Zucker (Sub Pop)
by Gina Arnold - From Entertainment Weekly - February 26, 1993.
Incorruptible and irresistible, this blend of melodious girl-group vocals and furious three-chord punk rock makes Seattle's illustrious Fastbacks a possible candidate for the next big thing. Simultaneously sugarcoated (they do a Bee Gees cover) and speedy (only one song tops three minutes), this bi-gender rock band is close to perfect. A
From PULSE! - Holiday Issue '93.
Life affirming garage-pop with understated but unmistakable feminist subtext.
With an equal grasp of the profound and the disposable, Seattle's long-serving Fastbacks meld a liberating joy of classic Top 40 pop with the D.I.Y. fervor of three-chord garage rock. Guitarist Kurt Bloch (also a Young Fresh Fellow) writes songs that maintain good cheer in the face of crushing disappointment, and his bandmates Kim Warnick and Lulu Gargiulo sing them in proudly girlish voices whose matter-of-factness makes a more cogent feminist statement than a barrel of Holly Nears. Zucher (Sub Pop), the latest of the Fastbacks' all-too-infrequent albums, may well be their snazziest yet, with giddily barbed originals like "Believe Me Never" and "Save Room For Me," and a fine cover of the sainted Bee Gees' eccentro-pop classic "Please Read Me."
by Jason Cohen - From Option.
Forget about Tommy Stinson's new band, the description "bash and pop"- or better yet, "unabashed and pop"- is a perfect summation of Fastbacks. The Seattle trio of Kurt Bloch (also a Young Fresh Fellow), Kim Warnick and Lulu Gargiulo (and various drummers through the years, including Guns N' Roses' Duff McKagan and, also on this record, Flop's Rusty Willoughby), continue to crank out sweet, melodic, fast (14 songs in 32 minutes) pogo-pop with the enthusiasm of teenagers who've just discovered Blondie and the Undertones. Fortunately, you can't call Fastbacks retro, because they've been around since 1980. Of course, in its charm and simplicity, Fastbacks music can seem somewhat shallow as well as interchangeable- it's good for a quick blast of crunching, crackerjack fun, and it doesn't matter which songs you put on. But this record adds ballads and a Bee Gees cover to the usual mix, and between Bloch's addictive songcraft, the roaring guitarism, and the sublime, back-and-forth, separate-and-together harmonizing of the way-personable Warnick and Gargiulo, Zucker is a musical kick that's worth receiving more than once.
by Frost - From the Village Voice - April 13, 1993.
The Fastbacks: What makes a legend most? A $30 million advance? Loading out more gizmos, wig changes, JumboTrons, and/or exploding confetti nightly than have been deployed throughout the entire history of the Academy Awards? The two gals and guy who are the Fastbacks have whipped up sweet noise in Seattle like their latest Sub Pop confection, Zucker, with nary a limo, suite, wireless, mortgage, or palimony suit (the kinda perks that keep the average legend humming) since new wave was new and Kurt Cobain was a spring chicken hawk. A rare local opportunity to catch ‘em before they hitch home or their umpteenth drummer explodes.
by Dave Thompson - From Alternative Press.
If there were such a thing as a Seattle sound, and if anybody actually gave a toss either way, I’d have to say the Fastbacks were the best band in the world. Sick of writing them off only for them to kick back with a killer; sick of trying to justify the fact that the northwest’s oldest surviving punk band actually gets better with time; sick of having to explain why I now have their name tattooed on my dog; all that really matters is that Zucher is not only the best Fastbacks album yet, it’s the best Sub Pop album yet.
A crunching blend of well-sussed lyrics and Drano-drenched guitar, Zucher has a fluidity which defies the customary categorization. Easy to play, undemanding to be, pop/punk cult bands are a dime a dozen these days, but the Fastbacks are unique in that company of wolves, not only because they defy contemporary law (one album, three singles, then take the next decade off), but also because they refuse to be bound by even their own musical vision.
Who but the Fastbacks could have written positively the best guitar-based instrumental since “Pipeline” (“Bill Challenger”)? Or the best Buzzcocks song of the past 11 years (“Hung on a Bad Peg”)? Who else could have written them, but better yet, who else could make them work?
by Evelyn McDonnell - From Rolling Stone.
(***) - It’s hard to believe the Fastbacks have been around for fourteen years, not just because they aren’t exactly a household name, but because they still sound so damn young. The Fastbacks are the Peter Pans of the Pacific Northwest: unreconstructed power-pop enthusiasts who still believe a modest tune delivered quickly is the expressway to your heart. If you’re feeling unkind, you could call them Seattle’s village idiot- simpletons because they believe in simple music; retards because rather than grow in the Eighties, they remained stubbornly adolescent. But the Fastbacks are not as naive as Kim Warnick and Lulu Gargiulo’s childlike harmonies and Zucker’s stubborn rejection of sophisticated techinical values would make you think. Beneath the Fastbacks’ percolations pulse the bedroom musings of a frustrated dreamer.
