Granted, as a part of the Rubber City Rebels, Ron Mullens trucked in relatively straight forward rock tropes, just sped up and occasionally copping a Lou Reed feel. The band didn’t really have peers in Devo or Tin Huey – which both made use of off kilter rhythms and willfully difficult melodic progressions. RCR were more of a straight ahead punk band with a bit of hard rock tossed in.
Teacher’s Pet is something of a combination of those better known Akron bands and a nod to classic rock stuff. There’s even a cover of Mose Allison’s “Summertime Blues,” which as versioned by the Who, ranks as one of rock’s better known rave ups.
But the set of influences run through a town all rusty and broken down is what Teacher’s Pet seek to represent. And with a renewed interest in the NEOhio music scene, in part due to Smog Veil Records and Cheetah Chrome touring endless when he’s not busy writing books, Teacher’s Pet finally was able to issue a record back in 2008 that the ensemble set to tape almost thirty years prior.
Folks have figured that the resultant record doesn’t sound dated – but it does. It’s a music snatched from a specific time and place making use of generally accepted sounds – bka aggressive musics.
Thing is, the band’s legacy persisted through the years, prior to the release of this full length mostly predicated on the basis of a single issued by Clone Records. The two tracks – “Hooked on You” and “To Kill You” – are both included here and don’t really disappoint even as each differs not just from each other, but from some of the other tracks recorded during the sessions at Bushflow Studios which eventually made up the disc.
“Hooked on You” comes off like a power pop track as much as anything else even as the keyboard doesn’t factor too much into the song and the main guitar figure almost sounds like “Cat Scratch Fever” at times. It’s still an aggressive track and with Kal Mullen’s guitar solo inserting some aural sneer into the proceedings, it all works out fine.
More prominently feature the keyboard, “To Kill You” clocks in with a much slower tempo and a funkier drum beat. But the varied approach should be expected from a band that seemed to be able to incorporate just about any genre that was then entertaining them. It’s not necessarily a lost gem, but a decent addition to the canon.