I've been threatened with chewing gum in my hair if I don't come out of my posting hibernation soon, which is as good a motivation as any. My only excuse is that I've been spending my time being a miserable grad student, so to make amends for my absence, today we have another criminally underrated band from my hometown that I love to hate & hate to love - the wonderful Junior Varsity from Houston, Texas. Fashioning themselves as a squeaky clean 1950s sock-hop combo, Junior Varsity combined everything that you could ever want in a rock & roll band - songs under two minutes about ice cream socials & pin monkeys, two girls on guitar/bass plus a boy drummer who plays standing up, a mascot named Bippy the Bear who would show up in full costume at shows, matching custom sweater vests for the band members & infectious garage-pop sounds that suggest what would happen if Cub listened to a steady diet of Buddy Holly & Chubby Checker. After banging out a couple of singles in the late '90s (I highly recommend picking up the "Go! To The Ice Cream Social" or "Pep Rally Rock" seven inches if they ever cross your path), Peek-a-Boo Records brought this full length into the world in 2000 - fourteen songs, twenty minutes, three chords. Forget all of those "surf-pop" bands everyone is going nuts over these days, because Junior Varsity is the real deal if you're looking for music perfect for doing the twist in saddle shoes at your next high school dance.
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