L.A. Burgers - s/t LP (1980, Important)

Depending on your perspective, this album jacket will either go down as the most tasteless or the most tasty ever devised. In terms of sheer collectibility however, you could say this record is "medium-rare" at best (sorry, I couldn't help it)! According to a brief write-up about this quartet, band mates guitarist David Nielsen and bassist Kenny Jones, concocted their arguably absurd moniker over hamburgers at a Malibu, CA burger stand. The record landed on shelves during the heyday of the LA punk scene...not to mention The Knack. The Burgers followed loosely in the footsteps of the latter, but you'd be hard pressed to pin this beefy outfit as a through-and-through "power-pop" act, not deliberately at any rate. Plenty of hooks are hinted at throughout the L.A. Burgers "broilers-dozen" of tracks, but few are fully realized enough to ably equip the band sell the proverbial sizzle. Nielsen seems to posses a little bit of David Byrne's offbeat acumen, but make no mistake, the Burgers are miles off course from the Talking Heads esoteric innovations of the era. In short, this record is seeped in generic tendencies aplenty, but then again, so is a lot of other stuff I post. Dig in...but hold the cheese.

01. Hello Goodbye
02. Color Eyes
03. She Wants
04. Roll On
05. Never Say No
06. You Call
07. Performance
08. Armed Robbery
09. Look Smug (Kool Guns)
10. Sensitive Guy
11. She Gets No Help
12. Release Me
13. Computer Breakdown

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