Kurt Bloch writes the Fastbacks’ songs, plays punk-rock guitar leads and produced Zucker (he also moonlights in the Young Fresh Fellows). In some ways, this makes the Fastbacks a classic group: Like the Ronettes, ABBA and even the Cowboy Junkies, Warnick and Gargiulo mouth men’s words (though they also play bass and guitar, respectively, in a democratic, DIY band, giving them more power than their predecessors). This distance between the lyrics’ inspiration and their delivery often makes the tunes sound oddly disconnected: Lead singer Warnick’s monotone can belie Bloch’s angst. The Fastbacks have been mistaken for a happy love-rock band, when actually Bloch’s a deep, and deeply unhappy, guy.
Of course, this alienated effect is probably his perverse intention; after all, the album’s title is the German word for sugar. The songs read like strange, existential meditation- “When I make coffee in the morning, I take some, just a little bit, out of its cup and put it in the clock by my bed,” Warnick sings on “Kind of Game”- but they’re played like Romper Room rock. Ten of the fourteen tracks are less than three minutes long (six clock in at less than two). Tellingly, the longest is the 3:37 opus “When I’m Old,” whose melancholy sentiment hints that the Fastbacks may be realizing there’s a limit to how long they can be career amateurs.
by Ann Powers - From Spin.
If you’ve spent time elbow deep in dusty bins, perusing vinyl, you’ve certainly met a few record store guys. Record store guys (sometimes they’re girls) are the messy-haired, T-shirt-wearing, gentle-eyed sweeties who while away their days ringing up Pavement records on the cash register and perfecting their own collections with every spare penny of their paychecks. A record store guy’s ambition is modest; his reason for living, precise: Pop music makes sense of his emotions and puts every one of his days into perspective. He’s just happy to be around it all the time.
Kurt Bloch is a record store guy; he’s also an amazingly empathetic writer and bitchin’ guitarist whose band, Fastbacks, rules Seattle from a quiet corner. Fastbacks started in the last year of the ‘70’s, when punk sounded as if it were on speed instead of junk, and when the best singers were snotty boys and army-boot-clad girls. Bloch, who can’t really sing, grabbed his alter egos Kim Warnick and Lulu Gargiulo, and started making punk perfect for Saturday afternoons, for cleaning the kitchen or sitting on the couch drinking a beer, songs that said true things awkwardly and with love, the way your best friend would tell you a painful secret.
Zucker provides more of Fastbacks’ amicable stuff, better produced than usual and with a bit more experimentation. Now, experimentation for Fastbacks means trying to re-create “Walk Away Renee” as if the master tape were warped; the Fastbacks worship pop, and will always try to keep its fizz in the bottle. Warnick sings with her usual blend of confidence and dreamy hope, and the band never falls apart, not even when the music gets fast and almost weird. And Warnick is still one of the few songwriters who can make a cliche such as “dreams are about the only thing they can’t take away from you” sound like a fresh insight.
by Flaggert - From Ray Gun.
Having spent the better part of the past decade and a half ruling as the Northwest’s premiere punk pop outfit and tirelessly released great records on virtually every label therein (Popllama, Empty, etc.), it comes as little surprise that at long last the Fastbacks join up with Seattle’s hitmakers, Sub Pop, for their trek into what may very well be their best work yet. Sticking primarily to time-tested, large bore punk rock energy stuff, Zucker traipses merrily (and often heavily) through frantically melodic butt-burners like “Believe Me Never” and “Gone to the Moon,” while taking ample time to sit back and catch its breath on digressions into less volatile pop ballads like “When I’m Old” and “All About Nothing,” proving once and for all that sugar-laced punk rock is the most effective way to draw an audience in for some legendary slappin’ around the room.
by ? - From Girsh.
By reading about this band I found that they have definitely been around. Especially since they seem to push that they have a million drummers, such as Duff from rock gods Guns and Roses. It looks like that is the only thing they have going for them, since they sound like they haven't decided if they want to be "grungy," Ramonish pop bullshit or the vocalist songwriter type. This is about as good for the sense as tear gas.
by Mike Logan - From The Rocket
Dull pop theorists like Overwhelming Colourfast and Faith No More don' undadig that this is the yearz of the dark yenshee (look it up) an' we all Niggaz Fo' Life wit' inna childs tha' need MacDaqueries, NOT 40s but the full high wattz 80 South Central turkish jones exchange. Be enuff wettin' fo' whole fire dept. Now, Kurt Bloch gotz his own girl group crib, macktifyin' every doodle he scribbles like he the owner of his own chuckieCheez or a Kurt Weill cellular squiremobile. This ain' p--k cuz we put that shit cribbin' the deep six face morton downie so's they can see the hell flame doin' the JackInTheBox Thing inta crispy critterz.
This K. Bloch is an internantional cartel of uzibooty, an' I figured wha' his toetag says: BENNY BJORN ANDERSSON ULVAEUS, da bagmen who wrote all the tonnage for the great white way an' had them chicks soprano it. Talkin' ABBA, dooblofly, an' he got Kim an' Lulu upta the same, they even do a Bee Gees cova in the year of Niggaz For Yetzarim! The ballads (I'm countin' four) iz betta than Fernando! The fastz ones iz all ova yo'r shit like the Adverts din the science lab, sidewalk bloodsheets, bad food dreams an' plen'y of it. Wet the Dead Milkmen!
ZUCKER PUNKASSBITCHINBJORN!
