Jewws: The Garage Varierty

Jewws: The Garage Varierty

In part due to the Gories working tirelessly over a few years during the eighties and into the nineties, a garage renaissance reached the punk record collecting public at some point. And throughout the nineties, countless bands plundered punk while combining it with the most revved up and irreverent conception of the genre up until that point.

There’s no way to properly document each and every group working with these tropes during that very specific time period. But groups like the Oblivians and the New Bomb Turks, their collective combination of sixties’ garage swagger and punk’s gap toothed sneer, severed as new templates.

Reductive in explaining the place Jewws had in the (very late) nineties, but considering the band didn’t record all that often and seemingly eschewed mounting multiple, huge nation wide tours, it becomes difficult to define the Houston based group in terms other than contrasting it with others performing around the same time.

Firstly, though, the group’s name needs to be dealt with. Yeah, it’s meant to be funny. And perhaps it is – though, certainly not offensive. But coming from a place that can’t be lousy with Semetic types and tossing it out as a joke intended to trouble some folks seems lame. No one should take issue with the group’s name apart from it actually just being less amusing than all involved previously figured.

But, that has nothing to do with the music represented over the course of the Jewws (guitarist and and singer Omari Yoshihiru, bassist Rebecca Gugarelli and drummer Matt Murillo) L' Explosion Du Son De Maintenant. Issued at the end of that wave of garage’s dissemination, the 2002 album trucks in tunes that may have been recorded ten years earlier. There’s a steady stream of raved up blues from “When Your Man is Gone” to “Just Blink, She’s Gone.”

Sounding like the meeting place between Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry (or any other early rock and rollers) and re-imagined hard rock groups doesn’t make the Jewws all that unique. Or unique at all, actually. The minute long “Love in a Pill,” though, works to allow the band to make a claim on just being new-aged punkers.

It’s all a tremendous waste to dig this far down into the gut bucket of the genre(s). The Jewws aren’t a crummy band, but probably only for enthusiasts and collectors. Either way, though, they kinda rule when you need ‘em to…