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Thee Minks debut CD, Are You Ready Now?, on Steel Cage Records!
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Track Listing:
1. Outta Your Head
2. 151 Girl
3. Shut Up And Kiss Me
4. (I Wanna) Do A Woggle
5. Old Habits Die Hard
6. Truly
7. Girl On The Go
8. First Time
9. Savage Love Affair
10. Teach That Boy A Lesson
11. Just Fine
12. Urban Guerilla
13. Motorin'
14. Gorilla
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Upon receiving and opening this CD and seeing the pictures of the band members on the insert my wife commented "gee, they look like an undesirable bunch". With a combination of anti-social sneers, liberal tattoo body art and the standard fashion statements of the punk rock scene, it was a point well made. But, as has been pointed out to me (indirectly) in recent times, rock'n'roll shouldn't be about fashion (or is just about fashion really?). One thing's for certain, the threatening poses struck by Thee Minks should not in anyway dissuade lovers of ragged garage punk rock from giving this album a seriously spin. The music is brutally honest, the scene is set perfectly in the opening quinella of "Outta Your Head" and "151 Girl" with some rough and ready guitar chords, beyond mere competent drumming and vocals (I assume courtesy of the perfectly titled Hope Diamond) that could have been produced in a chemical laboratory after some Timothy Leary-style experimenting with the effects of too much tobacco and whisky on the vocal chords. The band's attitude is rarely out of the spotlight, "Shut Up and Kiss Me" is a candidate for the most demonstrative love song in rock'n'roll history, and Diamond's guitar solo mid-song is probably enough to make you succumb to her charms. I have absolutely no idea what "(I Wanna) Do a Woggle" is about, is this the tune The Wiggles would've written if their powers had been channelled into the darker garage rock arts? "Old Habits Die Hard" begins with a rousing bass line from Liz Lixx, augmented by hard rocking guitar and harmonica from someone credited as "Mr Unloved". "Truly" is more pop than rock, a sweet girl pop tune performed by a group that contradicts everything intended by the phrase "girl next door". It's sweet, it's happy, but there's just something evil (in a good way) about it. "Girl on the Go" is an amusing, punchy ditty about a bride who jilts her fiancée at the altar, delivered in Diamond's most ravaged vocal style, the reference to the subject's inability to settle down is either biographical or autobiographical, though it doesn't bear much on the (excellent) quality of the song; "Savage Love Affair" should be a warning to anyone contemplating doing any wrong in a relationship, the music is the same predictable, consistent formula that's dominated many of the earlier tracks, but still just a enjoyable. The next song, "Teach That Boy a Lesson", might be the next chapter in that emotional narrative, or maybe it stands alone as a garage pop tune written to warn any potential male suitors from doing the wrong thing. "Just Fine" is just that, a simple, catchy tune straight of the Twenty Second Sect meets Trashwomen mould that tells the story of the narrator's perfect ease with the world around her. And what garage rock album would be complete without the obligatory automotive-themed song? Thee Minks give us "Motorin", a tune that doesn't roar like the best racing cars from Detroit, but cruises the streets like the characters from an SE Hinton novel. The album closes with a live cover of The Standells' Gorilla, recorded live at some place in New York called CBGBs at the end of 2004. A very appropriate end to an album that's stamped liberally with garage rock class.
—Patrick Emery, I-94 Bar
At long last, the garage revival has its very own Pandoras. Youngsters may not remember that L.A.-based all-female trash-rock quartet (two members of which formed the Muffs after the death of leader Paula Pierce), but in their early days, the Pandoras tore apart the polite revivalism and mainstream pop aspirations of the Go-Go's and the Bangles with a gleefully snotty take on Nuggets-style proto-punk, and although they unfortunately turned into an exceedingly lame hair metal band toward the end, their early material still sounds great today. So does Thee Minks' Are You Ready Now, a similarly untrammeled blast of neo-garage attitude. Songs like the booze-fueled "151 Girl" and the unapologetically aggressive "Shut Up and Kiss Me." ("Put your money where your mouth is and put that mouth on me!" is a demand worthy of at least Joan Jett, if not Iggy Pop.) A sly sense of humor colors all of these songs, particularly "(I Wanna) Do a Woggle," a tribute to the Georgia garage rockers of the '90s, as does a sense of history: alongside originals by singers Hope Diamond and Liz Lixx are fine covers of DMZ's '70s punk classic "First Time" and the moderately obscure Shandells track "Gorilla." There's nothing of great musical import here, but Are You Ready Now is unfailingly entertaining from start to finish.
—Stewart Mason, All Music Guide
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