The Pukeoids

uhhh...mmm...der!Welcome to the space of The Pukeoids. Instead of writing something completely ridiculous (which is always tempting when The Pukeoids are involved) I'm actually going to give you the real story. Then I'll write something ridiculous. It was 1984 in the quintessential but mildly scruffy small American town of Forestville, California which sits on a hill side where orchards lie to the south and Redwoods and the Russian River lie to the north and west. Between fifth and sixth grade Justin Beck and Zack Lehtinen out of boredom and curiosity, the two began recording really dumb songs onto Zack's crappy tape player under the name The Dipsticks. The first results were "Booger Pickers", "My Flute" and a few others now forgotten. This was satisfying but lacked production and the musical elements were too minimal. A year or so later in 1985 when Shane Cox began attending Forestville School it was suggested that they should try it again. The first Pukeoids session included Justin Beck, Shane Cox, Toby Ballinger and Brent Beazor. Zack Lehtinen was also there but, ironically enough, had a terrible stomach ache and had to go home. Several basic songs came out that night including "I Lost My Heart Eating Toe Jam". Brent Beazor with aspirations to be farmer or a structural engineer when he grew up feared involvement in the Pukeoids would hurt his reputation and he quickly left the group. Zack returned after getting over his flu and diarrhea. The Pukeoids agreed to record again… but THIS time Shane had a goofy Korg keyboard with beats and an electric guitar. That proved to change everything. The first true Pukeoids album with Justin Beck, Shane Cox, Zack Lehtinen and Toby Ballinger produced some of their most memorable numbers including "Toilet Paper In My Ears", "Zapped" and "I Think I'm Horney". The basic Pukeoids methodology was coming into focus. The songs often were at first based on the beats and arpeggios coming off of Shane's silly keyboard which Zack or Justin would add terrible guitar twanging to and then all members would yelp and take turns with vocals with Zack and Justin doing much of, but not all lead vocals. The first album called simply "The Pukeoids" was a big hit in Forestville with most students at Forestville Elementary school asking to borrow THE ONE copy of the album. Everyone in Forestville knew about the Pukeoids. For the next album the group agreed to met at Justin's parent's house and some additional instruments would be used in what came to be The Pukeoids' most elaborate production "Seasick". This time Justin borrowed an additional small toy keyboard and used his saxophone and even a cassette recording of a classmate's bad violin playing for use in overdubs. Zack brought his clarinet and oboe. The resulting album proved to be their most popular and produced many greats such as " Don't Nuke My Hair","Fred", "Seasick" and "Regurgitate". The record was quite satisfactory and further established The Pukeoids as THE dumb, younger band of Forestville, California. The Pukeoids weren't without their tensions as there were some interests in the Pukeoids becoming more of a conventional rock band, questioning of Toby's commitment and some arguments over credits. Nevertheless a follow up was planned. As was feared Toby didn't show up and The Pukeoids became a threesome of Zack, Shane and Justin for what proved to be their final album "Gross Me Out". Although producing some greats such as "What Am I Sitting In?" and "P.E." "Gross Me Out" seemed lacking in direction and suffered from poorer production quality. The Pukeoids decided to meet again to add more songs to flesh the album out. But this last session was a disaster. Toby returned for one song written by Zack "My Pet Frog" but the song was too long and too slow and The Pukeoids more or less disintegrated during its recording. This was the end of the Pukeoids. For years afterwards many have been entertained by The Pukeoids and their recordings have often been requested by various west-Sonoma County individuals. Shane and Justin have made various efforts to restore and obtain all Pukeoids' recordings and thankfully the vast bulk of their catalogue has been recovered. On New Years 2006 in celebration marking 20 years since the Pukeoids' founding Zack, Shane and Justin along with their friend Tony Robinson reunited The Pukeoids for one home concert for which many of their songs were preformed again for the first time in, indeed, 20 years. We hope you will help us keep The Pukeoids alive and the three albums "The Pukeoids", "Seasick" and "Gross Me Out" have been recompiled with a few awesome remixes and some terrible unreleased tracks and all in digital form. -Justin Beck, November 2006 ------ The Pukeoids have earned some awards and some some very bad reviews (go figure?) at Garageband.com. Check it out: