well, it's still brilliant and I've been humming it for weeks. Up North these guys have secured a reputation for putting on a pretty wild show. My advice: Seek out the Briefs, and get hit. Sam Soule