Pezband

Pezband - On and On

Another record store 45 (aren't they all?). This one looks like a UK 45 so I probably bought this one. I think I just liked the fact that they had PEZ in the band name. Flip side is - "I'm Leavin'"

From the album "Laughing in the Dark" (1978).

A lot of similarities with The Producers (more to come from them later) and The Rubinoos. Great power pop with smart hooks (What? So now I sound like a record reviewer with a degree in Marketing? Ouch!).

Still, great stuff!

Praised by Billboard and Trouser Press for their debut album. Record World crowned Pezband “Most Promising New Act of the Year”. Jane Pauley even discussed them on The Today Show, saying “this is the sound everybody will be talking about.” They were the musical darlings of the time!

Their second album "Laughing in the Dark" was recorded in the U.K. at the height of the punk movement. Rolling Stone cited the album as one of the best of the year!

From the All Music Guide:
Hailing from the same state as Cheap Trick (Illinois), the Pezband was a mostly fine, occasionally wonderful, power pop band that specialized in hook-filled hard rock with sweet multi-part harmonies. Led by the strong, blues-inflected singing of Mimi (a guy) Betinis and the rampaging Jeff Beck-influenced guitar playing of Tommy Gawenda, the Pezzers' self-titled first LP (released in 1977) was not as hard and heavy as Cheap Trick, nor did it exhibit the berserk panache of their fellow Illinoisans. But that all changed with their second LP, Laughing in the Dark, which contained a high quotient of good-to-great songs, excellent production by Jesse Hood Jackson, and a wonderful lack of smugness and calculation that was slowly infiltrating every power pop band in America. A huge public reaction, however, was not forthcoming. The band had its supporters (like most of the editorial staff of -Trouser Press), but power pop/hard rock from Illinois was dominated by Cheap Trick, and everybody else had to find a place in the pecking order. For bands like the Pezband, that meant far less coverage than they deserved. There was also another issue: the band didn't deliver another record as good as Laughing, nor could they recapture the excitement and messy mania of their live show (forever preserved on an excellent pair of EPs, Too Old, Too Soon and Thirty Seconds Over Schaumburg) in the studio. Hence, the rest of their recorded output is serviceable, but only hints at what the band was truly capable of doing. It's too bad, because they were such unpretentious, likable guys. By the early '80s, the Pezband had virtually vanished from the music scene, but in 1994 a Chicago-based independent label released some outtakes and other previously unreleased material. ~ John Dougan, All Music Guide

And From Wikipedia:

Pezband’s Swansong

Pezband had enough tenacity to head back into the studio (this time a mobile unit due to the constrictive budget)—-to self-produce their third album, Cover to Cover. Mike Gorman stepped up once again with the confessional “Meika” and with the still-pertinent-today politics of “African Night,” a hook-filled rocker about Idi Amin’s death squads.
But Cover also finds Pezband’s other star, Betinis, going dark. While he does dash off rambunctious hard-pop like “Stella Blue”—Betinis’ haunting “Didn’t We” lays bare a dream on the brink [why’s it all wrong / tried for so long / didn’t we?].
Cover to Cover was given short-shrift by Passport, and the record quickly fell off the map.

By early 1980—Pezband was unceremoniously over.

After the break-up, Betinis and Rain recorded demos in hopes of another deal, while Mike Gorman joined Atlantic Records act Off Broadway USA (led by original Pezband member Cliff Johnson). Ironically Tommy Gawenda found himself working with The Knack’s producer Mike Chapman (as guitarist for RCA’s TAMI Show)—but none of the four’s post-Pezband projects caught spark.

Buy their CD's - Here and Here