Brent’s TV - Parisian
Brent’s TV - Hairdoo

Born from four students at Humboldt Univeristy in 1988, Brent’s TV and Appliances (the ‘Appliances’ was later dropped) brought their brand of rootsy rock-and-roll and skiffle to the people the best way they knew how: the laundromat. Imagine the scene: dozens of students and young people dancing, clapping, pounding on the warm dryers while brotherly harmonies echo over a snare drum, spaghetti colanders and a few acoustic guitars. Their jamboree-like live shows became legendary and when Brent's TV embarked on their laundromat tour of the Pacific Northwest, a caravan of ‘fans’ followed. Aaron Cometbus describes the phenomenon, “Brent's TV was really a whole group of extended friends much more than the four members of the band.”

Brent's TV released Lumberjack Days (Lookout! 36) in 1990 and quickly broke up as friends and band members moved away from Humboldt. The band reformed briefly a year later for a West Coast tour with Green Day. (Six people crammed into a 1978 Toyota hatchback... Green Day missed the first few dates but caught up after they borrowed someone's mother's car.) And aside from one reunion show two years later, Brent's TV was over.

In 1994 Lookout! released a compilation of Brent's TV material as a tag-along with a Sweet Baby compilation, Hello Again. While the bands are similar, share a history, drum set and a pair of brothers, and present a sort of proto-East Bay pop-punk, it seems a shame that Brent's TV doesn't warrant their own retrospective compilation. In fact, a few internet trolls seem to regard Brent's TV as an unlistenable predecessor to the Hi Fives. It seems Lookout! still has copies of this seven-inch, which is either a gross injustice that no one ever bought them... or a case of repressing a genuinely important record. I'm feeling slightly optimistic, so I'll stick with thinking that Lookout! has repressed this record just so that folks like me who weren't around in 1990 can listen to a bit of history, and a one of a kind sound from a one of a kind band.

The Lookout! website offers an mp3 of Superwoman from Hello Again


(Buy it from Lookout!)