`Hey Joe': This Album Should Fit Your Taste

Are the coffee jitters sending you ricocheting off the walls? You say it's time to kick the habit in favor of something more benevolent, like straight vodka?

Hold it right there, cappuccino breath! Caffeine is an integral part of Seattle culture and to prove it, 12 bands have gotten together to create "Hey Joe, A Seattle Coffee Thingie," a concept album all about java.

That's right - 12 bands, 12 songs about coffee. Eight of these bands will perform at a record release party at the OK Hotel Thursday. Joey Kline's Wild West Show, The Dobermans, Three Blind Mice, Liar's Club, Dumt, the Downtubes, Cranial Decomposition and Celibate Twist.

These bands have about as much in common as George Bush, Malcolm X and Julia Roberts (those were the first three names that came to mind, OK?), but that's the beauty of it. Brad Gaub of Carving Knife Records loves diversity; that's why he pulled together such a dissimilar group of acts for his label's first full-length release.

"This record is just a blast," Gaub asserted as he worked on his second latte. "When we were recording it and mixing it all down, I was rolling on the floor, it was so funny."

Gaub, a 23-year-old computer programmer who is also a member of Three Blind Mice, got the idea for the record two years ago when he realized that more than one of his favorite local bands had written songs about coffee.

"That's what music's all about," he said, "writing about what you know. In Seattle, we know coffee. We live coffee."

The theme was even more prevalent than he had originally thought. He mentioned it to some friends and they referred him to other bands with coffee songs. He discussed it with Chris Hanzsek, then the owner of the Reciprocal recording studio, who referred him to still more bands with coffee songs. Then, naturally, he called Joey Kline, a musician and owner of University Coffee.

"I'll never forget it," Gaub recalled. "I called him up and he said, `I was gonna do the exact same thing!' He was actually planning his own album about coffee."

So Kline bowed out and referred his own roster of bands to Gaub. The idea snowballed and Gaub wound up with so many songs that he's now planning "Hey Joe, Volume II." Both records will be released as a single CD, but for now, Volume I is available on vinyl only, available at most Seattle record stores that still sell records.

The album represents practically every style but the grunge rock now known as "the Seattle sound" (Cranial Decomposition comes close, but they're from Mount Vernon). Examples: Joey Kline's frantic rockabilly; Liar's Club's smooth pop, The Dobermans' minimalistic punk, Slam Suzzanne's hooky, humorous hard rock; The Tiny Hat Orchestra's swinging horns; and Nora Michaels' loving rendition of an Ella Fitzgerald number.

Celibate Twist's ridiculous "The Tri-state Killing Spree Polka," about a man going beserk from too much caffeine, is the funniest on the album. It really is a polka, though it suddenly explodes into psychedelic noise in the middle of the song.

Coffee will flow freely at the OK Hotel, of course. And although rumors of Three Blind Mice's incredible exploding guitarist are probably exaggerated, anything can happen with a lineup like this.