Thursday, August 14, 2008

Shufflepuck - s/t (1996, Interscope)

Shufflepuck's one and only album never really had a chance to become a "forgotten treasure".... as it was never released.  The Shufflepuck story is perhaps best told by the frontman himself, Adam Orth, over at his website (where the album is also available for listening).  Though to make a short story even shorter, ill summarize here... The band formed in the early 90s by a few guys from L.A. who were friends with/had played in bands with members of Weezer (drummer Keith Fallis played in Carnival Art with Brian Bell, Adam Orth was involved in Weezer side project "Homie", Justin Fisher was in 80s heavy metal band Avante Garde with Rivers Cuomo and briefly toured with The Rentals, plus Matt Sharp apparently gave the band the moniker Shufflepuck). Interscope Records soon signed the band and they entered the studio in 1995 to record what was planned to make up their self-titled debut.  Everything was looking good until their A&R guy left and the band quickly became a non-priority at the label - causing several release dates to pass without the album seeing the light of day.  By '97 Shufflepuck had gotten out of their Interscope contract, but by that point few other labels were interested, and the band broke up on stage at a show not long after. 

This is all a truly tragic story, because the record is a collection of near-perfect Weezer-esque power pop songs, with all the crunch and energy of the best 90s pop-punk (not like the garbage that passes for pop-punk these days).  I'll be damned if "Mistreated" isn't the best possible candidate for a mid-late 90s rock radio hit.  After Shufflepuck, Adam Orth played in Neighborly with Tom Ackerman (Skiploader, Sunday's Best) and is now a successful video game designer. Justin Fisher went on to play in Nerf Herder (another band you could compare Shufflepuck's sound to) and later in Psoma.

7 comments:

spavid said...

Holy cow, where did you get this?! Been looking for this for years and years. I have been in correspondence with Adam on and off for awhile now, but he never got around to hooking me up with a copy. Very happy to find this.

Over at my blog Wilfully Obscure - http:/wilfullyobscure.blogspot.com(where you'll soon be linked), I posted their 7" a few months ago. Here's a direct link: http://wilfullyobscure.blogspot.com/2008/04/singles-going-single-33-shufflepuck.html

It has alternate versions of "Where the Hell is She," and "Fool Like Me." Once again this is an awesome find!

Unknown said...

Shufflepuck and Nerf Herder sound nothing alike. I didn't write novelty songs.

Anonymous said...

"Where The Hell Is She" is available on the CD "Airwalk Guide to Music" if anybody is curious. It was released in 1996. I sure would like to hear the rest of that forgotten album....

duskb said...

Adam,
You rocked. I still have a copy of the cassette transfer for this stuff I made ages ago...it was really well done.

Still have the ADAT masters for the Neighborly stuff too. Never finished it...probably should. It wasn't bad.

----
Dusk Bennett
Artist Development/Engineer/Technical Services
Los Angeles Ca
"Award Winning Work, Everytime..."
www.duskbennett.com

Blaps_lick_em said...

Awesome album! I've posted the album here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAXRenpV7T1PpIHiRlch40SfxSgtazqd1

Blaps_lick_em said...

I've posted the album here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAXRenpV7T1PpIHiRlch40SfxSgtazqd1

Anonymous said...

If I'm correct, there was a CD single for Where The Hell Is She.