Cowboys and Heats Redux:

Memories of Fake ID

CD review for The Stranger, 10/8/98

THE HEATS Smoke (Chuckie-Boy) **

THE COWBOYS Jet City Rockers (Chuckie-Boy) *

Chuckie-Boy mogul Mike Stein continues to reissue Seattle’s forgotten musical past. Stein’s previous subjects, The Lewd, were acknowledged precursors to the local dirt-punk bands of the late ’80s. These two acts might be considered precursors to the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies and Hit Explosion. The Cowboys and the Heats (nee Heaters) were big regional club bands in their early-’80s heyday (filling suburban bars that had previously only hosted Led Zep cover bands), but never got recording careers off the ground in those days before home DAT tapes and CD burners.

They were also derided among the local punker-than-thou elitists who loathed the swaggering cock-rock attitudes of their respective frontmen, Ian Fisher and Steve Pearson. (Imagine–a guy in miserable little Seattle who thinks he can become an actual rock star!)

Stein’s team has done a good job at restoring and remastering; the bands sound better here than on their few, self-issued vinyl releases. For oldsters who saw these bands live, the CDs will bring back memories of that first fake-ID drunken spree.

But should anybody else buy ’em? The Cowboys’ blend of Mellencampy balladeering and Clashesque white reggae feels like a thrift-store relic; but the Heats’ Knack/Romantics power pop holds up fairly well, exemplifying both its period and timeless rules of song construction. And in this cigar-bar age, the title track of Smoke, extolling the joys of underage cigarette sneaking, can seem strangely decadent in ways not originally intended.