Banana Blender Surprise
Paint the Town Brown (Freedom)
Banana Blender Surprise was – and, once in a blue moon, still is – a sugar-crazed combination of Chuck Berry, the Meters, and Fabulous Thunderbirds: nice, normal, middle-class Houston kids as enamored of early rock & roll and Gulf Coast R&B as they were RC Cola and moon pies. From 1993 to 1995, they were also a full-time touring act who made it all the way to the East Coast a couple of times, and more importantly, whose three-hour-plus Black Cat gigs are still remembered in hushed, reverent tones. Two-disc “box set” Paint the Town Brown (as in cola) sandwiches assorted one-offs and curiosities around the meat of LPs Send in the Crowns, No Shower Week, and Live at the Black Cat. They took unlikely inspiration from lunch (“At the Cafeteria,” “Barbecue”), temperamental means of transportation (“Take It on Out to the Blacktop”), and various acquaintances (“Trish and Charlie,” “Worryin’ Walt”) but specialized in offbeat love songs that ring oddly sincere: “Will You Introduce Me to Your Girlfriend,” “My Girl Is Going Out With a Smoker.” A worthy memento of a band whose only real enemies were jealous boyfriends and hyperglycemia.
This article appears in July 7 • 2006.