(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)
The Presidents Of The USA is the project launched in Seattle by singer and guitarist Chris Ballew (formerly of Supergroup in Boston with Mark Sandman), guitarist Dave Dederer, and drummer Jason Finn (ex-Love Battery).
The sound of Presidents Of The USA (PopLlama, 1995) is strong and hard-hitting, as demanded by the Seattle school, yet syncopated and fractured in the funk-metal fashion. The songs freely draw on 60s models, from Dylans Mighty Queen reworked in Feather Pluckn to Kinks-inspired riffs in Lump. The band is above all specialized in playful funky numbers in the vein of Primus, starting with Boll Weevil.
What really conquered the charts, however, was the somewhat clownish nursery-rhyme quality of Peaches. Every now and then, we forget that Seattle was second only to Detroit (Stooges and MC5) in terms of sonic aggression. The PUS remind us of this with a playful flair that never hurts. Their atomic wildness could represent the next stage of power pop.
(Original English text by Piero Scaruffi)
After the single Fuck California/ Carolyn's Booty did not succeed in
keeping the interest alive, the band released
II (Columbia, 1999), an anthology of nonsensical songs that only
occasionally (Puffy Little Shoes) matches the modestly entertaining wit
of Peaches.
Chris Ballew also recorded the single Twig/ Lint Cake (Cosmic)
with Beck under the moniker of
Caspar And Mollusk.
Chris Ballew started a new career under the moniker Giraffes (a one-man
band), releasing
collections of spartan and demented folksongs:
13 Other Dimensions (My Own Planet, 1998) and
The Days Are Filled With Years (Orange, 2000).
Shortening their name to "the Presidents", the band reunited and released
Freaked Out And Small (Musicblitz, 2000), an album of biting power-pop
and garage attitudes.
These Are The Good Times People (2008) had literally nothing to say,
and didn't even say it too well (having lost their original guitarist).
