The
Boss Martians'
13 Evil Tales -- recorded in 1996, and released the following year on the Burbank, CA-based Dionysus Records -- is chock-full of "vintage-sounding surf and hot rod instrumentals, along with a few vocal tracks. The bandmembers are obviously big fans of West Coast rock & roll and assorted related ephemera dating back to 1963-1965. Even this album's front cover is similar to the types of album covers from that halcyon era, showing group leader/guitarist/vocalist
Evan Foster and his Seattle-based band posing with various '60s autos (which may or may not be their own). Unfortunately, there's something else to remember about the early '60s: a lot of unpolished teen acts and garage bands who were just cutting their teeth in the business at the time often resorted to recording novelty songs because they didn't have much to say as a group, for whatever reason. Southern California, in particular, was rife with groups who signed deals with independent label honchos who would turn around and just as often as not slap together quickie LP releases just to fill the bins at the local five-and-dime stores. Neither the band or their label gave much thought to the band's music, its possible longevity or the impact it would have; its disposability, in fact, often encouraged wild experimentation and absurd humor. Listening to this album, you come away with the feeling that the
Boss Martians don't want to be taken too seriously either, and nearly every track seems to provide evidence of this. The real problem here is that the band doesn't seem to be having much fun, and, more importantly, their playing is, overall, rather uneventful and lacking in enthusiasm. A lot of the '60s bands they've chosen to emulate, however -- despite recording a lot of throwaway tracks and oddities -- had impressive rhythm sections. For instance, "Hot Foot" is a rather tedious hot rod instrumental, heavy on the fuzztone,
Duane Eddy-style twang, and Nick Contento's wheezy Farfisa. "Haywire!" showcases
Foster's flashy and obviously prodigious talents on lead guitar, but the song itself is rather ho-hum.
Foster's vocals on "Gonna Have Fun Tonight" sound like he's trying to replicate either
Bobby Fuller or
Buddy Holly, but he lacks either singer's conviction, and unfortunately, he comes off sounding somewhat insincere. The rest of the album continues along at the pretty much the same stride, filling the grooves out with mid-tempo numbers that are lacking anything uniquely their own. You can trace this back to the rhythm section, as they don't seem to have been too inspired to do much with the simplistic and rather lackluster rhythms that form the structure for each song, even though
Foster does his best to give each an interesting lead guitar hook. A fan of the surf and hot rod genre should do themselves a favor by first seeking out this band's '60s precursors before settling on the
Boss Martians' second-rate re-hashed material. ~ Bryan Thomas