The Bay Area has a pretty dense and deep history within the realm of garage stuffs. It’s not easy to round up all the groups that have contributed to the genre over the years. And while it might be unpopular to say, the Grateful Dead, during the mid ‘60s, were one of the most exciting bands of the genre. Get over it, Pig Pen was the man. And while he wasn’t too adept at any one thing, having such a powerful group of players behind him made the Dead (circa ’66-‘68) an incredible act despite its subsequent drowning in self congratulatory soloing.

No one’s going to connect Jerry and company to the Mummies and then to the Flakes. But all of those bands were hip to Chuck Berry riffs and raunchy RnB styled rockers. As evidenced by early Dead shows, the band was beholden to simple blues much in the same way the Mummies were, even if each group arrived at its sound as a result of drastically different means.

But since the Mummies are just a memory – unless you caught them at Budget Rock this past year – the Flakes are gonna hafta do for fans of frat rock and its family tree. Even these two bands aren’t cut from exactly the same cloth - they do, though share the same drummer. Regardless of that, the newer (relatively) Flakes have a more succinct sound even as the band retains the shambolic qualities of its ‘60s heroes.

Beginning at or around the new millennium, the Flakes started cranking out juvenilia in the form of a succession of singles. The first few were ridiculously limited in numbers – I only know that from owning them, but I would assume that the discs that followed weren’t in plentiful supply either. Tracks like “Roulette” came off as perfectly crafted throw backs even as it sounded fresh and clean somehow.

Anyway, five years after issuing its first 7 inch, the Flakes finally saw its way into the studio to record a long player entitled Back to School. Being a bit detached from the machinations of the underground garage scene in the far, far west, won’t help anyone track down this particular disc. Good luck finding it in the flesh as it were.

But what’s odd about this – until one takes a minute to consider the fact that the Flakes may as well just be considered an homage to all things ‘60s – is that Back to School is made up of more covers than originals. 8 out of the fourteen cuts here come from someone else’s song book. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the Flakes are incapable of rendering songs like the Rolling Stones’ “Stupid Girl” in update and eccentric terms. But cranking out a few singles of new material may have suited the Flakes just as well as this long player.

 “I’m Telling You!” and a few of the other original compositions sit nicely alongside the classics. And yeah, sometimes it’s hard to tell them apart. So that either means that the Flakes have succeeded in its mission, or the band’s slunk off into cover band territory. Cop it and find out.