The Pee Wee Fist
Kimchee Records
Led by talented multi-instrumentalist Pete Fitzpatrick, The Pee Wee Fist is an engaging sextet which seems to feed on defying listeners' expectations. At their music's core are resonant, riotous, warped pop sensibilities which have gotten the band likened to everyone from Weezer to Of Montreal to Guided by Voices. However, their predilection for relentlessly tweaking, tweaking, tweaking their sound has also generated comparisons to the likes of The Flaming Lips and the founding bands of the Elephant Six Collective. Plus there's the occasional skewed acoustic passage that makes reviewers think Giant Sand or Will Oldham.
Frankly though, The Pee Wee Fist sounds like none of these bands, even though it has plenty in common with most of them. The band's musical stew is unique and the feeling you get from swimming in it is unlike any other. You never know when their loose, whimsical pop structures are going to dissolve into fuzzed-out guitar rock, prog-inspired asides, lonesome country, marching band music, or pseudo-electronic wankery. No style, no sound is off-limits. Theremins, accordions, banjos, samplers, organs, trumpets, tubas -- all can be found in the quirky pieces which populate The Pee Wee Fist's albums.
Starting out as a name for all of Fitzpatrick's musical endeavors, The Pee Wee Fist coalesced into a bona fide band with a set line up during the '90's latter half. A number of nutty-sounding lo-fi cassettes document this process. Finally in 2000, TPWF issued a self-released CD-R called Breathing Apparatus. Eight of the 15 songs there would later show up on their 2001 Kimchee debut full-length, Flying, an intriguing tapestry of moods, textures, and aesthetics. Fitzpatrick also plays euphonium with ex-Helium leader Mary Timony in their "renaissance-pop" project Green 4.
Jesse Ashlock
last updated:
12/21/01
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20 Minute Loop, This Busy Monster, Of Montreal
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