Rating: NNNN
When Jeff Novak’s garage band the Rat Traps dissolved, he moved to Nashville and formed Cheap Time with then girlfriend Jemina Pearl. But Pearl soon split to play the starring role in the kids-of-musicians novelty act Be Your Own Pet, and Novak found bassist Stephen Braren and turned Cheap Time into a serious new-wave punk threat. Think Oblivians, Frantix, the End and Hawthorne-era Redd Kross and you’ll get an idea of what these Tennessee flattop fuds are all about.
Their self-titled debut is an enjoyably snotty throwback to brash bashing of the late 70s, where half the tunes clock in at under two minutes and the whole album sounds like it was completed in the time it took to rip through their set once. Just the right amount of sloppy for rock ’n’ roll.
