THE TWEEZERS - Already!

THE TWEEZERS  Already!  cd  1997
Get That Girl / Walking With The Radio On / T.V. Romance / I'm The One / The Glory Girls / Someday / Dance The Night Away / Saturday Night / She Said / Teen Machinery / Pretty Boy / Next Time Around / Bad Time / Prove It.
Produced by The Tweezers.
The Tweezers: Kogi: guitar & vocals / Fifi: guitar & vocals / Tomoko: bass & vocals / Uganda: drums.

"...BG: Fifi, while Teengenerate was going on you started the Tweezers. Why did you decide to go for such a change in sound?
Fifi:  Because you know the music called power pop?  I have been really into power pop for many years. Stuff like the Raspberries and Cheap Trick…  Actually, in Japan there was no music called power pop.  In Japan people called Generation X and the Jam power pop. But since we were teenagers we have been into the Raspberries.  When we saw the Devil Dogs they covered the Raspberries songs and we where really surprised because we have been loving them for so long.
Fink:  Actually, Andy from the Devil Dogs is younger than us, so I was surprised that such a young American played the Raspberries.  I thought nobody knew about them.
Fifi:  Nobody cared.  I used to have an American girlfriend, she was kind of a student, she was from Cleveland, Ohio.  And I asked her, “do you know the Raspberries,” and she just laughed.  Just laughed and asked me, “ How come you know a band like the Raspberries?  They are really not popular now.”  I tried to ask her about the song “I Wanna Be With You” and she just laughed.  She thought it was boring.  “Why don’t you listen to Elvis Costello instead,” she insisted.  “Elvis Costello is much cooler than the Raspberries.”  And I just hated her opinion…  Because she came from Cleveland… I just wanted information about the Raspberries from her.  When we were doing Teengenerate we went to Cleveland and tried to find traces of the Raspberries…nobody cared!  Nobody cared.  And I thought it was a shame, really a shame, because we still really loved the Raspberries.  Why such a great band and no one cared.  But when we met New Bomb Turks they all loved the Raspberries. They were really big fans.
BG:  Americans usually have pretty bad taste.
Fifi:  Currently.  Yeah, yeah, yeah I know.  Have you ever seen the picture from Bomp Magazine with Jimmy Zero from the Dead Boys holding a Raspberries album?  The Dead Boys were really influenced by the Raspberries.  They ripped off the Raspberries’ songs.
BG:  Really?  Which songs?
Fifi:  Do you know the song called “ All This And More?”  It was ripped off from the Raspberries.  And Stiv Bators first solo album…  He confessed that he ripped off songs from the Raspberries.  Do you know the song called “Tonight” by the Raspberries?   They ripped it off, but in a good way.
BG:  They changed it?
Fifi:  Yeah, changed it.  That’s important.  Because they really loved the Raspberries songs.
Fink:  Do you know the song called “Its Cold Outside?”  It’s ripped off from the Raspberries too.
Fifi:  Here is Jimmy Zero holding the Raspberries.  (Shows Steve the picture from an old issue of Bomp!)
BG:  And that record is on the cover of the Tweezers album.  That, the Nerves, and I don’t remember what else…
Fink:  Flashcubes.
Fifi:  Actually, I brought many records for the sleeve.  That picture was taken in the park.
Fink:  Anyway, he started the Tweezers, and I think something changed, because all the punk kids started to care about pop music like that.  Steve Baise heard the Tweezers album in my room.  He came to join a Japanese band for a while and he stayed at my apartment.  So I played the Tweezers single for him.
BG:  There’s a Tweezers single?  I didn’t know that!
Fink:  Yeah.  Very expensive.
Fifi:  I only have one.  It’s boring.
Fink:  I think Steve Baise got an idea. Basically, he had it before, but after the Devil Dogs he didn’t know what he wanted to play and I think he got an idea from the Tweezers.
BG:  Fifi, why do you think that the Tweezers were so boring?
Fifi:  I don’t know but…just boring.  When we did shows it was really boring because the Tweezers were much less rock n roll than Teengenerate.  I just want rock n roll even if I am playing power pop.  Power pop is good melody with a real wild rock n roll heart.  To me power pop is rock n roll.  Now I think the Tweezers aren’t so rock n roll.
Fink:  I think during the Tweezers years Fifi tried to assimilate the power pop style.
Fifi:  I just tried to imitate good seventies American power pop for fun.  I wasn’t so serious..."

Interview by Steven Strange on Terminal Boredom

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